International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print)

ISSN 2200-3452 (Online)

Pioneering in Language & Literature Discovery

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International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature

All papers on which this is printed in this book meet the minimum requirements of "Australian International Academic Centre PTY. LTD.". All papers published in this book are accessible online. Editors-in-Chief

• John I. Liontas, University of South Florida, United States • Jayakaran Mukundan, University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia • Zosia Golebiowski, Deakin University, Australia

Managing Editor

• Seyed Ali Rezvani Kalajahi, University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia Journal Information ISSN Print: 2200-3592 ISSN Online: 2200-3452 ISBN: 978 -600-5361-84-1 Website: www.journals.aiac.org.au/index.php/IJALEL E-mail: editor.ijalel@aiac.org.au Publisher Australian International Academic Centre PTY. LTD. 11 Souter Crescent, Footscray VIC 3011, Australia Phone: +61 3 9028 6880 Website: http://www.aiac.org.au Hardcopy Providers 1. LuLu Press Inc. 2. Digital Print Australia 3101 Hillsborough Street 135 Gilles Street, Adelaide Raleigh, NC 27607 South Australia 5000

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2012 – 2015 © IJALEL No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photo print, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher.

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Editor(s)-in-Chief John I. Liontas, University of South Florida, United States Zosia Golebiowski, Deakin University, Australia Jayakaran Mukundan, University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia Managing Editor Seyed Ali Rezvani Kalajahi, University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia Senior Associate Editors Ahmad M. Al-Hassan, Bremen University, Germany Ali Miremadi, California State University, United States Biook Behnam, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran Christina Alm-Arvius, Stockholm University, Sweden Eugenio Cianflone, University of Messina, Italy Haifa Al-Buainain, Qatar University, Qatar Hossein Farhady, University of Southern California, United States Huai-zhou Mao John W. Schwieter, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada Juliane House, University of Hamburg, Germany Kazem Lotfipour-Saedi, Ottawa University Khalid Al Seghayer, Imam University, Saudi Arabia Khalil Motallebzadeh, IAU, Mashhad, Iran Kimberley Brown, Portland State University, United States Kourosh Lachini, University of Qatar, Qatar Leyli Jamali, IAU Tabriz, Iran María-Isabel González-Cruz, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC), Spain Mats Oscarson, University of Gothenburg, Sweden Meixia Li, Beijing International Studies University, China Mojgan Rashtchi, IAU North Tehran Branch, Iran Moussa Ahmadian, Arak University, Arak, Iran Nurten Birlik, , Middle East Technical University, Turkey Parviz Maftoon, Islamic Azad University, Science & Research Branch, Tehran, Iran Roger Barnard, The University of Waikato, New Zealand Ruth Roux, El Colegio de Tamaulipas & Universidad Autonoma de Tamaulipas, Mexico Ruzy Suliza Hashim, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia Sebnem Toplu, EGE University, Turkey Seyyed Ali Ostovar-Namaghi, Shahrood University of Technology, Iran Shameem Rafik-Galea, University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia Simin Karimi, University of Arizona, United States Wan Roselezam Wan Yahya, University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia Xitao Fu, Zhanjiang Normal University, China Yolanda Gamboa, Florida Atlantic University, United States Yuko Goto Butler, University of Pennsylvania, United States Zdenka Gadusova, Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Slovakia Zia Tajeddin, Allameh Tabatabai University,Tehran, Iran

Associate Editors Ahmed Gumaa Siddiek, Shaqra University, Saudi Arabia Anne Dragemark Oscarson, University of Gothenburg, Sweden Bilge Öztürk, Kocaeli University, Turkey Christopher Conlan, Curtin University, Australia Efstathios (Stathis) Selimis, Technological Education Institute of Kalamata, Greece Ferit Kilickaya, Mehmet Akif Ersoy University, Turkey Irene Theodoropoulou, Qatar University, Qatar Javanshir Shibliyev, Eastern Mediterranean University, Cyprus Masoud Zoghi, IAU, Iran Md. Motiur Rahman, Qassim University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Nader Assadi Aidinlou, IAU, Iran Natasha Pourdana, Gyeongju University, South Korea Obaid Hamid, The University Of Queensland, Australia

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Rachel Adams Goertel, Pennsylvania State University, United States Reza Kafipour, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran Saeed Yazdani, IAU Bushehr, Iran Shaofeng Li, University of Auckland, New Zealand Usaporn Sucaromana, Srinakharinwirot University, Thailand Vahid Nimehchisalem, University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia Distinguished Advisors Brian Tomlinson, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK Charles Goodwin, University of California, Los Angeles, United States Claire Kramsch, University of California, United States Dan Douglas, Dan Douglas , Iowa State University, United States Hossein Nassaji, University of Victoria, Canada Jalal Sokhanvar, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran Roger Nunn, The Petroleum Institute, Abu Dhabi, UAE Susan Gass, Michigan State University, United States Advisors Atieh Rafati, Eastern Mediterranean University, Cyprus Ian Bruce, The university of Waikato, New Zealand Kristina Smith, Pearson Education, Turkey Naemeh Nahavandi, University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia Oytun Sozudogru, University of York, UK Saeed Kalajahi, University of Göttingen, Germany Steve Neufeld, Middle East Technical University, Cyprus Editorial Panel Abdolvahed Zarifi, Yasouj University, Iran Ali Albashir Mohammed Al-Ha, Jazan University, Saudi Arabia Ali Asghar Yousefi Azarfam, University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia Asghar Salimi Amirghayeb, Maragheh University, Iran Bakhtiar Naghdipour, Eastern Mediterranean University, Cyprus Bora DEMIR, Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Turkey Cecilia Chu, Hong Kong Institute of Education, China Dawn Rogier, Embassy of the United States of America, Philippines Ebrahim Samani, University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia Erdem AKBAS, University of York, UK Fan-Wei Kung, Queen’s University Belfast, UK Farah Ghaderi, Urmia University, Iran Farid Parvaneh, IAU, Iran Gerry Loftus, University of Buckingham, UK Hassan Soleimani, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran Hossein Saadabadi, University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia Isa SPAHIU, International Balkan University, Macedonia John Wallen, University Of Nizwa, Oman Mahdi Alizadeh Ziaei, The university of Edinburgh, UK Marilyn Lewis, University of Auckland, New Zealand Neslihan Önder Ozdemir, Uludağ University, Turkey Noelia Malla García, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain Orkun CANBAY, Qatar University, Qatar Reza Vaseghi, University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia Ruzbeh Babaee, University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia Seyyed Ali Kazemi, Islamic Azad University, Iran Shannon Kelly Hillman, University of Hawaii, Hawaii Sima Modirkhamene, Urmia University, Iran Tin T. Dang, Vietnam National University, Vietnam Yasemin Aksoyalp, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland

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Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015 Table of Contents Articles Wintering in the Beginning of Cold Season: Ecofeminist Deconstruction of Nature in West and East in Farrokhzad’s “Let us Believe in the Oncoming of Cold Season”

Bahar Mehrabi, Nasser Najafi 1-7 Appraising Pre-service EFL Teachers' Assessment in Language Testing Course Using Revised Bloom's Taxonomy

Elham Mohammadi, Gholam Reza Kiany, Reza Ghaffar Samar, Ramin Akbari 8-20 The Metaphors on International Intervention: A Discourse Analysis of the Sri Lankan English Newspaper Editorials

Jeyaseelan Gnanaseelan 21-35 An Investigation into the Use of Cohesive Devises in Iranian High School EFL Textbooks

Mansour Shabani, Maryam Danaye Tous, Leila Berehlia 36-45 A large-Scale Study on Extensive Reading Program for Non-English Majors: Factors and Attitudes

Ching-Yi Tien 46-54 A Critical Discourse Analysis of Family and Friends Textbooks: Representation of Genderism

Saeed Esmaeili, Ali Arabmofrad 55-61 Semantic Framing of NATIONALISM in the National Anthems of Egypt and England

Esra' Mustafa 62-76 Analyzing the Rhetorical, Typographical and Paralinguistic Features of Electronic Mails in the Workplace

Mohammad Awad AlAfnan 77-85 Boosting Autonomous Foreign Language Learning: Scrutinizing the Role of Creativity, Critical Thinking, and Vocabulary Learning Strategies

Mania Nosratinia, Alireza Zaker 86-97 Resuscitating the Earth: A Linguistic Analysis of Selected Poems in Niyi Osundare’s The Eye of the Earth

Abosede Adebola Otemuyiwa, Adetokunbo O Akinyosoye 98-107 The Impact of Texting on Comprehension

Jamal K. M. Ali, S. Imtiaz Hasnain, M. Salim Beg 108-117 Deixis in Arabic and English: A Contrastive Approach

Fatima Ahmad Al Aubali 118-124 Fluid Identity of the Daughter in Jackie Kay's The Adoption Papers

Gamal Elgezeery 125-136 Form-based Approaches vs. Task-Based Approaches

Zahra Talebi, Nader Assadi Aidinlou, Sima Farhadi 137-143 The Impacts of Task-based Teaching on Grammar Learning by Iranian First Grade High School Students

Seyyed Morteza Tale, Ahmad Goodarzi 144-153 Diasporic Authenticity Assertions: Analysis of Amy Tan’s The Bonesetter’s Daughter

Naeimeh Tabatabaei Lotfi 154-160 The Impact of Multimodal Texts on Reading Achievement: A Study of Iranian Secondary School Learners

Bahareh Baharani, Narjes Ghafournia 161-170

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Don Delillo’s Point Omega; Ecstasy and Inertia in a Hyperreal World: A Baudrillardian Reading

Faeze Yegane, Farid Parvaneh 171-174 The Impact of Parents’ Involvement in and Attitude toward Their Children’s Foreign Language Programs for Learning English

Vida Hosseinpour, Maryam Sherkatolabbasi, Mojgann Yarahmadi 175-185 Verb-Noun Collocations in Written Discourse of Iranian EFL Learners

Fatemeh Ebrahimi-Bazzaz, Arshad Abd Samad, Ismi Arif bin Ismail, Nooreen Noordin

186-191

Investigating the Relationship between the Morphological Processing of Regular and Irregular Words and L2 Vocabulary Acquisition

Ahmed Masrai, James Milton 192-199 Gender Differences in the Use of Intensifiers in Persian

Abbas Eslami Rasekh, Fateme Saeb 200-204 Moodle-based Distance Language Learning Strategies: An Evaluation of Technology in Language Classroom

Majid Khabbaz, Rasool Najjar 205-210 Lacanian Trauma & Tuché in Paul Auster’s Man in the Dark

Mahsa Khazaei, Farid Parvaneh 211-215 Establishing the Thematic Structure and Investigating the most Prominent Theta Roles Used in Sindhi Language

Zahid Ali Veesar, Kais Amir Kadhim, Sridevi Siriniwass 216-230 The Concept of Love in Dostoyevsky's White Nights

Mohammad Yousefvand, Hamid Tatari 231-237 On The Importance of A Socio-Culturally Designed Teaching Model in an EFL Writing Classroom

Mahdiyeh Abdollahzadeh, Sorayya Behroozizad 238-247 A Socio-Linguistic Investigation into the Etymology of American State Names

Abdel-Rahman H. Abu-Melhim, Nedal A. Bani-Hani, Mahmoud A. Al-Sobh 248-255 Disjoint Reference in Modern Standard Arabic

Islam M. Al-Momani 256-267 History Rewritten in a Postmodern Novel: Opposed Views on History in Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion

Hatice Eşberk 268-272

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

Wintering in the Beginning of Cold Season: Ecofeminist Deconstruction of Nature in West and East in Farrokhzad’s

“Let us Believe in the Oncoming of Cold Season” and Plath’s “Wintering”

Bahar Mehrabi (Corresponding author)

Department of English Literature, Shiraz University, Iran E-mail: baharmehrabi22@gmail.com

Nasser Najafi

Islamic Azad University, Firoz Abad Branch, Iran

Received: 25-10- 2014 Accepted: 11-01- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015

Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.1 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.1

Abstract Ecofeminists seek the reversal of the oppressing binary oppositions of nature/culture, woman/man as to reach a balanced ecosystem in which women are not considered inferior since they are associated with nature .Therefore, ecofeminism could be regarded as a suitable framework for the discussion of the literary works and their treatment of woman/nature theme. The present article would be an attempt to demonstrate the way Farrokhzad’s “Let us Believe in the Oncoming of Cold Season” and Plath’s “Wintering”, concern such association and deconstruct the binary oppositions in a way that similarly both women personas are ultimately able to take the role of female artist. Both women transgress the winter and hope for the spring to come, while the winter they pass through differs since it originates from different social backgrounds. As such, new historicism would be applied to discover this difference, since the study is a comparative one and yields to the investigation of different societies in which the poems were composed. Farrokhzad lives in an era on the verge of modernism, that’s why she is still preoccupied with the traditions of the past, though she would finally depict the woman persona as having stepped beyond these limitations. Plath’s concerns, on the other hand, rise from a mind entangled with the impacts of modernity and the hollow men. Both are able to pass the winter, though, as female creators who await the reproductive spring blossoms to flourish. Keywords: Ecofeminism, New Historicism, Forogh Farrokhzad, Sylvia Plath 1. Introduction Ecofeminism, the term being coined in 1974 from the French feminist Francoise d'Eaubonne's work, "Le féminisme ou la mort”, has no single definition, however, there are some core principles agreed by almost all ecofeminists, such as the fact that the domination of women and that of nature are fundamentally connected and that environmental efforts are therefore integral with work to overcome the oppression of women. It could be also stated that the ecofeminists, unlike liberal feminists, do not seek equity with the men, but rather a liberation from the traditional roles naturally associated with women; duties such as childbirth and nurturing and the whole domestic arena, as argued here by King: A healthy, balanced ecosystem, including human and nonhuman inhabitants, must maintain diversity. Ecologically, environmental simplification is as significant a problem as environmental pollution. Biological simplification, i.e., the wiping out of whole species, corresponds to reducing human diversity into faceless workers, or to the homogenization of taste and culture through mass consumer markets. Social life and natural life are literally simplified to the inorganic for the convenience of market society. Therefore, we need a decentralized global movement that is founded on common interests yet celebrates diversity and opposes all forms of domination and violence. Potentially, ecofeminism is such a movement. (1989: 20)”. In the patriarchal society, women are treated as inferior to men, ‘nature’ is treated as inferior to ‘culture’ and humans are understood as being separate from, and often superior to, the natural environment. In ecofeminism, the connections between woman and nature are considered as to show how they devalue and oppress both ‘women’ and ‘nature’. Women have been almost always associated with nature, e.g the menstrual cycle linked to Lunar cycles, is often quoted as the evidence of women’s closeness to the body and natural rhythms. It is stated that, through such closeness with nature, women are regarded as inferior, the fact which is claimed to be not only true about women, but also for oppressed races and social classes who are closely associated with nature. Ecofeminism seeks to recognize the interconnectedness and battle these injustices; as Garrard (2004) suggests:

Flourishing Creativity & Literacy

IJALEL 4(4):1-7, 2015 2 More than a theory about feminism and environmentalism, or women and nature, as the name might imply, ecofeminism approaches the problems of environmental degradation and social injustice from the premise that how we treat nature and how we treat each other are inseparably linked (2).

The patriarchal dualism, suggests an inherent superiority of one of the pairs in the binary oppositions, and some theorists have suggested that this degrading of the other is driven by the fear of nature and mortality, and due to their biological connection with birth women are a constant reminder of death. Women have been associated with nature, the material, the emotional, and the particular, while men have been associated with culture, the nonmaterial, the rational, and the abstract. In other words, ecofeministic thinkers desire the reversal of such dualisms. Greg Garrard (2004) identifies two ecofeminisms: the radicals which propose the binary oppositions associated with women to be wiped out and the more modified social philosophical one which also includes marginalized members of the society class and gender to be considered as a way to reform the environmental injustices

The work of Australian philosopher Val Plumwood offers ecofeminism a sound basis for a much-needed critique of the dynamics of domination as they operate in a range of cultural contexts…Ecofeminism, modified by dialogue with social ecological positions, can provide insight into the cultural operations of environmental injustice.(177)

In “Feminism and the Mastery of Nature”, Val Plumwood identified a pattern of dualistic thinking that permeates some cultures and is implicated in their destructive attitudes toward nature. Plumwood characterized dualistic thinking is "an alienated form of differentiation, in which power construes and constructs difference in terms of an inferior and alien realm" (42). Subsequently Plumwood blames dualistic thinking for creating "logics of colonization." Ecofeminist Karen Warren gives dualistic thinking a similarly central role in supporting "oppressive conceptual frameworks”. As Campbell (2008) affirms:

A critique of the use of dualisms is one way theorists such as Val Plumwood have analyzed western thought and views of culture and nature. Nature is seen in opposition to culture, and represents female, nonhuman characteristics while culture consists of male, human representations. A culture/nature dualism is closely related to the human/nonhuman dualism with women, animals and nature falling on the same side in each case. (viii)

In such dualistic thinking, self is different from the other. One owns the self within which he is shut like a box and the world is the other out there. As such, the natural world is simply a mechanical system that humans can exploit. Because women are also viewed as ‘other’, they are also manipulated and controlled. The ecofeminists encourage the equal significant role of humanity as part of the earth’s ecosystem, and also the non-hierarchial nature of a system in which all parts affect each other. Ecofeminism is a practical movement for social change that discerns interconnections among all forms of oppression: the exploitation of nature, the oppression of women, class exploitation, racism, colonialism. Against binary divisions such as self/other, culture/nature, man/woman, humans/animals, and white/non-white, ecofeminist theory asserts that human identity is shaped by more fluid relationships and by an acknowledgment of both connection and difference. Such is what Karen J. Warren has called “value hierarchies, (i.e. perceptions of diversity organized by a spatial Up-Down metaphor, which attributes higher value (status, prestige) to that which is higher (‘Up’)” (Warren;1997 4). According to Warren, these “value hierarchies,” together with “value dualisms,” represent one of the “conceptual links” that “construct women and nature in male-biased ways.” Literary works of any kind, could be analyzed as to see how the writer, or the text, exemplify the concerns with ecology, that is to pinpoint these ecological concerns in the work, and furthermore, to elaborate on the deep backgrounds, social cultural economic and so forth, of such portrayals. Women are associated with nature and therefore, the woman poet is not qualified enough to transcend the nature as the male poet is able to do so. Pamela Di Pesa (1978) reminds us that “[w]omen poets, like women painters and composers, have long been considered anomalous” because engagement in artistic creativity has been equated with “doing something unnatural”for the female and with “a neurotic avoidance of her natural role” (65). As such, investigating the work of female authors to look for the ways in which they have attempted to transgress such imposed ‘naturality’ can be illuminating. If this task is overtaken comparatively, then the social; backgrounds of the poets should also be taken into consideration as to see what have been the nature-culture dualities of the society which the woman poet has been able to move beyond. New historicism turned to define history in a new way, which as Sarah Webster Goodwin (1994) states, “stands to open the borders for feminism in comparative literature”. (251). She further claims that the so far ignored role of feminism in the field of comparative literature should be taken into consideration since it will provide a suitable frame work for digging into the cultural debates of feminism.”A feminist, historical criticism is both desirable and possible in comparative literature, despite practical difficulties; it could indeed reenergize a languishing field” (252). Therefore the present study would aim at investigating the ecofeministic views of two modern poets across two different continents, the English Sylvia Plath and the Iranian Forogh Farrokhzad, as female artists in relation to their time and place of living so as to depict the ways these two female poets associate with nature in order to demonstrate

IJALEL 4(4):1-7, 2015 3 the oppressed women and nature as well as the way they both transgress the limitations in their societies in order to reach a unification with their very feminine nature, being finally able to become themselves, woman poets. Comparatively studied, the symbolic ‘winter’ they pass through in their two poems, “Let us Believe in the Oncoming of the Cold Season” by Farrokhzad and ‘Wintering’ by Palth, proves to have originated from different social and political backgrounds. The new historical study of the two mentioned poems would therefore be accompanied in a comparative way to picture the different winters the female poets have had in mind as the bridges to the oncoming spring. 2. Discussion The close connection between women and nature as being the oppressed in the binary opposition is one of the core principles of the ecofeminism, which is to be wiped out if the balanced ecosystem is to work out properly. Forogh Farokhzad’s “Let us believe in the Oncoming of the Cold Season” plays on the integrity of the woman persona with outside nature from the very beginning of the poem.

“This is me, a lonely woman In the threshold of a cold season In the beginning of the sad perception of the polluted existence of earth And the simple tragic sadness of the sky And the disability of these concrete hands”

At the very first stanza of the poem, the woman persona has been associated, with the environmental elements, which like her, are experiencing ‘sadness’. By juxtaposing the woman with nature, it seems Forogh is able to convey her own ecolofeministic thinking without being aware of it. The woman is oppressed just like the nature, the nature which stands opposite to the culture, associated with ‘concrete’. The woman is the one who “understands the secret of seasons” and is thinking of the “intercourse of flowers” while the man is “passing the wet trees” with “his blue vessels going up his neck like the dead snakes”. The horrifying picture of a soulless man is juxtaposed in opposite to the lively thinking woman who has close affinity with nature. As the poem moves on, the woman becomes the center of the poem, the one who is finally able to overcome the oppressions. The whole poem traces the way the woman persona is finally able to achieve the unification she desires with nature. This unification is not simply the normally accepted rehearsal of dualistic roles, but to use Stacy Alaimo’s terms (2000), it is a “grounded immersion [in nature] rather than bodiless flight [from nature]”. (2) Such would be the force or energy annihilated to the soul of the persona so much so that she could finally join the spirit of equality in nature. In Sylvia Plath’s “Wintering”, such sad atmosphere is that of a room where she has never “..been in/The room I never breathe in..” with “..no light”. However, the woman persona here is the one who has the honey and is now contemplating on her surroundings. She comes to philosophize that “The bees are all women/Maid and the long royal lady/They have got rid of men”. The association of the nature and women is seen in the next lines where “Winter is for women…The woman, still at her knitting/At the cradle of Spanish walnut/Her body a bulb in the cold and too dumb to think”. Like the woman in Forogh’s poem, she seems to have undertaken the journey towards self realization through nature. In Margaret Dickie’s(1979) words the woman persona whom she associates with Plath herself :” … is able, in "Wintering," to accept also the activities of women who "have got rid of the men,/ The blunt, clumsy stumblers, the boors." Knitting, tending the cradle, harboring life in her body-bulb, she will survive”(25) The long poem by Farrokhzad starts in the first day of Dey Month, the first day of the first month of winter in Persian calendar. It seems as if the journey starts off here. The image is not only that of the woman, but rather of the man also, which could be viewed as the ecofeminist concern with the balanced present of all elements in the ecosystem. The man is dead, as if “he has never been alive” and as it moves on, the whole image of rot and decay is seen in association with the death in nature. “This is the beginning of dying”, as the poem moves on, the woman also is declared dead in the ninth stanza, where she is “feeling frozen” and her body is “being chewed by the fish” and she keeps asking “why do you always hold me at the bottom of the sea”. In the patriarchal way of dualistic thinking, women have been oppressed through their association with nature, if it is looked from an ecofeministic point of view. Here the woman persona seems to be objecting to such association which equals death and ignorance for her, as if being captivated at the bottom of the sea. The woman seeks liberation from the imposed roles on her by society, so much so that she could attain her own personal voice. Farrokhzad presents this relationship between women and nature as a positive medium for personal healing, as well as for social and environmental change through a reconfiguration of the body and nature. The woman persona in her this poem is taking a journey. “I have moved this wandering island through oceans and mountain explosions” (Stanza 10) As the poem moves, along the journey, she reaches night..putting the “indifferent world” behind. She is seeking reunification with nature, through which she would be able to find her own voice. Throughout her journey, she passes from her birth time, symbolically winter, to the youth when she is the ‘bride of the Acaci branches”, the bride of nature. She ultimately is able to transgress the present woman she is, by telling her mother “I would die, it always happens sooner than we imagine, so we have to send a death announcement for the newspaper”. She is dead now, like the man who passes the “wet trees”. However, she is still expressing hope for the next spring to come. “Next Year, when spring sleeps with the window, with the green stems flowering in its body, the light bosoms

IJALEL 4(4):1-7, 2015 4 would flourish…”, The journey undertaken by the woman and the healing she experiences, offers an alternative worldview that challenges the dominant dualistic worldview, which separates and devalues women, bodies, and nature. Forogh’s poem blurs the boundaries between self and nature, the material and the spiritual, dreams and reality, as well as gender boundaries. She presents a new way of knowing and an alternative value system that through a rejection of binary oppositions recovers nature, women, and spirituality from the chasms of degradation and injustice. As Zubizarret (1992) rightly affirms: "The intensity of expression in her poetry becomes the fierce cry of a woman seeking identity in the repressive world of twentieth-century Iran, a world heir to centuries of closed opportunities for women in all endeavors but particularly in art”. The final question for the woman persona in Plath’s poem is also “Will the hive survive, will the gladiolas/Succeed in banking their fires/To enter another year?/What will they taste of, the Christmas roses?/The bees are flying. They taste the spring.” As it could be read from the lines, there is the same hope being expressed here. The image of woman is juxtaposed with the natural element of bees, like bees they are to work and reproduce. However, they will see the spring, meaning through the unification with the natural elements, Plath, like an ecofeminstic thinker, sees the hope of healthy balanced ecosystem in which the dualistic binary oppositions are removed as to give way for more reciprocal understanding of the oppressed, e.g. women and nature. The woman is here being depicted in the room, in winter time, as in Forogh’s poem, struggling with her past in order to survive the present and build up hope for the future. She is, as it was mentioned before, very much associated with nature, ‘bees’ imagery is repeated throughout the poem. However, as Karen Ford (1997) states: ”these bees appear similar to those in "The Swarm." Both are compared to soldiers. In "The Swarm" they are clearly doomed, "Walking the plank . . . / Into a new mausoleum"; in "Wintering," however, they are survivors, "Filing like soldiers / To the syrup tin."” (76) It is no surprise to learn that "The bees are all women, / Maids and the long royal lady. / They have got rid of the men, // The blunt, clumsy stumbles, the boors." This sense of alliance and cooperation with nature dose not reinforce the oppression, but is used as means to defy such view and use the very soil of nature for gaining her own voice as a woman artist, hence the poem being the last one of the so called ‘Bee Poems” series by Plath, the ones which concern her gaining role through the connection she is able to establish with the world around her. Through such unification with nature the woman poet is able to overcome and transgress the winter line, survive and hope for the silver linings to come, like the blossoms Farokhzad would hope to see coming with the next spring. The beekeeper that is linked to the image of a dictator who “uses the bees as instruments of imperialist self-aggrandizement...” ( Christin Britzolakis 2006,119)disappears here, leaving the speaker alone. She is the one who holds the power of reproductively, just like the bees. As the final piece to the sequence of Bee Poems, “Wintering” no longer depicts the image of the daughter who desires the power of the father, or care taker, but rather the woman persona is able to repudiate the monopoly of power through association with nature and overcome the boundaries, thus reproducing creativity as the female artist. In other words this poem “…celebrates the female hive’s powers of survival…” ( Christin Britzolakis 2006,120) Such association with natural elements assists the women personas in both poems to overcome the limiting boundaries imposed upon women in a patriarchal society and gain their own voices. As modern ecofeminists, though years earlier than the fostering of the theories, Farrokhzad and Plath demonstrate their concerns about the oppressed both nature and women and use the very derogative association of women with nature, which are used to oppress the women so much so that they would not be attempting anything ‘unnatural’. The poets are artistically able to juxtapose the images of natural elements and women in the setting of winter in such way that the personas take up a journey through which they are able to make use of the very natural elements and through association with the nature, they are able to finally end up the journey, resurrect from the hibernate in winter, and hope for the spring to come, the season for productivity, the creative artistic assembly of words in form of poetry. In other words, the nature/culture, woman/ man binary opposition is deconstructed in both poems. The limitations in these poems are depicted as winter, the one which both poet personas are able to overcome. However, these symbolic winters are different due to the fact that the poems certainly have originated from different societies. Like Sylvia Palth, Forogh Farrokhzad is also depicting the association of nature and women, as well as the journey which is undertaken to overcome these confinements. In fact both, though coming from different social and cultural backgrounds, are women poets who are searching their own role in the ecosystem. Her collection of poems called “The Captive” appeared as the pioneer of love poetry by the female poet among \, or perhaps it is better to say as an opposition to, the male depictions of love in Persian poetry. Michael C. Hillmann declares that in 1955 Farrokhzad "published the first volume of verse in the history of Persian literature exhibiting a poetic speaker recognizable throughout as a female" (90, 41). She is acting against the current stream of the male dominated culture in the way she depicts the sensual imageries of femininity. In addition to the investigation of female body and sensuality, as we discussed, at least in the poems such as “Let us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season” she is able to transgress the limiting winter by believing in it at first, and then through the association with natural elements, the female poet is able to violate against the presupposed role of being a natural woman, gain her own voice. The ‘cold season’ of Forogh is the ‘winter of Sylvia, while they differ since they obviously originate from different backgrounds. Farrokhzad has expresses such rebellion against the traditions and conventions almost frankly in most of her poems. The point of difference, however, among this poem and another poem in which she is blatantly expressing her sensual

IJALEL 4(4):1-7, 2015 5 desires and defines her “…full of pleasure..” act of making love, lies in one point; sin. In this poem “The Sin”, her mind is preoccupied with the concept of sin, a guilt burden she feels though explaining rather bravely what should be a hidden experience for a woman in Persian Society, act of making love.

I sinned, a sin full of pleasure, In an embrace which was warm and fiery; I sinned surrounded by arms Which were hot and avenging and iron . . . In that dark and silent seclusion, I sat dishevelled at his side; His lips poured passion on my lips, And I escaped from the sorrow of my crazed heart . . . I sinned, a sin full of pleasure, Next to a shaking, stupefied form; O God, who knows what I did In that dark and quiet seclusion

‘Let us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season” does not portray such sin any more. It seems in this poem the transgression of traditions and taboos are no longer colored by the sense of sin. She is now free like the bees in Sylvia Plath’s ‘Wintering’ to be what she is, a woman, disregarding the limitations and use her talents, accept the cold season and start a new life, waiting for the spring to come. The era in which Forogh lived was the time when as Mahdavi explains, Iran was experiencing the modernized ideas from west, while still entangled with the traditional past. (395). Forogh was naturally experiencing the same dilemmas even in her own personal life. According to Mahdavi, in Farrokhzad's personal life the same "conflict and spiritual dilemma recurs in her decision to divorce, losing her son" (Shirin Mahdavi 1985, 395). When she was twenty-two, Farrokhzad's marriage, arranged six years earlier, ended in divorce, and Muslim law consequently forbade her officially from ever again seeing her only son; Mahdavi claims, "This separation left a permanent mark on her life," for essentially the young Farrokhzad was "faced with the choice of either becoming a free woman and pursuing her poetic career or remaining enslaved with her child. Having made the choice, she is doomed to feel 'the old grave of this endless grief'" (Shirin Mahdavi, 1985, 393, 395). As it could be seen, thus; the winter for her originates from early beliefs and the system of thought which even affects her own personal life. She is able to transgress these conventions though. This is evident in the process of her poems, while the early ones are rather traditional in style, tone and even content, the last ones do violate and rebel. As she herself admits in a 1964 interview, less than three years before her untimely death, she quips, "I have just begun the business of poetry in a serious way" (Farrokhzad, 3). In the later poems, she continues with "audacity to trespass boundaries and to follow her inner promptings" as she explores the nature of love and intimacy between men and women, staying true to her unconventional style and openness in discussing sexual relationships (Farzane Milani , 1988, 368). Depiction of the association with natural elements assists the women personas in both poems to overcome the limiting boundaries imposed upon women in a patriarchal society and gain their own voices. The limitations in these poems are depicted as winter, the one which both poet personas are able to overcome. However, these symbolic winters are different due to the fact that the poems certainly have originated from different societies. Plath’s poems have often been read as to the biography. The facts explained about her life which are claimed to have influenced her poetic career and even the subject matter of her poetry like ‘Daddy’ and all the associations with her father, are not completely in line with a more comprehensive investigation of her poems, though they are not to be ignored. As Rick Rylance (2001) affirms; “Her poems are psychological but also historical ‘allegories’”. (175). Therefore, the personal psychological trouble and the family web should be considered along with the historical life she lived in order to understand what was the winter for her. “The idea of the essential hollowness and inauthenticity of modern life was much in cultural air in the 1950s and 60s”. (177). The pinpoint seems to be the fact that, as a modernist poet, an immigrant in Britain, Plath is also entangled with the problems of modernity in her poems, including ‘Wintering’. This winter could be interpreted as the modern society which is still suffering the patriarchal dominance and is still structured upon the fabricated binary oppositions through which women are natural, while men have to do with culture. Plath, like Forogh, uses the imagery of nature to refer to this situation. However, the society, unlike Persian one, has already experienced, and even fostered in modernism. While the clash between the past and present lingers throughout Farrokhzad’s poem, the winter for Plath has roots in the modern time only. Forough has passed ‘the “oceans” and is now ready to encounter the world as woman artist hoping, like Sylvia, that the spring will come. Rylance (2001) documents Plath’s concern with the current historical events of her time to the essay she wrote called ‘Context’ which was published by the London Magazine in 1962 in which she had mentioned the cold war and the major political issues of the time. She seems to have been very much concerned with the “military power structures on

IJALEL 4(4):1-7, 2015 6 everyday life, and, in a larger frame they complicity of these structures with the legacy of Nazi Germany” (177-178). Plath’s own words from the essay could be illuminating to show the influence she herself is admitting to experience; Does this influence the kind of poetry I write? Yes, but in a sidelong fashion. I am not gifted with the tongue of Jeremiah, though I may be sleepless enough before my vision of the apocalypse. My poems do not turn out to be about Hiroshima, but about a child forming itself finger by finger in the dark. They are not about the terrors of mass extinction, but about the bleakness of the moon over a yew tree in a neighboring graveyard…In a sense these poems are deflections. I do not think they are an escape. For me the real issues of our time are the issues of every day…..”(1977, 92) Her winter is the depression she feels about the impact of war and all the political ensues on the life of people and women particularly, thus, she wishes a balanced ecosystem, which out passes the winter and hopes for the equity with nature. She is very much concerned and affected by the “…climate of military and political tension which hollows out meaning and betrays certainties…” Rylance (2001; 178). Plath’s accomplishment is making uses of the environement as a tool in her hand to overcome such hollowness, deconstruct the binary oppositions, and depict the woman in her poem ‘wintering’ who, like the persona in Farrokhzad poem, is able to ‘winter’, and ‘believe’ the winter, then overcome that and hope for a balanced ecosystem, e.g earth to come, in which men and women are able to be natural, the women thus being able to produce and reproduce poetry, art and creativity. The winters depicted originate from different situations. Farrokhzad is still entangled with the past, as she lives in a bordering era when modernization is entering every aspect of the newly shaped Persian society. Such concern with the past forces the persona to review it and finally accomplish a cross out of the borders, hence, the obliteration of the element of sin, signaling the ultimate change in the thinking direction. The persona in her poem “Let us Believe in the Oncoming of Cold Season” passes the winter and hopes for the spring. The same happens to the woman Plath depicts in her “Wintering”. Both are associated with the natural elements, are placed in a natural setting and both transgress the limitations through the deconstruction of binary oppositions. However, the winters differ since Forogh’s originates from a society on the verge of modernism, still entangled with the traditional conventions as well as the dogmatic patriarchal male dominated Persian literary circles in which she is artistically able to utter her own voice as the female poet, the one who like nature creates. Sylvia Plath lived in the modern British and American societies. Her winter thus originates from the hollowness she witnesses in the post war society. 3. Conclusion Ecofeminism provides a comprehensive framework for studying the literary works in light of the way the ecosystem is depicted and how the so called ‘natural highrarchies’ are depicted in a piece of literature. Women have always been associated with nature, thus regarded as inferior to the culture which has always been linked to the males. Ecofeministic thinking seeks to deconstruct such binary oppositions constructed under the impact of patriarchal system, and hope for the formation of a balanced ecosystem which includes all the so far oppressed e.g women and socially oppressed groups. Literature makes the ground ready for the depiction of such ecological concerns. Poets, novelists or any kind of authors of literature have, consciously or unknowingly, used literature to show such concerns. Comparative study of works coming from different social backgrounds would highlight the different as well as similar points in this regard. The Iranian modern female poet, Forogh Farrokhzad’s poem “Let us Believe in the Oncoming of Cold Season” and Sylvia Plath’s ‘Wintering” depict two women who start off a journey of self realization, are set in ‘winter’, and ultimately are able to transgress the limitations of their surroundings, through association with nature. In other words, both poets deconstruct the nature/culture, woman/man binary opposition so that the woman personas of their poems is able to step beyond the limitations through walking into the deep association with their natural being, as women, and finally gain their own artistic voice, in the symbolic depiction of the wait for the season of productivity, spring, to come. The point is that, new historically speaking, the symbolic ‘winter’ these two personas transgress originates from different social backgrounds. Farrokhzad is able to violate the traditional crossing lines and move beyond the past, since the era she lives in is on the border of tradition and modernity. She is the female rebellion poet in a male dominated circle of Persian poets who wishes to utter her own words and is able to do so finally. However, Plath’s mind, on the other side of the continent, in preoccupied with the modern, and not traditional and modern, western society and the hollowness of modern man’s life. Ultimately, it is through association with nature, that both poems gain the confidence to express hope for the future.

References Alaimo, S. (2000). Undomesticated Ground: Recasting Nature as Feminist Space Ithaca: Cornell University P. Britzolakis, C. (2006) Ariel and Other Poems In Cambridge Companion to Sylvia Plath Ed by Jo Gill, Cambridge University Press. Campbell, A. E. (2008) New Directions in Ecofeminist Literary Criticism. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Cambridge Dickie, M. (1979) Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. University of Illinois Press, Illinois. Farrokhzad, F. (1982). Bride of Acacias: Selected Poems of Forugh Farrokhzad. Jascha Frederick Kessler with Amin Banani, tr. Amin Banani, intro. Ehsan Yarshater, foreword. Farzaneh Milani, afterword. Delmar, N.Y. Caravan.

IJALEL 4(4):1-7, 2015 7 Ford, K. (1997) Gender and the Poetics of Excess: Moments of Brocade. University Press of Mississippi. Garrard, G. (2004). Ecocriticism. London: Routledge. Goodwin, S.W. (1994). Cross Fire and Collaboration among Compartive Literature, Feminism, and the New Historicism In Borderwork; Feminism Engagement with Comparative Literature. Edited by Margaret R.Higonnet. Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London Hillmann, M. C. (1990). An Autobiographical Voice: Forugh Farrokhzad. In Women's Autobiographies in Contemporary Iran. Cambridge, Ma. Harvard University Press (33-53). King, Y. (1989). The Ecology of Feminism and the Feminism of ecology in J. Plant (ed.) Healing the Wounds: the Promise of Ecofeminism, Green: London Mahdavi, S. (1985), Captivity, Rebellion, and Rebirth. Parnassus: Poetry in Review, 12-13, (393-400). Milani, F. (1988) Forugh Farrokhzad. In Persian Literature, Ehsan Yarshater, ed. Albany, N.Y. Bibliotheca Persica. Pesa, P. D. (1978) “The Imperious Muse: Some Observations on Women, Nature, and the Poetic Tradition.” Ed. Cheryl L. Brown and Karen Olson. Feminist Criticism: Essays on Theory, Poetry and Prose. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow. Plath, S. (2004). The Poems. Poem Hunter.Com. World Poetry Archieve. (158). Plath, S. (1977). ‘Context’, in Jonny Panic and the Bible of Dreams and Other Prose Writings (London, Faber). (92-3). Plumwood, V. (1993) Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. London: Routledge. Davion, V. (1994) Is Ecofeminism Feminist?, in K. Warren (ed.) Ecological Feminism, London: Routledge Rylance, Rick. (2001). The Poetry of Sylvia Plath in Literature in Context Edited by Rick Rylance and Judy Simons (2001). Palgrave, New York. Warren, K. J. (, 1997). Taking Empirical Data Seriously: An Ecofeminist Philosophical Perspective. In Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature. Ed. Karen Warren. With editorial assistance from Nisvan Erkal. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Warren, K. (1990). The Power and Promise of Ecological Feminism. Environmental Ethics 12: (125-146). Zubizarreta, J. (1992). The Woman Who Sings No, No, No: Love, Freedom, and Rebellion in the Poetry of Forugh Farrokhzad, World Literature Today 66, 3.

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

Appraising Pre-service EFL Teachers' Assessment in Language Testing Course Using Revised Bloom's Taxonomy

Elham Mohammadi

Department of ELT, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran E-mail: e.mohammadi84@gmail.com

Gholam Reza Kiany (Corresponding author)

Department of ELT, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran E-mail: rezakiany_gh@modares.ac.ir

Reza Ghaffar Samar

Department of ELT, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

Ramin Akbari Department of ELT, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

Received: 27-10- 2014 Accepted: 19-01- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015

Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.8 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.8

Abstract The teachers need to be conceived as a “change agent” and not as a mere transmitter of knowledge and culture. In developing countries like Iran, one of the most significant concerns in the field of teachers’ education is efficiency of pre-service programs. To this aim, the current descriptive-evaluative study intended to describe the state of pre-service teachers' assessment in the field of language testing by (a) examining the exam questions to find out whether they are aligned with curriculum objectives and syllabus (content validity, (b) exploring whether they take care of higher order cognitive processes and (c) finding what combinations of cognitive process levels and knowledge types in Revised Bloom's Taxonomy are prevalent in the questions. The results exhibited an unbalanced coverage of content in exams. Also the questions were found to be inadequate in terms of measuring complex cognitive skills (Analyze and Evaluate); Remember and Understand domains take up 91.6 % of all questions and no item was found for Create. Three combinations of cognitive process level and knowledge type was dominant in the data set: (1) Remember Factual Knowledge, (2) Understand Conceptual Knowledge, and (3) Apply Procedural Knowledge. These associations confirm the Anderson and Krathwohl's (2001) proposition. Keywords: pre-service teachers, assessment, assessment literacy, Revised Bloom's Taxonomy, cognitive processes,

knowledge types 1. Introduction 1.1 Statement of the Problem Rationale of curriculum planning and different reforms in the domain of education system in Iran and world has consistently indicated improvement of assessment-measurement system and its alignment with theories and ultimate goals of education as being the most salient element of success in educational reform and fundamental shift in quality of school teaching and learning (Rabihavi, et al. 2011). Assessment determines whether the process of learning leads to success or failure (Dochy, 2009; Kozhageldiyeva, 2005). To find out whether evaluation process has been carried out accurately needs evaluation itself. Popham (1987) has referred to measurement-oriented reforms in education and believes amending educational movement results in curriculum reform. After examining the role played by assessment in reforming science curriculum, Orpwood (2001) also found out lack of proper attention to assessment as a reason for some of the problems. He reminds the demand on experts for more attention towards the role of assessment. In recent years the term 'assessment literacy' has been coined to denote what teachers need to know about assessment (Huttner, et al., 2011). Traditionally it was regarded as the ability to select, design and evaluate tests and assessment procedures as well as to score and grade them on the basis of theoretical knowledge. More recent approaches embrace a broader understanding of the concept when taking the implications of assessment for teaching into account. Two key questions are asked: (a) What does an assessment tell students about the achievement outcomes we value? (b) What is likely to be the effect of this assessment on students? (Stiggins, 1991). It's essential for assessment literates to know and understand the key principles of sound assessment and translate these into quality information about students' achievements and effective instruction. Boyles (2005, p. 18) points to language teachers' need of the necessary tools for

Flourishing Creativity & Literacy

IJALEL 4(4):8-20, 2015 9 analyzing and reflecting upon test data in order to make informed decisions about instructional practice and program design. In their views (Boyles, 2005; Stiggins, 1991) the notion of assessment literacy extends beyond technical knowledge about how to select and create appropriate assessment instruments for specific purposes to include the ability to analyze empirical data to improve instruction. In other words, being literate in assessment involves a move away from a passive interpretation towards an active application of data that will impact on teaching and assessment is perceived as a means to promote learning rather than merely observe and record it, hence 'assessment' for learning (Stiggins, 2002). Several studies in a range of educational contexts indicates that "the typical teacher can spend as much as a third to a half of his or her professional time involved in assessment-related activities" (Newsfields, 2006; Stiggins, 1999 p. 23). Additionally in the global economy of the 21st century, students will need to understand the basics, but also to think critically, to analyze, and to make inferences. Helping students develop these skills will require changes in assessment at the school and classroom level, as well as new approaches to large-scale, high-stakes assessment. These points imply the need for future teachers to recognize the importance of higher-order thinking and problem solving skills. They are to be their students' model of learning that makes the mission of teacher preparatory programs and teacher trainers more demanding. These programs are to create essential sensitivity among teacher trainees toward assessment. This study seeks to investigate the state of teacher trainees' assessment in the field of language testing to identify potential weaknesses and inconsistencies. 1.2 Significance of the Study Iranian education system is faced with several complications (Rabihavi, et al. 2011; Molaeenezhad & Zekavati, 2007); among these, evaluation practice can be mentioned which entirely relies on retrieving knowledge. It suffices for learners to memorize content and use only retrieving capacity. On many occasions this evaluation system fails to assess and measure abilities like reasoning, processing, synthesizing and accurate judgment among learners. The questions constructed and administered by teachers are necessary instruments for measuring such abilities. Examining teachers' exam questions at school has found these questions and progress tests incompatible with measurement criteria (Rabihavi, et al. 2011). This might be attributed to the state of teacher education in Teacher Training Centers; Teacher educators were not able to create due attention to testing standards and psychometric principles among student teachers. For making sound inferences about students' abilities and subsequently directing their teaching, language teachers need a strong knowledge of assessment practices. Only if do they understand the basic principles of classroom assessment their efforts to improve teaching and learning based on assessment results will be effective. Addressing relevant questions, findings of the current study would help understand the problem better and can be used for improving and reforming evaluation system and teaching methods. They may somehow shed light on needed curriculum in teacher training domain. Given the significance of assessment courses in general and language assessment literacy in particular, there is a need to take a closer look at the status quo of these courses in Iranian context. 1.3 Foreign Language Testing Brindley (2001) has referred to the allegedly heated issue of future language teachers' preparation in the field of foreign language testing and evaluation in recent years. O'Loughlin (2006, p. 71) argued that second language assessment is a "notoriously difficult domain of knowledge" for students in second language teacher education programs because of the high theoretical complexity of key concepts like reliability, validity, and practicality and the need to be balanced against each other in designing and using assessment instruments. Developments in the domain of language testing are different from language teaching; however they are closely tied to each other (Johnson & Johnson, 2001, p. 187). Construction of good test items is believed to be a demanding task for teachers since it involves "a psychological understanding of pupils, sound judgment, persistence, and a touch of creativity" as well as field knowledge and clear view of the desired outcomes (Groulund, 1985). Jin (2010, p. 556) brings up the urgent need for teachers to be thoroughly trained in language assessment concepts, skills and strategies. Assessment is an increasingly important domain of language teachers' expertise as the professional demands on them to accurately assess their students increases as the theory and practice of assessment continues to mature (O'Loughlin, 2006, p. 71; Newsfields, 2006; Brindley, 2001). Shohamy (2005, p. 107) also argues that professional development in assessment is not a question merely of demonstrating the technical 'tricks of the trade'. She argues for "… the need to expand the role of teacher education programs in which teachers are exposed not only to the procedures and methods of testing and assessment but also to aspects related to the consequences of tests." Very recently Lam (2014) explored the overall language assessment training landscape in primary/secondary school contexts and investigated the extent to which two assessments courses may facilitate and/or inhibit the development of pre-service teachers' language assessment literacy in one teacher education institution. His findings reveal that language assessment training in Hong Kong remains inadequate and the courses are still unable to bridge the theory-practice gap within the assessment reform context. Very little research as yet has been undertaken to study the students' evaluation of language testing and assessment courses (Inbar Lourie, 2008; Kleinsasser, 2005; O'Loughlin, 2006). Studies conducted by Bailey and Brown (1996), Brown and Bailey (2007), and Jin (2010) are among the few ones on language testing courses and included large groups of informants teaching language testing courses. Jin (2010) used almost the same questionnaire utilized by Bailey and Brown (1996) and found out most of the topics covered are the same as the ones listed by Brown and Bailey in their studies. He concluded that in China LTA (i.e Language Testing and Assessment) courses cover essential theoretical and

IJALEL 4(4):8-20, 2015 10 practical aspects of the language testing area. In two other studies by O'Loughlin (2006) and Kleinsasser (2005) more comprehensive reports on language assessment courses were offered. O'Loughlin focused on a post-graduate elective course titled 'Assessment in the language classroom'. The course entails practical components (e.g designing assessment tools for assessing various skills) as well as conceptual themes. The author attempted to reveal how students' understanding of key concepts and ability to evaluate current assessment documents and instruments develops. The findings indicate that participants (two students) attained the course objectives; yet they differed in their readiness and capacity to grasp new ideas in language assessment area. The researcher attributed this difference to factors such as students' cultural background, prior experience with assessment as learners and teachers and the characteristics of the input they receive in language assessment classes. Hence he concluded that a learner-centered approach should be adopted which takes those factors into account while planning and managing assessment courses. Kleinsasser (2005) like O'Loughlin (2006) presented readers with direct and detailed reports related to language assessment courses and showed the significance of the collaboration between teachers and students for improving the quality and usefulness of an LTA course. 1.4 Theoretical Framework To get a better in-depth understanding of the assessment practices of teacher preparatory programs, a robust cognitive framework is required. Revised Bloom's taxonomy has been extensively applied in testing and evaluation across different disciplines and its efficiency is substantiated time and again (Chen, 2004; Squire, 2001; Aviles, 1999). Bloom's taxonomy is a framework for examining the depth of cognitive process levels in educational objectives and it is used to determine the extent to which assessment tools measure higher-order thinking skills. Revised Bloom's taxonomy provides a broader vision of learning that includes not only acquiring knowledge but also being able to use knowledge in a variety of new situations. This taxonomy, a revision of the original Bloom's taxonomy, was developed by Anderson & Krathwohl (2001). It has two dimensions of cognitive process and knowledge which is extensively explained in Appendix A. Cognitive dimension includes six major categories and 19 specific sub-categories whereas knowledge dimension contains four main categories. Although relatively few studies in Iranian teacher education context used this taxonomy for examining assessment tools (Rabihavi, et al. 2011), numerous studies worldwide adopt it to take a closer look at evaluation procedures. Masters et al. (2001) investigated randomly-selected multiple-choice questions from 17 test-banks of accompanying selected nursing textbooks. 2143 items were rated on thirty generally accepted guidelines for writing multiple-choice questions, the cognitive levels of original Bloom's taxonomy and distribution of correct answers. Results indicated that most of the questions (i.e. 47.3 %) were written at the lowest cognitive level of Knowledge. 24.8 % and 21 % of items were respectively at Comprehension and Application levels and only 6.5 % were at the Analysis level. Since most of the textbooks were intended for upper division courses, these findings turn out to be surprising. Another field of study whose tests were the subject of scrutiny with regard to cognitive process levels is Agriculture (Squire, 2001). 628 agricultural science questions in senior secondary schools in Botswana were analyzed. A great proportion of questions were at Knowledge level of Bloom's original taxonomy. Almost no item was found at higher cognitive levels of Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. Unexpectedly even the essay-type items in those tests were at the lowest levels. Using Revised Taxonomy, Chen (2004) examined the knowledge types and cognitive levels of Computer Science test in Technical College Entrance Examination of Taiwan between 2001 and 2004. In a similar pattern, most items (44 % to 77 %) assess only lower-level thinking that required students to remember factual information. No item was found at Evaluate and Create levels. 1.5 Research Questions Given the above introduction the research questions are formulated in the following way: Q1: Do exam questions of Teacher Training centers cover all cognitive levels of Bloom's Taxonomy properly and consistent with objectives of the curriculum? Q2: Do exam questions of Teacher Training centers have content validity? Q3: What cognitive process levels and knowledge types in the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy were measured in Testing exams of Teacher Training Centers? 2. Method Concerning the nature and purpose of the study, we adopt a descriptive-evaluative research method. To this aim the curriculum, syllabus and the assessment instrument for language testing course of pre-service teachers are examined and analyzed. 2.1 Context of the Study The main bodies responsible for training teachers in Iran are Teacher Training Centers and Universities that are jointly managed by Ministries of Education, and Science, Research, and Technology. Prior to 2013, the undergraduate teacher training programs consisted of two two-year period; upon completion of the first two-year the graduates would get an Associate's degree in relevant majors. The then-teachers are allowed to continue their studies for another two-year period to obtain a B.A. This second term was mostly for in-service teachers. In 2013 the teacher training programs shifted onto four-year long training at the end of which graduates would receive a B.A. 2.2 Sampling Procedures Five Teacher Training Centers were chosen for this study. Two reasons can be enumerated for this selection:

IJALEL 4(4):8-20, 2015 11 (1) The Centers' ease of accessibility to the researcher (Convenience Sampling) (2) To the extent the availability is possible for the researcher, it was tried to cover as geographically

different areas as possible (Purposive Sampling) The centers are:

(a) Shahid Bahonar Center (located in Tehran) (b) Shahid Mofatteh Center (located in Shahr-E-Rey) (c) Shahid Bahonar Center (located in Arak) (d) Mirshaki Center (located in Aligoudarz, Boroujerd) (e) Shahid Rajaei Center (located in Urmia)

Language Education Departments in T. T. Centers follow a curriculum prescribed by High Council of Planning under the supervision of Ministry of Science, Research and Technology and Coordinating Body of Teacher Education in 2001. Short descriptions for each of the core courses is provided in this document, along with educational objectives, syllabus (the weight given to each section or topic), and suggested materials. However lecturers are allowed to structure their own lessons by keeping those points in mind. Language testing (language assessment literacy) is divided into two two-credit courses titled Testing (1) and Testing (2). The assessment instruments were designed and developed by the lecturer him/herself. In recent decades teacher-made tests have played a very fundamental role in assessing students' learnings, however, their efficiency has rarely been investigated (Rabihavi, et al., 2011). 2.3 Data Analysis The exam questions for Testing 1 and 2 were collected, and then each question was rated based on Revised Taxonomy's cognitive processes and knowledge types (explained below). To ensure the accuracy of researchers' coding results two Ph.D graduates of Tarbiat Modares University in TEFL were recruited to serve as raters. The criteria for coding, the definition of the Revised Bloom's taxonomy (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001) and some sample questions were given to the raters to help them become familiar with the coding framework. Then Cohen's kappa coefficient was computed to ensure inter-rater reliability and to observe whether there is a statistically significant consistency among raters. To see the frequency counts and percentages of the major combinations as well as the sub-combinations of the cognitive process and knowledge dimensions crosstabulation which is a descriptive statistical procedure was employed. 3. Results The consistency among raters was specified by computing kappa value. This figure was respectively 0.88 and 0.83 for Rater 1 * Rater 2 and Rater 1 * Rater 3 that shows a high degree of agreement among raters. Both values are significant at .001 level. This means The results for the first research question are reported below. For answering research questions Table of Specifications is needed. A TOS, sometimes called a test blueprint, is a table that helps teachers align objectives, instruction, and assessment (Notar, Zuelke, Wilson, & Yunker, 2004). When constructing a test, teachers need to be concerned that the test measures an adequate sampling of the class content at the cognitive level that the material was taught. The TOS can help teachers map the amount of class time spent on each objective with the cognitive level at which each objective was taught thereby helping teachers to identify the types of items they need to include on their tests. The tables developed for this study are provided in the Appendix B.

Importance percentage of each chapter =

No. of sessions devoted to each chapter *100 No. of all sessions

No. of questions for each chapter= no. of all questions * importance percentage of each chapter Concerning the question on cognitive domain of exam questions, the results (overall frequency and percentage) for all five centers are reported in the following tables. The purpose of this question was to determine the extent to which exam questions are successful in measuring higher-level thinking processes (e.g. analyze, evaluate, and create). The questions were judged on Bloom's Revised Taxonomy. Overall 346 items out of 441 fall within the lowest level of cognitive process that would mean as 78.5% in percentile. This category entails two subcategories of recognizing and recalling which respectively constitute 38.3 % and 40.1% of this category. Concerning next cognitive level, Understanding, 58 items were found which would mean 13.2%. Among seven different subcategories, Interpreting comprises 36.2% of the whole category. Other processes of Exemplifying, Classifying, Inferring, Comparing and Explaining make up respectively 1.1%, 1.1%, 2.7%, 1.6%, 1.8% of all questions. No item was found for Summarizing.

IJALEL 4(4):8-20, 2015 12 Table 1 demonstrates the distribution of items across sub-categories of Understanding.

Table 1. Cognitive level (Understand)

Frequency Percent Valid percent Cumulative percent

Valid Interpreting 21 4.8 36.2 36.2 Exemplifying 5 1.1 8.6 44.8 Classifying 5 1.1 8.6 53.4 Inferring 12 2.7 20.7 74.1 Comparing 7 1.6 12.1 86.2 Explaining 8 1.8 13.8 100.0 Total 58 13.2 100.0 Missing System 383 86.8 Total 441 100.0

Cognitive process of apply which consists of executing and implementing processes constitutes 6.8% of questions (30 items out of 441). Executing comprises 56.7% and Implementing 43.3% of the main category. Given next cognitive process, Analyze, no question was found on subcategories of Differentiating and Attributing; Organizing makes up 0.7% of all items. Evaluate is divided into Checking and Critiquing; each one of these subcategories makes 0.5% of all questions that means two items for each. No item was found for the highest cognitive level, i.e Create, in the taxonomy.

Figure 1. The percentage of questions on cognitive categories (Revised Bloom's Taxonomy)

Figure 1 displays the resulting item analysis in terms of coverage of cognitive sub-categories. There is a huge difference between the first major category (i.e Remember), consisting of two sub-levels of Recognizing and Recalling, and the rest of the taxonomy. Table 2. The frequency and percentage of exam questions on cognitive subcategories

Frequency Percent Valid percent Cumulative percent

Valid Recognizing 169 38.3 38.3 38.3 Recalling 177 40.1 40.1 78.5 Interpreting 21 4.8 4.8 83.2 Exemplifying 5 1.1 1.1 84.4 Classifying 5 1.1 1.1 85.5 Inferring 12 2.7 2.7 88.2 Comparing 7 1.6 1.6 89.8 Explaining 8 1.8 1.8 91.6 Executing 17 3.9 3.9 95.5 Implementing 13 2.9 2.9 98.4 Organizing 3 .7 .7 99.1 Checking 2 .5 .5 99.5 Critiquing 2 .5 .5 100.0 Total 441 100.0 100.0

IJALEL 4(4):8-20, 2015 13 For answering the second question which is on the content validity, table of specification, objectives and topics set in the curriculum and syllabus are taken into account (Appendix B). In the following table the coverage of subject matters in exam questions is specified in terms of the number of items and the percentage for Testing (1):

Table 3. The amount of content coverage in Testing (1) exams regardless of teacher training center

Content Number of items Percentage of items Preliminaries 37 16.1 % Functions of Language Tests

32 13.9 %

Forms of Language Tests

22 9.5 %

Basic Statistics in Testing

52 22.6 %

Test Construction 29 12.7 % Characteristics of a Good test

46 20 %

Theories of Language Testing

12 5.2 %

Total 230 100 % For Testing (1), Table 3 shows the relevant proportion of items on each subject matter. Looking closely it is apparent the majority of questions (62%) are on purely theoretical areas which are taught in the first half of the semester. The sections on "Test Construction", "Characteristics of Good Test", and "Theories of Language Testing" are not satisfactorily taken care of. Given their importance that derives from the practical value essential for future teachers, it is necessary to amend this weakness and devote a larger number of questions to these areas. Table 4. The amount of content coverage in Testing (1) exams across teacher training centers

Content Urmia center Boroujerd center Arak center Shahr-e-Rey center

Tehran centers Total

Preliminaries 8 20.5 % 4 9.7 % 10 18.9 % 9 14.5 % 6 17.1 % 37 Functions of Language Tests

8 20.5 % 7 17 % 5 9.4 % 8 13 % 4 11.4 % 32

Forms of Language Tests

3 7.7 % 7 17 % 9 17 % 2 3.2 % 1 2.8 % 22

Basic Statistics in Testing

10 25.6 % 8 19.5 % 11 20.7 % 15 24.2 % 8 22.8 % 52

Test Construction 3 7.7 % 4 9.8 % 5 9.4 % 11 17.7 % 6 17.1 % 29 Characteristics of a Good test

6 15.4 % 9 22 % 8 15.1 % 14 22.6 % 9 25.7 % 46

Theories of Language Testing

1 2.6 % 2 4.9 % 5 9.4 % 3 4.8 % 1 2.8 % 12

Total 39 100% 41 100 % 53 100 % 62 100 % 35 100 % 230 Examining the centers individually (Table 4), all of them lack enough coverage of the last three sections (mentioned above). This, in effect, exhibits a major drawback of teacher preparatory programs which is their theoretical orientation. Shahid Mofatteh and Shahid Bahonar (Tehran) Testing exams include comparatively sufficient number of questions on the topics of the syllabus in comparison with other centers. Table 5. The amount of content coverage in Testing (2) exams regardless of teacher training center

Content Number of items Percentage of items Testing Vocabulary 26 12.3 % Testing Structure 28 13.3 % Testing Pronunciation 25 11.8% Testing Listening Comprehension 27 12.8 % Testing Oral Production 29 13.7 % Testing Reading Comprehension 22 10.4 % Testing Writing Ability 19 9 % Cloze and Dictation Type Tests 20 9.4% Functional Testing 15 7.1 % Total 211 100%

IJALEL 4(4):8-20, 2015 14 By taking a look at Table 5 that includes all questions of Testing (2), a rather balanced and satisfactory coverage of content areas is observed. However it seems there are two neglected issues which are "Cloze and Dictation-type Tests" and "Functional Testing". Considering the fact that syllabus places a high value on these parts of the content, inadequate number of items were observed.

Table 6. The amount of content coverage in Testing (2) exams across teacher training centers

Content Urmia center Boroujerd center

Arak center Shahr-e-Rey center

Tehran centers

Total

Testing Vocabulary 5 13.9 % 9 18.4 % 3 5.9 % 3 6.8 % 6 19.3 % 26 Testing Structure 4 11.1 % 7 14.3 % 8 15.7 % 7 15.9 % 2 6.4 % 28 Testing Pronunciation

5 13.9 % 12 24.5 % 2 3.9 % 5 11.4 % 1 3.2 % 25

Testing Listening Comprehension

6 16.7 % 2 4.1 % 11 21.6 % 6 13.6 % 2 6.4 % 27

Testing Oral Production

2 5.6 % 8 16.3 % 8 15.7 % 3 6.8 % 8 25.8 % 29

Testing Reading Comprehension

3 8.3 % 2 4.1 % 6 11.8 % 7 15.9 % 4 12.9 % 22

Testing Writing Ability

1 2.8 % 4 8.2 % 7 13.7 % 4 9.1 % 3 9.7 % 19

Cloze and Dictation Type Tests

9 25 % 2 4.1 % 2 3.9 % 6 13.6 % 1 3.2 % 20

Functional Testing 1 2.8 % 3 6.1 % 4 7.8 % 3 6.8 % 4 12.9 % 15 Total 36 100 % 49 100 % 51 100 % 44 100 % 31 100 211

Comparing the centers (see Table 6) in terms of content validity of exam questions,Shahid Rajaei of Urmia is in better state than other centers. The questions were evenly distributed among the topics. On the contrary the questions of two centers, namely of Arak and Tehran, were the least valid in terms of content. Quality of questions in Shahid Mofatteh of Shahr-e-Rey is moderate in comparison with other four centers.

To answer the third research question cross-tabulation was conducted that is presented in the table below. From the item classification of 441 questions, five major cognitive process levels along with thirteen sub-levels and three types of knowledge were found. The five major cognitive skills are: Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze and Evaluate. As for the knowledge type, Metacognitve Knowledge is absent from the list. This neglected area of knowledge in tests designed for assessing prospective teachers' competencies takes on an additional significance while considering its implications for classroom practice. Metacognitive Knowledge is associated closely with some terms such as metacognitive awareness, self-awareness, self-reflection and self-regulation; all can be used interchangeably. It can play an important role in student learning and by implication in the ways students are taught and assessed in the classroom; it seems to be related to the transfer of learning which is the ability to use knowledge gained in one setting or situation in another (Bransford et al., 1999). Teacher educators are to cultivate the awareness of this knowledge among prospective teachers by its inclusion in assessments. One way is to use portfolio assessment that offers students the opportunity to reflect on their work which also leads to gaining self-assessment information. The lack of any question on this knowledge can be attributed to the difficulty of its measurement in formal classroom tests; it is more easily assessed in classroom activities and discussion of various learning strategies (Pintrich, 2002).

Table 7. The crosstabulation of the cognitive sub-categories and knowledge types knowledge types

Total Factual Knowledge

Conceptual Knowledge

Procedural Knowledge

Taxonomy Recognizing Count 168 1 0 169 % of total 38,1% ,2% ,0% 38,3%

Recalling Count 167 10 0 177 % of total 37,9% 2,3% ,0% 40,1%

Interpreting Count 2 19 0 21 % of total ,5% 4,3% ,0% 4,8%

Exemplifying Count 0 5 0 5 % of total ,0% 1,1% ,0% 1,1%

Classifying Count 0 5 0 5 % of total ,0% 1,1% ,0% 1,1%

IJALEL 4(4):8-20, 2015 15 Inferring Count 0 12 0 12

% of total ,0% 2,7% ,0% 2,7% Comparing Count 0 7 0 7

% of total ,0% 1,6% ,0% 1,6% Explaining Count 0 8 0 8

% of total ,0% 1,8% ,0% 1,8% Executing Count 0 0 17 17

% of total ,0% ,0% 3,9% 3,9% Implementing Count 0 0 13 13

% of total ,0% ,0% 2,9% 2,9% Organizing Count 0 2 1 3

% of total ,0% ,5% ,2% ,7% Checking Count 2 0 0 2

% of total ,5% ,0% ,0% ,5% Critiquing Count 0 0 2 2

% of total ,0% ,0% ,5% ,5% Total Count 339 69 33 441

% of total 76,9% 15,6% 7,5% 100,0% These identified cognitive levels and types of knowledge were then recognized to constitute nine major combinations: (1) Remember Factual Knowledge, (2) Remember Conceptual Knowledge, (3) Understand Factual Knowledge, (4) Understand Conceptual Knowledge, (5) Apply Procedural Knowledge, (6) Analyze Conceptual Knowledge, (7) Analyze Procedural Knowledge, (8) Evaluate Factual Knowledge, (9) Evaluate Procedural Knowledge.

Table 8. The crosstabulation of major cognitive processes and knowledge types

The knowledge dimension The cognitive process dimension Remember Understand Apply Analyze Evaluate

Factual Knowledge

Count 335 2 2 % of total 76 % 0.5 % 0.5 %

Conceptual Knowledge

Count 11 56 2 % of total 2.5 % 12.6 % 0.5 %

Procedural Knowledge

Count 30 1 2 % of total 6.8 % 0.2 % 0.5 %

As illustrated in tables 7 and 8 among test items classified as Remember (346 in total), 335 of them were identified as testing Factual Knowledge. For items under the category of Understand, 96.5 % of questions (56 items) were labelled as Conceptual Knowledge; remaining 2 items were Factual Knowledge items and none were Procedural Knowledge items. As for items classified as Apply, all of them, comprising about 6.8 % of overall questions, were identified as Procedural Knowledge. Only one sub-category of Analyze, the next cognitive process, was found in the tests which is Organizing. Out of three items, two were measuring Conceptual Knowledge while one tests Procedural Knowledge. For Evaluate both sub-categories, namely Checking and Critiquing, were present and each has two questions. The two items of Checking aim to measure Factual Knowledge whereas the items of Critiquing measured Procedural Knowledge. For the last major cognitive category, Create, no item was found. 4. Discussion & Conclusion This study was undertaken to investigate what cognitive levels and knowledge types were tested on language assessment literacy exams administered in the past two years at five Teacher Training Centers. The results of item analysis can have a positive washback effect to language assessment literacy classes across teacher preparatory programs. The findings for the first question indicated a narrow range of cognitive processes (i.e. lower-level capacities of Remember and Understand) were mostly being tested in all centers and only a very limited number of questions aim at measuring complex cognitive abilities of Analyze and Evaluate. This is similar to Masters et al. study (2001) in which the majority of the questions were written at the lowest cognitive level of Remember. In the current study after Remember the next cognitive processes in terms of frequency were respectively Understand and Apply corresponding to the order found in Masters et al. study. Also this finding corroborates the results of Squire's study (2001) that found a great proportion of items at Knowledge level of Bloom's Original Taxonomy (corresponding to Remember in Revised Taxonomy) and a few number of items at higher cognitive levels. The result is also compatible with the findings of Rabihavi, et al. (2011). In their study, the exam questions of two teacher training centers were analyzed and they were either labelled as Knowledge or Comprehension on Bloom's Taxonomy; none of the items measured the more complex processes. Current findings is consistent with Lan and Chern's study (2010) that aimed to investigate cognitive process levels and knowledge types measured on the English reading comprehension tests of college entrance examinations in Taiwan. In their study items on Remember Factual Knowledge and Understand Factual Knowledge, which belong to lower cognitive levels, were the majority in the tests under scrutiny and few items were found at higher levels of Apply and Analyze. Analysis of Turkish high-school physics-examination questions by Kocakaya and Gonen (2010) likewise

IJALEL 4(4):8-20, 2015 16 found only about 27.5 percent of the questions at the higher levels of cognitive domain (analysis, synthesis and evaluation levels). Studies by Hand, Prain and Wallace (2002), Çepni et al. (2003), Karamustafaoglu et al. (2003), Köğce (2005) also support the view that most traditional examinations are of the lower order cognitive skill type. In this study, the reason for finding no item on Create category might be due to its productive nature that cannot be grasped through multiple choice or fill-in-the-blanks formats. This view is consistent with Buckles and Siegfried (2006), who found that multiple-choice questions can measure elements of in-depth understanding when being carefully designed, and maintained that Synthesis and Evaluation levels could not be accurately measured since the creativity or originality could not be simply tested via multiple-choice questions. Concerning the third research question, the following association of cognitive skills with knowledge types surfaced more often than the other combinations in the data set:

(a) Remember Factual Knowledge (b) Understand Conceptual Knowledge (c) Apply Procedural Knowledge

As far as the third research question is concerned, the findings are in line with Chen's (2004) in the computer science discipline which revealed this knowledge-and-cognitive association. The result in the present study further confirms Anderson and Krathwohl's (2001) proposition that certain types of knowledge tended to be associated with certain types of cognitive skills. It is well worth noting that inasmuch as instructors' approach in assessment affects students' learning preferences, the findings of this study have direct implication for classroom practice. As long as the majority of questions only test students' ability to remember or understand the content, the test takers would find memorization and reproduction of knowledge sufficient for getting an acceptable score and would not pay attention to the depth of the content. They would develop a rote and superficial approach to learning without forming a connection between learnings and meaninglessly accumulate information. This situation gets even worse by considering the fact that test-takers will become future teachers and hence become learning models of their own students. Training teachers with this attitude towards assessment adversely affect students since they don't recognize the importance of higher order cognitive process and consequently will not expose their students to these skills. Language assessment literacy course in this sense has got a double significance for future teachers; teacher educators are required to prepare the candidates by familiarizing them with essential knowledge and skills on assessment and getting them to realize the necessity of testing higher level cognitive skills. Given the above discussion some potential areas for further research emerge. As results of this study demonstrated a gap in the assessment of higher order cognitive skills in teacher preparatory programs, there is a need for developing an alternative evaluation instrument which covers as broad range of cognitive processes as possible and compensates the shortcomings of current assessment procedures. Another issue worthy of investigation is to make sure whether test-takers actually apply expected cognitive skills while answering a question and to check the correspondence between what takes place in reality and the judgment of test-developers. Procedures such as think aloud or interview can be adopted for this purpose. Since "Methodology of Teaching English" is one of the mandatory subjects to be completed towards the English teaching licensure, it is needed to appraise its assessment from cognitive processing perspective. References Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching and assessing: a revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy. New York. Longman Publishing. Aviles, C. B. (1999). Understanding and testing for "critical thinking" with Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. Washington, DC: ERIC Clearinghouse. Bailey, K. M., & Brown, J. D. (1996). Language testing courses: What are they? In A. Cunning & R. Berwick (Eds.), Validation in language testing (pp. 236-256). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Boyles, P. (2005). Assessment literacy. In M. Rosenbusch (Ed.), New visions in action: National assessment summit papers (pp. 18-23). Ames: Iowa State University. Bransford, J., Brown, A., & Cocking, R. (1999). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Brindley, G. (2001). Language assessment and professional development. In C. Elder, A. Brown, E. Grove, K. Hill, N. Iwashita, T. Lumley, T. McNamara & K. O'Loughlin (Eds.), Experimenting with uncertainty: Essays in honour of Alan Davies (pp. 126-136). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, J. D., & Bailey, K. M. (2007). Language testing courses: What are they in 2007? Language Testing, 25(3), 349-383. Buckles, S., & Siegfried, J. J. (2006). Using multiple-choice questions to evaluate in-depth learning of economics. Journal of Economic Education, 37(1), 48-57. Çepni, S., Özsevgeç. T., & Gökdere, M. (2003). The comparing questions OSS and entrance high school exam according to cognitive level and the properties formal operational steps. National Educational Journal, 157, 1-9. Chen, H. J. (2004). An analysis of computer science exam questions using revised Bloom's taxonomy. Unpublished master's thesis, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei.

IJALEL 4(4):8-20, 2015 17 Dochy, F. (2009). The edumetric quality of new modes of assessment: Some issues and prospects. In G. Joughin (Ed.), Assessment, learning and judgement in Higher Education (pp. 85-114). New York: Springer. Gronlund, N. E. (1985). Measurement and evaluation in teaching. New York: Macmillan. Hand, B., Prain, V., & Wallace, C. (2002). Influence of writing task on students’ answers to recall and higher-level test questions. Research in Science Education, 32, 19-34. Hüttner, J., Mehlmaur-Larcher, B., & Reichl, S. (2011). Theory and practice in EFL teacher education: Bridging the gap (New Perspectives on Language and Education). UK: Short Run Press. Inbar-Lourie, O. (2008). Constructing a language assessment knowledge base: A focus on language assessment courses. Language Testing, 25(3), 385-402. Jin, Y. (2010). The place of language testing and assessment in the professional preparation of foreign language teachers in China. Language Testing, 27(4), 555-584. Johnson, K., & Johnson, H. (2001). Encyclopedic dictionary of applied linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell. Karamustafaoğlu, S., Sevim, S., Karamustafaoğlu, O., & Çepni, S. (2003). Analysis of Turkish high-school chemistry examination questions according to Bloom’s taxonomy. Chemistry Education: Research and Practice, 4(1), 25-30. Kleinsasser, R. C. (2005). Transforming a postgraduate level assessment course: A second language teacher educator's narrative. Prospect, 20(3), 77-102. Kocakaya, S., & Gonen, S. (2010). Analysis of Turkish high-school physics-examination questions according to Bloom’s taxonomy. Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, 11(1). Köğce, D. (2005). A comparison of the mathematics questions used in the University Entrance Exam (OSS) and high schools in terms of Bloom’s Taxonomy, Unpublished master's thesis, Institute of Science, Karadeniz Technical University, Trabzon. Kozhageldyeva, L. (2005). Importance of testing and evaluation in foreign language teaching: A suggested syllable for a testing course in EFL departments in Kazakhstan universities. Unpublished master's thesis, Gazi University, Ankara. Lam, R. (in press). Language assessment training in Hong Kong: Implications for language assessment literacy. Language Testing. Lan, W. H., & Chern, C. L. (2010). Using Revised Bloom's Taxonomy to analyze reading comprehension questions on the SAET and the DRET. Contemporary Educational Research Quarterly, 18 (3), 165-206. Masters, J. C., Hulsmeyer, B. S., Pike, M. E., Leichty, K., Miller, M. T., & Verst, A. L. (2001). Assessment of multiple-choice questions in selected test banks accompanying text books used in nursing education. Journal of Nursing Education, 40(1), 25-32. Mollaeenezhad, A. & Zekavati, A. (2007). Comparative study of the curriculum of teacher education systems of England, Japan, France, Malaysia, and Iran. Educational Innovations Quarterly, 26 (2), 35-62. Newfields, T. (2006). Teacher development and assessment literacy. Authentic Communication: Proceedings of the 5th Annual JALT Pan-SIG Conference. May 13-14, 2006. Shizuoka, Japan: Tokai University College of Marine Science, pp. 48-73. Notar, C. E., Zuelke, D. C., Wilson, J. D., & Yunker, B. D. (2004). The table of specifications: Insuring accountability in teacher made tests. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 31, 115-129 Orpwood, G. (2001). The role of assessment in science curriculum reform. Assessment in Education. 8(2), pp. 135-151. O'Loughlin, K. (2006). Learning about second language assessment: Insights from a postgraduate student on-line subject forum. University of Sydney Papers in TESOL, 1, 71–85. Popham, W. J. (1987). The merits of measurement-driven instruction. Phi Delta Kappan, 68, 679-682. Pintrich, P. R. (2002). The role of metacognitive knowledge in learning, teaching, and assessing. Theory into Practice, 41(4), 219-225. Rabihavi, F., Parsa, A., & Elhampour, H. (2011). Study of compatibility of the exams of teacher training centers of Khouzestan province with psychomertry parameters. Paper Presented at Teacher Education Curriculum Conference. Shohamy, E. (2005). The power of tests over teachers: The power of teachers over tests. In D. J. Tedick (Ed.), Second language teacher education (pp. 101-111). Mahwah, NJ and London: Lawrence Erlbaum. Squire, P. J. (2001). Cognitive levels of testing agricultural science in senior secondary schools in Botswana. Education, 118(1), 100-110. Stiggins, R. J. (1991). Assessment literacy. Phi Delta Kappan, 72, 534-539. Stiggins, R. J. (1999, Spring). Evaluating classroom assessment training in teacher education programs. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 23-27. Stiggins, R. J. (2002). Assessment crisis: The absence of assessment for learning. Phi Delta Kappan, 83(10), 758-765.

IJALEL 4(4):8-20, 2015 18 Appendix A

The Cognitive Process Dimension

Level 1- C1

Level 2 – C2

Level 3 – C3

Categories & Cognitive Processes Alternative Names Definition Remember Retrieve knowledge from long-term memory

Recognizing Identifying Locating knowledge in long-term memory that is consistent with

presented material Recalling Retrieving Retrieving relevant knowledge from

long-term memory

Categories & Cognitive Processes

Alternative Names Definition

Understand Construct meaning from instructional messages, including oral, written, and graphic communication

Interpreting Clarifying Paraphrasing Representing Translating

Changing from one form of representation to another

Exemplifying Illustrating Instantiating

Finding a specific example or illustration of a concept or principle

Classifying Categorizing Subsuming

Determining that something belongs to a category

Summarizing Abstracting Generalizing

Abstracting a general theme or major point(s)

Inferring Concluding Extrapolating Interpolating

Predicting

Drawing a logical conclusion from presented information

Comparing Contrasting Mapping Matching

Detecting correspondences between two ideas, objects, and the like

Explaining Constructing models Constructing a cause and effect model of a system

Categories & Cognitive Processes Alternative Names Definition Apply Applying a procedure to a familiar task

Executing Carrying out Applying a procedure to a familiar task

Implementing Using Applying a procedure to an unfamiliar task

Analyze Break material into its constituent parts and determine how the parts relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose

Differentiating Discriminating Distinguishing

Focusing Selecting

Distinguishing relevant from irrelevant parts or important from unimportant parts

of presented material

Organizing Finding coherence Integrating Outlining Parsing

Structuring

Determining how elements fit or function within a structure

Attributing Deconstructing Determine a point of view, bias, values, or intent underlying presented material

IJALEL 4(4):8-20, 2015 19

The Knowledge Dimension

Dimension Definition Factual Knowledge The basic elements students must know to be acquainted with

a discipline or solve problems in it Conceptual Knowledge The interrelationships among the basic elements within a

larger structure that enable them to function together Procedural Knowledge How to do something, methods of inquiry, and criteria for

using skills, algorithms, techniques, and methods Metacognitive Knowledge Knowledge of cognition in general as well as awareness and

knowledge of one’s own cognition Appendix B Table of specification for Testing 1 (The Percentage and Number of Questions for Each Section)

Total Theories Good test Construction

of items Statistics Form

s Function

s Preliminarie

s Content

14 % 21 % 21 % 14 % 8 % 8 % 14 % Objective

5

1

1

1

1

-

-

1

Remember 10 %

10

1

2

3

1

1

1

1

Understand 20 %

10

1

2

2

2

1

1

1

Apply 20 %

10

1

2

2

1

2

1

1

Analyze 20 %

10

2

2

2

1

1

1

1

Evaluate 20 %

5

1

1

1

1

-

-

1

Create 10 %

50 7 10 11 7 5 4 6 Total

Instructional Material Farhady, H., Ja'farpour, A., & Birjandi, P. (2004). Testing Language Skills: From Theory to Practice. SAMT Publications: Tehran.

Evaluate Make judgments based on criteria and standards Checking Coordinating

Detecting Monitoring

Testing

Detecting inconsistencies or fallacies within a process or product; determining whether a process or product has internal consistency; detecting the effectiveness of

a procedure as it is being implemented Critiquing Judging Detecting inconsistencies between a product and

external criteria; determining whether a product has external consistency; detecting the appropriateness of a

procedure for a given problem

Categories & Cognitive Processes Alternative Names Definition Create Put elements together to form a coherent or functional whole;

reorganize elements into a new pattern or structure

Generating Hypothesizing Coming up with alternative hypotheses based on criteria

Planning Designing Devising a procedure for accomplishing some task

Producing Constructing Inventing a product

IJALEL 4(4):8-20, 2015 20 Table of specification for Testing 2 (The Percentage and Number of Questions for Each Section)

Instructional Material: Farhady, H., Ja'farpour, A., & Birjandi, P. (2004). Testing Language Skills: From Theory to Practice. SAMT Publications: Tehran.

Total Chapter 16

Chapter 15

Chapter 14

Chapter 13

Chapter 12

Chapter 11

Chapter 10

Chapter 9

Chapter 8

Content

18.5 % 18.5 % 9 % 9 % 9 %

9 % 9 % 9 % 9 % Objective

5

1

1

-

1

-

-

1

1

-

Remember

10 % 10

2

2

-

1

1

1

1

1

1

Understand 20 %

10

2

2

1

1

-

1

1

1

1

Apply 20 %

10

2

2

1

1

1

1

-

1

1

Analyze 20 %

10

2

2

1

1

1

1

1

1

-

Evaluate 20 %

5

1

-

1

-

1

1

-

-

1

Create 10 %

50 10 9 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 Total

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

The Metaphors on International Intervention: A Discourse Analysis of the Sri Lankan English Newspaper Editorials

Jeyaseelan Gnanaseelan

English Language Teaching Unit, Vavuniya Campus of the University of Jaffna Park Road, Vavuniya, Sri Lanka

E-mail: jeya86@hotmail.com

Received: 06-11- 2014 Accepted: 22-01- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015

Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.21 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.21

Abstract The metaphors used in the Sri Lankan English newspaper editorials during the peace talk time (2001-2007) commenting on the international intervention in the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict reveal community based ideological and attitudinal positions of the newspapers published in Sri Lanka. Metaphors literally contribute to our understanding of reality. The frames and scripts used for legitimization and de-legitimization of the issues related to international intervention and facilitation in the peace talk, peace process and monitoring the ceasefire bring out certain realities comfortable to certain people, groups or communities. The binary positions projected in the editorial discourse are identified. Discourse constitutes power in constructing ideational, textual and interpersonal constructs which are ideological. It can transmit and even legitimize power in society. During the peace talk time, the editorials are expected to develop constructive discourse on conflict intervention and resolution to make a positive impact on legislative changes but they display ‘ethno-nationalist’ tendencies. The study analyzes whether the media has been a part of the problem or a part of the solution. Since newspaper and editorial discourses are the constructions of journalists and editors of the elites, the biased ideologies are “hidden or subtle in expressions and often revealed in mild forms”. This study takes up selected editorials of the Sri Lankan English newspapers which appeared mainly during the Memorandum of Understanding between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eezham during that period, to relate the discourse themes with rhetorical and metaphorical features. Keywords: metaphorical discourse analysis, social construction, ethnic conflict, international relations and intervention 1. Introduction The Sri Lankan ethnic conflict has been going on for more than half a century from 1950s to date. It became an intensive armed struggle in 1980s. In 1987, India intervened between the Tamils and Sinhalese, the two major communities, to resolve the crisis. It failed. Then later from 2001 to 2006, international community consisting USA, EU, Norway, and Japan intervened and it failed. This paper analyses the selected editorials of the Sri Lankan English newspapers on the international intervention and ethnic conflict resolution during the period of Ceasefire Agreement (2002- 2006) between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eezham. It traces an ethno-nationalist ideological significance in their editorial construction projecting binary positions in intervention and resolution. Metaphorical construction of cultural and linguistic nationalism and ethnocentrism is analyzed in the editorial constructs of the Sri Lankan English newspapers. The prevalence of these ideologies in the Sri Lankan texts has been studied and confirmed (Abeysekara, 2002; Balachandren, 1999; Bartholomeusz, 2002; Bartholomeusz et al, 1998; de Silva, 2006; Devotta, 2004a, 2004b, 2007; Dharmadasa, 1992; Gunawardena, 1990; Kearney, 1967; Little, 1994; Manor, 1994; Obeyesekere, 1970; Ponambalam, 1983; Smith, 1978; Tambiah, 1986; Uyangoda, 1996; Wilson, 2000 etc,). According to Ponnambalam (1983) in his book, Sri Lanka: The National Question and the Tamil Liberation struggle, ‘after Sri Lanka gained independence from Great Britain in 1948, discrimination toward Tamils increased through government policies and led to resistance. In the late 1970s, the Tamil militants materialized their armed struggle after non-violent resistance groups failed to raise awareness for their cause’. Thus the present day conflict took a significant national as well as international dimension in Sri Lanka where the Sinhalese fighting to maintain control of Sri Lanka to project a Sinhala identity to the country as a whole and the Tamils fighting for an end to discrimination, for equal representation in political and economic affairs and recognition of their traditional homeland in the Northeast of Sri Lanka. 2. Intervention Background 2.1 Indian Intervention The interest of the Indian government in Sri Lankan affairs increased from 1983 through 1987. Numerous attempts at mediation between the Sinhalese and the Tamils failed. The impetus for such intervention was most likely the pressure from the many citizens of Tamil Nadu who were related to the Tamils in Sri Lanka. Finally, the Indian government

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IJALEL 4(4):21-35, 2015 22 military intervened in 1987. Negotiations were held, and the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord was signed on July 29, 1987, by Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President, Jayewardene. The accord stated that the Indian government would not support a separate Tamil state; however, it did recognize the northern and eastern areas as “areas of historical habitation” of the Tamils (Hennayake, 1989). This was eventually enacted as the 13th Amendment. Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF) established order in the north and east. Consequently, the uprising of the JVP, a socialist movement cum Sinhala nationalists took place in the south against the Indian military presence. Few of the demands agreed to in the Agreement were implemented. When the militants refused to disarm its fighters, the IPKF tried to demobilize them by force and ended up in full-scale conflict with the Tamils. Simultaneously, nationalist sentiment led many Sinhalese to oppose the continued Indian presence. Casualties mounted and eventually India pulled out its troops in March 1990. 2.2 International Intervention The war has caused great damage to the population and economy of the country. In 2001, however, the militants announced a unilateral ceasefire just before Christmas 2001. The new United National Front (UNF) government reciprocated the unilateral ceasefire offer and signed an MOU in February 2002. Norway and other Nordic countries monitored the ceasefire through the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM). The militants temporarily pulled out of the peace talks in 2003, citing lack of attention on an interim political solution. The Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) rejected the Interim Self-Governing Authority (ISGA) proposal submitted by the militants for the northeast of the island of Sri Lanka on October 31, 2003. In 2004 the United People Freedom Alliance (UPFA) came to power. The Asian tsunami of late 2004 killed more than 30,000 people in the country. It was hoped that the disaster would bring the warring sides together, but the conflict continued. The militants suggested a Post-Tsunami Operation Mechanism Structure (PTOMS) for rehabilitating the North East victims. But due to the strong opposition from the Sinhala hardliners, and the consequent Supreme Court verdict, it was abandoned. Gradually the situation became complicated by allegations that both sides violated the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA). In light of this renewed violence that erupted in December 2005, ethnic riots and unsolved murders suspected to have been committed by the military and the militants’ attacks followed. A new crisis, and possibly the resumption of a proper war, emerged in July 2006, resulting in the International Community’s skepticism over resumption of the peace talks. At last the CFA was unilaterally abrogated by the government on 16th January 2008. 3. Objective The basic assumption of the Research Problem is the editorial discourse constructions of journalists and editors of the Sri Lankan elite media “hide or express their ideological and attitudinal positions in subtle and mild forms.” The general objective is:

To investigate the metaphorical construction of the editorial discourse of Sri Lankan English newspapers on the international intervention during 2001-2007 to arrive at the ideological and attitudinal positions and its consequent contribution to the sustainable peace of the country.

The paper investigates how the editorial writers construct social reality and shape public opinion. The existing presuppositions (EP) and propositional attitudes (PA) reveal covert and overt positions of the editorial discourse. 4. Theoretical Background Discourse analysis reveals that “the relations between notions such as ideology, discourse, and text have been more complexly reconceptualized” (Canagarajah, 1999, p.30). In the context of the Sri Lankan press, “discourse is the linguistic realization of the social construct, ideology; the abstract paradigms of discourse are linguistically manifested in text” (ibid.). Lyotard (1984) attacked the grand theories, meta-narratives, and totalities which have shackled the heterogeneity of discourses to impose unitary meaning” (Canagarajah,1999, p.32).This study makes use of the frameworks of the Ideological Discourse Analysis (IDA) of Van Dijk and the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of Norman Fairclough for analyzing the media texts. Van Dijk says, “Since newspaper and editorial discourses are the constructions of journalists and editors of the elites, ethno-nationalism is “hidden or subtle in expressions and often revealed in mild forms” (van Dijk, 1995a, 1995b, 1995c). The texts have been often politically analyzed by the political scientists, but not by the linguistic (or discourse) analysts of media discourse in both national and international levels in Sri Lanka. Chilton and Ilyin (1993), Chilton and Lakoff (1995), Chilton (1996), Chilton and Scaffner (1997), have pointed out the crucial conceptual and semantic role metaphors play in the production of political meaning. Since social and political realities are abstract systems of ideas, metaphor is required in order that they are conceptualised and communicated. "Metaphor is one important mode of concept formation and argument construction"(Chilton 1996, p.40) Chilton and Ilyin (1993, p.10), argue that:" A new metaphor, or new use of metaphor, can break up the rigid conceptual frames of an existing political order, introducing new options and stimulating political thought and imagination. For instance, accepting a metaphor may also lead to accepting its underlying analogy and its presuppositions (Musolff, 2004, p.150). The metaphor is a conceptual instrument that enables people to think about situations that are new, complex, and remote. Metaphor creates a common ground or of maintaining contextual continuity and cohesion. Editorial discourse employs metaphors and the cognitive system in use to legimatise the positions of the editorial writers. It persuades giving a distorted picture of metaphors and political discourse, for, “metaphors may communicate something which is difficult to express in literal speech because literal words are lacking” (Gibbs, 1994, p.124; Mio, 1997, p.121); and

IJALEL 4(4):21-35, 2015 23 “metaphors may help in face-threatening situations in which it is more appropriate to speak about a topic in an indirect way” (Chilton, 1996, p.35). Metaphorical discourse uses the cognitive and conceptual view of metaphor outlined by Lakoff and Johnson (1980). Metaphors are a means of understanding something in terms of something else by “mapping” one conceptual domain to another. It helps to know what expressions may potentially be understood metaphorically. Metaphors are pervasive in political discourse. There is a difference between rather conventional metaphors and metaphors of discourse construction which occasionally exploit the principles of conceptual mappings. Looking more closely at a generally-negative evaluation of political discourse it becomes apparent that political writing, which Orwell criticises, also uses stale metaphors, similes, and idioms: “you save much mental effort, at the cost of leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for yourself” (Orwell 1968, p.134). The issue of a metaphor’s effectiveness in persuading an audience has not been uncontested. Psychological studies support the hypothesis of the advantage of metaphor over literal language, such as Sopory’s and Dillard’s (2002) meta-analysis of 24 empirical studies shows. Moreover, changes in social practices may produce new discursive challenges which demand creative response (Fairclough, 1989, pp.169-196). It shows its creativity in metaphorical political discourse necessary to ensure political survival. Scripts as defined by Schank (1998, p.7-9) are a set of expectations about what will happen next in a well known way. Scripts are useful for a variety of reasons. They make clear what is supposed to happen, and what various acts on the parts of others are supposed to indicate. They also make mental processing easier by allowing us to think less. Werth (1999, p.43) defines the concept of frame, developed by Fillmore (1982) - as: "A frame is a sort of "experiential space"...frames represent the distilled experiences of the individual and the speech community centering on specific linguistic expressions. A linguistic expression such as a word...will evoke the whole range of experience which that item is normally involved in"(p.71). In the present study, both scripts and frames are useful to categorise/label the cognitive system used to link past experiences with the event, tracing ideological continuity. 5. Research Methodology Metaphorical Discourse Analysis is useful in analyzing the ways of social construction in editorial discourse using the methods of Social Constructionist Approach (SCA) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The Table given below gives the detail of the Sri Lankan English Newspaper editorials (2001-2007) selected for the study.

Table 1. The Sri Lankan English Newspaper Editorials Selected for the study

Names of the dailies & weeklies

Abbreviated forms (for the analysis)

Proprietors and publications Number of editorials

The Daily News and The Sunday Observer

News: DN & SO Lake House (Government) 397

The Island and The Sunday Island

Island: IS & SI Upali Newspapers Ltd. (Private)

440

The Daily Mirror and The Sunday Times

Times: DM & ST Wijeya Newspapers Ltd. (Private)

250

The Morning Leader and The Sunday Leader

Leader: ML & SL Leader Publications Ltd. (Private)

162

Total 1249 Source: The Primary Survey

6. Analysis of Metaphorical Construction 6.1 The Scripts/Frames of Intervention as a Powerful and Paternalist force The international intervention is seen as the powerful forces giving pressure to the government. The metaphorical references look at this situation negatively, for instance, “Uncle Sam” and “global headman” (The Island, 24 August 2006, editorial, p.8) referring metonymically the U.S.A and “The road to hell” to the Northeast situation to give emphasis to the arguments. The International Community takes the role of the judge and punishes the criminal: “the world powers are on a crusade to democratise the world” (The Island, 12 January 2005, editorial, p. 8). The media appreciate when the International Community acts against the extremists and Tamil Diaspora internationally and criticize when the International Community intervenes in the ethnic conflict resolution and insists on refraining from the military approach. The editorials supported the governments and International Community in resolving the conflicts militarily or with the minimum solution which will not affect the majoritarian nationalist interests; they oppose when the International Community supports the minorities to win their political rights or maximum devolution. The media appreciate when the international non-governmental organizations assist mainly the South in economic development and humanitarian services and when the international community criticizes only the Tamil nationalists. The Island, (20 February 2003, editorial, p.8) in its editorial on “the importance of foreigners” was ‘furious’ that “those who speak about foreign interference and subservience to foreigners are dismissed as ‘Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinists’, frogs-in-the-well etc”. It ridicules that “the most venerated of the species of foreigners amongst us today is the

IJALEL 4(4):21-35, 2015 24 ‘International Peace Monitors’”. “Norway has at various times been perceived by Sinhala nationalist groups as being "pro-Tamil" because of the small but vocal Tamil diaspora in the country” (Goodhand et. al, 2005, editorial, p.40). In the editorial, “Blake, Blake burning bright! You’ve got the Tiger right!” the newly-appointed USA ambassador, Robert Blake, is praised for his warning to the LTTE:

On Tuesday, we had a different Blake speaking of a different Tiger in an entirely different way. It was not about the animal’s ‘fearful symmetry’ or the ‘distant deeps or skies’ burning the fire of its eyes. The new US Ambassador to Sri Lanka Robert O. Blake, putting his diplomatic finger on what really ails Sri Lanka’s peace process, told the press in Colombo that the Tigers were not willing to give up violence. He hit the nail on the head, slap-bang! (The Island, 21 September 2006, editorial, p.8)

However, to the LTTE, “Co-chairs as a scarecrow” (The Island, 09 January 2006, editorial, p.8)- something that looks frightening but not dangerous. Therefore, they should have “a stick and stick approach”:

The Co-chairs who met in Tokyo the other day have said they will have a carrot-and-stick approach to restarting Sri Lanka’s stalled peace talks. We thought they would come out with something innovative at their much flaunted meeting. They are apparently on a wild goose chase: India was the first to experiment with it years ago. It used the carrot on the LTTE, the monster it created and the stick on the JRJ government, which had ruffled its geopolitical feathers. A forced marriage was arranged and the outcome was the birth of a nobody’s baby—Provincial Councils. The Tigers refused to have any more carrots and returned to flesh eating. Then the stick was used generously on them as well but to no avail. The rest is history and we have been holding the ‘baby’ ever since! Today, India talks of neither carrots nor sticks. So, the Co-chairs must adopt a new approach; a stick-and-stick approach. The party that violates the truce—be it the government or the LTTE—and slaps roadblocks on the path to peace should be belaboured with a stick to be specially designed, until the culprit falls in line (The Island, 01 June 2006, editorial, p.8)

The International Community is “running the peace process” as a business. (The Sunday Times, 04 September 2005, editorial, p.12) The ‘international community’ (within quotation) is obsessed with the pain of the unresolved conflict and expresses, “the international euphoria” (The Sunday Leader, 05 December 2004, editorial, p.12). Among the ‘much euphoria resulted among the “international community”’ (The Island, 27 May 2004, p.8) there are “a handful of swashbuckling nations by virtue of their military might enhanced by their nuclear weapons, controlling the destiny of the world” (The Island, 09 October 2006, editorial, p.8). On hearing the LTTE’s interim proposals, the White world thinks that resolving the crisis is the White man’s burden. It goes even a step further and regards the peace process as a trap: “an international conspiracy to capture them in a honey trap”: (The Sunday Times, 07 September 2003, editorial, p.12)

Unfortunately, Sri Lanka is burdened with a set of invertebrate leaders who would shamelessly cringe and crawl before foreign powers and stop at nothing. (The pro-interventionists) want to create an environment for their foreign bosses to control the country in a bigger way and to facilitate the separatist campaign to cut the Sri Lankan melon (The Island, 25 August 2006, editorial, p.8).

The editorials always criticize the internationalization of the conflict but encourage even the LTTE to participate in the meeting when the International Community pledges financial assistance. The International Community is represented as parties interested to solve the crisis: “Yesterday's statement by the US Government, come close on the heels of one by the EU” (The Daily News, 21 August 2004, editorial, p.8). The International Community is the insurer for the losses due to the ill-effects of the peace process and their participation is asserted as an enhancement: “it should also underwrite any agreement reached”; “guarantee the observance of a mutually agreed formal joint ceasefire”; “enhance the chances of minimizing any breaches of the ceasefire.” (The Daily News, 05 February 2002, editorial, p.8). Achieving peace in this context has become a chance for survival given to them. The wide use of "We" in the editorials expresses the ideology of consensus (Fowler 1991, p.49) with which the discourse is being identified. The order of identification is suggestive. A division was constructed between the USA and the European Union with regard to the ban on the LTTE in the West. In hierarchical terms, the US, contrary to India, was expected to play important role in the war and not in the peace process. An attack is always there on their intervention in the political process. This attack often assumes the metaphor of a father and his responsibility towards his children, suggesting its inability to act like an adult, which has resulted in the present situation (the Frame of Whiteman’s Burden). Fairclough (1995b, p.95) points out the use of a similar authoritarian family discourses in the British Press, criticizing the action taken against Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War. The editorials used the same conceptual framework and maintained both opinion coherence and pre-existing polarization in the context of the conflict. The whole event was placed on the script of War on Terrorism. This metaphor corresponds with the Law and order sub-classification of the

IJALEL 4(4):21-35, 2015 25 State as a person metaphor in Chilton and Lakoff (1995, pp.41-42), and in particular with the United States as the World hegemon, the "world policeman" in the "New World Order". The World Bank and the International Community are viewed as paternalist and hegemonic when they are not pro-Sinhalese. The editorial treated President, Chandrika Bandaranayake Kumaratunghe as an ignorant student of good governance and suggested that she needs “a lecture on good governance by a World Bank official, who had become too big for her boots or slippers.” (The Island, 07 March 2005, editorial, p.8); The nation’s capital is quite often substituted for the government as found in the expression, “but Oslo's hope is that” (The Sunday Times, 04 September 2005, editorial, p.12); and sometimes for the name of the country or the bureaucrats who are in power. China is hailed as the “big brother who has come to our aid especially when the chips were down, and no one (other than Pakistan) helped Sri Lanka when the Northern insurgency broke out.” (The Sunday Times, 10 August 2003, editorial, p.12) 6.2 The Scripts/Frames of the Intervention as inappropriate intrusion The editorials generally exhibits the intervention in interference frame and the dictatorship frame (“usurped”, “pressured”, “warned” etc,), accounting for the action of the International Community to sidestep the United Nations. They have negative connotations for the Sri Lankan people. Highlighting their illegal nature and their action in an emotional schema helps (van Dijk 1988a) the readers both to remember and link it with past experiences. The readers inter-textually link with the texts of the international Press on similar crisis. The editorial treats the JVP, a Sinhala Nationalist Party as the family members and regards Sri Lanka’s attempts at sending away the invited guests, the Norwegians: “showing them the door too” (The Sunday Leader, 05 December 2004, editorial, p.12); “Doomed are the peace makers!” (The Island, 14 August 2006, editorial, p.8). This is mainly because of the fact that the Norwegians, according to the editorial, are aliens and are ignorant of the conflict, the activities of the LTTE and their human rights violations in the Wanni region: “the cool salubrious climes of the North Pole” (Norway) versus “the hot impenetrable jungles of the Wanni” and “the Scandinavian monitors appear to have gone to sleep” (The Island, 23 February 2002, editorial, p.8). However, “the Norwegians cannot be blamed because the UNP government and now the UPFA government have given a free rein to the Norwegians to interfere in our internal affairs” (The Island, 17 January 2005, editorial, p.8). The Co-chairs are only “preachers pouring water on a duck’s back. Nobody seems to pay heed to their preaching but they go on pontificating” (The Island, 24 November 2006, editorial, p.8). That their approaches are accused as groundless and blind is presupposed: “the actors in this tragicomedy, the LTTE, government, opposition, Norwegians and Indians are still poles apart in their thinking with no common ground in sight” (The Sunday Leader, 24 August 2003, editorial, p.12). The dignitaries visiting the LTTE are ironically described as, “pilgrims of peace” (The Island, 17 January 2005, editorial, p.8). This is not the case with the India’s intervention because “our Johnnies- come- lately into foreign affairs insisted on India’s presence, only to eat their own words” (The Island, 22 January 2003, editorial, p.8). The editorial is conclusive about the powerlessness of the International Community to bring the LTTE to negotiation:

Where are the Americans, the Japanese, the Vikings, the British and other Europeans—the knights on a mission to slay the dragon of terror? Look for them ` not here` ‘not there` and oh, here they are in a corner, covering their faces in shame! Yes, the brave dragon slayers have reason to be ashamed. Despite their bragging and sabre rattling, they cannot even tame a Tiger (The Island, 22 April 2006, editorial, p.8) So, even if Mr. Akashi had been able to have a private audience with the LTTE leader, he wouldn’t have achieved anything by way of taking the peace process forward. With the Tigers, he may talk the hind legs off a donkey till the cows come home but still return to Tokyo via Colombo without any positive results. Many before him tried to achieve peace in a similar manner only to realise in the end that they all had been barking up the wrong tree (The Island, 09 May 2006, editorial, p.8). It is time that a whip is cracked on the Tigers as the Canadians did. If not, the LTTE will regard this weakness as a blank cheque to continue to do as they please (The Island, 23 April 2006, editorial, p.8).

Japan is warned of the attempts to destroy the basic amenities of the people: “Japan should proceed very carefully on this Sri Lankan issue without treading on the corns of the people” (The Island, 22 January 2003, editorial, p.8) because, “There are already too many cooks involved in preparing this Peace Soup. As the Sri Lankan variant of ‘Too many cooks’ goes... Too many cooks.... soup, soup, soup!” (ibid.) However, scholars of the International Relations justify the intervention. They provided “different elements of the safety net - the U.S. and India providing security guarantees, Norway mediation, Japan funding, etc,” (Goodhand et al., 2005) because, they identify “asymmetry in negotiations tends to favor the government”. The government can access them but they are “not available to guerrilla groups”. This situation pressured the Tamil militants in their dealings with the International Community to “search for legitimacy and political parity with the Government”. The Norwegian negotiators are continuously monitored and are seen accountable for the Ceasefire/Human Rights violations committed by the parties: “the Norwegian role in Sri Lanka's peace bid is meanwhile under the microscope, aggravated by the murder of this country's foreign minister three weeks ago. The Norwegians must be held to account for this assassination” (The Sunday Times, 04 September 2005, editorial, p.12). The Norwegians are blamed for their not able to control the violations as fish trapped on the hook: “but Oslo's hope is that the Sri Lankans' infamous ability

IJALEL 4(4):21-35, 2015 26 to forgive and forget, will get them off the hook” (ibid.); “they wash their hands off the matter” (The Island, 11 April 2005, editorial, p.8). Monitors are as “King Kekille known for his downright stupidity and absurd judgments. That bovine king, like the present day monitors, would let the culprits hauled up before him off the hook and punish a third party” because “they called for the government to disarm the so-called paramilitary groups” (The Island, 16 January 2006, editorial, p.8). The SLMM are engaged in “Sisyphean task” to bring the LTTE into the fold (The Island, 30 May 2006, editorial, p.8)- in Greek mythology, a cruel king of Corinth who was condemned for eternity to roll a boulder up the hill only to have it roll down again just before it reached the top. The editorial titled as “Exchanging the devil for the rascal?” (Rhetorical question) (The Sunday Times, 04 September 2005, editorial, p.12) regards even the rumored “UN intervention” as far worse than Norwegian one. The Norwegians and SLMM are alleged as stealthy cats “pussyfooting on the peace process” (The Sunday Times, 04 September 2005, editorial, p.12) and “darlings of the so-called international community” (The Island, 11 April 2005, editorial, p.8). They are like teachers, who “impart lessons to the Sri Lankan media on ‘responsible journalism’”; they take “swipes at the media and the critics of the terrorists”, but “do not contain the LTTE which poses a threat not only to the peace process but also to their very lives” (ibid.). The approaches of the International Community are criticized as slanted, unreliable and distorted: “Mr. Harrold’s skewed logic and we know Mr. Harrold, we are asking too much from a person like you” (The Island, 07 March 2005, editorial, p.8). When the EU banned the LTTE, Mr. Bauer, the Norwegian diplomat, commented that it would obstruct the ongoing peace process. So he was compared to “King Kekille”:

Incidentally, Mr. Bauer’s swipe at the EU may evoke one’s memories of that legendary king known for his bovine judgments—Kekille. He always set the guilty party free and hanged the innocent. It looks as if we were not without descendants of King Kekille, at least in far away Norway (The Island, 22 August 2006, editorial, p.8). a thorn in the side of the Nordic monitors (The Island, 26 August 2006, editorial, p.8)

The SLMM/Norwegian facilitation is criticized as a disabled, “practically paralysed” (The Sunday Leader, 02 July 2006, editorial, p.12). Whenever the LTTE launches violence, the SLMM does not blame just the LTTE but the “ghosts” (The Island, 10 January 2006, editorial, p.8); “the Vikings appear to be a possessed lot. Wherever they go, they see ghosts” (The Island, 12 June 2006, editorial, p.8). The powerful and active West is personified as a sleeping, inactive person: “The West Must Wake Up” (The Daily News, 07 January 2006, editorial, p.8):

a scarecrow with an old clay pot for the head and that it can do anything and get away with it; no reaction from the Co-Chairs, except for some diplomatic mumbo-jumbo; but the scarecrow looks on with nary a nod of its much hallowed hollow head. (The Island, 09 January 2006, editorial, p.8)

But, successful peace processes depend upon strong inter-personal relationships between protagonists and mediators (Goodhand et. al, 2005, p.31). The LTTE is “allowed to go hell for leather to thrust war on the other”; “compliments and praise sans action to rein in the Tigers smack of a hidden agenda and a sinister move to sweet-talk the government into giving in to the LTTE”; “other than helping rein in the Tigers and making them amenable; the Co-chairs to spell out” (The Island, 09 January 2006, editorial, p.8). “The world-view and organizational culture of guerrilla organizations” has to be distinguished from “those of states”. The intervention “involved building long-term, trusting relationships with key individuals” (Goodhand et. al, 2005, p.31). They say that “the precarious balance of political forces in the South” did not permit such mediation and faces criticism:

Negotiations are, no doubt, the best way to settle a dispute but forcing a legitimate state to subjugate its sovereignty to talks with an intransigent terror outfit without providing any safeguards is tantamount to the strangulation of democracy. Or, it is like throwing a ewe into a Tiger’s cage for mating purposes. The history of peace making in this country has been a long drawn process of throwing a countless number ewes to the Tigers one after the other (The Island, 15 November 2006, editorial, p.8).

The call for intervention is interpreted as lack of vision: “President Chandrika Bandaranayake Kumaranatunghe 's call for the United Nations to get more involved in the peace process here comes as a shot in the dark” (The Sunday Times, 04 September 2005, editorial, p.12). Postponing the conflict resolution is seen as far better than intervention: “internationalizing of what is essentially still a domestic dispute” and “the best is that the peace process be on cold storage now” (ibid.). After Mahinda Rajapakse became the President, “ the people were given the impression that the meddlesome Vikings would be given a thundering kick each in their posterior and sent running whence they had come” (The Island, 11 March 2006, editorial, p.8). The financial intervention in the Northeast is construed as an attempt at rebuilding the pro-Tamil activities of the International Community are seen as shedding light on its intrigue with the LTTE:

(The LTTE) may have oiled many foreign palms during the past few decades. With a great deal of funds at its disposal, it is certainly in a position to offer any foreign official a bribe that he or she cannot refuse. The UN should follow suit, as there are said to be some white skinned closet Tigers in its offices here (The Island, 24 August 2006, editorial, p.8).

IJALEL 4(4):21-35, 2015 27 World Bank Country Director Peter Harrold’s statement to the Sunday Times that the WB recognises the LTTE as a key stakeholder and it would consult the outfit on the disbursement of the funds (six billion rupees) to be channelled through state agencies for rebuilding in the LTTE-controlled areas sheds light on how the closet Tigers in international organisation are clawing Sri Lanka’s sovereignty. He sounds just like Mr. Anton Balasingham, the ideologue of the LTTE. We predicted immediately after the signing of the Ceasefire Agreement, which the then UNF government swallowed hook, line and sinker, international agencies with LTTE sympathizers at the helm would in time to come recognise these areas as ‘an unofficial state’ and by extension the LTTE as the ‘government’ in those parts of the country. (The Island, 07 March 2005, editorial, p.8)

The pro-Tamil activities of the International Community are hated as the activities of real tigers. The rehabilitation activities in the Northeast by international agencies are called as the LTTE intruded ones. Allowing the International Non-governmental Organizations and the International Community to intervene in the conflict under the pretext of rehabilitation means “bartering away sovereignty for a mess of pottage” (The Island, 05 April 2005, editorial, p.8). The editorial argues that while the culture of LTTE is the culture of violence, the culture of the International Community/international aid agencies is the culture of mercenary: “(LTTE) is an organisation that's driven by a culture of guns as opposed to a mercenary one that the lending institutions and donors are wedded to” (The Sunday Times, 07 September 2003, editorial, p.12). The International Community is seen as adding flavor to the conflict resolution cooking and as bidders in the auction: “in a bid to give a special UN flavour to the Sri Lankan peace process” and “the Norwegian role in Sri Lanka's peace bid” (The Sunday Times, 04 September 2005, editorial, p.12). The International Community and Aid agencies are criticized as “the development wizards” (The Sunday Times, 07 September 2003, editorial, p.12) who are supposed to have magical powers and their promises are just a mirage: “a mirage built on the illusory promises of the World Bank” (ibid.). This type was cued in the frequent lexical chunk "refugee exodus", which by having the Jewish exodus from Egypt as a source, highlighted the ordeals of both the Tamil and Muslim communities. The editorials argue that these situations strengthened the "holy" character of the decision to intervene. Instances where the Tamil struggle was characterized as evil, demon were also included in this category. The International Community are named as saviors in a biblical sense: “as saviors of world economies” (ibid.). The economy is portrayed as “shambles”, and the assistance of the International Community is a trade off for peace (The Island, 23 February 2002, editorial, p.8). 6.3 The Scripts/Frames of the Intervention as aids, guaranty and insurance These scripts cue in "courtroom" lexis (murder, guilty etc,) and mostly refer to Prapakaran, the leader of the LTTE, as well as the Tamil militant movements. This comes to legitimize the ‘war against terrorism’ in Sri Lanka. The pro-UNP (the United National Party) media refer them to the SLFP (Sri Lanka Freedom Party), JVP (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna), and JHU (Jathika Hela Urumaya) parties and leaders. Metaphorical construction exploits the social aspect of the conflict. It is “a creative co-production by the readership” when political metaphors develop lives of their own (Chilton, 1996, pp.251-402). Media and politics are engaged in a collaborative interpretation of traditional metaphors by extending it. Some political metaphors seem to have a “poetic effect” in the sense that they trigger very rich interpretations by opening a wide range of “weak implicatures” (Sperber and Wilson, 1995, pp.202-237). The situation is “closely monitored by friendly countries” (The Daily News, 17 Feb. 2003); “Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans” have “many friends and well-wishers in the global arena who desire to help our country emerge successfully out of the worst crisis to plague our society in centuries” (The Sunday Observer, 24 Nov. 2002). But this had happened only when they are pro-government or pro-Sinhalese: “a few of Sri Lanka's closest friends” and “Our close friends in the international community” (The Daily News, 08 Dec. 2005). “The international safety net to strengthen the peace process” is termed as slogans to identify a company or its goals and as an advertising catchy phrase:

The "international safety net" is his (Ranil Wickramasinghe, the leader of the Opposition Party, the UNP) ongoing slogan, and its the same track on which he pursued the peace process having talks with the LTTE through Norwegian facilitation with the global community keeping sentinel. During his tenure as Head of Government, he used the ' international safety net ' to egg Norway on through the US (The Sunday Times, 04 Sept. 2005).

The intervention is named as the sentry (ibid.). The international relations is looked at as the pressure of the International Community on the LTTE: “the Government has urged the international community to exert maximum pressure on the LTTE to desist from such attacks” (The Daily News, 08 Dec. 2005); “to pressure the outfit to open up their ‘unofficial state’” (The Island, 07 March, 2005). The International Community is given the job of controlling only the LTTE not the Sri Lankan Security Forces:

No fruitful session of talks could take place amid booming guns and exploding bombs. These weapons of violence have to be silenced and hostilities have to be suspended if the proposed talks are to produce the desired results. There should also be a solid guarantee against any attempt by the LTTE to reinforce its military capability during talks. (The Daily Mirror, 14 Sep. 2006)

IJALEL 4(4):21-35, 2015 28 The US support is praised as the model for democratic practice: “substantially boosted”; “should further energise the State's search”; “unflagging zeal”; “a vital segment of democratic opinion in the West is unambiguously siding with it”; “being synonymous with democratic vibrancy”; “this citadel of representative governance in the West”; “this positive opinion”; “a substantial segment of global opinion” (The Daily News, 07 Jan. 2006). The development assistance is named as “bonanza” for building the state unto them (The Island, 27 May, 2004). The Northeast is usually described as battered and impoverished areas, which threaten to pull in the development aid to the country:

The view of the Japanese is that there must be peace before they pump in the buckshee for the development of this country. The World Bank is now echoing (though it's not a new song ) the view of the Japanese that there must be peace in the country before they pump in the dollars or the yen and the kroners to develop it, especially in the battered and impoverished areas of the North and the East. (The Sunday Times, 07 Sept. 2003)

It resists the World Bank and Japan’s precondition of peace. There is a conflict of reasoning. Though it accepts the Northeast as “battered and impoverished”, it belittles the situation in giving priority to the norm of “money first, peace later”. It accuses the international aid institutions as the echoes of the International Community. It can change and impact the attitudes of the Sinhala Majority Community to be positive. The International Community should take “the risk of throwing some good money down the river in the greater cause of the pursuit of democracy and the rule of law in a nation” (The Sunday Times, 07 Sep. 2003). Development is, insisted here as, the real solution, not a political one:

Japanese envoy Yashushi Akashi learnt (Learner Frame) that the LTTE did not buy that line themselves (Traping Frame). The reason being, that over the decades, these billions have not filtered (Filter Frame) to the ordinary people, and this mess of pottage (Too many cooks-cooking-the soup Frame) mean nothing really to the ordinary folk of the north or south. On the other hand, had the co-chairs invested some of these funds into the country (Topicalization), including the war-ravaged north and east (Secondary Position), and put their money where their mouth is, the people of the north and east would have accrued some tangible benefits (Apparent Compassion & Altruism Moves), and acted as a red-rag to the war-mongering LTTE leadership, whose clearly unreasonable demand of ISGA (Interim Self-governing Authority), and nothing but ISGA, seems to have escaped the co-chairs' wrath for the log-jam. In this Christmas season, all we can pray for is 'God save Sri Lanka’. (The Sunday Times, 26 Dec. 2004)

6.4 The scripts/Frames of the India’s intervention as invasion Half a century old history of the conflict is placed in a wider "regional security and pan-Tamil Eelam tendency" schema. The lexicalization includes India in countering the LTTE, highlighting the nexus between Tamil Nadu and the Northeast of Sri Lanka and the ethnic similarities that led to the support for the struggle. By placing this war on these "chronicles", its nature and THEIR qualities have been highlighted in terms of their historic continuation. India’s reluctance to send military assistance and ground troops is illuminated within a wider terrorist script. The danger to the personified India’s security (reminiscent of the Cold War era), has now become not China or the US, but "terrorist organizations in the South Asia". By assigning the militant organizations the role of a gangster and exposing their illegal character, the discourse implies the need for "policing". They are "inside" India and this "policing" is for the regional stability: “as the LTTE evolved, they turned closer home, to India, for their training and funding, going on to master the art of the suicide bomber” (Neighborhood House script) (The Sunday Times, 14 Nov. 2004). The choice of Norway, its low key and limited agenda made sense in several respects. First, Norway was seen as an acceptable, non-threatening mediator (Goodhand et. al, 2005, p.23) by the two protagonists as well as India, for whom Sri Lanka “is more like India’s backyard” (The Daily Mirror, 06 May, 2004 and IS 22 Jan. 2003); “a bully’s buddy”:

Minister of Tourism Anura Bandaranaike has told Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Nirupama Rao a home truth. He has asked her in plain English to mind her own business without getting too big for her slippers. He has reminded her of the bitter experience of J. N. Dixit, who had hubris and chutzpah oozing from every diplomatic pore of his (The Island, 08 Sep. 2006).

It regards India’s interference as hegemonic and self-interested. Sri Lanka is portrayed as subservient to India and as a prostitute to the International Community and India:

Of course, (Inter-personal expression) who plays what role is essentially a concern of Sri Lanka, if we still do consider our country to be a sovereign, independent republic but in recent years our foreign policy has been to crawl on all fours to New Delhi, even on issues that do not concern India’s security. And with this ‘Peace Process’, Madame Lanka has become everybody’s darling in the bazaar – anybody who has currency in his pocket being welcome (The Island, 22 Jan. 2003)

The conflict is made into a spectacle and India’s intervention is described as causing pain to the Sri Lankans (ibid.); Indian policies and interventions are seen as flawed. The international relations is shown as problematic and antagonistic but “the hatchet was buried”:

IJALEL 4(4):21-35, 2015 29 Sri Lanka's relationship with India seems to have come a full circle. Last week, New Delhi hysterically drew attention to the Sea Tigers and the LTTE's burgeoning air force. New Delhi was, we were told, "concerned." Ah, what short memories those Machiavellian marvels in Delhi have. They have conveniently forgotten how it was that from 1977 to 1987 India's notorious Research and Analysis Wing trained by the KGB, wreaked havoc in Sri Lanka by training, arming and harbouring LTTE cadres in South India.(The Sunday Leader, 15 May, 2005)

According to the editorial, India’s approach is unstable and disastrous. The LTTE air force is amplified as a threat to India. The Indian authorities choose to forget the way they served as patrons to the Tamil militants. India’s realization of the LTTE’s excess is criticized as too late and absurd: “it was only after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 that India finally thought the LTTE had gone too far”; for “India now to lament that the Tigers have got rather above themselves is both hypocritical and puerile and the disastrous 13th Amendment and the disastrous provincial councils system”; “Delhi has begun grumbling about the prowess of the Sea Tigers and the rebels' incipient air force”; “it is past time that India's perfidy should be exposed but in the past, its relations with the Tamil militants are the shows of bonhomie and camaraderie”; “to keep an ace up their sleeve to make sure they can turn on the tap of violence when the fancy takes them”; “Rajiv Gandhi and his viceroy in Colombo, Mani Dixit, had Sri Lanka dancing to their tune”; “New Delhi changes its ways. Like a scorpion, all it knows to do is sting” (ibid.). However, the media has always suppressed the historical event of the attack of a Sinhala Soldier on Rajiv Gandhi and the Soldier’s popularity among the Sinhala community for having done so. The Research Analysis Wing (RAW) is accused as notorious and “continued to play ducks and drakes”; “RAW is so anxious to finance the JVP”. The Tamil militants “were RAW's loyal henchmen, largely financed by the Indian taxpayer”. India’s intervention in 1987’s is seen as an invasion: India “intervened, demanding threatened to invade”; “launched”; “entered Sri Lanka's territorial waters illegally and by force”; “‘in a blatant act of war, Indian Air Force fighters and bombers invaded Sri Lankan airspace and over-flew Jaffna”; “a naked display of power intended to cow the Colombo government into submission”. That the Tamils welcoming India is falsified as “the cheers of LTTE cadres lining the streets of Jaffna, strewing flowers in their path” (The Sunday Leader, 15 May, 2005). Thus it suppresses the fact that it was only the Sinhalese who were against the Indian intervention but India is always evasive: “New Delhi clearly hit the ball into our court” (The Daily Mirror, 06 May, 2004). In a sarcastic tone, India is called as mother: “Sri Lanka has come a full circle in its relationship with Mother India. "Some mother!" you may say, but the fact ‘remains that we have to learn to live with India”. The caring mother India becomes an object of danger: “Mother India might threaten, cajole and bribe politicians into submission, but it is time the Sri Lankan people came to grips with the peril that lurks across the Palk Straits. Mother India is running amok” (ibid.). India is blamed as the paternalist to the Tamil insurrection “having kick-started the entire insurrection has done the Indian rope trick and washed their hands off”. The international relations are criticized as unreliable, tricky and evasive: “Their priorities today are not in the Wanni and other remote places but the Washington defence establishment to play nuclear games”. (The Sunday Leader, 02 July, 2006). India, it says, has no moral right to advise Sri Lanka on the resolution and human rights issues:

Once a father blew a gasket on seeing a report card his son brought him after a school test. It had single digits against most subjects. "Is this how you are faring? You are a complete failure. Shame on you!" the exasperated father yelled. "No, dad, that’s not mine. It’s one of your old reports I managed to dig out," said the son, handing over his own report (which was no better than the big man’s). Moral: Failures must be wary of faulting other failures! India is behaving like that father and Sri Lanka like the son. Crabs that move sideways, it is said, want their young ones to walk straight! (The Island, 27 Nov. 2006)

The traditional homeland of the Tamils was recognized by the merger of the North and the East by the Indo-Lanka Agreement 1987. Later it was declared as null and void by the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka in 2006. It was regarded as a “merger most foul”:

The real tragedy is not so much the made-in-India merger, which JRJ carried out under duress but the fact that it had been taken for granted for so long in spite of the public knowledge that it was illegal. Later the merger became a sort of holy cow which no one wished to touch (The Island, 17 Oct. 2006) The merger itself, as freely acknowledged, was forced down the country’s throat by India which having created the LTTE monster sought to defang it somewhat through the Indo–Sri Lanka Agreement of 1987. The long touted Tamil ``homeland’’ theory has been effectively and conclusively demolished and it is not necessary to re-tread that path all over again for the purposes of this commentary. It is “the hot potato” (The Island, 22 Oct. 2006).

The metaphor found in the U.S as a World policeman (Chilton and Lakoff 1995, p.42) is transferred to India, which is seen as a regional policeman. The justification of the ‘policing’ is given, in the presence of “criminals like the LTTE”. Attributing criminal characteristics to the LTTE comes to suggest the causes of the war and maintains a polarisation of

IJALEL 4(4):21-35, 2015 30 ‘good’ and ‘bad’, thus strengthening the need for ‘policing’ or it is put in another law and order frame. The Sunday Times, The Daily News and The Island always comment on “India's policies and pressures” on the ethnic conflict and peace process and its “continued support and neutrality” at present. They always advocate “friendship with India” but with caution. The media reflects the prejudice that “India consisting a sixty-five millions of Tamils is always supportive to the Sri Lankan Tamils”. The Sri Lankan Tamils are the settlers and invaders from South India and during the last two thousand years of Sri Lankan history. The suspicion towards Tamils is extended to the Indians in general. So, there is always alertness at any Indian involvement in Sri Lanka. Col. R Hariharan, a retired Indian Military Intelligence specialist on South Asia, served as the head of intelligence of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka 1987-90, associated with the South Asia Analysis Group and the Chennai Centre for China Studies describes the Sinhalese obsession with the Tamils:

“This convergence and confusion in view points of India and Sri Lanka will continue till the President is dependent upon right wing Sinhala support. This section of Sinhala polity has survived by building up the so called "Dravidastan" bogey of Tamil Nadu together with the LTTE gobbling up parts of Sri Lanka”. (Hariharan, 2008)

The editorials always‘re-contextualize’ the theme of terrorism making the Tamil militants as the only agents of violence.

Terrorism is like water, which takes the shape of the vessel it is in. The reason why the world has failed to remove the scourge of terror is that the world powers have got distracted by the labels of their own making. This has led to the emergence of two types of terrorists—‘their terrorists’ and ‘our terrorists’. Some have sought to explain the double standards on the part of the world leaders. Those who are waging the global war on terror are driven not by their desire to rid the world of terrorism or their concern for Christianity but by their thirst for oil as well as other politico-economic interests (The Island, 29 Sep. 2006).

“‘The Tamil Problem’ can be resolved through discussions and negotiations in a civilised manner with any government.” The Island, (07 Dec. 2004) pointing out the failure, says: “some Tamils complain that these problems have remained for decades and nothing been done about them and certainly there are many problems to be resolved which have dragged on over decades” but “in other quarters Tamils enjoy even greater rights than the Sinhalese such as the freedom to live freely in any part of the country enjoying their rights although no Sinhalese or Muslim could do so in the Northern Province” (Apparent contrast Move). However, Hariharan, (2008) distinguishes the effects from the causes:

“President Rajapaksa’s government has repeatedly given an impression that once the LTTE is vanquished it would be all smooth sailing with the Tamil population automatically joining the democratic mainstream. It appears to identify the LTTE as the problem, rather than as the manifestation of the problem.”

The North and East of the island have been claimed as the traditional homeland by the Tamil-speaking community. The territoriality of the Tamil and the Sinhala communities has instilled the idea of cultural nationalism and ethno-nationalism in contrast to statist nationalism. (i) on 16th October, 2006, in a judgment that could have far-reaching consequence, the Sri Lankan Supreme Court declared as illegal the merger of the Northern and Eastern Provinces to form a single Tamil-dominated North-Eastern Province as the place of “historical habitation” Gans, (2003) of the Tamils (Ponnambalm, 1983) (ii) on 14 May 2007, the SLFP government formally declared that Sri Lanka be a "unitary state" instead of the International Community- advocated ‘federal state’. In parallel to the Tamils claim of the Northeast as their traditional homeland, the Sinhalese make a counterclaim of the whole island as their traditional homeland. The Daily Mirror (19 Oct. 2006) applauds the Supreme Court judgement on the de-merger as “path-breaking”. The political campaign of the Sinhala nationalists is seen as “persistent”. It is a “legal remedy” to the ill-treatment or infected disease of the Sinhala community, “the merger of the Northern and Eastern provinces” which was “illegal”. It constructs an emotional attachment to this verdict as it is “to their heart’s content”. The editorial resistance is transferred as the judicial resistance. “Twenty years after”, taken from The Island dated 24th of July, 2003 has this to say:

Whatever the causes that led to these shameful incidents, the bestial acts that were committed on innocent citizens of this country cannot be excused. It was a time when India for the first time appeared in the form of a monster attempting to gobble up this little island (Binary: Aggressors versus Victims).

“The bestial acts” of the ‘Sinhala goondas’ during the ethnic riot in 1983 are compared equally with ‘the monsterization of India’ and ‘the terrorization of the Tamil militants,’ so that the intensive effect of the former is lessened. Now it is the Sri Lanka which was the victim. The demonization frame is evoked in the nature of beast positioned against monster which is far worse.

IJALEL 4(4):21-35, 2015 31 7. Findings and Discussion In Sri Lankan context, the discourse themes help the construction of binary positions, through the use of US and THEM. According to van Dijk (1991, p.13), the term ‘THEM’ refers to deviance and threats, viz., threats to OUR country, space, population composition, and ethnic representation in political power, employment, education etc. It recognizes the concerns of dominant group, their prejudices, group norms and goals, as well as dominant ideologies. He says that ethnic minorities are linked to the prominence and availability of the overall social cognitions such as (a) Socio-cultural difference and lack of adjustment and tolerance; (b) Deviance of established (dominant) norms (including terrorism, violence and crime); (c) Competition for scarce resources (educational, economic and natural recourses). Johnson’s (2005) project titled as Proposition 203: A Critical Metaphor Analysis draws on Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) work with metaphor analysis to uncover the rhetorical strategies applied by supporters of the English for the Children organization during the 2000 Arizona Proposition 203 campaign. The data were from three sources: (a) The Arizona Republic; (b) the East Valley Tribune; and (c) the 2000 Arizona Voter Information Pamphlet. Grounded in Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough &Wodak 1997; Johnstone 2002; Schiffrin 2002), Santa Ana’s (2002) metaphor analysis framework was applied to expose the metaphors used to denigrate bilingual education and those who support it, as well as the underlying ideology behind biased legislation like Proposition 203. Metaphors were analyzed in terms of the cognitive entailments produced by their source and target domains. In general, the overall debate between bilingual education and Proposition 203 was characterized as a WAR. The results show that extra emphasis was placed on portraying bilingual education as a FAILURE and situating minority-language students as VICTIMS. Conversely, English was enshrined in the media as the key to the “American Dream.” This work exemplifies the analytical power of critical discourse analysis by illustrating how language is utilized as a tool for political ends. After the victory over the Tamil militants in May 2009, the editorials almost backgrounded the significance of resolving the conflict politically and started commenting on the positive dimensions of the victory over terrorism, especially economic development and the outcomes of the provincial, parliamentary and presidential elections and resettlement and rehabilitation. All the editorials constructed a situation that economic development of the country is the real solution to the ethnic conflict. In the metaphors, scripts and frames of the International Intervention in the peace process as a powerful and paternalist force, there are two binaries: (1) Pressure on the LTTE versus on the Government and (2) the Good versus the Evil. They project US as the angels and THEM as the demons, the international community/USA as teachers, as rescuers and saviors, as paternalist and sponsor, as the Almighty and Omnipotent and as the World hegemon and world policeman, as the insurer, and as the crusaders of democracy. The ethnic conflict resolution is metaphorized as the white man burden. The ideological and attitudinal positions behind these metaphorical projections are that the intervention is accused as international conspiracy and hegemonic interference, the intervention is preferred to be dominantly a War on Terrorism and Norway, the facilitator, is criticized as the proxy of the USA. Metaphorical Framing Analysis is an apt tool in discourse analysis. Ross (2002) used it in the study on ‘An American Frame: New York Times Editorial Discourse on Palestine and Israel’. This research examines the editorial framing of international violence and terrorism through its commentary about Palestinian/Israeli conflict before and after this “critical discourse moment (Sep 11 Attack)”. The present study owes much to Ross’ analysis to study the possible effects of major news events upon newspaper framing. Gamson (1992) has called them as the cataclysmic events that tend to galvanize public attention. It examines the interaction between news discourse and the construction and negotiation of public discourse about issues. The present study attends to the discursive strategy of the binary positions extended to trifurcated classification that categorizes conflict as "yours, mine, or ours" in this framing analysis. In the metaphors, scripts and frames of the Intervention as Inappropriate Intrusion, there are four binaries: (1) Intervention versus interference, (2) Pro-LTTE versus Pro-GoSL, (3) Terrorism versus democracy and (4) Internationalization versus intra-nationalization. They project the intervening countries and international Non-governmental Organizations as dictators and ‘our Johnnies who come lately into foreign affairs’, as teachers, as intriguers plotting with the LTTE, as aliens indifferent and ignorant and as stealthy cats. Norway’s cool weather is compared to that of the Wanni as hot. Norway is fish trapped on the hook. These countries are ‘too many cooks preparing the peace soup’. They are metaphorized as a sleeping, inactive persons, as mercenary wedded to the LTTE, as adding flavor to the conflict resolution cooking, as bidders in the auction, as the development wizards and their promises as illusive mirage, as critics of the media and of the critics of the terrorists’ and as pilgrims of peace. The ideological and attitudinal positions behind these metaphorical projections are that the Norwegians are blamed as unable to control the Ceasefire Agreement/Human Rights violation in facilitation process, the international community favours the LTTE and the aspirations of the Tamils, the international community is in intrigue with the LTTE to destroy the sovereignty of Sri Lanka, the Tamil-oriented Northeast rehabilitation projects of international agencies are named as the LTTE intruded ones and the ethnic conflict resolution is 'over internationalized' and 'the international community-imposed' and it is not practicable. In the metaphors, scripts and frames of the Intervention as Aids, Guaranty and Insurance, there are two binaries: (1) Friend versus Enemy and (2) Aid without condition versus Aid with Condition. They project the international community as the providers of the international safety net, the international relations as slogans, and the international community as the guarantors. The development assistance is projected as bonanza and as water flowing. The ideological and attitudinal positions behind these metaphorical projections are that the Sri Lankan and international

IJALEL 4(4):21-35, 2015 32 community relations should be seen as the pressure of the international community on the LTTE, the international community should control only the LTTE not the government forces, and the development aid should be so generous without any serious conditions on the ethnic conflict resolution. In the metaphors, scripts and frames of the India’s Intervention as Invasion and Hegemony, there are four binaries: (1) interference versus intervention, (2) historical causes versus ahistorical causes, (3) Indian versus Sri Lankan security and (4) the Tamil minority community treachery versus the Sinhala Majority community innocence in the Rajiv Assassination. They project Sri Lanka as India’s backyard and as India's servant. The Sinhala majority community is projected as innocent to India and the Tamil minority community as treacherous to India. India and Indian intervention are portrayed as Machiavellian and the Research and Analysis Wing (the Indian Intelligence) as the evil designer. India’s intervention in 1987 is projected as invasion. India was ‘the repenting mother’ and the Tamil militancy as her troublesome child. India’s international relation is figured as playing games and India as a regional policeman. The ideological and attitudinal positions behind these metaphorical projections are that Indian intervention is considered as hegemonic interference and seen as unstable and disastrous. The media exploit the inter-textual and interpersonal functions of discourse to make persuasive statements about the ethnic conflict and peace contextualized and co-textualized in the scripts of “war against terrorism”, “global security”, “New World Order,” “national security and sovereignty”. ‘The International Community’s double standard’ is constructed through these grand narratives. The International Community’s sympathy towards the Tamil community and their contacts with the Tamil leadership, were seen as internationalization of the conflict and supporting terrorism and separatism. These relations were hinted as creating ‘many problems’. The Tamils’ political struggle can be easily solved once ‘the terrorism’ is suppressed – the major obstacle for reaching a solution –whereas the problem of party rivalry and absence of southern consensus are neglected. Ross and Bantimaroudis (2006) researched on ‘Frame Shifts and Catastrophic Events: The Attacks of September 11, 2001, and New York Times's Portrayals of Arafat and Sharon’. It is a Quantitative content analysis of the editorials and news coverage of the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian territories in The New York Times for one year. The present study is also interested in the frames of ‘global war on terrorism’ developed after this event. It examines the hypothesis that following major global events, such as the September 11 attacks, media frames of distinct, yet thematically related coverage shift to rally around the government elite frame. Evidence partially supports frame shifting but indicates that frames also become more diverse rather than echo dominant views. The editorials de-legitimize the power of the international community over Sri Lanka within aggressor versus victim frame. They always legitimize the positions of the Sinhala community and de-legitimize those of the Tamil community. The ethno-nationalist extremism and its intransigence in denial of devolving power are backgrounded. They gloat on the illusive scripts and frames of globalization and national security and exploit these universal terms of abstraction. Thus the media pay less attention to the violations of human rights of the minorities at the national level. Stability and security of the states and regions under the pretext of the global and regional commitments of India and USA are presented through the use of ‘Deliberative future-oriented rhetoric’. Thus the International Relations are foregrounded disregarding the intra-national relations. Globalization and political liberalism can be a cover-up for discrimination at the intra-state level for pursuing ethno-nationalist governance and lopsided foreign policy interests. So ‘the present-oriented epideictic (ceremonial) rhetoric’ is developed to support ‘suppressing terrorism and violence’. The ‘past-oriented judicial (forensic) rhetoric’ is used in balancing the dominant community-induced political causes of the conflict: (1) the invasions of the Tamils from South India from the ancient period; 2) the assistance and support of India in the 80s; 3) the west’s support to the Tamil community and the militants till now. In their persuasive strategy with the rhetoric elements of logos, ethos, and pathos, the use of emotional appeals shows the negative impacts of the struggle and stresses the need for economic development. Ethical proofs are developed to contain terrorism which serves the political interests of Sri Lanka. Logical reasoning and proofs retain the unitary nature of Sri Lanka by integrating the political and economic interests in the international relations. Economic globalization (‘political globalization’) in Sri Lanka implicates the International Community in the conflict in the name of safeguarding their investment interests so that the political governance and sovereignty of Sri Lanka can be ‘insured’ in these power blocs. Thus, as the literature review of the past researches revealed, an important characteristic of ideological discourse is its reliance on binary language. For example, according to Said (1978), the ideology, Orientalism, is a dichotomous Western worldview based on “an ontological and epistemological distinction” (p. 2) between the so-called Orient and the West. In addition to using a dichotomous language, ideological construction uses an essentialist discourse, universalizing certain traits and characteristics (ibid.). 8. Conclusion The basic assumption of the research problem has been established: the metaphorical editorial discourse constructions (of journalists and editors of the Sri Lankan elite media) hide or express their ideological and attitudinal positions in subtle and mild forms. The media’s failure in distinguishing “Sinhala people” from “Sri Lankan people” has alienated the minority communities to lose confidence in media’s contribution to nation-building. Both the Sinhala and Tamil Press have played a negative role in sharpening the ethnic conflict. The discourse generally lacks the well-known (obligatory) Resolution category (Gamson, 1992). The minority groups and the International Community are assumed to create all kinds of problems for the majority. The ideological value structure of such editorials emphasizes order,

IJALEL 4(4):21-35, 2015 33 authority, and control: the Tamil community should be obedient, patriotic, and loyal, and if they do not obey the law, then they will have to suffer the ‘inevitable actions’ of the radical Sinhala nationalists. The editorials reveal the ‘intent and content’, ‘insular and secular’ approaches, and ‘commands and demands’ of the dominant community. The findings are the result of an analysis of a particular genre in its time and space. Therefore, this study claims that since the genre of the editorial is dynamic and always in flux due to the change in the contexts, especially the editorial committees, the Sri Lankan English newspaper editorial discourse may have different positions in future. Hence, these findings need not be construed as fixed positions. The changing current political circumstances in this post-war, development-focused scenario may positively or negatively influence the ideological and attitudinal positions of the media elites in Sri Lanka. This work has challenged long-held beliefs about the media’s engagement in constructing a positive atmosphere, especially amidst the intensive emotional and ideological historical conflict. The media seem to be inadequate in revealing the forces underlying ethnic violence in the context of political and economic dynamics of globalization. Acknowledgement I am grateful to the University Grants Commission of Sri Lanka for their financial support for the whole research. Reference Abeyasekara, A. (2002). Colors of the Robe: Religion, Identity and Difference. Colombia: University of South Carolina Press. Balachanddran, P.K. (1999). Buddhist Monks feel the heat for theory of Hindu-Muslim take over of Lanka,” Hindustan Times, August 30. 1999: Delhi. Bartholomeusz, T. J. (2002). In Defence of Dharma: Just-War Ideology in Buddhist Sri Lanka. London: Routledge Curzon. Bartholomeusz, T. J., and Chandra R. de Silva. (1998).Buddhist fundamentalism and identity in Sri Lanka. In Bartholomeusz, Tessa J., and Chandra R. de Silva, eds. 1998. Buddhist Fundamentalism and Minority Identities in Sri Lanka. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Canagarajah, A. Suresh. (1999). Resisting Linguistic Imperialism in English Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Canagarajah, A. Suresh. (2002). The Problem. A Geopolitics of Academic Writing: Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. p.7. Chilton, P.A (1996) Security Metaphors: Cold War Discourse from Containment to Common House. New York. Washington. DC/Baltimore. Bern. Frankfurt am Main. Berlin. Vienna. Paris: Peter Lang Chilton, P. and Ilyin M. (1993) Metaphor in political discourse: the case of the "common european house”. Discourse and Society. Vol.4/1, London: Sage. Chilton, P. and Lakoff G. (1995) Foreign policy by metaphor in Schaffner C. and Wenden A.L’ (Eds), Language and Peace.Hants, Vermont: Dartmouth Chilton, P. and Schaffner C (1997) Discourse and Politics in van Dijk T.A (Ed). Discourse as social Interaction. London, California, New Delhi: Sage. de Silva, Chandra R. (2006). Buddhist monks and peace in Sri Lanka. In Deegalle, ed. Buddhism, Conflict and Violence in Modern Sri Lanka. London: Routledge. Devotta, Neil. (2004a). Sri Lanka: Ethnic domination, violence and illiberal democracy. In Alagappa, Muthiah, ed. 2004. Civil Society and Political Change in Asia: Expanding and Connecting Democratic Space. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Devotta, Neil. (2004b).Blowback: Linguistic Nationalism, Institutional Decay and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Devotta, Neil. (2007). Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology: Conflict Resolution in Sri Lanka. Policy Studies 40: Washington: East West Centre. Retrieved May 13, 2007, from http://www.eastwestcenter.org/fileadmin/stored/pdfs/ps040.pdf Dharmadasa, K.N.O. (1992). Language, Religion, and Ethnic Assertiveness: The Growth of Sinhala Nationalism in Sri Lanka. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press Fairclough, N. (1989): Language and Power, Longman. Fairclough, N. (1995): Ideology and identity Change in political television. In Fairclough, N., Critical Discourse Analysis, Longman. Fillmore, C. (1982). Frame semantics. In Linguistics in the Morning Calm, ed. by The Linguistic Society of Korea, 111-137. Soeul: Hanshin. Fowler R (1991). Language in the News: Discourse and Ideology in the Press. London and New York: Routledge Gamson, W.A. (1992). Talking Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.

IJALEL 4(4):21-35, 2015 34 Gans, Chaim (2003) The Limits of Nationalism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gibbs, R. W. (1994). The Poetics of Mind. Figurative Thought, Language and Understanding: Cambridge. Goodhand, J., Klem, B., Fonseka, D., Keethaponcalan, S.I, and Sardesai, S. (2005) Aid, Conflict, and Peacebuilding in Sri Lanka 2000 – 2005, Colombo: The Asia Foundation. Gunawardena, R.A.L.H. (1990). The people of the lion: The Sinhala identity and ideology in the history and historiography. In Spencer Jonathan, ed. 1990. Sri Lanka: the History and the roots of Conflict. London: Routledge. Hariharan, R. (2008). War, peace & relations across palk straits. Features, the Island, Retrieved August 23, 2008, from <http://www.island.lk/2008/08/23/features1.html> Hariharan, R. (2008b). Sri Lanka: Understanding each other’s ‘concerns’. An article published in The Island newspaper on October, 15 2008. Retrieved October 15, 2008, from http://www.island.lk/2008/10/15/features1.html Hennayake, S. K. (1989). The Peace Accord and the Tamils in Sri Lanka. Asian Survey 29, no. 4 Johnson, Eric (2005). Proposition 203: A Critical Metaphor Analysis. Bilingual Research Journal, 29: 1 Spring 2005. Arizona State University. Retrieved November 03, 2007, from http://brj.asu.edu/content/vol29_no1/art4.pdf Johnstone, B. (2002). Discourse analysis. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Kearney, R. N. (1967).Communalism and Language in the Politics of Ceylon. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Lakoff G. and Johnson M. (1980) Metaphors We Live By Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press Little, David. (1994). Sri Lanka: The Invention of Enemy. Series on Religion, Nationalism and Intolerance. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press. Lyotard, J.F. (1984). The Post-modern Conditions: a Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Quoted in Suresh. A. Canagarajah’s (1999)Resisting Linguistic Imperialism in English Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Manor, James. (1994). Organizational Weakness and the Rise of Buddhist Extremism. In Marty, Martin E., and R. Scott Appelby eds. 1994. Accounting for Fundamentalism: The Dynamic Character of Movements. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Mio, J. S. (1997): Metaphor and Politics, in: Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 12 (2), 113-133. Musolff, A. (2004): Metaphor and Political Discourse. Analogical Reasoning in Debates about Europe, Basingstoke, New York. Obeyesekere, G.(1970). Religious symbolism and political change in Ceylon. Modern Ceylon studies 1:43-63. Orwell, G. (1968). Politics and the English language, in: George Orwell: The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell. In Front of Your Nose: 1945-1950, Sonia Orwell/Ian Angus (ed.), vol. 4, London, 127-140. Ponambalam, S. (1983). Srilanka: The National Question and the Tamil Liberation struggle. London: Zed Books. Retrieved September 18, 2007, from http://www.tamilnation.org/books/Eelam/satchi_ponnambalam.htm#1.3_The_National_Question_ Ross, S. D. (2002). An American frame: New York Times editorial discourse on Palestine and Israel. Retrieved December 14, 2006, from http://www.portalcomunicacion.com/bcn2002/n_eng/programme/prog_ind/papers/d/pdf/d003_dente.pdf Ross, S. D. & Bantimaroudis, P. (2006). Frame shifts and catastrophic events: The attacks of September 11, 2001, and New York Times's portrayals of Arafat and Sharon. Mass Communication & Society 2006, Vol. 9, No. 1, Pages 85-101. Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books. Santa Ana, O. (2002). Brown tide rising. Austin: University of Texas Press. Schank. R. (1998). Tell Me A Story: Narrative and Intelligence: Northwestern University Press Schiffrin, D. (2002). Approaches to discourse. Oxford, England: Blackwell Smith, B. L. (1978). Religion and legitimation of Power in Srilanka. Chambersburg, PA:Anima Books. Sopory, P. & James P. D. (2002):The Persuasive effects of metaphor. A meta-analysis, in: Human Communication Research,28 (3), 382-419. Sperber, D. & Wilson, D. (1995): Relevance. Communication and Cognition, 2. Aufl., Malden, Oxford. Tambiah, S. J. (1986). Srilanka: Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Uyangoda, J. (1996). Militarization,Violent State, Violent society: Srilanka. In Rupesinghe, Kumar and Khawar Mamtaz eds.(1996). Internal Conflicts in South Asia. London: Sage Publications. van Dijk, T. (ed.) 1985. Handbook of discourse analysis, 4 vols, Academic Press. van Dijk, T. A. (1991). Racism and the press. London: Routledge. van Dijk, T. A. (1995a). Power and the news media. In D. Paletz (Ed.), Political Communication and Action. (pp. 9-36). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. van Dijk, T. A. (1995b). Ideological Discourse Analysis. New Courant (English Dept, University of Helsinki), 4 (1995), 135-161. Special issue Interdisciplinary approaches to Discourse Analysis , ed. by Eija Ventola and Anna Solin.

IJALEL 4(4):21-35, 2015 35 van Dijk, T. (1995c). Discourse analysis as ideology analysis. In C. Schäffner & A. Wenden (Eds.), Language and pace (pp. 17-33). Aldershot: Dartmouth. van Dijk, T.A. (1998). News as Discourse. New Jersey, Hove and London: Lawrence Erlbawn Werth P. (1999) Text worlds: Representing conceptual space in discourse. Essex, New York: Pearson Wilson,A. J. ( 2000). Srilankan Tamil Nationalism: Its origins and Developments in the Nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. Vancouver: University of British Colombia press. Wodak, R. (1989). Language, power and ideology. Studies in political discourse. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Appendix: The editorials specifically analyzed with quotations A stitch in time. (2006 Aug 25) The Island Arafat: The man and the mission. (2004 Nov 14) The Sunday Times ‘Appe Monicas’, Peace Process and Superpower calls. (2004 May 27) The Island Barking up the wrong tree! (2006 May 09) The Island Bartering away sovereignty for a mess of pottage. (2005 Apr 05) The Island Blake, Blake burning bright. (2006: Sep 21) The Island Caught in headman’s backyard. 2006 Aug 24 The Island Claymore carnival continue. (2006 Apr 23) The Island Co-chairs as preachers. ( 2006 Nov 24) The Island Co-chairs as a scarecrow. (2006 Jan 09) The Island Doomed are the peace makers! (2006 Aug 14)The Island Eagles, hawks, extremists and nukes. (2006 Oct 09) The Island EU ban: Bauer does a Kekille (2006 Aug 22) The Island Exchanging the devil for the rascal? (2005 Sep 04) The Sunday Times Failed monitors as tutors. (2005 Apr 11) The Island Feline protests, crab walks and some questions. (2006 Nov 27) The Island Fishing in tidal waves.(2005 Jan 12) The Island Ghosts Ahoy! (2006 Jan 10) the Island Glory and Warts of Peace. (2002 Feb 23) The Island God save Sri Lanka. (2004 Dec 26) The Sunday Times Going Nowhere. (2004 Dec 05) The Sunday Leader Harrold clawing Lanka’s sovereignty.( 2005 Mar 07) The Island India’s interests and our freedom. 2004 May 06 The Daily Mirror Japan’s role is limited. (2003 Jan 22) The Island Let political leadership study implications. (2006 Oct 19) The Daily Mirror Merger most foul. (2006 Oct 17) The Island Monitors as King Kekille. (2006 Jan 16) The Island Mother India Runs Amok. (2005 May 15) The Sunday Leader Needed: Stick-and-stick approach.(2006 Jun 01) The Island Norwegians: Is There an Alternative? (2006 Jul 02) The Sunday Leader Oslo. (2002 Nov 24) The Sunday Observer Pariahs as states and states as pariahs. (2006 Nov 15) The Island Peace and World Opinion. (2003 Feb 17) The Daily News Peace process and the international community. (2002 Feb 05) The Daily News PM’s China visit et al.' (2003 Aug 10) The Sunday Times Problems of being a bully’s buddy. (2006 Sep 08) The Island Satanic forces. (2006 Sep 29) The Island Selling Out To India. (2004 Sep 05) The Sunday Leader Serious interference in our affairs. (2006 Sep 14) The Daily Mirror The hot potato. (2006 Oct 22) The Island The importance of foreigners. (2003 Feb 20) The Island The LTTE and the International community. (2005 Dec 08) The Daily News The West must wake-up. (2006 Jan 07) The Daily News Triumph of terror? (2006 Apr 22) The Island Twenty years after. (2003 Jul 24) The Island ‘The Tamil Problem’ and the Problem of the Tamils. (2004 Dec 07) The Island Ulf barking up the wrong tree. (2006 Aug 26) The Island Ulf in sheep’s clothing and closet Tigers.(2006 Jun 12) The Island Ulf’s Sisyphean task and other matters. (2006 May 30) The Island U-turns and rhetoric. (2006 Mar 11) The Island Why World Bank can't 'buy' peace. (2003 Sp 07) The Sunday Times World concern amplifies at LTTE terror. (2004 Aug 21) The Daily News

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

An Investigation into the Use of Cohesive Devises in Iranian High School EFL Textbooks

Mansour Shabani

English Language Department, University of Guilan, Iran E-mail: mansour_shabani225@yahoo.com

Maryam Danaye Tous

English Language Department, University of Guilan, Iran E-mail: maryam.dana@gmail.com

Leila Berehlia (Corresponding author)

University Campus 2, University of Guilan, Iran E-mail: l.berehlia@yahoo.com

Received: 13-11- 2014 Accepted: 25-01- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015

Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.36 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.36

Abstract The present study aimed at probing into the use of grammatical and lexical cohesive subdevices in Iranian high school EFL textbooks. To this end, the reading sections of three high school EFL textbooks and one pre-university EFL textbook were analyzed in terms of the distribution of grammatical and lexical cohesive subdevices. The results of One-way ANOVA illustrated that: a)there are no significant differences among the frequencies of grammatical cohesive subdevices across grade 1 high school EFL textbook and the pre-university EFL textbook, b)there are significant differences among the frequencies of grammatical cohesive subdevices across grades 2 and 3 high school EFL textbooks. Moreover, the results of Chi-Square test showed that the significant values of all of the lexical cohesive subdevices were higher than .05 across each of the Iranian EFL high school textbooks. These findings can be beneficial for textbook writers, materials developers and EFL teachers. Keywords: EFL textbook; cohesion; grammatical cohesion; lexical cohesion

1. Introduction Learning English, as the medium of communication in todays’ globalized world, is of great importance for many people. In Iran, English is taught as a foreign language (EFL). Dudly-Evans and ST. John (2005, p.35) believed that in some countries like Iran, all tertiary education is taught in the L1 with English being an auxiliary language. In this educational system, English is taught to the students from elementary school up to university level. The English syllabus in the formal educational system of Iran is text-based. Feez and Joyce (2002) mentioned that a text-based syllabus is concerned with units of discourse called text. Text refers to any stretch of language held together cohesively by through meaning. As McDonough, Shaw, and Masuhara (2013) stated, in recent years, the notion of discourse has been developed in human communication. Essentially, this notion provides the possibility of showing how various parts of a text or conversation or any stretch of language are interlinked or interwoven. This is done, for instance, by cross-referencing with the use of definite articles or pronouns, by markers of logical development (however, therefore, so, because and the like), by semantic links across items of vocabulary, by ellipsis in conversation (the short answers of textbook practice) and by substitution. This is usually referred to as the concept of cohesion; whereby relationships between different elements in a text- written or spoken -are made explicit. In other words, cohesion can be regarded as is a textual quality attained through the use of grammatical and lexical elements that enable readers to perceive or understand semantic relationships existing both within and between sentences (ibid.). Grammatical cohesion concerns such matters such as reference, ellipsis, substitution, and conjunction. In addition, lexical cohesion deals with sense relations such as synonymy, antonymy, metonymy, collocation, repetition, etc. According to Halliday and Hassan (1976), cohesion is “a semantic concept that occurs when the interpretation of some elements in the discourse is dependent on that of another” (p.4). According to Brown (2001) textbooks constitute the most obvious and common form of material support for language teaching. The Iranian EFL high school textbooks are developed by the Ministry of Education and these textbooks play a key role in high school EFL education in the Iranian EFL context. In addition, based on Richards and Renandya (2001) the role of grammar is perhaps one of the most controversial issues in language teaching. So, analyzing the frequencies of grammatical and lexical cohesive devices can pave the way for realizing the strengths and weaknesses of the four Iranian EFL high school textbooks. Such attentions aim to satisfy the needs and wants of an idealized group of target

Flourishing Creativity & Literacy

IJALEL 4(4):36-45, 2015 37 learners who share similar needs and levels of proficiency. There are different studies conducted on various sorts of textbooks in Iran. Most studies on cohesive devices have focused on Persian literature, poetry, chemistry and Islamic textbooks. For example, Roshan and Armioon (2007) examined some university textbooks, and found out that lexical cohesion is mostly found in chemistry textbooks. Another related work has been done by Aghagolzadeh (2002) on mystical literature, philosophy and scientific books. He deduced that scientific books have the least number of lexical cohesive devices compared to philosophy and mystical books. Astaraki (2000; cited in Roshan & Armioon, 2007) has also conducted a survey on cohesive devices of children and adult's books. In this study it was revealed that most cohesive devices were found in adult's textbooks. In spite of the existence of some studied dealing with cohesion in textbooks, there are a few studies focusing on the use of cohesive devices in high school EFL textbooks. Therefore, the present study seeks to investigate cohesive devices utilized in Iranian high school EFL textbooks, and it attempts to find answers to the following research questions: RQ1: Are there any significant differences among the frequencies of the use of grammatical cohesive subdevices across each EFL high school textbook? RQ2. Are there any significant differences among the frequencies of the use of lexical cohesive subdevices across each EFL high school textbook? Considering the aforementioned research questions, the following null hypotheses have been formulated: H01. There are no significant differences among the frequencies of the subdevices of grammatical cohesive devices across each EFL high school textbook. H02. There are no significant differences among the frequencies of the subdevices of lexical cohesive devices across each EFL high school textbook. 2. Review of Literature Cohesion is part of the text forming component in the linguistic system. It is the means whereby elements that are structurally unrelated to one another are connected with each other. The resources that constitute the cohesive potential of a language are part of the total meaning potential of the language, and they have a kind of catalytic function since, without cohesion, the rest of the semantic system cannot be effectively activated in any sense (Halliday and Hassan, 1976). The taxonomy of Halliday and Hasssan (1976) identifies two main grammatical and lexical cohesive devices which can be formally situated within a text. Grammatical cohesion has been regarded as the surface marking the semantic links between clauses and sentences in a written discourse, and between utterances and tunes in speech. These links can be of four types: reference, substitution, ellipsis, and conjunction. Reference is of three kinds: personal, demonstrative, and comparative reference, that each of them can be exophora, or endophora. Substitution has three main sub-parts: nominal, verbal and clausal. Ellipsis has also three main sub-parts, namely nominal, verbal and clausal ellipsis. Conjunction has five sub-parts: adversative, additive, temporal, causal, and continuative (ibid.). Lexical cohesion refers to relationship between and among words in a text, and it is primarily related to sequence. The sequence of a text can be discovered through examining its content words. Sequences mostly have specialized vocabularies and tend to engage in specialized activities (Gerot & Wignell, 1994; cited in Susilo, 2010). The lexical cohesion includes reiteration and collocation. Reiteration comprises repetition, synonym and near synonym, superordinate, and general word (Halliday and Hassan, 1976). The literature on the use of cohesive devices, either grammatical or lexical, is so rich. In what follows a few research studies which have focused on cohesion will be reviewed. Susilo (2010) investigated the grammatical and lexical cohesive devices of recount text in Look Ahead book. 'Look a Head' is an English textbook for 'tenth grade' published by Erlanga. As the textbook has a great role in teaching English and can be useful for foreign language learners, the investigator studied how the structure of the sentences in the paragraphs of each unit is. As cohesion could be helpful in making a linkage between the clauses and sentences of the text, and it could be an aid for better understanding of reading comprehension, the researcher put the number of cohesive devices in the form of percentage for all seven recount texts. The results showed that the average of grammatical cohesion was 59.86% and for lexical cohesion it was 72.88%. According to Halliday and Hassan's (1976) study, 51%-75% is a good criterion. Thus the findings confirmed that this book is suitable for teaching English to foreign language learners. Gholami, Ilghami, Molla Hossein, and Tahoori (2012) studied conjunctions, as one category of grammatical cohesive devices, in research papers on Biomedicine and Applied Linguistics written by Iranian authors. Their investigation revealed that although the researchers in both fields used conjunctions in sentence and non-sentence initial positions, Biomedical researchers used conjunctions more frequently than Applied Linguistics researchers. In addition, Biomedical researchers were more skillful in using conjunction devices in non- sentence initial positions. In a further study, Rahi (2012) examined ellipsis as a type of grammatical cohesive device in English and Persian research articles. For this study, 10 articles in Persian and 10 papers in English were examined. The results showed that Persian and English have the same types of ellipsis; the only difference between them is quasi-ellipsis that was not found in Persian. The author suggested that English teachers have to emphasize the similarities and differences between Persian and English system of ellipsis. He further emphasized that the similarities between English and Persian ellipsis could result in EFL learners’ making errors. Moreover, Mohammadian (2013) investigated lexical cohesion in short stories of Sadegh Choobak, a prominent Iranian author. He found that repetition of the same word was used most frequently in these stories. Finally, Moghadam and Shabanipoor (2013) studied the application of ellipsis and lexical cohesion in the original dialogues of a television series, named 'Prison Break' with the Persian subtitled and dubbed versions of the same dialogues. They aimed to

IJALEL 4(4):36-45, 2015 38 investigate the original dialogues of the film in terms of frequency of the use of lexical and ellipsis cohesive devices and compare these devices with the dubbed and subtitled versions, in order to find out the differences between these two types of translation (dubbing and subtitling) in terms of the use of lexical and ellipsis cohesive devices. The findings revealed that among lexical and grammatical cohesive devices, repetition and clausal ellipsis have been used most frequently in the original dialogues, respectively. It was also found that the two translated versions were similar in the use of lexical cohesive devices; however, the dubbed version had more ellipsis than the subtitled one. 3. Methodology 3.1 Population and Sample The research population consisted of the 3 Iranian high school EFL textbooks plus 1 pre-university EFL textbook, each developed by the Iranian Organization for Education, Research, and Planning (Ministry of Education). In addition, the research sample consisted of the reading sections of the mentioned textbooks which were selected purposefully. 3.2 Materials and Instruments Materials of this study were selected through the following procedures: First, the reading section of the 4 mentioned textbooks were selected, and then the number of words in each reading part was counted. The four textbooks were not homogeneous in terms of the number of words in their reading sections; in fact, the pre-university textbook contained 5197 words which is much more than the other three textbooks. In order to make the number of words homogeneous, the reading parts of the three lessons (lessons one, two, and six) of the pre-university textbook were randomly selected from among the eight lessons, along with all reading sections in the other three textbooks. Therefore, the materials utilized in the present study were as follows: Grade 1 high school EFL textbook consisted of nine lessons, each with one reading section containing 1964 words. Grade 2 high school EFL textbook consisted of seven lessons, each with one reading section containing 1685 words. Grade 3 high school EFL textbook included of six lessons, each with one reading section comprising 1825 words. And three lessons from the pre-university EFL textbook, each with one reading section made up of 1970 words. The research instrument was a researcher-made checklist (Table1) developed based on Halliday and Hassan’s (1976) categories of grammatical and lexical cohesive devices. Table 1. Categories of grammatical and lexical cohesive devices and their subdevices

3.3 Data Collection Procedure The researcher collected the data through extracting the grammatical cohesive devices including references, substitutions, ellipsis, conjunctions and their subsets and the lexical cohesive devices including reiteration and its subsets and collocation from the reading sections of the four Iranian high school EFL textbooks. The grammatical cohesive devices contain reference and its subsets, i.e., three types of reference: personal, demonstrative, and comparative reference. Substitution has three main subsets: nominal, verbal and clausal. Ellipsis has three main subsets, too. They are nominal, verbal and clausal ellipsis. Conjunction also has four subsets: adversative, additive, temporal, causal, and continuative. Also, lexical cohesive devices contain reiteration and its subsets, i.e., repetition, synonym and near synonym, superordinate and general word. Collocation is another type of lexical cohesion. Each sentence of the reading sections was divided into clauses and each subset of grammatical and lexical cohesive devices was examined in the whole selected texts. In what follows one example from English book 1 is presented: In English book 1, lesson 3, A story about Newton: Few men of that time were greater or wiser than Newton but he often forgot small things.

Personal Reference

Grammatical Cohesion

Demonstrative Comparative Nominal Substitution Verbal Clausal Nominal Ellipsis Verbal Clausal Adversative Conjunction Additive Temporal Causal Repetition Reiteration

Lexical Cohesion

Synonym and Near Synonym Superordinate General Word Collocation

IJALEL 4(4):36-45, 2015 39 That: demonstrative reference. Time: collocation ever, lexical reference. Greater: comparative reference. Or: additive conjunction. Wiser: comparative reference Greater: collocation wiser, lexical cohesive. Newton (mentioned in the preceding paragraph): repetition, reiteration, lexical cohesive. But: adversative conjunction. He: personal reference, anaphora. Small things: general word, reiteration, lexical cohesive. 3.4 Data Analysis Having determined the frequencies of grammatical and lexical cohesive devices, the research questions were answered using the descriptive statistics such as frequencies and percentages, as well as, inferential statistics including One-way ANOVA and Chi-square test. One-way ANOVA was used to determine whether there are any significant differences among the frequencies of the subdevices of grammatical cohesive devices across each of the four Iranian EFL high school textbooks. In addition, Chi-Square was used to investigate whether there are any significant differences among the frequencies of the subdevices of lexical cohesive devices across each of the four Iranian EFL high school textbooks. 4. Results and Discussion The frequency of the use of the grammatical cohesive devices including reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesive devices including reiteration and collocation counted in the reading sections of the four Iranian high school EFL textbooks are shown in Table 2.

Table 2. The frequency of the use of cohesive devices across the four Iranian EFL high school textbooks

Book 4

Book 3

Book 2

Book 1

195 117 171 183 Personal Reference Grammatical Cohesion 86 70 72 139 Demonstrative

42 13 14 9 Comparative 2 6 3 6 Nominal Substitution 0 1 4 1 Verbal 2 2 3 1 Clausal

31 15 37 29 Nominal Ellipsis 7 5 4 1 Verbal 3 2 9 5 Clausal 9 12 14 17 Adversative Conjunction

88 40 38 28 Additive 24 25 16 27 Temporal 8 10 7 7 Causal 0 0 0 1 Continuative

195 92 105 183 Repetition Reiteration Lexical Cohesion 50 61 52 24 Synonym and Near Synonym

11 27 27 15 Superordinate 50 49 21 26 General Word

109 129 116 131 Collocation

In order to make the numbers of words in the reading sections of the four Iranian EFL high school textbooks more homogenous, the frequencies of the use of the subdevices of grammatical and lexical cohesive devices across each of the four Iranian EFL high school textbooks were calculated in percentages. For example, the frequency of the use of personal reference of the grammatical cohesive device in grade 1 high school EFL textbook is 183. According to the formula: X = 0.1 The percentages of the use of the subdevices of grammatical and lexical cohesive devices across each of the four Iranian EFL high school textbooks are shown in Table 3:

IJALEL 4(4):36-45, 2015 40 Table 3. The percentage of the use of cohesive devices across the four Iranian EFL high school textbooks

Book 4

Book 3 Book 2

Book 1

0.10 0.15 0.09 0.10 Personal Reference Grammatical Cohesion 0.22 0.26 0.23 0.14 Demonstrative

0.46 1.40 1.20 2.18 Comparative 9.85 3.04 5.61 3.27 Nominal Substitution 0.00 18.25 4.21 19.64 Verbal 9.85 9.12 5.61 19.64 Clausal 0.63 1.21 0.45 0.67 Nominal Ellipsis 2.81 3.65 4.21 19.64 Verbal 6.56 9.12 1.87 3.92 Clausal 2.18 1.52 1.20 1.15 Adversative Conjunction 0.22 0.45 0.44 0.70 Additive 0.82 0.73 1.05 0.72 Temporal 2.46 1.82 2.40 2.80 Causal 0.00 0.00 0.00 19.64 Continuative 0.10 0.19 0.16 0.10 Repetition Reiteration Lexical

Cohesion 0.39 0.29 0.32 0.81 Synonym and Near Synonym

1.79 0.67 0.62 1.30 Superordinate 0.39 0.37 0.80 0.75 General Word 0.18 0.14 0.14 0.14 Collocation

Table 4 shows the descriptive statistics of the use of the grammatical cohesive subdevices across grade 1 high school EFL textbook. This table presents the mean, standard deviation, and standard error of the means of subdevices of the grammatical cohesive devices. Table 4. The results of the use of grammatical cohesive subdevices across grade 1 Iranian EFL high school textbook

N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Reference 3 .8067 1.18951 .68676

Substitution 3 14.1833 9.45122 5.45667 Ellipsis 3 8.0767 10.14513 5.85729

Conjunction 5 5.0020 8.22801 3.67968 Total 14 6.7293 8.55036 2.28518

Table 5 presents the results of ANOVA test: Table 5. ANOVA results for grammatical cohesive subdevices across grade 1 Iranian EFL high school textbook Sum of Squares Df Mean Square F Sig.

Between Groups 292.285 3 97.428 1.480 .279 Within Groups 658.129 10 65.813

Total 950.413 13

Table 5 illustrates that there are not statistically significant differences among the four grammatical cohesive subdevices across grade 1 high school EFL textbook as determined by One-way ANOVA (F (3,10) = 1.48, p = .279). As indicated in the table, the p-value is higher than our assumed alpha level (p > .05). Table 6 shows the descriptive statistics of the use of the grammatical cohesive subdevices across grade 2 high school EFL textbook.

Table 6. The results of the use of grammatical cohesive subdevices across grade 2 Iranian EFL high school textbook

N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Reference 3 .5067 .60451 .34901

Substitution 3 5.1433 .80829 .46667 Ellipsis 3 2.1767 1.89867 1.09620

Conjunction 5 1.0180 .91029 .40709 Total 14 2.0407 2.03405 .54362

IJALEL 4(4):36-45, 2015 41 Table 7 presents the results of ANOVA test:

Table 7. ANOVA results for grammatical cohesive subdevices across grade 2 Iranian EFL high school textbook Sum of Squares Df Mean Square F Sig.

Between Groups 41.224 3 13.741 10.939 .002 Within Groups 12.562 10 1.256

Total 53.786 13 Table 7 illustrates that there are statistically significant differences among the four grammatical cohesive subdevices across grade 2 high school EFL textbook (F (3,10) = 10.93, p = .002). As indicated in the table, p-value is less than alpha (p < .05). In order to determine which specific groups differ, Tukey HSD test was run.

Table 8. Multiple comparison of Tukey HSD Test between grammatical cohesive subdevices across grade 2 Iranian EFL high school textbook

(I) type of grammatical B (J) type of grammatical B Mean Difference (I-J) Std. Error Sig.

Reference Substitution -4.63667* .91513 .002

Ellipsis -1.67000 .91513 .318 Conjunction -.51133 .81852 .922

Substitution Reference 4.63667* .91513 .002 Ellipsis 2.96667* .91513 .037

Conjunction 4.12533* .81852 .002

Ellipsis Reference 1.67000 .91513 .318

Substitution -2.96667* .91513 .037 Conjunction 1.15867 .81852 .518

Conjunction Reference .51133 .81852 .922

Substitution -4.12533* .81852 .002 Ellipsis -1.15867 .81852 .518

Table 8 shows the multiple comparisons of the grammatical cohesive subdevices across grade 2 high school EFL textbook. It indicates that the differences between reference and substitution (p = .002), substitution and ellipsis (p = .037), substitution and conjunction (p = .002), ellipsis and substitution (p = .037), and conjunction and substitution (p = .002), are statistically significant (p < .05). Table 9 shows the descriptive statistics of the use of the grammatical cohesive subdevices across grade 3 high school EFL textbook. Table 9. The results of the use of grammatical cohesive subdevices across grade 3 Iranian EFL high school textbook

N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error

Reference 3 .6033 .69212 .39960

Substitution 3 10.1367 7.65580 4.42008

Ellipsis 3 4.6600 4.05057 2.33860

Conjunction 5 .9040 .75368 .33705

Total 14 3.6229 5.17462 1.38297

Table 10 presents the results of ANOVA test: Table 10. ANOVA results for grammatical cohesive subdevices across grade 3 Iranian EFL high school textbook

Sum of Squares Df Mean Square F Sig.

Between Groups 194.830 3 64.943 4.237 .036

Within Groups 153.267 10 15.327

Total 348.096 13

Table 10 illustrates that there are statistically significant differences among the four grammatical cohesive subdevices across grade 3 high school EFL textbook (F (3,10) = 4.23, p = .036). As indicated in the table, p-value is less than alpha level (p < .05). In order to determine which specific groups differ, Tukey HSD test was used.

IJALEL 4(4):36-45, 2015 42 Table 11. Multiple comparison of Tukey HSD Test between grammatical cohesive subdevices across grade 3 Iranian EFL high school textbook

(I) type of grammatical B (J) type of grammatical B Mean Difference (I-J) Std. Error Sig.

Reference Substitution -9.53333 3.19653 .056

Ellipsis -4.05667 3.19653 .601 Conjunction -.30067 2.85906 1.000

Substitution Reference 9.53333 3.19653 .056

Ellipsis 5.47667 3.19653 .366 Conjunction 9.23267* 2.85906 .038

Ellipsis Reference 4.05667 3.19653 .601

Substitution -5.47667 3.19653 .366 Conjunction 3.75600 2.85906 .575

Conjunction Reference .30067 2.85906 1.000

Substitution -9.23267* 2.85906 .038 Ellipsis -3.75600 2.85906 .575

Table 11 indicates that the differences between substitution and conjunction (p = .038), and conjunction and substitution (p = .038), are statistically significant (p < .05). Table 12 shows the descriptive statistics of the use of the grammatical cohesive subdevices across grade 4 high school EFL textbook.

Table 12. The results of the use of grammatical cohesive subdevices across grade 4 Iranian EFL high school textbook

N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Reference 3 .2603 .18287 .10558 Substitution 3 6.5667 5.68690 3.28333 Ellipsis 3 3.3333 2.99944 1.73173 Conjunction 5 1.1360 1.12609 .50360 Total 14 2.5829 3.54927 .94858

Table 13 presents the results of ANOVA test:

Table 13. ANOVA results for grammatical cohesive subdevices across grade 4 Iranian EFL high school textbook

Table 13 illustrates that there are not statistically significant differences between four grammatical cohesive subdevices across grade 4 high school EFL text book (F (3,10) = 2.88, p = .89), since the p-value is higher than our assumed alpha level (p > .05). The Chi-Square test was used to determine whether there are any significant differences among the frequencies of the subdevices of lexical cohesive devices. Table 14 shows the results of Chi-Square test in the frequencies of the use of lexical cohesive subdevices across grade 1 Iranian high school EFL textbook.

Table 14. Chi-Square results for lexical cohesive subdevices across grade 1 Iranian EFL high school textbook

Lexical

Total repetition synonym and near synonym Superordinate general word collocation

fpl1

.10 1 0 0 0 0 1

.14 0 0 0 0 1 1

.75 0 0 0 1 0 1

.81 0 1 0 0 0 1 1.30 0 0 1 0 0 1

Total 1 1 1 1 1 5

Value Df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) Pearson Chi-Square 20.000a 16 .220

Likelihood Ratio 16.094 16 .446 Linear-by-Linear

Association .000 1 .990

N of Valid Cases 5

Sum of Squares Df Mean Square F Sig. Between Groups 75.951 3 25.317 2.883 .089 Within Groups 87.814 10 8.781

Total 163.765 13

IJALEL 4(4):36-45, 2015 43 As can be seen by the frequencies cross tabulated in Table 14, there are not any significant differences among the 5 lexical cohesive devices across grade 1 EFL high school textbook (x2(16, N = 5) = 20, p = .22). As indicated in the table, the p-value is higher than the assumed alpha level (p > .05). Table 15 shows the results of Chi-Square test in the frequencies of the use of lexical cohesive subdevices across grade 2 Iranian high school EFL textbook.

Table 15. Chi-Square results for lexical cohesive subdevices across grade 2 Iranian EFL high school textbook

Lexical

Total repetition synonym and near synonym Superordinate general word Collocation

fpl2

.14 0 0 0 0 1 1

.16 1 0 0 0 0 1

.32 0 1 0 0 0 1

.62 0 0 1 0 0 1

.80 0 0 0 1 0 1 Total 1 1 1 1 1 5

Value Df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 20.000a 16 .220 Likelihood Ratio 16.094 16 .446 Linear-by-Linear

Association .228 1 .633

N of Valid Cases 5

As can be seen in Table 15, there are not any significant differences among the 5 lexical cohesive devices in grade 2 EFL high school textbook (x2(16, N = 5) = 20, p = .22). Table 16 shows the results of Chi-Square test in the frequencies of the use of lexical cohesive subdevices across grade 3 Iranian high school EFL textbook. Table 16. Chi-Square results for lexical cohesive subdevices across grade 3 Iranian EFL high school textbook

Lexical

Total repetition synonym and near synonym Superordinate general word Collocation

fpl3

.14 0 0 0 0 1 1

.19 1 0 0 0 0 1

.29 0 1 0 0 0 1

.37 0 0 0 1 0 1

.67 0 0 1 0 0 1 Total 1 1 1 1 1 5

Value Df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 20.000a 16 .220 Likelihood Ratio 16.094 16 .446

Linear-by-Linear Association .001 1 .976 N of Valid Cases 5

As shown in the table, there are not any significant differences among the 5 lexical cohesive devices in grade 3 EFL high school textbook (x2(16, N = 5) = 20, p = .22). Table 17 presents the results of Chi-Square test in the frequencies of the use of lexical cohesive subdevices across grade 4 Iranian high school EFL textbook.

Table 17. Chi-Square results for lexical cohesive subdevices across grade 4 Iranian EFL high school textbook

Lexical

Total repetition synonym and near synonym Superordinate general word Collocation

fpl4

.10 1 0 0 0 0 1

.18 0 0 0 0 1 1

.39 0 1 0 1 0 2 1.79 0 0 1 0 0 1

Total 1 1 1 1 1 5

IJALEL 4(4):36-45, 2015 44 Value Df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 15.000a 12 .241 Likelihood Ratio 13.322 12 .346

Linear-by-Linear Association .005 1 .943 N of Valid Cases 5

As illustrated in the table, there are not any significant differences among the 5 lexical cohesive devices in grade 4 EFL high school textbook (x2(12, N = 5) = 15, p = .241). The results of this study showed that although substitution is the most, and reference is the least frequent grammatical cohesive subdevice across each of the four EFL textbooks, but there are not significant differences among the four grammatical cohesive subdevices across grade 1 high school EFL textbook even across the pre-university EFL textbook. However, the present study revealed that there are significant differences among the four grammatical cohesive subdevices across grades 2 and 3 high school EFL textbooks. In addition, it was found that there are not any significant differences among the 5 lexical cohesive devices across each EFL high school textbooks. These findings indicate that there is inconsistency in these textbooks with respect to the use of grammatical and lexical cohesive subdiveces. As mentioned in the review of literature, Susilo (2010) emphasized the role of textbooks in teaching cohesive devices. The findings of the present study further support the results of Talebinejad and Namdari’s (2011) investigation of the reading comprehension sections of Iranian high school English textbooks in that they found differences among these textbooks with regard to the extent of using discourse markers. In addition, Faghih Sabet, Khodabandehlou and Jahandar (2013) demonstrated that instruction on cohesive devices can improve EFL learners’ reading comprehension. This finding is also emphasized by Pourdana, Naziri and Rajeski (2014) who suggested that textbooks containing frequent cohesive devices can have a significant role in improving EFL learners’ reading comprehension ability at different proficiency levels. With regard to the studies just mentioned, what we found about the differences in the frequency of the usage of grammatical and lexical cohesive subdevices in the present study further highlights the demerits of Iranian EFL high school textbooks as to the infrequent distribution of cohesive devices in these textbooks. As the main focus of high school EFL textbooks in Iran is developing student’s reading comprehension skills, with respect to these findings it can be concluded that grammatical and lexical cohesive subdevices have not been classified into a systematic order in the four Iranian EFL high school textbooks, and thus these textbooks are in need of substantial revision. 5. Conclusion The present study aimed at investigating the frequency of the use of grammatical and lexical cohesive subdevices across each of the four Iranian EFL textbooks. To this end, the reading sections of each of the four textbooks were analyzed in terms of different grammatical and lexical cohesive subdevices. The findings revealed that substitution is the most frequent, and reference is the least frequent grammatical cohesive subdevice in all the four Iranian EFL high school textbooks. Accordingly, with regard to the results of One-way ANOVA (p<.05) across each of the four Iranian EFL high school textbooks, the first null hypothesis of the study is partially rejected in that there are no significant differences among the frequencies of the grammatical cohesive subdevices across all the four EFL high school textbooks. Moreover, the results of Pearson Chi-Square demonstrated that the significant values of all the 5 lexical cohesive subdevices are higher than .05 across each of the Iranian EFL high school textbooks. Thus, the second null hypothesis of the study is confirmed in that there are no significant differences among the frequencies of the use of lexical cohesive subdevices across each Iranian EFL high school textbook. The results of the present study can be beneficial for textbook authors and materials developers. Since, textbooks as significant instruments play a crucial role in Iranian students’ education, knowing the weakness of these books can be beneficial for improvement of the quality of the four Iranian EFL high school textbooks. Furthermore, the findings of this study can be fruitful for language teachers. The EFL instructors should notice the grammatical and lexical cohesive devices in the four Iranian EFL high school textbooks more carefully. School teachers have to pay attention to the proper distribution of cohesive devices in these textbooks and they can provide EFL students with more exercises on such devices. In this study the researcher used the reading sections of Iranian EFL high school textbooks. For further studies this coverage can still be expanded to include more reading sections of English language textbooks taught in the institutes as well the books used for Iranian intermediate EFL learners. Accordingly, as this study was conducted on the grammatical and lexical cohesive devices across the four Iranian EFL high school textbooks, further research can be carried out in other English textbooks such as Top-Notch series, New Interchange series, New Parade series, American English File series, Connect series, Project series, and so on. References Aghagolzadeh, F. (2002). A comparison and criticism of discourse analysis and critical discourse analysis in text comprehension and production. (Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation). Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran. Brown, H. D. (2001). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy (2nd ed.). White Plains, NY: Longman.

IJALEL 4(4):36-45, 2015 45 Dudley-Evans, T., & St. John, M. (2005). Developments in English for specific purposes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Faghih Sabet, A., Khodabandehlou, M., & Jahandar, S. (2013).The impact of instructing discourse markers (cohesive devices) on Iranian EFL learner’s reading comprehension ability. Indian Journal of Fundamental and Applied Life Sciences, 3(3), 273-280. Feez, S., & Joyce, H. (2002). Text based syllabus design. Sydney: Macquire University. Gholami, J., Ilghami, R., Molla Hossein,H., & Tahoori, F. (2012). Cohesive devices in Iranian research papers across social sciences and medical sciences: the case of conjunctives in papers on biomedicine and applied linguistics. Iranian EFL Journal. 8(4), 294. Halliday, M. K., & Hassan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. London: Longman. McDonough, J., Shaw, C., & Masuhara, H. (2013). Materials and methods in ELT. West Sussex: Willy-Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Mogadam, L., & Shabanipoor, M. (2013). Application of ellipsis and lexical cohesion in subtitling and dubbing: The case of prison break TV series. Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Translation Studies, 2(2), 71. Mohammadian, M. (2013). An investigation of lexical cohesion in Sadegh Choobak’s stories. (Unpublished Master’s Thesis). Islamic Azad University, Ahar. Pourdana, N., Naziri, M., & Rajeski, J. S. (2014).Cohesive devices frequency in English textbooks: Do they help or hinder EFL reading comprehension?. International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature, 3(4), 154-162. Rahi, M. (2012). A contrastive and comparative study of ellipsis in Persian and English. Mediterranean Journal of Humanities. 2(2), 213-218. Richards, J. C., & Renandya, W. A. (Eds.). (2002). Methodology in language teaching: An anthology of current practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Roshan, B., & Armioon, M. (2007). An investigation of Persian language cohesion in academic texts: the case of chemistry texts. In National Conference on Humanities. Tehran: Humanities and Cultural Sciences Research Center. Susilo, N.(2010). The cohesion of recount texts in Look Ahead; English text book for 10th grade published by Erlangga.(Unpublished Master's Thesis). Retrieved June 16, from http://library.walisongo.ac.id/diglib/files/disk1/-122/jtptiain-gdl-ernyrokhma-6070-1-skripsi-p.pdf. Talebinezhad, M. R., & Namdar, A. (2011). Discourse markers in high school English textbooks in Iran. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 1 (11), 1590-1602.

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

A large-Scale Study on Extensive Reading Program for Non-English Majors: Factors and Attitudes

Ching-Yi Tien

Department of Applied Enlgish, I-Shou University No.1, Sec. 1, Syuecheng Rd. Dashu District, Kaohsiung City 84001, Taiwan

E-mail: t2929@ms9.hinet.net

Received: 16-11- 2014 Accepted: 26-01- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015 Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.46 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.46 The research is financed by Ministry of Education, Taiwan. ISU102-T-001A. Abstract Reading is a complex method of drawing information from some form of text and then interpreting it. The importance of reading in an academic context cannot be underestimated in its influence on learning. It is commonly agreed that students should read extensively in order to enhance their reading skills and to learn other knowledge through that reading. This paper presents an analysis of teachers’ and students’ perceptions toward an extensive reading program located in an EFL higher education context. Particularly, the study aims at assessing factors that may influence the students’ attitudes toward extensive reading (ER) and both students’ and teachers’ perceptions to the newly implemented extensive reading program. In this paper, the author attempts to analyze and understand the effectiveness of an extensive reading program. The results show that: first, differing majors among students and the amount of time spent weekly on reading graded readers directly impacts students’ attitudes toward extensive reading. Second, although many students verbally express a dislike for ER programs in class, they strongly agree that ER is a good way to learn English on the survey. Third, in spite of teachers’ skepticism prior to the ER program, results confirm the linguistic benefit ER brought to learners upon completion of the program. Notwithstanding the preliminary resistance of the ER program, teachers’ and students’ attitudes noticeably changed over the two semesters of engagement. Keywords: extensive reading, perceptions, attitudes, EFL, higher education 1. Introduction Owing to the trend of globalization, the need of using and learning English is ubiquitous; so, Taiwan has proven to be no exception. Although Grades 1-9 Curriculum was been promulgated by the Ministry of Education, Taiwan has indicated that English be taught as compulsory EFL coursework beginning in the fifth grade. As a result, most Taiwanese elementary schools have made their own rules to require their students to start learning English from grade three. In other words, by the time students attend colleges or universities, they should have already received at least nine years of English education. Yet, based on the Worldwide Report 2013 published by ETS (2014), the average Taiwanese test taker scored 569, a little bit higher than Japan’s (512), but lower than Korea’s (632) and Hong Kong’s (644). When looking more closely at the overall scores, the average score for the reading section of the Taiwanese test takers is 263 (the full score being 495) which arouses a great discussion on which teaching method provides better language learning and teaching outcomes respective of reading. There has even been great debate on the promotion of the Communicative Approach in Taiwan’s English teaching and learning context; however, most instructors still rely heavily on the Grammar Translation Method due to the pressure of getting students passing all kinds of English language assessment. This is especially true in light of the localized high school and university entrance exams. Consequently, the majority of students become good test takers, but they do not become good readers. The Ministry of Education in Taiwan has stipulated a new language policy which now requires university students to reach a certain English proficiency level prior to matriculation in hopes of enhancing students’ overall English ability. Although the original intention may be good, it has made the English learning environment become exceedingly test-centered. Inadequate training for comprehensive reading in English is ubiquitous, and it indirectly influences students’ habits and attitudes toward English reading in general. Additionally, although the importance and benefits of extensive reading have been highly recognized, it has been “excluded from the English teaching syllabuses” (Sheu 2004, p. 214). In view of this predicament, and to direct students away from reading solely for test purposes, the extensive reading project of the research site was first proposed and then established to better develop students’ habits towards reading extensively and even further develop students’ abilities to read fluently in English outside the classroom. 2. Theoretical review Reading is a complex method of drawing information from some form of text and then interpreting it. Readers can choose a variety of skills and strategies depending on the purpose of the reading and create their own overall reading comprehension depending on individual language proficiency (Grabe & Stoller, 2002). Reading for general comprehension involves skills that represent linguistic abilities (e.g. word recognition, syntactic processing, etc.) and

Flourishing Creativity & Literacy

IJALEL 4(4):46-54, 2015 47 defined strategies that are implemented by the readers themselves. Although the definitional boundaries of skills and strategies are imprecise because of the nature of reading tasks, strategies may be seen as “skills under consideration” (Paris, Wasik, & Turner, 1991, p. 611). 2.1 Extensive reading In addition to the massive studies on reading skills and strategies already in the literature, much attention has also been paid to the effectiveness/ benefits of extensive reading. The growing amount of research supporting the use of extensive reading includes studies concerning young learners (Juan & Cheng, 2008; Nishino, 2007; Williams, 2007), adult learners (Greenberg et al, 2006; Renandya et al, 1999), vocabulary building (Horst, 2005; Kweon & Kim, 2008; Pigada & Schmitt, 2006; Modirkhamene & Gowrki, 2011; Tran, 2006), reading habits (Asraf & Ahmad, 2003; Lemmer, 2010), reading speed and comprehension (Bell, 2001; He, 2014; Taguchi, et al, 2004), writing performance (Mason & Krashen, 1997), and reading ability (Meng, 2009; Robb & Susser, 1989; Sheu, 2004; Yamashita, 2008). Significantly, there is also a substantial number of studies stressing students’ positive attitudes (Camiciottoli, 2001; Johanson, 2012; Shen, 2008; Stoeckel et al, 2012) and motivations (Apple, 2005; Mason & Krashen; Takase, 2007) towards the extensive reading process after the treatment. The list is not exhaustive. A study done by Yamashita (2013) examined the effects of extensive reading attitudes among 61 undergraduates who were teaching and learning English as a foreign language at a Japanese university after 15 weeks of course implementation with extensive reading. The results have shown that ER had a stronger effect on enhancing positive feelings than of reducing negative feelings; resultantly, ER may help the learners to develop their language skills as well as to expand their general knowledge base. ER may also serve to promote learner autonomy and reading enjoyment in a learning context. Robb and Kano (2013) also reported on a large-scale basis regarding an implementation of extensive reading in a Japanese university which required students to read graded readers outside of classroom as part of their course requirements. The study compared students who did extensive reading as additional coursework needed to achieve better reading scores than the students who were not required to do so. Results proved that the presence of an extensive reading approach was the main factor for higher score improvement as part of this study. 2.2 Graded readers In most of the extensive reading programs, graded readers seem to be the preferred materials chosen by the practitioners for the reason that they are not merely a source of reading for pleasure but a good source for language learning. As Hill (2001) stated, graded readers assist learners in four important ways:

1. They motivate. 2. They help develop the skill of reading fluently (e.g. at 200 words or more per minute). 3. They help language learning by providing a context for language that enhances and extends the learner’s

understanding of both lexis and syntax. 4. They offer a more accessible source of exposure to target syntax. (pp. 301-2)

Hill (ibid) also stressed that skills found in fluent reading and increased reading speed can be developed through regular practice with graded readers for the sole reason that it gives learners more exposure to the target language. The most salient feature of graded readers is its simplified text. Although advocates firmly believe that language learners can be encouraged to read more extensively by reading simplified text, the question of how to choose the appropriate text is still not well answered. Honeyfield (1977) examined the appropriateness and effectiveness of traditional simplification techniques (e.g. using graded readers) to prepare students for a smooth and orderly progression to full English. He suggested that although simplified text has its advantage to help learners in language learning, for intermediate and advanced students, it is better to encourage these groups of students to embark upon reading unsimplified, original-source material. A study done by Maruyama (2009) discussed the importance of graded readers and on how to decide which graded-reader’s level to assign to students by using a Vocabulary Level Test. Results showed that this approach is an effective tool useful for selection of suitable readers appropriate to the readers’ level. Schmitt and Schmitt (2014) conducted a study to investigate whether a particular series of graded readers could provide a bridge for students to read unsimplified novels for pleasure. The results suggested that it is possible for motivated readers to read from the highest-graded readers to carefully-selected, ungraded novels. Studies that are demonstrated above have indicated the various benefits of adopting extensive reading in pedagogical contexts. However, the implementation of ER program in Taiwan still requires exploration especially among large-scale studies. Hence, the following research questions were posed at the outset of the study: 1. What factors influence the students’ attitudes toward extensive reading? 2. What are the students’ perceptions toward the extensive reading program? 3. What are the instructors’ perceptions toward the extensive reading program? 3. Methodology This research is part of a larger study of an ISU-Teaching Excellence Project funded by the Ministry of Education, Taiwan, with special attention to the newly implemented extensive reading program made available to non-English majors. This is a two-year program and the current study is conducted at the end of the first year to evaluate the outcome of the program’s overall standing. 3.1 Participants This study was conducted during fall 2013 and spring 2014 semesters. It involved both freshman and sophomore students who were taking General English courses from a private university in southern Taiwan. There were a total of 93 classes, 5,711 students who were from eight different colleges. A total of 16 full-time and 20 part-time instructors were also involved as part of this study. The classroom instruction lasted two-hours per week for a period of 18 weeks per semester. The treatment for the current study lasted for two semesters which were made up of a total of 36 weeks.

IJALEL 4(4):46-54, 2015 48 3.2 Instruments In order to investigate the non-English major Taiwanese university students’ attitudes toward extensive reading in English, two questionnaires (one for the students, one for the instructors ) originally designed by Morgado (2009) with modification to meet the purpose of the research were used, and a subsequent focus-group interview was conducted. The student questionnaire consisted of four sections: section one provided for the demographic information; section two had twenty item questions based on a five point summated Likert-type response, ranging in scale from 5 (strongly agree) to 1, (strongly disagree), and the items are subdivided into four specified categories: general opinions (7 items), enjoyment (3 items), reading proficiency (6 items), thinking ability (4 items); section three was made up of four overall (e.g. aggressive attitude, autonomous reading habits, great pleasure, and linguistic improvement) true(1) / false(2) questions; and, the last section was an open-ended question available for students to express any concerns they may have regarding extensive reading. The modified questionnaire showed an internal consistency coefficient of .938 (Cronbach’s alpha, n= 24). The focus-group interview was conducted at the end of the current study to probe and confirm students’ comments made in the online survey. Items in the teacher questionnaire are similar to those of the students’ with a few questions specifically modified for the instructors. The internal consistency coefficient of .858 (Cronbach’s alpha, n= 24). Four meetings were conducted with the instructors involved to discuss and evaluate the extensive reading program. 3.3 Procedure Thirty-six instructors and 5,711 students were recruited for the present study. Students were enrolled during the fall 2013 and spring 2014 semesters. The courses met two-hours per week for a total of 36 weeks. In class, intensive reading was practiced; however, outside of the class, students were required to read four graded readers during each semester, for a total of eight readers in two semesters. To decide how many graded readers should be read per semester, Nation (2001) suggested for learners to read a book weekly or in two weeks’ time; Maruyama (2009) asked the participants to read five graded readers in one semester; and Cetin and Brooks- Lewis (2011) requested the students to read six readers. Based on a pilot study the researcher had conducted, she was astonished to find out that nearly ninety percent of her university students did not have any outside reading experience to speak of. Considering the current study is a newly-implemented extensive reading program available to a large number of students, reading four graded readers per semester was determined to be the optimal number. Having considering the number of readers for the students to complete reading, the next issue was who would choose what books to read. Although there are studies suggesting having students to self-select their own reading materials for enjoyment (Paulson, 2006), or for students to be given an opportunity to choose the books they preferred (Asraf & Ahmad, 2003), the researcher was acutely aware of the fact that it was better to give permission to the instructors to decide which readers meets their students’ needs to insure task compliance. The readers adopted for this program were mainly graded readers from the Cambridge, Oxford, Penguin, Longman, Heinemann, Compass Publishing, and Scholastic series, with basal reader levels ranging from two to five. Completion of the reading assignment accounted for 10 percent of the student’s overall class grade for each semester. Approximately 600 titles of the readers were purchased and kept in the library available at all times for students who did not wish to buy their own books to use at any time. To begin with, the extensive reading project precipitated four meetings. The purpose of the first meeting was to inform and explain this project to the instructors regarding its aims, objectives, and ideal outcomes. In the initial meeting, more than half of the experienced instructors doubted the possibility of improvement in the students’ English proficiency and relative change of attitudes for engaging in outside readings. A couple of instructors strongly disagreed with the feasibility of launching this project. To ensure both teacher and students participants were taking part in the extensive reading program; a second meeting was conducted in the half-term of fall semester 2013. Unsurprisingly, some instructors ignored the extensive reading program initiative completely and neither introduced nor asked the students to address the readers. Hence, the determination of completing the project and promoting the extensive reading was re-emphasized in a second meeting and the methods for evaluation were further discussed. To be mentioned, the first year of the project focuses on promotion and development of students’ habits to read extensively (here, meaning graded readers); hence, instructors were given the freedom to adopt any formats to assess students’ reading performance. The third and fourth meetings were conducted in the second semester to examine the outcome of the program. 4. Findings Three research questions are explored in the study. 1. What factors influence the students’ attitude toward extensive reading? 2. What are the students’ perceptions toward the extensive reading program? 3. What are the instructors’ perceptions toward the extensive reading program? To answer these questions, an anonymous online question was posted for students to respond; 1,583 out of 5,711 participants completed the survey successfully. The low response rate (28%) may be explained in two ways: first, in order to complete survey, participants must answer every question in the questionnaire. Some students quit the survey when he/she encountered the open-ended questions; this was confirmed during the focus-group interview. Such conduct invalidated the survey. The second aspect to consider might be that it was on a voluntary basis, meaning that some students may not have wished to be bothered with this extra task of survey completion. Despite this inherent criticism, the sample size of 1,583 is considered to be sufficient for purposes of this study. Descriptive statistics are summarized and reported in the following sections. 4.1 Answer to the first research question The first research question in this study, “What factors influence the students’ attitude toward extensive reading?”, is posed to investigate factors that may influence students’ attitudes toward extensive reading. To this end, the modified survey form was adopted. To examine whether gender was one of the influential factors, independent-samples t-test was computed. The results in Table 1 indicate that gender plays a significant role in extensive reading.

IJALEL 4(4):46-54, 2015 49 Table 1. t-test Results Comparing Male and Female Attitudes in Four Categories Categories Gender N Mean SD t Sig.(2-tailed) General opinion Male 706 3.95 .86 2.034 .042

Female 877 3.86 .78 Enjoyment

Male 706 3.76 .94 2.986 .003 Female 877 3.64 .89

Reading proficiency

Male 706 4.00 .83 2.589 .010 Female 877 3.80 .76

Thinking ability Male 706 3.85 .89 2.734 .006 Female 877 3.73 .83 Overall Male 706 1.32 .36 -1.672 .095 Female 877 1.35 .33 As Table 1 shows that both male and female students in the study held considerably different attitudes toward extensive reading in terms of general opinion [t(1433.623)=2.034, p=.042], enjoyment [t(1466.866)=2.986, p=.003], reading proficiency [t(1582)=2.589, p=.010], thinking ability [t(1457.437)=2.743, p=.006], and overall [t(1534.910)=-2.558, p=.011]. It is interesting to note that the mean scores reveal that male students are slightly more positive in their attitude than female students toward extensive reading. Regarding the means related to general opinion, male is 3.95 and female is 3.86; the means on enjoyment, male is 3.76 and female is 3.64; the means on reading proficiency, male is 4.00 and female is 3.80; the means on thinking ability, male is 3.85 and female is 3.73; and, the means for overall items, male is 1.32 and female is 1.35 (true(1)/ false(2)). For the category of overall evaluation questions (having a positive attitude, building up an autonomous reading habit, having great pleasure, linguistic improvement), only the item regarding my English has improved by the mean of extensive reading reveals a significant difference, t(1534.910)=-2.558, p=.011. To further investigate whether the student’s year of study (freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior), the level of English classes (beginner, intermediate, and advanced), different colleges (College of Electrical and Information Engineering, College of Science and Engineering, College of Management, College of Communication and Design, International College, College of Tourism and Hospitality, College of Language Arts, College of Medicine), and time spent weekly (less than one hour, 1 to 4 hours, 4 to 6 hours, and more than 6 hours) for extensive reading were factors for students to be engaged in extensive reading, one-way ANOVA was conducted. An analysis of variance showed that the year of study was not significant, apart from item 28 (I have built up an autonomous reading habit through extensive reading.), F(3,1579)=3.165, p=.024. The level of English classes also showed no significance at all, p>.005. Table 2. One-way ANOVA Analysis for the Variable of Colleges

Categories SS df MS F Sig.

General Between groups 22.277 6 3.713 5.682 .000

opinion Within groups 1029.806 1576 .653

total 1052.083 1582

Enjoyment Between groups 30.797 6 5.133 6.264 .000

Within groups 1291.492 1576 .819

total 1322.288 1582

Reading Between groups 17.700 6 2.950 4.747 .000

proficiency Within groups 979.458 1576 .621

total 997.158 1582

Thinking Between groups 29.580 6 4.930 6.852 .000

ability Within groups 1133.998 1576 .720

total 1163.578 1582

Overall Between groups 2.677 6 .446 3.430 .002

Within groups 204.943 1576 .130

total 207.619 1582

Note: SS = sum of squares, MS = mean square, *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001 To understand whether students’ inclusion in one of the eight different colleges (different majors) made a significant difference toward extensive reading practices and perceptions, a one-way ANOVA was applied. Results are displayed in the Table 2 showing that general opinion [F(6, 1576) = 5.682, p = .000 ], enjoyment [F(6, 1576) = 6.264, p = .000],

IJALEL 4(4):46-54, 2015 50 reading proficiency [F(6, 1576) = 4.747, p = .000], thinking ability [F(6, 1576)= 6.852, p = .000], and overall [F(6, 1576) = 3.430, p = 002] all reach a very significant level of .001 and the last one .01. Thus, there are significant differences of perceptions among students from the eight colleges regarding extensive reading practices. Post hoc analyses using the Scheffé post hoc criterion shows that there is significant difference between some pair of means. Particularly, by comparing the means of these pairs, the results indicate that students from College of Management (M=4.08, SD=.818) were general more positively disposed about ER than College of Science and Engineering (M=3.82, SD=.811), College of Medicine (M=3.81, SD=.806), and College of Communication and Design (M=3.77, SD=.760). College of Management (M=3.88, SD=.963) enjoyed ER more than College of Medicine (M=3.57, SD=.922) and College of Communication and Design (M=3.53, SD=.807). College of Management (M=4.11, SD=.796) firmly believed that ER helps to increase their reading proficiency more than College of Medicine (M=3.86, SD=.775) and College of Communication and Design (M=3.78, SD=.768). Agreeing that ER fosters students’ thinking ability, College of Management (M=3.96, SD=.923) is higher than College of Electrical and Information Engineering (M=3.93, SD=.818), College of Medicine (M=3.70, SD=.844) and College of Communication and Design (M=3.55, SD=.807). Overall in speaking, the College of Management (M=1.28, SD=.366) is more positively disposed towards the ER program than the College of Medicine (M=1.37, SD=.359).

Additionally, the factor of time spent weekly for purposes of extensive reading was also examined via a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The statistical results are presented in Table 3.

Table 3. One-way ANOVA Analysis for the Variable of Time Spent Weekly

Categories SS df MS F Sig.

General Between groups 54.115 3 18.038 28.540 .000

opinion Within groups 997.968 1579 .632 total 1052.083 1582 Enjoyment Between groups 59.117 3 19.706 24.633 .000

Within groups 1263.171 1579 .800 total 1322.288 1582 Reading Between groups 37.065 3 12.355 20.320 .000

proficiency Within groups 960.093 1579 .608 total 997.158 1582 Thinking Between groups 40.117 3 13.372 18.795 .000

ability Within groups 1123.461 1579 .712 total 1163.578 1582 Overall Between groups 14.434 3 4.811 39.326 .000

Within groups 193.185 1579 .122 total 207.619 1582 Note: SS = sum of squares, MS = mean square, *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001 Results demonstrated in the Table 3 indicate that general opinion [F(3, 1579) = 28.540, p = .000 ], enjoyment [F(3, 1579) = 24.633, p = .000], reading proficiency [F(3, 1579) =20.320, p = .000], thinking ability [F(3, 1579)= 18.795, p = .000], and overall [F(3, 1579) = 39.326, p = 000] all reach a significant level of .001. Thus, how much time students spent for reading readers is also a significant factor. A Post Hoc Test Scheffé test and comparison of the means of the significant pairs found in the results points out those students who spent four to six hours per weeks strongly agreed with the ER program’s implementation.

4.2 Answer to the second research question

The second question needing to be address is “What are the students’ perceptions toward the extensive reading program?” To answer this question, the top five statements agreed to by the student participants are listed and students’ written comments are also provided for further clarification. Generally speaking, students’ perceptions toward extensive reading, apart from true(1)/ false(2) items, are quite positive for the average mean is 3.83 on a 5-point Likert scale.

IJALEL 4(4):46-54, 2015 51 Table 4. The Top-5 Statements Supported by the Students of Extensive Reading

Statements Mean SD Q8. I think ER is a good way to learn English. 4.14 .780 Q7. I think it is important to do ER. 4.01 .852 Q18. Through ER, my reading comprehension improved. 3.98 .831 Q20. Through ER, it enriches my vocabulary. 3.98 .839 Q21. Through ER, it my word recognition developed. 3.97 .847

Note: N=1,583 As Table 4 indicates that the Top-5 statements students agreed on are: first, ER is a good way to learn English (M=4.14, SD= .780); second, it is important to do ER (M=4.01, SD= .852); third, ER helps to improve reading comprehension (M=3.98, SD= .831); fourth, ER enriches students’ vocabulary (M=3.98, SD= .839), and the fifth, ER helps to develop word recognition (M=3.97, SD= .847). For true(1) / false(2) items, students reported that ER helps to develop a reading habit (M=1.15, SD= .359). However, students did choose to report that their attitudes toward ER were not active (M=1.46, SD= .499), and they did not really enjoy doing ER (M=1.40, SD= .491). Due to the limited space in this paper, the results of the focus group interview data and the open-ended questions are combined and reported as follows. The open-ended question of the questionnaire asked students to express any concerns they may have regarding extensive reading, all 1,583 responses can be generally categorized into: no comments (860), moderate comments (370), very good comments (206), and negative comments (147). The moderate comments that students expressed are: for example, it is good/ interesting to read the readers; it helps to improve my English/ reading comprehension; some suggested reading on more different topics or allow students to choose the books they preferred. For very good comments, students specifically pointed out that by reading the readers, their vocabulary size increased; the reading fluency / speed increased; some suggested to read more; some thought it is better than doing test-preparation type of reading; some strongly supported reading the readers but suggested to have various evaluation formats made available; and, many suggested to read the movie version of the readers’ content. The negative comments are: it is expensive to buy four readers; it is too difficult to read (lots of unknown words); it is meaningless to read readers without assistance from the instructors; some reported that they are too busy with their other academic subjects, so they have no time for the readers; the time provided for reading the readers was insufficient; therefore, the students cannot really enjoy reading the readers; and, some students preferred to read articles from ESL / EFL language magazines rather than from readers. 4.3 Answer to the third research question The third research question of this study is “What are the instructors’ perceptions toward the extensive reading program?” As mentioned previously, although the instructors involved in this study acknowledge the benefits of extensive reading, they still remained skeptical about the feasibility of launching such program at the researched university due to the limited teaching hours available and the demotivated nature of the students involved. After four meetings in which such concerns were openly discussed, some instructors gradually expressed their support for the ER program. To better understand the instructors’ perceptions toward the program, a 24-items questionnaire (Section A: items 1 to 16; Section B: items 17 to 24) items along with one open-ended question was distributed to 36 instructors; 32 surveys were successfully completed and collected. The descriptive statistics reveal that the means for Section A is 4.18 (on the 5-point Likert scale) and the means for Section B is 1.29 (true(1) / false(2)). These results demonstrate that instructors were considered to be highly positive about the extensive reading by the end of the program. In order to compare responses according to gender-type, the independent-samples t-test was computed. The result illustrates that male and female instructors held considerable different perceptions toward extensive reading specifically in the category of thinking ability [t(23.000)=-2.598, p=.016]. Male instructors (M=1.00, SD= .000) are slightly more approving than female instructors (M=1.15, SD= .275) to the notion that students built up their critical thinking skills through the practice of extensive reading. To understand what the instructors most agreed upon in the program, the top six items from Section A and the top three items Section B are then presented respectively. Table 5. The Top 6 Items from Section A Supported by the Instructors of Extensive Reading Items Mean SD

Q1. I think outside readers are important for students in learning English.

4.563 .564

Q2. I think outside readers are one of the methods for learning English. 4.531 .671 Q5. Reading outside readers is one of the good ways to help students to build up reading

habits. 4.438 .669

Q3. I will continually ask my students to read outside readers. 4.406 .712 Q4. Reading outside readers will help students to build up reading habits. 4.406 .712 Q6. Reading outside readers will help students to build up reading fluency. 4.406 .615

Note: N=32

IJALEL 4(4):46-54, 2015 52 The results of teacher responses for the Section A seem to be significantly more positive for the extensive reading. Particularly, teachers were most agreed upon that the use of outside readers are important for students to learn English (Q1, M= 4.563, SD= .564). This is followed by the statement which indicates that the use of outside readers is one of the recognized methods for learning English (Q2, M= 4.531, SD= . 671). Additionally, teachers exceedingly agreed upon the notion that engaging students with outside readers is not only a good method (Q5, M= 4.438, SD=. 669), but it will also help students to develop their reading habits (Q4, M= 4.406, SD=. 712) and reading fluency (Q6, M= 4.406, SD= . 615). More importantly, the responses to whether or not teachers will continually ask for their students to read outside readers (Q3, M= 4.406, SD= .712) should be noted. Table 6. The Top 3 Items from Section B Supported by the Instructors of Extensive Reading

Items Mean SD

Q19. Students learn more about different cultures through outside readers. 1.031 .177

Q20. Students will be able to see things from different perspectives though reading outside readers.

1.063 .246

Q24. Overall speaking, students’ English proficiency will be improved through reading outside readers.

1.094 .296

Note: N=32; true= 1, false= 2. Table 6 presents the statistical results of the top 3 items from Section B supported by the instructors of extensive reading. When compared with the enthusiastically positive support evidenced from Section A, the teachers’ overall evaluation for the extensive reading program is somewhat moderate. Yet, teachers did agree that, through the use of outside readers, students are able to learn more about different cultures (Q19, M= 1.031, SD= .177), and they are able to see things from different perspectives (Q20, M= 1.063, SD= .246). Teachers also supported that students’ English proficiency will be improved through the reading of outside readers (Q24, M= 1.094, SD= .296). Teachers’ spoken comments made in the meetings and the responses to the open-ended questions are combined and highlighted as follows. The positive comments are: “1) Extensive reading is a good way to help students to improve their English”. “2) Students will know more vocabulary through extensive reading”. “3) Students in the higher level English classes enjoyed ER more than those in the lower level classes”. And, “4) we should keep running the ER program”. However, there were also some negative comments offered from the teachers, such as: “Cut down the number of readers”; “Ask students to read short articles instead of readers”; and, students don’t want to buy the readers. One of the teachers even worried that if s/he forced the students to buy readers, students might think that the teacher is trying to make a profit from the publishers’ commissions. 5. Discussion and conclusion This study aims at examining factors that may influence non-English major students’ attitudes toward extensive reading (ER) and both students’ and teachers’ perceptions of the newly implemented extensive reading program. Both qualitative and quantitative data have shown that although there is some resistance among teachers and students at the beginning of the program, after two semesters of involvement with reading more extensively, participants’ attitudes and perceptions have changed dramatically. Regarding the instructors’ resistance and skeptical attitudes towards the launch of the ER program, the results of current study is similar to that found in Byun (2010). This study focused on Korean EFL teachers’ perspectives about their participation in an ER program. It found that although teachers were somewhat resistant to a given ER program prior to the research; at the end of the program, teachers became highly positive toward the ER program and recognized that linguistic benefits could be made available to the learners. Unlike most of the studies located in the literature that utilized ER as part of in-class activities, this study asked students to read graded readers outside of the classroom as a partial course requirement. One of the main reasons this was done was to avoid additional workload for the teachers within the amount of limited lecture time. Additionally, this study was deemed different from most of others because the effectiveness of ER program was evaluated through a comparison of the students’ reading scores. This study mainly looked at both teachers’ and students’ attitudes and perceptions toward the recently carried-out ER program along with the factors surrounding the program. To promote the ER program and to develop the students’ reading habit, teachers were allowed to design any assessment formats necessary to evaluate their students reading outcomes. In the last teacher meeting, most teachers stated that they distributed written tests to the students related to the overall reading process. Yet, one teacher said that he requested that students role-play one of the stories they had chosen, and students learned a lot by practicing the lines; so, he was quite content that the students’ pronunciation had also improved which gave an extra credit for the ER program. The teacher strongly suggested other teachers try out this method, and he has decided to continue to do this for participation in the next ER program. There are several significant factors that affect students’ attitudes toward the ER program found in this study. First, even though gender plays a minor role in the study, perhaps, if students were given the freedom to choose the books they wished to read, they might feel more motivated to read extensively (c.f. Asraf & Ahmad, 2003; Paulson, 2006). Another noteworthy factor to be mentioned is that students from different colleges hold quite diverse perceptions of what constitutes an ER program. Students from the College of Management held the most positive attitudes toward the

IJALEL 4(4):46-54, 2015 53 program from the rest of 7 colleges. It may be assumed that there is more English used as a medium of instruction for the courses offered in the College of Management; hence, students in that college are exposed to an immersive English environment and texts are more frequently in English so that the fear of reading in English is reduced. Besides, time spent weekly for reading the readers also played a considerable role in the study. Thus, it is confirmed that once the students are used to reading more extensively, they would further develop the reading habit gradually and that the resistance to reading in English would become diminished (c.f. Lemmer, 2010). As mentioned in the earlier section of this paper, Taiwanese education is quite test-centric. This means that the majority students do not want to spend time on reading materials which may be irrelevant to a test. This sort of situation results in students having a preference to read short texts (intensive reading) and disliking reading longer passages or readers (extensive reading). Apart from this, figures in Tables 1, 2, and 3 all indicate that students have great concerns related to reading for enjoyment. Hence, how to lead students from test-driven reading to reading for pleasure is a considerable challenge for teachers in Taiwan, especially for those teachers at the researched site. Even though teachers would love to create a stress-free / more enjoyable English learning environment for their learners, they must first meet the school’s required English benchmark of having their students to pass CEFR B1 before graduation. Therefore, teachers are always placed in a dilemma when engaging in ER and opt for use of the grammar translation method and expense of time for test preparation in class. The results of this study have provided the first stepping stone necessary to introduce extensive reading to both teachers and students and has gained certain recognition for the linguistic benefits of English teaching and learning through extensive reading efforts. Besides, considerable research has also proved and indicated the various kinds of assistance extensive reading for language learning can accomplish. Therefore, there is an urgent need to continuously promote extensive reading in the academic setting of a university campus. Better yet, it is necessary to completely change teachers’ and students’ negative feelings / hesitancy towards engaging in outside readings. Predominantly, the author would like to suggest that an ER program works better if school administrators indeed take this issue into account and support the idea of reading for pleasure and for gaining knowledge that is not merely for passage of a test and to obtain higher scores. 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IJALEL 4(4):46-54, 2015 54 Johnson, Y. (2012). Attitudes towards EFL learning and extensive reading in Japanese engineering students. Journal of Language and Culture of Hokkaido, 10, 65-81. Juan, L., & Cheng, C.-K. (2008). Using extensive reading to improve the learning performance and attitude of elementary school remedial students. English Teaching and Learning, 32(4), 41-83. Kweon, S.-O., & Kim, H.-R. (2008). Beyond raw frequency: Incidental vocabulary acquisition in extensive reading. Reading in a Foreign Language, 20(2), 191-215. Lemmer, R. J. (2010). Do they see what we see?: Student reading habits and perceptions of extensive reading. Chugokugakuen Journal, 9, 1-6. Maruyama, Y. (2009). Graded readers: Selecting an appropriate level for university EFL students. OnCue Journal, 3(1), 26-47. Mason, B., & Krashen, S. (1997a). Extensive reading in English as a foreign language. System, 25, 91-102. Mason, B. & Krashen, S. (1997b). Can extensive reading help unmotivated students of EFL improve? ITL Review of Applied Linguistics, 9(2), 78-84 Meng, F. (2009). Developing students’ reading ability through extensive reading. English Language Teaching, 2(2), 132-137. Modirkhamene, S., & Gowrki, F. (2011). Extensive reading in relation to lexical knowledge & reading fluency: Evidence from Iranian EFL learners. Modern Journal of Language Teaching Methods, 1(3), 5-23. Morgado, N. F. (2009). Extensive reading: Student’s performance and perception. The Reading Matrix, 9(1), 31-43. Nation, I.S.P. (2001). Learning vocabulary in another language. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Nishino, T. (2007). Beginning to read extensively: A case study with Mako and Fumi. Reading in a Foreign Language, 19(2), 77-105. Paris, S.G., Wasik, B.A. & Turner, J.C. (1991). The development of strategic readers. In Barr, R., Kamil, M.L., Mosenthal, P., & Pearson, P.D. (eds.), Handbook of Reading Research, Volume II. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Paulson, E. J. (2006). Self-selected reading for enjoyment as a college developmental reading approach. Journal of College Reading and Learning, 36(2), 51-58. Pigada, M., & Schmitt, N. (2006). Vocabulary acquisition from extensive reading: A case study. Reading in a Foreign Language, 18(1), 1-28. Robb, T. N., & Susser, B. (1989). Extensive reading vs skills building in an EFL context. Reading in a Foreign Language, 5(2), 239-251. Robb, T. & Kano, M. (2013). Effective extensive reading outside the classroom: A large-scale experiment. Reading in a Foreign Language, 25(2), 234-247. Renandya, W.A., Sundara Rajan, B. R., & Jacobs, G. M. (1999). Extensive reading with adult learners of English as a second language. RELC Journal, 30(1), 39-60. Shen, M.-Y. (2008). EFL learners’ responses to extensive reading: Survey and pedagogical application. The Reading Matrix, 8(2), 111-123. Sheu, S. P-H. (2004). The effects of extensive reading on learners’ reading ability development. Journal of National Taipei Instructors College, 17(2), 213-228. Stoeckel, T., Reagan, N., & Hann, F. (2012). Extensive reading quizzes and reading attitudes. TESOL Quarterly, 46(1), 187-198. Taguchi, E., Takayasu-Maass, M. & Gorsuch, G. J. (2004). Developing reading fluency in EFL: How assisted repeated reading and extensive reading affect fluency development. Reading in a Foreign Language, 16(2), 70-96. Takase, A. (2007). Japanese high school students’ motivation for extensive L2 reading. Reading in a Foreign Language, 19(1), 1-18. Tran, A. (2006). Modified extensive reading for English-language learners. Reading Improvement, 43(4), 173-178. Williams, E. (2007). Extensive reading in Malawi: Inadequate implementation or inappropriate innovation? Journal of Research in Reading, 30(1), 59-79. Yamashita, J. (2008). Extensive reading and development of different aspects of L2 proficiency. System, 36, 661-672. Yamashita, J. (2013). Effects of extensive reading on reading attitudes in a foreign language. Reading in a Foreign Language, 25(2), 248-263.

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

A Critical Discourse Analysis of Family and Friends Textbooks: Representation of Genderism

Saeed Esmaeili (Corresponding author)

Department of English Language Teaching, Golestan Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Gorgan, Iran E-mail: saeedesmaeili7@yahoo.com

Ali Arabmofrad

Department of English Language and Literature, Golestan University, Iran E-mail: a.arabmofrad@gu.ac.ir

Received: 22-11- 2014 Accepted: 28-01- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015 Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.55 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.55 Abstract The present study employed a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approach to investigate the linguistic representation of male and female social actors in Family and Friends 4, 5 and 6. To this end, van Leeuwen’s (1996) representational framework and Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2004) Transitivity Theory Model were adopted to reveal the ideology behind the constructions. The findings indicated a “sexist attitude” in favor of male social actors in which males were portrayed more than females and also had high activity. In addition, it was revealed that there was attempt to avoid traditional stereotypes of females in most parts of textbooks and women were not portrayed at home as housewives engaged in child care, however, it can be claimed that they suffered most obviously from low visibility. The findings may help EFL teachers, material developers and policy makers to be aware of equality/inequality issues in textbooks in order to make an equality perspective to learners. Keywords: Critical Discourse Analysis, Gender, Textbook, Representation, Social Actors 1. Introduction Despite the move towards technology, textbooks still serve as the most common educational tools in classroom content. Textbooks in developing countries, in turn, play their own part in contributing to gender and social class stereotypes. Books are part of an appropriate system of education on which the social, cultural, scientific and mental growth of learners depend (Kemp, 1977). In this regard, Gershuny (1977, p. 150) claims that “textbooks purporting to teach the specifics of academic discipline have concomitantly taught secondary information gender roles and social values”. In this respect, the unconscious effect of textbooks on students especially in early ages lead to an oppressive and gender-biased attitude in students. “Gender-biased language in textbooks can affect students adversely and it creates an oppressive world for them because this gender-biased language most often is unjustified and unfair” (Cameron, 1990, p. 13). Doubtless, students frequently have interaction with textbooks thus a cautious approach is needed for materials and it must avoid any form of discrimination. Accordingly, textbooks are not only a resource for learning but also a factor that influence people in other matters implicitly. The content of the textbooks helps reinforce gender as a social division and perpetuate inequalities between men and women. Genderism is one of the most important aspects in the content of textbooks that is the concern educators. Since, a biased attitude of writers may sometimes have destructive effects on students that will remain in the student’s mind. It should be noted that gender identity cognition begins from childhood and it will remain constant when children reach puberty. Therefore, attention to create a balanced atmosphere in textbooks should be considered severely. The traditional stereotypes and exclusion of social actors in textbooks may impair learners’ attitude and also lead to have negative attitudes towards opposite sex. Educators usually are concerned about sexism in textbooks because it can have terrible effects on students' personality. As mentioned, genderism or gender perspective is a phenomenon that can be transferred alongside other matters as a drawback. Gender-biased language and unequal treatment will change students’ attitude about society and social actors. For example, in many textbooks mostly females are usually considered as an inferior to males in societies. In this regard, critical discourse analysis will be useful to reveal these inequalities in textbooks and also unravel policies and ideologies underlying them. Critical discourse analysis not only attempts to find drawbacks in texts but also to inform language users to backstage events. 2. Review of the literature Critical discourse analysis focuses on power abuse that usually occurs in discursive conditions by institutions or elite groups. In recent years, CDA has attracted many researchers to work on various sectors such as textbooks, newspapers, media etc. Researchers have analyzed the various text features such as male’s or female’s names, pronouns, images, stereotypical roles, social actors activities and other aspects. Such studies mostly are quantitative or qualitative in which

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IJALEL 4(4):55-61, 2015 56 male and female social actors are counted. In this section, the related literature of the previous studies on ELT textbooks for gender analysis will be elaborated. Coles (1977) analyzed five of prevalent sets of adult basic educational materials. The results indicated that male social actors were portrayed three times more than females. He also found that males are indicated as breadwinners but on the contrary females are viewed as housewives or workers. Dominguez (2003) made an attempt to analyze New Interchange Intro to explore how males and females are represented. To this end, he analyzed the book in terms of word level, male and female characters, occupational roles, amount of talk and male and female illustrations. Regarding data collected, he concluded that the book is not biased toward any of the sexes. Keynan and Fakhruddin (2004) did a study on policy context, curriculum outlines and 194 textbooks to identify gender disparities in curricula and textbooks used in Pakistan education centers. They used content analysis to determine the different gender portrayal. The findings revealed that females were down-graded in and they had not received the desired value the same as males. Babaii and Ansary (2005) carried out an investigation on Book Reviews (BRs) in order to find the disciplinary variation based on transitivity theory. The researchers analyzed BRs from three different disciplinary-related academic journals of physics, sociology and literature. The data gathered revealed that in terms of process types, there were significant differences between physics’ BRs and the other two but there were no significant differences between BRs of sociology and literature. They also found that in terms of participants’ gender there were marked differences between analyzed BRs. Halberg (2006) made an attempt to investigate Blueprint A with a new approach toward gender analysis to indicate how gender is portrayed in one of the most prevalent textbooks which published in Swedish Upper Secondary obligatory course English A. The various perspective of power were represented in the textbook, but it couldn’t be provided any text or discussion that challenge gender norms. Therefore this investigation revealed a rather conservative depiction of men and women. Mustedanagic (2010) selected two textbooks which are being used in Swedish secondary schools in order to investigate them critically. Regarding some issues of gender such as gender in illustration, gender roles, main characters and sub characters and gender distribution of narrators be taken into consideration by Mustedanagic. She found that a non-stereotypic view of gender roles represented in Wings 8, which is in accordance with the fundamental values of LPO 94. According to this study, the illustrations tend to represent men and women in what can be considered as quite stereotypical. She claimed that Team 8 was filled by gendered language and male dominance; women were placed in the background or left out completely. So, she found that Team 8 would not be deemed to be compliant with the requirements set by the Swedish National Agency of Education today. Hamdan (2010) investigated on gender bias in English-Language school textbooks used in public schools in Jordan. The authors' treatment of jobs attributed to male and female characters was the purpose of this study. In this regard, grades 1 to 9 of textbook have been studied by Hamdan in a content analysis of the discourse. The findings indicated a tendency toward gender asymmetry in Jordanian EFL texts greater than the gender asymmetry in Jordanian society as a whole. She concluded that male social actors dealt with a variety of jobs and they were manifested as effective and dominant characters in the labor market, so she concluded that the textbooks reflect the culturally-prevalent gender bias, but on the contrary female social actors practice traditional jobs such as teachers and nurses. Baghdadi (2012) investigated on Iranian EFL (English as a Foreign Language) and AFL (Arabic as a Foreign Language) textbooks in order to find how gender roles portrayed in these textbooks. To this end, she employed mixed method of Social Prominence by Lesikin, which is based on Halliday's Systemic Functional Syntax and also a criterion for analysis of the equality of gender representation by Rifkinwich applied in CDA framework. With regard to findings, it came out that male social actors were portrayed significantly more than female social actors. She claimed that males were the central point of most sentences in both subject and actions and also in main figure in sentences and pictures. She refers that there was a significant differences between AFL and EFL textbooks. She found that both textbooks were extremely traditional in presenting stereotypical gender roles and activities. She does not believe these textbooks are a true reflection of the Iranian society as a whole. The findings simply show the viewpoints of the authors or a small sector of the Iranian society and particularly the ideology of the government in power. Ghalajian Moghaddam (2013) provided a theoretical background and methodology for the analysis of the relationships between language, ideology, and power. She did study the ideological issues of gender, class, and culture reflected in Iranian High school English texts. “As a methodology for this study, Thompson’s socio-historical, textual (micro-analysis, macro-analysis, and linguistic analysis) and interpretive analysis is adopted” (Ghalajian Moghaddam, 2013, p. 110). The results indicated that there are several manifestations of ideology, either positive or negative, among members of different social classes. Yang (2014) conducted a study on Step Up and Primary Longman Express which are two prevalent primary English Language textbooks series and this study specifically went to reading passages, dialogues and visuals. She analyzed textual (lexis and grammar), discourse and visual representations of gender. A mix method is employed in this study. She concluded that males and females are represented similarly and fairly, and show an improvement over previous textbook studies in gender representation.

IJALEL 4(4):55-61, 2015 57 Mustapha (2014) used content analysis to reveal how men and women roles are portrayed in selected English Language textbooks for Junior Secondary School students in Nigeria. According to findings it is revealed that women are manifested in traditional roles and they dealt with some works which are related to home such as, child caring, and home chores, men are manifested in roles in public sphere in highly professional skills. He found that the textbooks analyzed are gender-biased in terms of gender roles, especially against female in the public life and against male in the private life. Hall (2014) did a study on EFL textbooks (Right Path to English I and II) that are designed for Iranian secondary schools. The findings indicated that there was no balance in gender manifestation in these textbooks. These studies indicate that CDA and SFL can be applied to different texts with different genres to reveal their underlying ideology. 3. Research Questions 1) Based on van Leeuwen’s (1996) representational framework, to what extent are male and female social actors presented in Family and Friends textbooks? 2) Based on Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2004) transitivity theory, to what extent are male and female social actors presented regarding attributed process types? 4. Corpus In the present study, three Oxford University Press textbooks named Family and Friends were selected. The series are written for primary learners by three different authors i.e. Family and Friend 4 authored by Naomi Simmons (2010), grade 5 by Tamzin Thompson (2010), and grade 6 by Jenny Quintana (2010). For analyzing the representation of genderism, the present study specifically goes to reading section of each book. There were 4 extensive reading passages in grade 5 and 6, also 5 extensive reading passages in grade 4, and 14 reading passages in grade 4, 12 reading passages in grade 5 and 6. It should be noted that these textbooks are American English versions and also very similar in style and components; all of them consist of reading and extensive reading sections which are the target of the current study. Family and Friends series is one of the most popular and also prevalent international textbooks in the world. The popularity and prevalence of these textbooks motivated researcher to investigate them critically. 5. Framework of Study In this research, with respect to van Leeuwen (1996) and Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) models, all sentences of the reading passages have been critically analyzed. Van Lueewen’s framework is known as a comprehensive framework to the representation of the male and female actors from a social standpoint in CDA studies. On the other hand, Halliday and Matthiessen’s transitivity model has been used for analyzing the type of activity that refers to process types of male and female social actors. Regarding van Lueeuwen’s framework (1996) the following elements are considered to function as criterion for the analysis: Deletion, role allocation and substitution. Deletion as main section of framework focuses on inclusion and exclusion of social actors, therefore, role allocation deals with activation and passivation of social actors in which suppressed, backgrounded, participation, possessivation, circumstantialization, subjection and beneficialization are placed in this category. Finally, substitution collaborates on personalization and impersonalization in which functionalization, classification, relational identification, formal nomination, semi-formal nomination, informal nomination, indetermination, objectivation, abstraction, genericization, individualization and collectivization are placed in this category. With regard to Halliday (1994) there are two approaches to analyze any text to reveal the hidden relations of power and language. These two approaches are SFL in general and transitivity in particular that transitivity model can be used for a manageable set of process types. It can codify actors in some processes i.e. material process, behavioral process, mental process, verbal process, relational process, and existential process. In fact, using these five categories can identify individuals’ roles of social actors in their process types. 6. Procedure In the first stage the gendered clauses of the reading sections of textbooks were isolated for analysis. Afterward participants and processes were examined in clauses. Participants in each gendered clause were underlined and analyzed in two distinguishing types i.e. males and females. Thus it clarified that what the gender of social actor was and also it revealed which gender was responsible for the conducted process types in gendered clauses. After all, in the present study because of the narrow borderline and the semantic load of material and behavioral processes researcher did not make any distinction between them, so the researcher decided to transfer behavioral processes into material category. 7. Results Using van Leeuwen’s (1996) social actor representation framework and also Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2004) transitivity theory, data analysis went as follows: 7.1 Deletion Deletion can be used to represent process of inclusion and exclusion. Table 1.1 summarizes the inclusion and exclusion of males and females in Family and Friends 4, 5 and 6:

IJALEL 4(4):55-61, 2015 58 Table 1. Distribution of Inclusion and Exclusion in Family and Friends 4, 5 and 6

Inclusion Exclusion Inclusion Exclusion Family and Friends 4 168 (78%) 4 (67%) 47 (22%) 2 (33%) Family and Friends 5 236 (82%) - 48 (18%) - Family and Friends 6 145 (71%) 1 (50%) 58 (29%) 1 (50%) Total 549 (78%) 5 (62%) 153 (22%) 3 (38%)

As the Table 1 indicates in Family and Friends 4 inclusion of male/female ratio is near to 4:1. It is evident that in Family and Friends 4 male social actors are included with more frequency than females. On the other hand, descriptive analysis supports this claim. Out of 19 passages analyzed by the researcher only one of them dedicated to a specific female. There were 5 passages that specifically dealt with males and the other passages collaborates on both of male and female but the proportion of males is more than females. Of course there were few neutral passages that researcher ignored them. Regarding Table 1 the difference between inclusion of men and female in Family and Friends 5 is very obvious. It can be said the inclusion of male/female ratio is near to 4:1. This textbook consists of 16 passages in which specified that 6 passages specifically deal with males and there was only one passage about female that was very brief. There was not any sign of male and female in exclusion category. According to Table 1 inclusion of male/female ratio in Family and Friends 6 is near to 3:1. This textbook consists of 16 reading passages and there were 2 passages specifically deal with female. Table 1 indicates in Family and Friends 6 the number of male and female is equal in exclusion. 7.2 Role Allocation Role allocation plays a significant part in critical discourse analysis as a discursive structure. Table 2 summarizes the inclusion and exclusion of males and females in Family and Friends 4, 5 and 6: Table 2. Distribution of Passivation and Activation in Family and Friends 4, 5 and 6

Male Female

Activation Passivation Activation Passivation

Family and Friends 4 145 (77%) 23 (88%) 44 (23%) 3 (12%) Family and Friends 5 187 (82%) 49 (86%) 40 (18%) 8 (14%) Family and Friends 6 110 (68%) 35 (83%) 51 (32%) 7 (17%)

Total 442 (79%) 107 (86%) 135 (21%) 18 (14%)

As Table 2 indicates, male social actors are more active than females in Family and Friends 4. It happened for male social actors in passivation category similarly. It has shown female social actors are lower activated and passivated than males in Family and Friends 5. As Table above indicates, male social actors also are more activated than females in Family and Friends 6. Regarding Table 2, as expected the result indicated male social actors have shown more frequently than females. Table 3. Distribution of Exclusion in Family and Friends 4, 5 and 6

Exclusion Male Female

Suppressed - - Backgrounded 5 (37.5%) 3 (62.5%)

As it is shown in Table 3, there is no suppressed element in these textbooks. Most likely it is occurred because of the level of textbooks.

Table 4. Distribution of activation and passivation in Family and Friends 4, 5 and 6

Activation/Passivation Male Female Participation 427 (76%) 134 (24%) Possessivation 93 (79%) 24 (21%) Circumstantialization 22 (92%) 2 (8%) Subjection 33 (85%) 6 (15%) Beneficialization 43 (84%) 8 (16%)

IJALEL 4(4):55-61, 2015 59 According to Table 4 most of activation are belonged to participation for both genders and as expected male share is much more than the female again, so males participated more in passages of Family and Friends textbooks. 7.3 Transitivity In present study the transitivity model of Halliday applied on text and it tries to indicate verb groups in a sentence with their processes. Table 5. Distribution of process types in Family and Friends 4, 5 and 6

Participant/Processes Material Mental Relational Verbal Existential Total

Male 313(78%) 114(71%) 100(74%) 47(85%) 1(50%) 575(76%)

Female 89(22%) 46(29%) 35(26%) 8(15%) 1(50%) 179(24%) Total 402

(100%) (54%)

160 (100%) (21%)

135 (100%) (18%)

55 (100%) (7%)

2 (100%) (0%)

754 (100%) (100%)

As it is shown in Table 5, the analysis of different types of processes in Family and Friends textbooks revealed that out of 754 investigated processes, material processes were the most frequent ones (54%) that followed by mental processes (21%), relational processes reserved (18%), verbal processes (7%), and the least ones were existential processes which was less than (1%). With regard to transitivity model it was uncovered that there was no equality between male and female social actors in process types and these textbooks represented them differently. 7.4 Substitution Table 6. Distribution of Personalization/Impersonalization in Family and Friends 4, 5 and 6

Personalization/Impersonalization Male Female Functionalization 18 (86%) 3 (14%) Classification 40 (73%) 15 (27%) Relational ID 19 (68%) 9 (32%) Formal Nomination 62 (100%) - Semi-Formal Nomination 33 (82%) 7 (18%) Informal Nomination 85 (65%) 46 (35%) Indetermination 2 (100%) - Objectivation - - Abstraction - - According to Table 6 it can be said that males and females were not equally functionalized. It means that most of jobs held by men, and females were not associated with business activities. It can be concluded that males are portrayed with a delicacy but females usually indicated as simple phenomena. One of the important factors employed to represent social actors is nomination. Regarding Table 6 it was clear that male social actors were represented as formal and respectful and unique but in the contrary females were represented with their informal names. There were no significant number of indetermination, objectivation and abstraction in Family and Friends textbooks. This could be due to primary level of textbooks. Table 7. Distribution of Genericization and Specification in Family and Friends 4, 5 and 6

Genericization/Spesification Male Female Genericization 13 (100%) -

Specification Individualization 179 (77%) 52 (23%) Collectivization 37 (100%) -

As Table 7 shows there were differences between male and female social actors in genericization and specification. It again shows the domination of male social actors in Family and Friends textbooks. 8. Discussion The present study aimed to explore gender representation in Family and Friend 4, 5 and 6. An attempt was made to shed light on genderism of these textbooks by CDA method which were van Leeuven’s (1996) social actors representation framework and Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2004) transitivity theory. Referring to the data gathered, it was explored that in Family and Friends 4, 5 and 6 male social actors were represented more frequently than females. They were more activated and participated and in material process had upper hand, so the male social actors had a position of

IJALEL 4(4):55-61, 2015 60 power and control over females. At a glance, these three textbooks are similar in including social actors, discursive features and process types, thus it can be concluded that the difference between these three textbooks was not significant. In all of them was a trace of sexism whereas in Family and Friends 5 was more considerable. In this regard, for a better descriptive analysis, researcher has discussed with the author of Family and Friends 4. Researcher asked her some questions about considering gender equality and issues of gender stereotypes of social actors. In respect of the questions she answered that “The girls are strong personalities and we also wanted to show older people as active and fun regardless of gender. That is why stories show grandmas having fun in the park, and fathers and grandfathers active with the children”. It can be said that Naomi Simmons was right in considering of gender stereotypes in some passages e.g. Family and Friends 4 Unit 13, Child Heroes, in this unit Emilee as a girl represented as a strong and brave girl by sentences like these: Emilee broke a window to carry her brother to safety or in another place she described as a brave person such as: The family home was destroyed, but because Emilee was so brave, no one was hurt. As the above examples indicated the author tried to show Emilee strongly but in some units can see the traditional stereotypes of social actors like reading section of unit 7 in Family and Friends 4. In this passage Joe as a boy predicts life in 100 years later, he says: I think robots do everything for us and Tom as another boy says: there will be more people on earth in the future… I think we will have new roads in the sky. So far, it’s obvious that the boys have optimistic beliefs for future and they aren’t scared of upcoming days but Jess as a girl starts her words with this sentence: I sometimes worry about the future. I think it will be hotter and there will be more storms. Thus, it can be concluded that this girl showed as a worried person or a person who scared of something. With respect to accuracy of authors to present textbooks with appropriate level of gender equality, the present study revealed that there were traces of genderism in Family and Friends 4, 5 and 6. 9. Conclusion In the present study, only textbooks selected and other supplementary materials such as audio CDs were excluded. It should be noted that textbooks consisted of grade 4, 5 and 6 and the reading sections of each specific textbook were analyzed to explore any trace of sexism bias or equal manifestation of men and women. A detailed image of distribution of biased and non-biased stance for genders was illustrated by applying van Leeuwen’s (1996) representation of social actor framework and Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2004) transitivity theory. According to van Leeuwen framework it came out that the inclusion of male and female social actors is near to 4:1 and based on this claim, males participated much more than females. With regard to transitivity model of Halliday, it was revealed that there was no equality between male and female social actors in process type and most of material, mental, relational and verbal processes belonged to men. This study revealed that these three textbooks suffer from gender bias against female social actors. Based on the analysis it can be said that females were ignored and males represented as active social actors and they had upper hand. In this sense, Family and Friends has taken a cultural oriented position in sexism. Family and Friends devoted more reading sections to males, further females ignored. It is whothnoting that one of the main problems in Family and Friends 4, 5 and 6 was greater amount of units that belonged to male social actors and females were deprived of it. Therefore it can be concluded that the Family and Friends textbooks suffered from lower appearance of female social actors than males in both van Leeuwen’s (1996) social actor framework and Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2004) transitivity theory. 10. Implications Actions and goals which are due to conscious or unconscious ideas refer to ideology. Most political and economic tendencies in society are propounded by ideology. In this regard, one of the most popular concepts in ideologies is power. Ideology having power can reach specific purposes and always in society some groups having more power dominate others, so, dominating groups can make a stance to establish text and talk to shape and form people’s unconscious thought which is a main goal for ideology. Gender consists of social thoughts and roles in which dominant culture of society carries them on men and women. One of the main purposes of critical discourse analysis is identify and discover gender issues such as difference between male and female in society which is stated through language, in this way, power structure and hidden ideology of power group could come out. With regard to study of CDA and its analyses and results, curriculum developers should consider these studies and provide unbiased content to improve equality between male and female in society. The results of this study can be useful for policy makers, material developers, teachers and students to interpret its findings to find a way to revise or reform the content of the books such as Family and Friends 4, 5 and 6 specifically in sexism area. 11. Suggestion for Further Studies This paper is only limited to the study on three textbooks of Family and Friends series published 2010. Family and Friends is a six-level primary course and researcher analyzed grade 4, 5 and 6. Thus more textbooks could be scrutinized that can lead to make the study more reliable. Furthermore, in this study, researcher only analyzed reading sections of Family and Friends 4, 5 and 6 but it is evident that there are so many aspects of genderism found in textbooks such as dialogue, listening and writing sections. The second edition of Family and Friends textbooks was published earlier this year and the reading passages are now changed from the first edition. It could be good possibility to compare the first edition against second.

IJALEL 4(4):55-61, 2015 61 References Babaii, E., & Ansary, H. (2005). On the effect of disciplinary variation on transitivity: The case of academic book reviews. Asian EFL Journal, 7(3), 113-126. Baghdadi, M. (2012). A comparision of gender representation in English (EFL) and Arabic (AFL) textbooks in Iran: A critical discourse analysis. A Thesis Presented to the Department of Linguistics, California State University, Long Beach. Cameron, D. (1990). The feminist critique of language: A reader. London: Rutledge. Coles, G. (1977). Dick and Jane grow up: Ideology in adult basic education readers. Urban Education, 12(1), 37-53. Gershuny, H. L. (1977). Sexism in dictionaries and texts: Omissions and commissions in Nilsen, A.P. et al. Sexism and language (pp. 143-159). Urbana, Ill: the National Council of Teachers of English. Dominguez, L.M. (2003). Gender textbook evaluation. TESL Canada Journal, 8(1), 32-46. Ghalajian Moghaddam, H. (2013). A critical discourse analysis of Iranian first, second, and third grade high school English textbooks. World Science Publisher, United States, 2(1), 110-119. Halberg, R. (2006). Text matters: A study of gender in a contemporary text for English. University essay Retrieved 23 August 2014 from: http://www.essays.se/essay/0fc0984b2f/ Hall, M. (2014). Gender representation in current EFL textbooks in Iranian secondary schools. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 5(2) 253-261. Halliday, M. A. K & Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2004). An introduction to functional grammar: 3rd Edition. London: Arnold. Hamdan, S. (2010). Englishlanguage textbooks reflect gender bias: A case study in Jordan. Advances in Gender and Education 2, 22-26. Kemp, J. E. (1977). Instructional design: A plan for unit and course development (2nd ed.). New York: Longman. Mirza, M., Keynan, H. Kakhar-ud-din (2004) Gender analysis of school curriculum and textbooks. United Nations Educational, Scientific and cultural Organization (UNESCO). Mustapha, A. (2014). Sex roles in English language textbooks in Nigerian schools. Journal of ELT and Applied Linguistics (JELTAL), 2(2), 69-81 Mustedanagic, A. (2010). Gender in English language and EFL textbooks. A term paper submitted to Halmstad University. Hogskola. Van Leeuwen, T. (1996). The representation of social actors in disourse. In Caldas-Coulthard, C. R, & Coulthard, M. (Eds.), Text and Practices, London: Routledge. Van Leeuwen, T. (2008). Discourse and practice: New tools for critical discourse analysis. New York: Oxford University Press. Yang, C. C. R. (2014). Gender representation in Hong Kong primary English language textbooks: a study of two widely-used textbook series. Lancaster: Lancaster University.

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

Semantic Framing of NATIONALISM in the National Anthems of Egypt and England

Esra' Mustafa

Department of English, Faculty of Al-Alson, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt. E-mail: lingcrpus@gmail.com

Received: 25-11- 2014 Accepted: 01-02- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015 Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.62 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.62 Abstract Every human experience can be conceptually represented in terms of semantic frames. Frames set the major cognitive general aspects of any concept, as well as the contextual variants of such a concept. Being a universal concept, NATIONALISM is central to the human cognition. However, political scientists and dictionary makers differently view it. This study makes use of semantic frame in understanding NATIONALISM as expressed in English and Egyptian national anthems. It aims at capturing the similarities and differences between the anthems in order to render the basic constituents of the frame. It is evident that despite the different scenes represented in each anthem’s frame, NATIONALISM typically actives the frame of people, place, power and principles. The eight national anthems, subject to the analysis, along with a number of political science definitions of NATIONALISM can be contained under this general conceptual frame. The frame interacts with the basics of sociology. Being developed over time and place, NATIONALISM still summons the same frame of a society of people gathered in one place sharing the same principles and governed by the same power. However, the kind of power, place, and principles varies according to the physical scene. Keywords: Cognitive linguistics; Semantic framework; Bilady; Egypt; England; National Anthems 1. Introduction NATIONALISM is an interdisciplinary notion; it has sociological, psychological, political, and historical aspects. However, there is not a conventional definition of it, not even a literally linguistic one. Revealing different dimensions of the concept, studies define NATIONALISM pertaining on shared ideologies, behaviors, beliefs devotion, language, territory, rights and duties, Gellner (1983: 6-7). It is also identified as ‘an imagined political community’ in which people do not know each other, but conceptually share the ‘communion’ image, Anderson (1991: 5). Smith (1991) differently describes it as a group of people seeking the right of self-determination and unity. Linguistic definitions of NATIONALISM exhibit various perspectives too. English dictionaries; Merriam-Webster, Oxford, and Longman, propose different definitions such as being loyal, proud of a country, believing in the country’s superiority, advocating a country’s independence, having people with shared culture and history calling for forming a nation, among many other meanings. Classic Arabic dictionaries; Lisan Al-arab, among others, do not include the word homeland’ conventionally means a ‘place of stay’. Modern Arabic/وطن‘ NATIONALISM’, yet its linguistic root/الوطنیة‘dictionaries; Al-ghani, Ar- Ra'ed and Al-logha Al-Arabia Al-moa'sera, define “الوطنیة’/al-wattania” as being attached to a homeland, and sincerely love and sacrifice for it. Billig (1993: 40-3) links NATIONALISM to language, exploring it as expressed in naturally-occurring conversations; as it is an ‘everyday phenomenon’. The study reveals that respondents vary in their ideologies about nationalism; some speak about the country in terms of its unity, while others speak of it in terms of its diversity. The various, usually unrelated, definitions are an attempt to cover all the possible contextual senses of the term, but they fail to establish a conventional basis of it. Being purely cognitive, semantic frames can be used to reach a general empirical definition of NATIONALISM. A semantic frame starts with scenes, whether perceptual or linguistic, and then conceptually analyzes them to reach the ultimate shared cognition collocated with them. Semantic frames move beyond the surface level of language, and detect the general cognitive characteristics of a notion. A frame-based definition typically captures the essential aspects of a notion, and is, therefore, converged with other empirical sciences. 1.1 Review of literature Evans & Green (2006: 209-11) suggest that the limitedness and de-contextualization of the dictionary meaning urged the need for a comprehensive empirical approach addressing the encyclopedic nature of meaning. Such an encyclopedic view of meaning reflects the language-experience dualism. Fillmore’s frame semantics is an empirical cognitive attempt to overcome the shortcomings of the traditional purely linguistic theories of meaning. It starts from the hypothesis that a word’s meaning is always context-dependant. That is to say, it totally rejects the semantic/pragmatic distinction and relies on the worldly knowledge as the foundation of meaning.

Flourishing Creativity & Literacy

IJALEL 4(4):62-76, 2015 63 The cognitive sense of the word frame is first used by Fillmore (1975: 124, 127). He proposes it as a solution to the problems of traditional checklist theories. Introducing a new term, Fillmore cognitively defines frames as linguistic system reflecting certain experience; ‘scene’. That is to say, meaning is completely dependent on human experience. The then-under-formation theory has been very generally applied to the language learning scene in which a child learns the linguistic unit describing the whole situation; then he tends to acquire the linguistic labels of the parts constituting the frame. With the course of time a child is able to link the similar components of different scenes to each other. Moving from the general conceptual level to a more linguistic-based application of the theory, Fillmore & Atkins (1992: 81-4) introduce a corpus-based frame of the word ‘risk’. The frame accounts for all the nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives collocating with the ‘risk’. Thus, the different senses of the word are concluded. Conceptually analyzing the frame, two cognitive notions are highlighted; ‘chance’ and ‘harm’. Moreover, he clarifies the sub-frames activated by the major frame of ‘risk’; ‘risk taking’ and ‘risk running’. The frames are divided into categories, including ‘victim’, ‘risking situation’ and ‘valued object’. The associated syntactic structures of each category are mapped in the frame. Petruck (1995) conducts a comprehensive study of the ‘body’ frame in Hebrew. The study combined both the literal and metaphoric senses of body parts. It conceptually widens the scope of frame beyond the surface word level. The study analyzed the concept of body with its related senses and linguistic structures. The researcher traces the “extensions” of the body parts terms to investigate the interaction between the body frame and other metaphoric frames. The basic frame of ‘body’ and all the correlationally activated frames are interpreted within the same physical experience of the human body. Fillmore and Baker (2009:317) link frames to first language (L1) acquisition. L1 acquisition is derived from physical experience. A child gains the linguistic knowledge contextually. As an illustration, when a child is exposed to a physical pain scene, he learns linguistic expressions such as “ouch”, “it hurts”, “headache”, etc. Then he extends the frame of pain to include other linguistic realizations and links them to the other body parts. Finally, humans, at a certain point, become able to develop this experience-based linguistic knowledge and broaden the frame at some abstract level. That is why, metaphors such as “pain is a motivating force” can be contained and understood within the pain frame. Recently, frame semantics theory has been applied computationally. Xie, Passonneau, Wu & Creamer (2013) use semantic frames to predict stock price movement. Their paper argues for the ability of frame semantics to provide better quality information and prediction of the stock market than the bag-of-words approach, which depends mainly on meaning distribution among the content words of a text. The researchers depend on events frames and conceptual relation evoked by the lexical items in financial news to “predict change in stock price”. They automatically detect the linguistic similarities in financial news, marking the different/similar frames they evoke. They concentrate on the valence descriptions of the used verbs and how the companies are situated within each frame. Their promising results reveal the importance of frame semantics in enhancing stock predictions. Moreover, a whole computational model of price stock prediction can be built depending on the semantic fields activated by news pieces. Lo & Wu (2011) exploit frame semantics to develop machine translation. They adopt the principle that a successful translation has to be a useful one; revealing the event’s key aspects to the reader, namely “who did what to whom? When? Where? And why?” In other words, revealing the scene/frame of the original text. It assesses the ability of CAT tools to detect these major meaning aspects by manually “annotate[ing] semantic frames” of the translation and the source. Then, test the machine system of the new tool “MEANT” to evoke the same manually evoked frames. That is to say, a useful translation has to evoke the same frames evoked by the original. 1.2 Study objectives This study depends on the semantic frames theory to analyze the concept of NATIONALISM in the national anthems of Egypt and England. First, it identifies the core attributes of each frame of a given national anthem and the values of these attributes, along with the structural invariant correlating them to each other; second, the study highlights the shared elements, if any, among the eight national anthems, as well as contrasting the major differences. Third, it determines whether the different political, social, military and cultural English and Egyptian backgrounds are reflected in the frames. Finally, the paper renders a cognitively-based definition of NATIONALISM as presented in the eight national anthems. 1.3 Significance of the study: Given the sufficient magnitude of the national anthems to saturate the core of patriotism and nationalisms, this cross-cultural study fathoms the crux of the recently recruited anthems in England and Egypt. The selection of the occidental and oriental countries is statistically ushering the results a step forward toward universality. The findings, however, help the reader and the researcher conceptualize something that used to be dim-lit pages of sociology, psychology and anthropology. 1.4 Sources of data This study frames NATIONALISM as represented in English and Egyptian national anthems. It recruits the four interchangeable English national anthems and the four Egyptian national anthems used from 1923 hitherto. The data is extracted from online sources; national anthems dedicated website and two official websites of Egypt and England. 1.5 Methodology Content words are extracted from each anthem, and then semantically related words are grouped together. The most comprehensive word in each group is labeled as attribute, the rest of words, which can be included under it, are tagged

IJALEL 4(4):62-76, 2015 64 as its values. Occasionally two or more attributes have values in common. After defining the core attributes and values of a frame, the whole anthem is used in order to detect the conceptual relations, structural invariants, between the core attributes. Structural invariants are determined according to the linguistic context within which the attributes occur. Applying the same process values constraints are identified. However, additional links between an attribute and another attribute’s value have emerged. They are added to the frame as linguistically contextual relations. 2. Theoretical Background 2.1 Semantic frames ‘Semantic frames’ is a cognitive linguistic theory ‘relates linguistic semantics to encyclopedic or real-world knowledge’, Richards & Schmidt (2010:230). Fillmore has introduced it as an ‘approach to cognitive lexical semantics… to uncover the properties of the structured inventory of knowledge associated with words, and to consider what consequences the properties of this knowledge system might have for a model of semantics’, Evan (2007:86). Fillmore, the founder of the theory, describes a frame as ‘any system of concepts related in such a way that to understand any one of them you have to understand the whole structure in which it fits; when one of the things in such a structure is introduced into a text, or into a conversation, all of the others are automatically made available’ (2006:374). The semantic frames theory is deeply rooted in cognitive psychology. It is based on the figure-ground gestalt trend. Any experience in the physical world can be segmented in terms of figure and ground. Figure is the predominant constituent in the figure-ground system; it is placed within certain surroundings; ground, Evan (2007: 79). Applying it to language, Fillmore (1985: 224) expounds that the linguistic unit employed by a user is the figure, while the human experience behind it is the ground. Human experience here refers to the encyclopedic knowledge associated with this linguistic unit, ‘frame’. Being introduced for the first time, the theory used to distinguish the concept of ‘frame’ from that of ‘scene’. On the one hand, ‘scene’ refers to ‘visual scenes…standard scenarios…institutional structures, enactive experiences… any kind of coherent segment of human beliefs, actions, experiences, or imaginations’ . On the other hand, Frames are ‘any system of linguistic choices’. People cognitively link scenes to frames; because scenes and frame ‘activate’ each other, Fillmore (1975:124). Importantly scenes do not change, however frames do. A scene is present in the physical world, people start associating it with different frames. Frames are dynamic and perspective by nature, unlike scenes. In other words, scenes refer to the worldly experience, while frames refer to the contextual language, Fillmore (1977:67). The two terms have been used alternatively. Exploiting the semantic frames theory, the process of text understanding is analyzed as follows: the beginning of a text ‘activates’ a scene in the mind, but it leaves certain spaces unfilled, with the process going on, the spaces are filled, and new scenes are introduced. That is to say, the text initially summons a scene with the interpreter building some expectations, which can be fulfilled or refuted, by the end of the process a complete text-based experience is structured within a certain frame, Fillmore (1977: 125). Petrcuk highlights that understanding a text depends on either ‘word invocation’ or ‘interpreter evocation’. Explicitly mentioning the word ‘birthday’ invokes the birthday scene in the mind of the receiver. However, using the ‘cake’, ‘candles’ and ‘presents’ without plainly using the word ‘birthday’, leads the receiver to ‘evoke’ the birthday scene (1996:3). In addition, the same birthday frame can be visually, non-linguistically, activated. The visual scene of wrapped presents, balloon decorated house, cake, and candles cognitively summons the birthday scene, without the need to any linguistic unit. Both language and perception play key role in the process of frame activation, Fillmore & Baker (2009: 315-316). 2.2 Barsalou’s model Barsalou defines a frame as ‘co-occurring set of abstract attributes, which take different values across category members’ (1992:23), arguing for its dynamism and contextualization. The complex of related concepts in a frame entails a system of more specific linked concepts. The introduced model suggests three major elements forming any frame; attribute-value, structural invariants and constraints. This model views the human knowledge as having two features: attribute-value sets and relations linking them. The frame is a system of conceptually related attributes and values. Being conceptually pertinent, such attribute-value sets are cognitively perceived and stored together in the human mind. To demonstrate, the human cognitive knowledge of the attribute ‘bird’ stipulates the knowledge of its values; ‘sing’ and ‘small’. It follows that the cognitive knowledge of ‘sound’ and ‘size’ attributes is activated too. Attributes are the broad concepts, superordinate, which contain a number of values, subordinates. Barsalou clarifies that core attributes of a frame are related in terms of frequency and conceptualization. They tend to co-occur frequently in the given contexts; because they are ideologically, regardless of the context, related. These fixed conceptual relations between frame attributes are referred to as ‘structural invariants’. Unlike fixed structural invariants, values constraints are variably changeable. Constraints are the contextual relations combining values. They are specific and context dependent, such as the ‘swimming’ value which can situationally govern the occurrence of the ‘sea’ value. The provided frame constraints are inherently circumstantial (1992: 21- 35). Barsalou (1993:31) states that the attribute-value sets, structural invariants, and constraints embody the systematicity of any concept.

IJALEL 4(4):62-76, 2015 65

Figure 1. Barsalou’s frame model of ‘car’

2.3 National anthems Al-Missiri states that national anthems reflect certain ideologies based on the perception of the world. The reflected ideology is usually that of the ruling elite, which aims at getting people implement this ideology. Thus, a national anthem can either serve people or mislead them; depending on the ideology it represents. This political point of view argues that national anthems portray the self-other concept. They reveal how the country, its people (self) perceive themselves, and what they think of the other; being the enemy, other countries, or whatever entities. Linguistically speaking, national anthems usually use plain, simple, straightforward language. They intentionally avoid sophisticated metaphors (2007: 168,172). 2.3.1 English national anthems England does not have an official national anthem, ‘land of hope and glory’, ‘Jerusalem’, and ‘I vow to thee my country’ are famous English national songs interchangeably used in official occasions. However, ‘God save the queen’, the national anthem of the United Kingdom, is the most frequent anthem sung in England during official occasions. According to the official website of the British monarchy ‘God save the queen’ used to be a famous patriotic song before it ‘came to be known as’ the national anthem of the United Kingdom in 1745. In other words, ‘God save the queen’ is not even officially declared to be the national anthem of UK, but it is conventionally referred to as such. Reported in the specialized national anthem website, ‘Land of hope and glory’ is written by Edward Elgar in 1902 to celebrate the coronation of King Edward VII. The song is locally popular in England and is associated with sport events. ‘Jerusalem’, written by William Blake, has become significant during the time of World War I. In 1922, King George V praised this patriotic song as more preferable than ‘God save the queen’. The Independent Newspaper, David Cameron advocates the calls for an official national anthem for England, favoring ‘Jerusalem’ over any other patriotic song. ‘I vow to thee my country’, the national song of the British Indian Ocean Territory, is less frequent in England than other anthems, but still occasionally used. It has been advocated by Princess Diana, among others, to be the national anthem of England. 2.3.2 Egyptian national anthems The first Egyptian national anthem has been played during the reign of King Ahmad Fouad. At that time Egypt has been under the sovereignty of the United Kingdom. The anthem is totally devoted to the king, and is played along with the British anthem ‘God save the queen’. The Egyptian anthem is an echo of the British one (Al-Missiri 2007:174). According to the Egyptian governmental official website, in 1923, after the United Kingdom has declared the independence of Egypt, Mostafa Saadeq Al-Rafe'ie’s ‘اسلمي یامصر/[Literary: be safe Egypt’ becomes the new Egyptian national anthem. After the events of 1952, and the declaration of the Arabic Republic of Egypt, the national anthem changes to be Kamel El-Shennawi’s ‘نشید الحریة/[Literary: the anthem of freedom’. The Tripartite Aggression in 1956 marks another alteration of the national anthem. ‘وهللا زمان یا سالحي’[Literary: over a long haul, my weapon] was written by the popular poet Salah Jahin, and set to be the national anthem. This anthem was a reflection of the war state at that time. The last replacement of the national anthem is in 1979. ‘بالدي/my homeland’ has been the Egyptian national anthem hitherto. This anthem, composed by the poet Younis al-Qaddi, is based on the opening lines of a

IJALEL 4(4):62-76, 2015 66 political speech given by the leader Mustafa Kamel in 1907. The substitution of the Egyptian national anthems corresponds to the political and historical salient developments throughout time. (E-government of Egypt) 3. Discussion And Analysis 3.1 Analysis of English Data 3.1.1 A frame of ‘God save the queen’

Figure 2. A Frame of the English National anthem ‘God save the queen’ Figure 2 represents the two major attributes of nationalism in ‘God save the queen’ as reflected in the title; God and queen. In other words, nationalism is defined in terms of power whether divine or royal. Moreover, the divine power is invariantly structured in terms of ‘saving’ the queen and ‘scattering’ her enemies. Very odd to the generic convection, there is no mention to England. Comparing the value set of the ‘queen’ to that of ‘God substantiates’, however, substantiates the superficial representation of the divine power and the overestimation of the ruler. It is illustrative of the ‘ruler is God’s representative’ royal concept in England. Moreover, the values of ‘God’ and the values of the enemy constrain the occurrence of each other. The working principles in this anthem are nobility, graciousness, and defense of laws, which are attributed, among other values, to the queen alone. According to ‘God save the queen’, the activated frame in the mind of the English by the nationalism concept is inherently related to the ruler; king or queen. Being national equals praying for the queen, who is the sole always glorious defender of the country. The role attributed to citizens is implicitly praying for the queen and explicitly being [reign]ed over.

Noble Happy

Gracious

God Defend

laws

Queen

Save/pour gifts

Confound

Frustrate

Politics

Enemies

Nationalism Victorious

Reign

Cause to sing

Save Live Sing

Fix hopes

Scatter Make fall

Us [Citizens] Knavish Tricks

Long time

IJALEL 4(4):62-76, 2015 67 3.1.2 Frame of ‘Jerusalem’

Figure 3. A frame of the English national anthem ‘Jerusalem’ Figure 3 draws a nationalism picture of England, citizens and God. It is evident that England and citizens are the core attributes of the frame which are interlinked by the structure invariant ‘build’. The conceptual nationalism relation between the English and England is, rationally, to ‘build’ it to look like the holy land of ‘Jerusalem’ -- a ‘blessed’ city by ‘God’. The values, collocating with England, provide a striking contrast between what is hoped to be England and the real image of the country, highlighting the contradiction between the holy Jerusalem and England. It is quite surprising to mention a country other than the homeland in the national anthem and shed the light on its holier position. However, it is sincere in pinning citizens’ national range of aspirations and hopes for their country. Citizens, as a core attribute of the frame, are accordingly associated with a powerful set of values ‘sword’, ‘arrow’, and ‘spear’, which are needed to go through the ‘mental fight’ of converting England with its ‘cloud…dark satanic hills’ into a holy ‘Jerusalem’. There is no governing principle in the anthem, save for the ‘hope’ to ‘build’. All the values associated with ‘God’ are conceptually linked to some of ‘England’ values, crystallizing the national hope of the citizens. 3.1.3 Frame of ‘I vow to thee my country’ According to figure 4, ‘I vow to thee my country’ activates the ‘citizens love and serve country’ frame. The basic attributes of nationalism are country (homeland), citizens, love, battle, and interestingly another country; heaven as suggested by critics. Figure 4, providing the value sets of the four attributes, projects the importance to the homeland country more than to citizens, and to the other country more than the homeland country. The battle values are shared with the homeland county, another country, and even with love, but not with citizen. The mentioned ‘another country’ is believed to be heaven; the original homeland of mankind. That is why; the values associated with it are richer and more effective. The defending principle is highly summoned in this frame as well as the love principle. The concept of power is distributed between ‘battle’, ‘country’, ‘another country’ and ‘love’, but it leads to the same conclusion ‘power’ to ‘defend’ or ‘sacrifice’ for the country. Love is explicitly stated and attributed within the frame, while defense is inferred from the battle aspect and its values. The structural invariant that constrains the country-love relation is ‘vow[ing]’ to ‘love’ and ‘serve’. Although ‘I’ is frequently enrolled in the anthem, citizen, as a value of nationalism, is marginalized, if compared to attributes of country, love or battle.

Holy Lamb Countenance divine

Bow Arrow

Mental fight Sword

Spear

Seen on God Citizen

Shine

Bless Feet Build

Pleasant pastures

Cloud hills

Jerusalem England

Nationalism

Green mountains

Is hoped to be

Walk on

Green pleasant land

Built among

Dark satanic hills

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Figure 4. Frame of English the national anthem ‘I vow to thee my country’

3.1.4 Frame of ‘Land of hope and glory’

Nationalism frame in ‘Land of hope and glory’ is country-citizen centered. The fixed conceptual relation between them is to ‘extol’. The divine power is partly mentioned as the primer of making the land ‘mighty’. The ruler power is strongly invoked in a number of royal values; ‘throne’, ‘reign’, ‘diadem’. The ruler-citizen correlation is expressed in ‘crowned’, which places citizens in the doer position. The principles of ‘hope’, ‘freedom’, ‘loyalty’, ‘truth’, and ‘right’ are recurrent and correlate with both the country and its citizens. These shared values between the two major attributes imply the very concept that an ideal citizen is born of his/her ideal country. The anthem depicts nationalism as a citizen who extols his country: a conventional dramatic narrative which represents hope and glory. Classical to what is initially activated in the mind, place is the starting point of the frame. It summons a number of values ‘glory’, ‘strong’, ‘hope’, and ‘freedom’, and recalls the ideal citizen image who is always ‘thankful’, ‘loyal’, faithful’ to his ‘mother’ country. Country is, then, an inspiration towards perfection.

Noise

Head

Nationalism

I [Citizen]

Another country (Heaven)

Love

Country (Homeland)

Battle

Pays price

Undaunted sacrifice

Perfect service

Ask no questions

Never falters

Stands the test

Girded sword

Helmet

Feet

Guns

Dead

Faithful heart

Pride

Shining bounds

Souls

Peaceful paths

Armies

Fortress

King

Gentle ways

Vow Son

Haste

Guarantee

Hear of

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Figure 5. A frame of the English national anthem ‘Land of hope and glory’

3.2 ANALYSIS OF ARABIC DATA

3.2.1 Frame of ‘اسلمي یا مصر/be safe Egypt’

The frame of ’اسلمي یا مصر/be safe Egypt’ presents ‘مصري/Egyptian’, ‘الفدا/sacrifice’, and ‘مصر/Egypt’ as the key aspects of nationalism. ‘الفدا/sacrifice’ is the most essential element in the frame; as it is introduced as an attribute and structural invariant links the other two attributes; ‘مصر/Egypt’ and ‘مصري/Egyptian’. Moreover, the set of values associated with ‘ ,’Freedom/الحریة‘ .’Egyptian/مصري‘ Egypt’ and/مصر‘ ;sacrifice’ are shared with the major attributes/الفدا‘ فالشر /honor’, determination’ are some of the principles shared by the Egyptians/عزمي‘ highness’, and/عال‘

Nationalism

God

Citizens/Nation Land

Smile

Glory

Wider Bounds

Fortress King

Thankful lips High hearts

Faith

Sing

Loyal

Hope

The free

Freedom

Inviolate throne

Reign

Victorious Smile

Diadem

Freedom

Right Truth

Extol/praise/honor

Crowned

Make mighty

Star

Mother

Stars

Mighty

Splendor drest

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Figure 6. A frame of the Egyptian national anthem ‘اسلمي یا مصر’

Power is reflected in the values of ‘ sacrifice’ which refers to the power of citizens against the power of enemy to لفدااdefend the country. That is to say, nationalism cognitively activates the frame of ‘الفدا/sacrifice’, with all its stipulated frames, but sacrifice is the starting point triggered in the mind. The divine power is mentioned in the frame, but metaphorically, ‘ Country is promoted to a highly sacred level that is .(Egypt is a second religion) أنت بعد الدین دینcomparable to the highness of a religion. Such a depiction crystallizes the strength of nationalism ties. The ultimate goal of nationalism is country safety secured by its people. The frame’s richness emerges from the number of its shared values among the attributes, which are alternatives to the conceptual relations among attributes and the constraints of values.

3.2.2 Fame of ‘نشید الحریة/ Freedom anthem’

Figure 7 marks the complex development in the nationalism frame pertaining to the number of values, attributes, and the conceptual relations between them. The freedom-restriction dualism and avenge to attain justice are as essential attributes as Egypt and Egyptians to the frame. Nationalism is no longer defined in terms of defense and sacrifice; it is basically restoring the freedom of the country, whatever it takes. The image of injustice, martyrs and blood are highlighted in the values and the structural invariants. Martyrs-Egyptians correlation is structured as ‘أبي/my father, my sister’. The fixed conceptual relation between the activated/أختي ,my mother/أمي ,my brother/أخي ,my son/ولديframe of ‘ثأر/revenge’ and that of ‘حریة/freedom’ is ‘یسترد/restore’. The comparison between the two attributes ‘restrictions/ یودق ’ and ‘freedom/حریة’ spontaneously activates the frame of ‘revenge’. Moreover, the structural invariant of ‘tyranny/ظلم’ between Egypt and the oppressor with values such as ‘pain/تألم’, ‘suppression’, ‘death/موت’, ‘humiliation/ھوان’ conceptually correlate to ‘revenge’. The five attributes of the frame alternatively summon each other; Egyptians avenge to destroy restrictions and restore the freedom of Egypt.

Nationalism/الوطنیة

Egypt/مصر

sacrifice/الفدا

Egyptian/مصري

Heart/قلب

religion/دین

sky/سما

enemies/عدا

/تستكینيsurrender

be/اسلميsafe

Sons/أبناء king/ملك

Free/حر Heart/قلبي

/عزميdetermination

fight /جھاد

/حماكيprotection

Avoidأتقي

یلأم / diverge

give /أملup

/یديHand

weaken/ألین

sacrifice /یفدي

time/الدھر

future/المستقبل

Arrows/سھام Today/الیوم

tomorrow/غدا

avoid/اتقي

hope/أرجو

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Figure 7. A frame of the Egyptian national anthem ‘نشید الحریة’ 3.3.3 Frame of ‘ یا سالحي وهللا زمان / over a long haul, my cannon’ Figure 8 introduces a new attribute to the nationalism frame; ‘war’. For the first time, war is not implied in terms of defense or valued in the attribute of sacrifice. It stands, however, as a foundation attribute in the frame. Moreover, the association between people and weapon is fixedly structured in ‘رفیق/companion’. The values of ‘نصر/victory’ and soldiers’ confine each other, victory is exclusively achieved by soldiers. People also collocate with enemy in terms/جنود‘of killing and with Egypt in terms of defense and glory. The governing structural invariant of people and country attributes is the typical defense. The emergence of war attribute stipulates all power values, and raises the position of the army to a much higher extent so that one of the fixed relations in the frame is associated with soldiers, and another collocates with weapon. The values of people attribute clarify that people are cognitively seen as part of the army, not vice versa. That is to say, in time of war people and the army are soldiered.

Figure 8. A frame of the Egyptian national anthem ‘وهللا زمان یاسالحي’

Egypt /مصر

war/حرب people/الشعب

الوطنیة

seas/بحور

earthquake/زلزال

Volcano/بركانmount/جبل

ain

land/أرض

Free/حرة

یزحف

Glory /مجد

غضبان

revolution /ثورة

نصرVictory

میدانBattlefield

صفوف

Fire/نار

زحف

جنودSoldiers

عدوEnemy

سالحWeapon

كفاحFight

light/نور

یحمي Built /بنىProtect

رفیق

القبوریشق لھم

یعود

IJALEL 4(4):62-76, 2015 72 3.3.4. Frame of ‘بالدي/ my county’ Figure 9 draws a frame of the current Egyptian national anthem. It reflects the stable national state of security, in which only ‘love’ is a default definition of nationalism. ‘Defense’, ‘freedom’ and ‘sacrifice’ are all represented, but as values, among many others, neither as major attributes nor structural invariants. The country-citizen dualism turns to be the sole attribute in the frame and structured by means of love. According to the used values in the frame; ‘freedom’, ‘nobility’, ‘loyalty’, ‘glory’, and ‘unity’, the frame is principle-based. The divine power is present in one value of the citizen’s attribute. It is introduced as the main power upon which citizens depend to serve and protect the country. ‘ وعلى هللا reflects the deep national faith in the divine power to reach the patriotic aims of [literally: On Allah, I rely] ’اعتماديdefending the country and rebelling enemies. The divine power and the national power are combined together promoting the divine over the national and directing both against the enemy.

4. Findings and Results

4.1 Frequency of attributes/values in frames

Each of the eight frames is a reflection of a relatively different scene. The English ones reflect the monarchy concepts and the long shared belief of royal power representing divine power, which is regularly represented in the four anthems. They also reflect the native’s sense of homeland’s superiority and the readiness to military serving it at any time. This reflects the past glorious history of the British Empire. One of them, ‘Jerusalem’, reflects the romantic frustration with the fallen reality of England at the time of, and the sincere hopes of establishing a divine England. The Egyptian national anthems, however, have no mention to the ruler. They typically depend on the power of people to defend the country. They project the different realities of the progressive Egyptian scenes; being occupied, revolving, being military attacked, and being military victorious. Some frames place country or people at the heart, while others celebrate the role of sacrifice as the sole exposition of nationalism. The following table provides the distribution of attributes/values in each frame.

Table 1. Frequency of attributes/values in each frame

National Anthem Attributes Values 1. God save the queen 4 15

God 2 Queen 9 Reign 2 Enemy 2

2. Jerusalem 3 15 Citizens (I) 6 England 5 God 4

Nationalism الوطنیة

Citizen /مواطن my country/بالدي

/المجد القدیمancient glory

free /حرة

jewel /درة

/أم البالدmother of countries غایتي/my goal نیلك/ Nile

blessings /أیادي

/أرض النعیمland of blessings

be safe /اسلمي

sons/أبناء

على هللا یمدفع الغر اعتمادي

loyal /أوفیاء

یرعوا الزمام

peace /سالم

unity /اتحاد war /حرب

noble /كرام

sacrifice /فداك

love /لك حبي

Figure 9. A frame of the current Egyptian national anthem ‘بالدي’

IJALEL 4(4):62-76, 2015 73 3. I vow to thee my country 4 29

Country (homeland) 6 Another country (Heaven) 9 Battle 8 Love 6

4. Land of hope and glory 4 26 Land 8 Citizens (We) 9 King 5 Diadem 4

be safe Egypt 4 34/اسلمي یا مصر .5 Egypt 6/مصر Sacrifice 10/الفدا Egyptian 14/مصري Time 4/الدھر

Freedom anthem 5 30/نشید الحریة .6 Egypt 6/مصر Revenge 6/ثأر Egyptian 3/مصري Restrictions 7/قیود Freedom 8/حریة

over a long haul, my /وهللا زمان یا سالحي .7cannon

3 20

people 7/الشعب Egypt 4/مصر war 9/حرب

My country 3 19/بالدي .8 My country 9/بالدي Egyptian 3/مصري Sons 7/أبناء

4.2 Distribution of core attributes in the eight anthems

Figure 10. The distribution of attributes in the eight anthems

This bar chart illustrates that country and people are the core shared attributes typically shared almost by the eight anthems. It also reveals that the divine and the ruler power are common among the English anthems, while absent in the Egyptian ones. Anthems 3 and 7 summon the same conceptual frames; country, people and battle, but anthem 3 additionally activates the concept of love. The presence of sacrifice and revenge as core attributes in the Egyptian national anthems, unlike the English ones, reflects the occupation, war, and revolution events the Egyptians have been through since 1923; the date of the first official national anthem. It is also reflected in the attribute of time; introduced as a mysterious power likely to bring about more challenges. 4.3 Statistical findings Based on the pervious frames, Principles, Power, Place, and People are the core attributes of NATIONALISM. Two statistical tests are applied to check the relation among the four attributes on the one hand, and between them and the

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

Anthem 1 Anthem 2 Anthem 3 Anthem 4 Anthem 5 Anthem 6 Anthem 7 Anthem 8

Country

People

Battle

Sacrifice

Love

Ruler

Divinity

Revenge

Time

IJALEL 4(4):62-76, 2015 74 other constituents of the frames on the other hand. By applying the Chi-square tests for association between two categorical variables, the results read as follows:

Principles People Power Place Others Row Totals The anthems of England 16 [3.77] 25 [1.86] 24 [1.65] 33 [0.29] 36 [3.16] 134 The anthems of Egypt 40 [3.24] 46 [1.60] 16 [1.41] 32 [0.25] 22 [2.71] 156

Marginal Column Totals 56 71 40 65 58 290 (Grand Total)

The obtained chi-square value is 19.9375. The P-Value is 0.000514. The result is significant at p < 0.05. It means that there is a significant correlation between the prominences of the four attributes themes in relation to the other themes in the studied eight anthems. Moreover, this paper used Pearson correlation coefficient (R), which measures the strength and direction of the relationship between two variables, to investigate the categorical relation in the way of using these constitutional attributes in the anthems of England and Egypt respectively. The value of R is -0.2399; i.e., reciprocal weak correlation. To simplify, it means that the usage of the four attributes in the anthems of England and Egypt is heterogeneous; anti-directional and reciprocal. In sociolinguistic terms, it proves that the oriental and occidental influence affected the prioritization of the microstructural elements. 5. Conclusion To conclude, the eight national anthems represent different scenes; glorifying the ruler, love for a country, defense, hope, freedom restoration, loyalty and serving in war and peace. Some frames are similar in their attributes, values, or structural invariants, while others are similar in summoning a certain concept, but structuring it differently in the frame. In other word, the shared item can be activated as central attribute of the frame or as s peripheral value of an attribute. These variant perspectives of the same item reflect the different political and cultural scenes in Egypt and England. They crystallize the native cognition of the country, according to the different experience. NATIONALISM, as framed in the eight national anthems, activates four major attributes; People, Place, Power and Principles. These four attributes exhibit high degree of variability in their values; Power and Principles in particular. Power as a variable can invoke the divine power, the power of the ruler, army, law, or citizens. According to the anthem, principles governing people, extremely vary; sacrifice, love, unity, or even glorifying the ruler as God’s representative. Place is typically the homeland, but some other country can be rarely mentioned too. However, the number of values collocating with the homeland crystallizes the centrality of the homeland. Moreover, outstanding places and monuments mentioned, hence activated in the mind, are parts of the homeland. NATIONALISM typically summons the frame of people sharing a number of principles living in the same place and constrained by the same power. 5.1 Converging Evidence The suggested frame of NATIONALISM is deeply rooted in sociology. Ibn Khaldūn, a founder of sociology, divides nations according to the territory they live in. He argues that humans are sociable by nature. Whenever people are gathered in one place, they tend to work together to attain security and fulfill the human basic needs, in other words to survive. So, they cooperate to defend the place they live in and are united against any potential risk. Moreover, any community, society; group of people living in the same place and working to achieve common goals, are typically governed by a certain authority. Sociology argues that power distribution of groups can vary across time, so do the space they live in and their shared goals. However, the four elements are present in any nation at any time. NATIONALISM is cognitively structured as people, place, principles and power, which are the typical foundations of human sociology. The four basic attributes take different forms in different contexts. People develop their governing principles across time and place starting from cooperation to survive and realize basic needs, to loving country, to defend for it, or achieving its independence. Authority, which is represented in the frame as power, varies according to time, place and people. The ruling power can be government, religious authority, traditions, laws, or whatever power presiding over people and constraining their actions.

Figure 11. A suggested cognitive frame of nationalism

NATIONALISM Power Place

Principles People Unifying

Control Live in

IJALEL 4(4):62-76, 2015 75 5.2 Recommendations Further linguistic research in this area may choose to apply the suggested conceptual frame on a larger scope of national anthem to measure its validity. Modern theories of nations and nationalism should be revisited and reviewed for a more comprehensive paralinguistic measure, emanating from the results of the research analysis and the suggested frame. Acknowledgement I would like to acknowledge the active participants of our lengthy discussions that allowed this research to air, namely my friend B. A. Essam, my uncle Galal ad-Dene and my Professor Ghada Abdelazeze. References Al-Missiri, A. (2007). Studies in poetry. (in Arabic)Cairo: Al-Shrouk International Library. Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Revised Edition ed. London and New York: Verso. Arabic dictionaries online: URL << http://www.baheth.info/>> Retrieved on January 7th, 2015. Barsalou, L. (1992). Frames, Concepts, and conceptual fields. In Lehrer, A. & Kittay, E. (eds). Frames, Fields and Contrasts. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum. Barsalou, L. (1993). Flexibility, structures, and linguistic vagary in concepts: Manifestations of a compositional system of perceptual symbols. In Collins, A., Gathercole, S., Conway, M. & Morris, P. (eds.), Theories of Memory. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Billig, M (1993). Studying nationalism as an everyday ideology. Papers on Social Representations (PSR), 2. Online. Essam, B. A. (2015). Melopoetic of the national anthem of Egypt: a case study. ACCEPTED ARTICLE IN PRESS Higher Education of Social Science, 8(1), 1-16. Evans, V. & Green, M. (2006). Cognitive linguistics: An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Evans, V. (2007). A glossary of cognitive linguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Fillmore, C. & Atkins, B. (1992). Toward a frame-based lexicon: the semantics of RISK and its neighbors’. In Lehrer, A. & Kittay, E. (eds). Frames, Fields and Contrasts. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum. pp. 75–102 Fillmore, C. & Baker, C. (2009). A frames approach to semantic analysis. In Heine, B. & Narrog, H. (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press Fillmore, C. (1975) ‘An alternative to checklist theories of meaning’, Proceedings of the First Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Amsterdam: North Holland, pp. 123–31 Fillmore, C. (1977). Scenes-and-frames semantics, in Zampolli, A. (ed.), Linguistic Structures Processing. Amsterdam: North Holland, pp. 55–82 Fillmore, C. (1985). Frames and the semantics of understanding. Quaderni di Semantica, (6). Bologna : Società editrice il Mulino Fillmore, C. (2006). Frame semantics. In Geeraerts, D. (Cognitive linguistics: basic readings). Berlin: Gruyter. Gellner, E. (1983). Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. pp. 6-7. Lo, c., & Wu, D. (2011). MEANT: An inexpensive, high-accuracy, semi-automatic metric for evaluating translation utility via semantic frames. Proceedings of the 49th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics. Oregon: the Association for Computational Linguistics. Merriam-webster dictionary online: URL << http://www.merriam-webster.com/>> Retrieved on January 5th, 2015. National anthems: URL <<http://www.nationalanthems.info/>> Retrieved on January 7th, 2015. Nationalism Project: URL << http://www.nationalismproject.org/nationalism.htm>> Retrieved on January 7th, 2015. Oxford dictionary online: URL << http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/>> Retrieved on January 6th, 2015. Petruck, M. (1995). Frame semantics and the lexicon: nouns and verbs in the body frame. In Essays in Semantics and Pragmatics: In Honor of Charles J. Fillmore. Shibatani , M. & Thompson, S. (eds). John Benjamins compan PETRUCK, M.( 1996). Frame semantics. In: Verschueren, J. et al. (Ed.). Handbook of pragmatics. Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Richards, j. & Schmidt, R. (2010): Longman Dictionary of language Teaching and Applied Linguistics. 4th Edition. Edinburgh: Pearson Smith, A. (1991). National Identity. Reno: University of Nevada Press. The e-government of Egypt: URL <<http://www.sis.gov.eg/Ar/Templates/Categories/tmpLand.aspx?CatID=10 The e-government of England: URL <<http://www.royal.gov.uk/MonarchUK/Symbols/NationalAnthem.aspx The independent: URL <<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/cameron-would-choose-jerusalem-as-national-anthem-for-englands-sports-teams-7945250.html>> Retrieved on January 6th, 2015. Xie, B., Passonneau, R., Wu, L. & Creamer, G. (2013). Semantic Frames to Predict Stock Price Movement. Proceedings of the 51st Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics. Sofia: Association for Computational Linguistics.

IJALEL 4(4):62-76, 2015 76 List of symbols

Attribute

Value

Structural invariants

Constraints

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

Analyzing the Rhetorical, Typographical and Paralinguistic Features of Electronic Mails in the Workplace

Mohammad Awad AlAfnan

Head of English Language Department, BMIC Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Email: mohammad_alafnan@bmic.edu.my

Received: 27-11- 2014 Accepted: 01-02- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015 Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.77 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.77 Abstract This study investigated the rhetorical, typographical and paralinguistic features used in workplace emails. It revealed that the email exchanges included both spoken and written language features. The use of these features depended on two main factors that are the degree of involvement between the communicators, on the one hand, and the frequency of exchanging emails regarding a single issue on the other. This study also revealed that the communicative purpose of the email has prompted the type of features used in the emails. The emails that included tasks which were previously carried out using oral methods of communication in the workplace (i.e., face-to-face conversations, telephone calls) included several oral communication practices and typographical errors, whereas the emails that included tasks which were traditionally carried out using written method of communication in the workplace (i.e., letters, memorandums, faxes) mainly included written language features and were written appropriately. Keywords: Email communication; Workplace communication; Rhetorical structures; Typographical features; Paralinguistic strategies 1. Introduction The use of email for business communication has increased in the last decade not only in the Western economies but in the Eastern economies as well (AlAfnan, 2015a, 2015b). The use of email for organizational communication has become a daily practice that is inevitable, especially when organizations establish partnerships with international bodies or institutions (AlAfnan, 2014a, 2014b). Researchers have emphasized that the use of email and computer-mediated communication was driven by several organizational factors such as speed and low cost (Baruch, 2005; Case, 1996). However, it did not take long to realize that the use of email for business communication has changed the organizational and linguistic practices in the world of business. This use was generally theorized as hybrid that includes spoken and written forms (AlAfnan, 2015a, 2015b; Hale and Scanlon, 1999; Yates and Orlikowski, 1993). Baron (1998), for example, viewed the social dynamics of emails as predominantly writing, the lexicon and style as predominantly speech, whereas the format and syntax were seen as a mixture of writing and speech. This view, in fact, was shared by a number of researchers who mainly looked at the language used in emails that were exchanged in the business or corporate sector (Cassel and Tversky, 2005; Gains, 1999; Gimenez, 2000), however, examining the language used in email that were exchanged in the educational sector did not receive a lot of attention (AlAfnan, 2014a, 2014b). Having said that, this study investigates the discourse practices used in emails that were exchanged in one private educational institute in Malaysia. According to Fairclough (1992), discourse practices refer to the practices used in producing, distributing and consuming the texts in a given context. By emphasizing the importance of the context, Fairclough has tinted that the use of discourse practices vary from a context to another. As such, identifying who wrote the text, why the text was written or for what purpose and to whom it was sent are all elements that need to be examined in order to comprehend the production and the consumption of the given texts. The importance of analyzing discourse practices emerges from the fact that they complement the textual analysis, as they emphasize the importance of textual features in the production and consumption of the texts (Palli et al., 2009). Discourse practice, according to Fairclough (1995, p. 60), “straddles the division between society and culture on the one hand, and discourse, language and text on the other". Having said that, this paper analyses the discourse practices in the emails focusing on the rhetorical structures, paralinguistic strategies, and the typographical features used in constructing the texts and how these strategies are interpreted in their context. The rhetorical structures include the usage of hedges, ellipsis, repetition, and substitution, whereas the paralinguistic strategies include the usage of emoticons, capitalizations, and different color, print and font choices. Typographical features, however, include decapitalization and spelling mistakes. 2. Methods In order to collect the emails, the researcher approached seven full-time employees who work in CIF (a pseudonym), an educational Institute in Kuala Lumpur. The organizational position of the main informants varied from office assistants to the assistant academic director. They are three males and four females. Their educational background also varies from

Flourishing Creativity & Literacy

IJALEL 4(4):77-85, 2015 78 Diploma to Master degree. These seven main informants, in fact, were chosen after a deep observation of the rules played in the Institute by the full-time staff. They are key players in their organizational position, belong to the three main Malaysian ethnic backgrounds (Malay, Chinese, and Indians) and use email for workplace communication. As such, it is believed that the email messages that are provided by these informants would reflect and represent the use of emails in the Institute. I explained to the informants the nature of the study and the required data. They agreed to provide their email exchanges and signing the consent form. It was agreed that the main informants would provide six weeks of day-in-day-out email communications. The emails were sent to the researcher either directly using the blind carbon copy ‘BCC’ option, or before signing off the working day from 4:45-5:00 pm. At the end of the collection period, the researcher received 522 email messages. Given that the emails were exchanged between internal and external employees, partners and students, the researcher sent an electronic consent form through email to all of the participants involved in the emails. One participant did not agree and her emails were withdrawn, 19 signed the consent form, and the rest of the participants did not reply to the email. In order to categories the emails, the researcher noticed that some of the emails belong to chains (threads). That is, some of the emails are on-going communications between two respondents where it is hard to comprehend the content of an email in isolation. These types of messages were called chain-type messages. In fact, 359 out of the 522 collected emails (69 percent) are parts of chains. These chains usually discussed academic or organizational issues, requested information or responded to requests. In addition to these chains, it was observed that some emails did not require a reply. These email messages mainly included attachments or general interest issues and were sent to a number of recipients at the same time. These messages looked comparable to written memorandums and letters. As they did not require a reply, these messages were called solitary-type messages. The rhetorical, typographical and paralinguistic features used in the emails were examined in relation to the type of the email whether it is a chain-type or solitary-type. 3. Rhetorical Structures Rhetorical structures, according to Van Dijk (1981, p.5), “may occur at all grammatical levels of the discourse. They may be defined in terms of extra structures assigned to the basic grammatical structures”. Email writers mainly used four rhetorical structures that are hedges, ellipsis, substitution and repetition (see table 1). Table 1. Linguistic and Rhetorical structures in the emails

Types Chain-type messages

Solitary-type messages

Total

Hedges 96 13 109

Ellipsis 75 17 92 Substitution 22 4 26 Repetition 19 21 40

Examining the use of these structures in the email messages reveals that the use of hedges, ellipsis, and substitutions is very common in the chain-type messages (threads), whereas the use of repetition is the common in the solitary-type messages. 3.1 Repetition, Ellipsis, and Substitution Ellipsis and substitutions are mainly used in oral communication (Halliday, 1994), whereas repetition is mainly used in written communication. According to Bloor and Bloor (1995, p. 96), speakers use ellipsis and substitution “to avoid the repetition of a lexical item and is able to draw on one of the grammatical resources of the language to replace the item”. Repetition, however, “is one technique that technical writers use to establish a reliable, straightforward relationship with readers” (Zimmerman, 1983, p. 10). As such, repetition is a technique that is mainly used in professional writing and the reluctance of using this technique leads into the usage of ellipsis and substitution. The overall usage of these three features in the corpus shows that email writers tended to use oral communication techniques in their emails more than written communication techniques; however, the per-type frequency reflects a huge variation in this usage. The usage of repetition is predominantly frequent in solitary-type messages. The writers mainly repeated the key words throughout the email in order to establish a straightforward relation with their readers and emphasize their main point. As example 1 shows, the writer of the email invites the recipients to participate in the coming conference, and informs them about the arrangements and fees. As ‘the conference’ is the main topic and the key word of the email, the writer repeated it eleven times throughout the email. This intensive usage of repetition in this email, in fact, meant to keep the readers focused on its main issue. The writer intended to emphasize the main point of his correspondence and present it in a clear manner.

IJALEL 4(4):77-85, 2015 79 Example 1: All Subject: University of Xxx Annual Administrative and Quality Conference 2010 Importance: High Dear Colleagues Annual Administrative and Quality Conference 2010 Following the success of the 2009 Administrative & Quality Conference in Xxxx I am pleased to announce that the University of Xxx will be running an Administrative and Quality Conference on the 12th and 13th August 2010. The conference will be held over two full days at Xxxxx and will include a conference dinner on the evening of the 12th

August. We have planned this Conference so that it incorporates a number of different areas that should prove valuable to members of staff at our Collaborative Centres who deal with administrative and quality matters. Throughout the two days we will be running various working sessions that will combine presentation and discussion groups with the help of experienced session leaders and Validation Unit staff. The Conference is an important quality and communication mechanism for the University of Xxxx and we would therefore expect at least one member of staff from each Institution to attend. The Conference fee is £50 per delegate which includes the Conference sessions, lunch and refreshments over the course of the two days, as well as the Conference dinner, which will be held at the Xxxx Millennium Stadium. Institutions will be invoiced for the fee upon registration. Please note that the cost does not include overnight accommodation, however we will be providing a list of local hotels for a range of budgets. Further details, including the timetable and session titles, will be uploaded to our University of Xxxx Conference page within due course. We look forward seeing you at this exciting event Best wishes Name & auto signature

In contrast to the usage of repetition in solitary type email messages, the writers of the chain-type email messages, as example 2 shows, intensively used ellipsis as a cohesive device. The occurrence of ellipsis in these types of messages, in fact, was mainly used to show reluctance in the writer’s side to elaborate on an already known or previously mentioned issue. The writers mainly depended on the context of the email or the presupposed knowledge of the readers to interpret or possibly guess the omitted part. Noticeably, the occurrence of ellipsis in the emails took two different methods that are the dots technique (…) where the writer hints to the omitted words or clauses using a number of dots or naturally by omitting the words without a hint, as in conversations. Examining the usage of ellipsis in the emails shows that the habit of using the dots technique reflects an intentional ellipsis (omission) as a result of reluctance or unwillingness to detail the known part. The usage of natural ellipsis, however, was mainly unintentional which occurred as a result of the writing-like-speaking style. This is supported by the fact that 100 percent of ellipsis occurred in the chain-type internally exchanged emails (see example 2 below).

Example 2: 2.16. (superior, close colleague, monthly) On Wed,June 09, 2010. at 10:36 AM,ZA wrote Subject: Fwd: Ncc Subjects Hi NG, How are you? Ya, i'm really very busy with preparation for new semester...(1)so many things to do... (2)Ms. MA (Mr. VK assistant) will call you by this week to collect your timetable, material,… (3) Don't worry ...(4)Actually Mr.VK got the new materials few days ago only...(5) sorry for the delay....(6) Regards ZA

The email in example 2 was sent by the head of students’ counseling unit in response to a part-time lecturer requesting the material for the new semester. The sender describes her status as ‘really very busy’. The writer used six ellipsis markers assuming that the recipient of the email is capable of working out the omitted words and clauses. The first two ellipses were related to the preparations for the new intake. Given that the recipient of the email is a lecturer in the Institute, the writer assumes that she knows what the staff need to do in preparation. The third ellipsis shows reluctance

IJALEL 4(4):77-85, 2015 80 in the writer’s part to continue the series of ‘things’ that the lecturer will be able to collect when she is called by ‘Ms. MA’. As such, this ellipsis marker can be interpreted as ‘etc’. In the fourth occurrence of ellipsis, the writer asked the recipient of the email to ‘don’t worry…’. From the context of the email, it is obvious that the writer omitted that ‘you will receive your material at the right time before the semester’. In the fifth occurrence, the writer explained to the recipient the purpose of the delay telling her that ‘Mr. VK got the new materials few days ago only...’ omitting what supposed to be ‘this is why you didn’t receive the material yet’. The last occurrence of ellipsis in this email, ‘sorry for the delay…’ can be interpreted as that the writer assumes that the reader, by now, can guess why she did not reply to her email immediately and took all this time. As such, the usage of ellipsis occurred for two main purposes that are the reluctance to explain guessable issues and the reluctance to elaborate on issues that might not be of the interest of the recipient of the email. As mentioned earlier, the usage of ellipsis was constrained to the internally exchanged emails. The usage of substitution, which is replacing “one element with another which is not a personal pronoun” (Witte & Faigley, 1981, p. 190), as the usage of ellipsis, mainly occurred in the chain-type messages. As it is clear in example 3, 4, 5 , 6 and 7, the writers of the emails used ‘one’, ‘ones’ and ‘the same’ to substitute a noun, ‘does’ to replace a verb and ‘so’ to replace a clause.

Example3: I will do the correct one later Example 4: (except the ones sent by Mr. DS) Example 5: we should make use of the same. Example 6: If she does, will she be able to forward to me around fifty. Example 7: If so, see you there then.

The majority of the substitutions in the emails were used to replace a noun. In example 3 and 4, the writers used ‘one’ and ‘ones’ to replace two already mentioned nouns in the email. In example 3, the writer used ‘one’ to replace ‘the marksheet’ mentioned in the previous email. The writer submitted the marksheet previously, however, the recipient found a number of mistakes which need to be corrected. In response to the email requesting correcting the mistakes, the writer of example 3 did not use the word ‘marksheet’ however, replace it with ‘one’. In example 7, however, the writer replaced the whole if-clause using ‘so’. Returning to the email shows that ‘so’ refers to the possible answer of question presented earlier in the email. The sender asked the recipient ‘are you [the recipient] going to attend the workshop or not?’ In order to avoid writing ‘if you are coming’, and to extend the semantic realm of the sentence, the writer used ‘so’ to replace the whole if-clause. This shows that repetition, substitution and ellipsis were used in the two different types of messages in a way that reflects writers’ evaluation of the formality and informality of the correspondence, not the medium. This can be found in the intensive usage of repetition in solitary-type email messages, which are usually sent to a group of recipients informing them about major changes or reminding them of due dates, and the usage of ellipsis in the internally exchanged chain-type messages only. This can also be found in the usage of substitution, which is as ellipsis mainly used in oral communication, in the internally and externally exchanged chain-type messages. Given that the same informants were involved in writing the different types of emails, it can be supposed that the writers conducted self-evaluation regarding the suitability of the discourse practices used for the communicative purpose and the recipient of the messages. This can be observed as the overwhelming majority of the instances using ellipsis and substitutions occurred in the emails that were exchanged internally in the Institute. 3.2 Hedges Hedges are “linguistic forms which express the speaker’s certainty or uncertainty about the topic under discussion” (Michael et al., 2010, p. 25). They are mainly used in oral communication (Carter, 1998); however, they are also used in written communication as well (Salager-Meyer, 1994). The actual usage of these linguistic forms functions as mitigation devices that facilitate interactions between communicators by making them more precise and compose. Examining the usage of hedges in the two different types of messages shows that they occurred in 109 emails. It is noticed that chain messages have the highest frequency of using hedges (88 percent of the overall occurrence). The writers of the emails mainly used adverbial, phrasal, and generalized adjuncts hedges, in addition to idioms that show a switch in the topic. The adverbial hedges were the most common type of hedges in the emails, as the writers used adverbs such as really, very, and probably to express their certainty and doubt regarding the attributed subject. Noticeably, the adverb ‘very’ is the most common adverb hedge, in particular, and hedge, in general, used in the email messages. It was mainly used in front of adjectives, as in example 8, to emphasize, stress, or express a high degree of concern regarding the issue. In addition to ‘very’, the writers used other adverbs such as ‘really’ to express concern or certainty and ‘probably’ to express hesitation or doubt regarding the discussed matter, as it is clear in example 9.

Example 8: (3.27) We are all very worried that we are unable to contact you Example 9: (3.120)… has to be in Singapore on 16th and I have to go to Cairo on 17th so I'll probably stay in KL on 16th. Example 10: (6.44) I guess I spoke too soon, Example 11: (6.60) I am sure Ms BP would like know…

IJALEL 4(4):77-85, 2015 81 In addition to the usage of adverbs, the writers also used a number of phrases such as ‘I guess’, as in example 10, and ‘I am sure’, as in example 11. The use of ‘I guess’, does not literally reflect a ‘guess’. It simply intends to weaken the effect of the upcoming sentence. The context of the email shows that the Ms. BP wrote this email to the students who asked for extensions to submit their assignments. Ms. BP, in fact, wrote to the students earlier regarding the rules and regulations of submitting assignments and that there are no extensions allowed except in the case of having ‘unforeseen circumstances’ and this should be supported by a signed document. However, to make her sentence less imposing and direct, she used the hedge ‘I guess’. In example 11, however, the writer of the email, who is Ms. BP’s assistant, used the hedge ‘I am sure’ for the opposite purpose of using ‘I guess’. This email, in fact, was written in response to a request from a student to have an extension to submit his assignment. However, as Ms. Iffat does not have the authority to give extensions as this is Ms. BP’s responsibility, she clarified this to the student emphasizing that he must have a strong reason, as Ms. BP will definitely ask about the purpose of the extension. The third type of hedges used in the emails was what Michael et al. (2010) called generalized adjuncts hedges, which occur when using “or something, or whatever, sort of, and kind of” (Michael et al., 2010, p. 22) in a sentence. This type of hedges, in fact, was the least frequent as it occurred a single time in discussion messages (see example 12).

Example 12: so if they have not paid, or whatever, you may go after them

This email was sent by the head of studies to the head of students’ counseling unit reporting the status of a number of students. The usage of ‘or whatever’ in the email can be interpreted as ‘if they [the students] have not paid, or have not done or fulfilled any other unmentioned issue, in general, you may go after them’. The generalization in using ‘or whatever’ in this email gives an open option to the recipient, but reflects certainty about the action. Obviously, the head of studies expresses her desire that the head of students’ counseling unit ‘go after the students’ if they did not pay the fees or for any other possible reason. The fourth and final type of hedges used in the emails is the hedging using ‘by the way’. The use of ‘by the way’ expresses a switch in the topic or an indication that the following statement or question is not related to what has been said or written earlier. The usage of ‘by the way’ occurred eleven times in the chain-type email messages. As example 13 shows, the writer presented a question after ‘by the way’.

Example 13: (4.53) By the way, can you please let me know what’s the forecasted student number?

Examining the context of the email shows that the email was sent by an external partner reminding the administrative staff of the due date to register the new students for the coming examination period. The writer took the opportunity to ask about the forecasted number of students who are going to set for the coming exam. Given that the communicative purpose of the email does not relate to the asked question, ‘can you please let me know what’s the forecasted student number?’, the writer used the hedge ‘by the way’ as an indication of shifting topics and expressing the irrelevance of the coming question to the previous correspondence. This shows that the usage of hedges in the emails functioned in accordance with Gricean maxims of quality, quantity, relevance, and manner. The writers of the emails used hedges to present what they believe to be true as in using ‘we believe’, We believe that Mr. Chan has informed everyone in the class…; make their statements as informative as required not more than required using ‘probably’; be relevant to the topic, and even when they flouted this maxim, they openly indicated it using ‘by the way’; and be clear and orderly using ‘I am sure’. Therefore, it is proper to indicate that the writers of the emails did not only communicate information, but also their precise understanding of how accurate, informative, relevant, and comprehensive they are. Interestingly, the usage of hedges was particularly frequent in chain-type messages, which included a close involvement between the interactants as in discussing issues in chains or threads, requesting information or details and responding to request. The solitary-type email messages, however, had a very low rate of recurrence of hedges, which shows that the communicated information was mainly objective that did not need hedges to present its truthfulness. 4. Paralinguistic Strategies Paralinguistics is “the term used to describe the tone, timbre, and intonation which accompany speech” (Sully and Dallas, 2005, P.204). Paralinguistic features, as the quotation explains, usually occur in oral communication, however, they were also present in a number of email messages. The emails, in fact, included a number of paralinguistic features such as the usage of emoticons and laughs. In effect, the corpus included twenty occurrences of emoticons and three laughs that all occurred in the chain-type email messages. The emoticons were either typed manually as in ( :) ) or chosen from the provided list of emoticons on the format of the emails as in (☺), whereas the three laughs were typed as in (hah) (see example 14).

Example 14: 2.14. Hi ZA, Hows things? Pretty sure that you have your hands full :) Any news on when I shall come over for material collection? ;) With less than 3 weeks for class commencements, I am getting worried that I might have difficulties if the materials are going to be delivered late :D Just give me a quick call on either my hp or house (xxxx xxxxx) yea ! Thank you. -NZG

IJALEL 4(4):77-85, 2015 82 As example 14 shows, the writer of the email, who is a part-time lecturer, used three manually typed emoticons. The three emoticons represent three different moods and their usage was either in support of the previous sentence in the email by showing lively facial expressions or in a friendly sarcastic way building on the close relationship between the interactants. However, even though the sender and the recipient of the email are close colleagues, the sender did not fancy being viewed as an assertive person especially that the recipient of the email is the direct superior of the sender. As such, the writer chose to use emoticons as a method of making the correspondence more acceptable by the recipient. As the email shows, the first emoticon, which is a smiling face ( :) ), was used after an opening sentence which shows that the writer understands that the recipient is busy. The usage of this emoticon could be interpreted as showing understanding and establishing rapport, just as the informal question ‘Hows things?’ at the beginning of the email. Obviously, the writer wanted to minimize the imposition. The second emoticon in the email is a wink (;)) and was used after the direct interrogative request ‘any news on when…”. The wink here could be interpreted as a friendly reminder with teasing that the writer of the email should have received the material for the new intake by that time. This, in fact, is also supported by the following sentence, in which the writer reminds the recipient that there are only three weeks left before the new intake commences, and that the sender needs to prepare for the coming classes. However, wishing that the recipient does not take the previous sentence as a grumble or an assertion that the superior does not carry out her job in the right manner, she used the third emoticon in the email which is a happy face (: D), indicating that no harm is meant. This shows that emoticons were used as a supportive technique to add lively facial expressions stating the mood of the sender when writing the email and to down play any misunderstanding that might arise because of the asynchronous nature of the email. The usage of emoticons was merely practiced among close colleagues in the internally exchanged emails, which supports Bertacco and Deponte (2005) assumption that the formality and informality of the emails mainly depends on the relationship between the communicators. As the usage of emoticons, the three laughs occurred in the emails that were also internally exchanged between close colleagues to add a lively effect on the correspondence. Interestingly, the usage of emoticons and laughs was particularly frequent in chain messages; however, the overall frequency of these paralinguistic features does not exceed the 10 percent as the emoticons appeared in 20 emails and the laughs in 3 emails only. This shows that the tendency to use oral communication features was the highest in chain messages, but does not occur in a rate that enables us calling it a phenomena. Solitary-type email messages, however, were free of any paralinguistic features, which also support the tendency of viewing them as a formal type of email communication. 5. Typographical Features The usage of decapitalization, different types of fonts and colors, and the occurrence of spelling mistakes are the main typographical features identified in the email messages. Decapitalization, which is the main typographical feature occurred in the emails, was distinguished to two main parts that are the decapitalization of names, days, months, and the usage of small letter after full stops, and the decapitalization of the first person pronoun ‘i’. Jointly, decapitalization appeared in eighty email messages. The second main typographical feature appeared in the emails is the unexpected relatively high occurrence of spelling mistakes. As figure 1 shows, the occurrence of decapitalization and spelling mistakes are the highest in chain type messages and the lowest in the solitary-type messages.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Chain-type messages 21 60 52

Solitary-type messages 2 7 5

Decapitalization Spelling mistakes

i

Figure 1. Typographical features used in the emails

Given that all major free email providers such as Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail and the email provided by the Institute include an electronic ‘spell check’ option, which detects these types of typographical mistakes, the occurrence of these two features, in fact, reflects the reluctance in the part of the writers to electronically ‘spell check’ their correspondence before sending it. However, as the electronic ‘spell check’ option does not detect the decapitalization of the first person pronoun ‘i’, this also means that the writers do not even manually draft, edit or check the correspondence before

IJALEL 4(4):77-85, 2015 83 sending it. Interestingly, the same informants, whose emails included a number of spelling mistakes and decapitalizations in their chain-type email messages, used a proper language that is free of such typographical errors in their solitary-type email messages. This shows that as a result of close involvement and the frequent exchange of emails between the same communicators the writers become reluctant to edit their emails before sending them. However, if the email was a solitary-type that does not need a reply; the writers usually edited the email before sending it. In addition to the typographical errors, it is also found that the writers used different typographical techniques to emphasize their main points. They dark printed, italicized, underlined, capitalized all the letters and changed the color of words, sentences, and paragraphs that they want to highlight. Interestingly, these techniques were mainly used in solitary-type email messages as 20 out of the 31 dark printed and all of the six occurrences of coloring occurred when informing or updating a group of recipients about the latest updates (see example 15).

Example 15: 3.66 BUSINESS RESEARCH METHODS - VIVA - ALL ARE INVITED Dear Students This is an Invitation for the Business Research Methods Presentation (Viva/Oral) conducted on 8th May 2010 from 10am to 2pm. Group and Individual Presentations of Senior MBA Candidates who are currently preparing for their dissertation proposals. For Participants… (Omitted paragraphs ) Warm Wishes Auto Signature

As example 15 shows, the writer capitalized the subject of the email and dark printed the date and the time of the ‘VIVA’ to emphasize these two points and show their special importance. According to Turnage (2007), capitalization in workplace emails is interpreted as ‘shouting’, however, it is noticed that capitalization in the corpus is merely used to show emphasis. This can be noticed as the type of words that were dark printed, italicized, underlined or capitalized are mainly key words build into the argument of the email. It is also found that these typographical special effects where used in the main move of the email that included the special days, months, and dates. Apparently, the British informants used these special emphasis techniques as a second reference move after the salutation of the email. The majority of these features were used by the British university in collaboration with the institute. The usage of these features in chain-type email messages also supports the initial interpretation that they are used to emphasize or highlight a word or a sentence. As example 16, which is an extract taken from a chain-type email message, shows, the writer bolded the words ‘incorrect’. The main purpose of bolding this word is that in previous email the writer wrote the same sentence in example 16, but he mistakenly typed ‘correct’. In order to fix the mistake and clarify his point that ‘the amount paid was incorrect’ not ‘correct’ as stated in the previous email, he dark printed the word to emphasize and highlight the corrected version of the word.

Example 16: It should read as “I have re-reviewed these registrations and found that the amount paid was indeed incorrect.”

As example 15 and 16 show, the usage of these techniques occurred in the identifying topic box and/ or in the content moves of the emails. The emphasis used in the identifying topic box meant to draw the attention of the recipients to the special importance of the email, whereas the emphasis in the content moves meant to highlight the importance of the word, sentence and /or the paragraph. It is observed that the emphasis in the identifying topic move appeared in solitary messages only, whilst content emphasis occurred in chain-type messages. 6. Discussion and Conclusion This study examined the rhetorical, typographical and paralinguistic features used in emails that were exchanged in a private higher educational Institute in Malaysia. Previous research on workplace email mainly examined the syntactical features of emails and compared it to spoken and written discourse (Hale and Scanlon, 1999; Yates and Orlikowski, 1993), but it did not actually look at the drive of this hybrid behavior in email communication. This study, on the one hand, examined the linguistics and paralinguistics features used in the emails, and on the other, it analyzed the purpose of using these features. This study confirmed that email communication in the workplace included spoken and written features (Cassel and Tversky, 2005; Gains, 1999). However, the occurrence of these features depended on three main factors that are the degree of involvement between the communicators, the relationship between them and the direction of the email whether it is internally or externally exchanged email. The majority of the emails that included spoken language techniques were chain-type messages, whereas the emails that included more written language features belonged to the solitary-type email messages. That is, the use of the spoken features depended on two factors that are the degree of involvement between the communicators, on the one hand, and the frequency of the exchange, on the other. Chain-type messages were mainly sent to discuss academic or organizational issues or to request and respond to requests. In these situations, the writer composed the email and waited a response. The length of the chain depended on solving the issue. The length of the chains ranged from two to nine email messages. These types of emails included several spoken language features such as ellipsis, substitution and the

IJALEL 4(4):77-85, 2015 84 use of hedges to show the degree of certainty and uncertainty. In the solitary-type email messages, however, the emails were mainly sent to inform the recipient about an academic or organizational issue or deliver attachments. These types of emails did not usually require a response other than thanking the sender or acknowledging receipt in times. As these email messages did not include a lot of involvement between the communicators and the frequency of exchanging emails is low, the writers mainly used written language techniques such as repetition and highlighting important information. Interestingly, the same writers, who wrote the chain-type email messages and used several spoken language features, wrote solitary-type email messages and used more written type features. This actually means that email writers were aware of the suitability or unsuitability of using certain techniques or features in a given email message. In addition to these spoken and written features used in the emails, the emails were also rich with a number of typographical and paralinguistic features that reflect the production process of writing the emails. In addition to the use of spoken features, chain-type email messages also included lively emoticons that were either typed manually or chosen from the emoticons list provided in the formatting of the emails. Some other chain-type messages also included the use of lively laughs (hehehhee). In addition to these paralinguistic features, chain-type messages also included some typographical errors such spelling mistakes and decapitalization. Given that all major free email providers, such as Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail and the email provided by the institute, include the spell-check option, this means that the writers sent these emails without automatically edition it, and as the automatic spell-check does not detect decapitalization of some words such as the use of (i) for (I), this also means that they did not even manually proof-read them. Interestingly, the occurrence of these features in solitary-type email messages was minimal. As such, this means that the writers of chain-type email messages paid little attention to editing or proofreading their message on contrast to the writers of the solitary-type messages. However, as the same writers, who wrote the chain-type messages and used several spoken techniques and their emails included several typographical and paralinguistic features, wrote the solitary-type messages that were written appropriately and included very little occurrences of these features, this reflects how email writers view chain-type messages as a less formal correspondence than solitary-type messages. Having said that, it can be concluded that the hybridity of the emails depend on two main factors that are the degree of involvement and the frequency of sending emails regarding a single issue. Communication in the workplace was traditionally oral or written, however, with the introduction of the computer-mediated communication (CMC) and email, another method of communication has emerged in the workplace that is electronic communication. As electronic communication is faster and easier and does not fully fit into either of the traditional methods of communication, the users of email communication use it for the same purposes of using the traditional methods of communication. As this study revealed, the type of communication that included a lot of involvement between the communicators and high frequency of exchanging emails regarding a single issue included several spoken features. This should not be surprising as this type of communication (discussing, requesting and responding to requests) was traditionally carried out using oral methods of communication such as face-to-face or telephone conversations. The type of communication that does not include involvement and do not require frequent exchange, however, included more written features and were written properly. This also should not be surprising as the nature of these tasks (informing about issues or delivering documents) were traditionally carried out using written methods of communication in the workplace such as formal letters or written memorandums. From here, it can be said that when the communicators came across a workplace task that they want to accomplish using electronic communication, they recall their previous experience of carrying out similar tasks in the workplace traditionally. The formality and informality of the email depends on the formality and informality of the method that was used to carry out the task traditionally. The tasks that were communicated using oral methods of communication are carried out in less formal emails that include several spoken features, whereas the tasks that were traditionally carried out using written methods of communication are communicated using formal emails that include several written language features and are written appropriately. References AlAfnan, M. A. (2015a). Asynchronous communication: Investigating the influences of relational elements and background on the framing structure of emails. Advances in Language and Literary Studies, 6(2), 44-50. doi: 10.7575/aiac.alls.v.6n.2p.44. AlAfnan, M. A. (2015b). Language Use in Computer-Mediated Communication: An Investigation into the Genre of Workplace Emails. International Journal of Education and Literacy Studies, 3(1), 1-11. doi: 10.7575/aiac.ijels.v.3n.1p.1. AlAfnan, M. A. (2014a). Politeness in Business Writing: The effects of ethnicity and relating factors on mail Communication. Journal of Modern Linguistics, 4(2), 275-289. doi: 10.4236/ojml.2014.42022. AlAfnan, M. A. (2014b, March 27-28). Interethnic workplace E-mail communication: An investigation into politeness strategies. Proceedings of the 2014 International Conference on Public Management and Education Research in Tianjin, China (iceeim-14). doi:10.2991/iceeim-14.2014.61. Baron, N. S. (1998). Letters by phone or speech by other means: The linguistics of email. Language & Communication, 18, 133-170. doi: 10.1016/S0271-5309(98)00005-6. Baruch, Y. (2005). Bullying on the net: Adverse behavior on e-mail and its impact. Information & Management, 42, 361-371. doi: 10.1016/j.im.2004.02.001

IJALEL 4(4):77-85, 2015 85 Bertacco, M., & Deponte, A. (2005). Email as a speed-facilitating device. A contribution to the reduced-cues perspective on communication. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 10(3). Retrieved from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue3/bertacco.html. Bloor, T., and Bloor, M. (1995). The functional analysis of English. London, New York: Edward Arnold. Carter, R. (1998). Orders of reality: CANCODE, communication and culture. ELT Journal, 52(1), 43–56. doi:10.1093/elt/52.1.43. Case, C. J. (1996). The role of electronic messaging in the intermediate business context (interpersonal communication) (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of North Texas, Denton, TX. Cassell, J., & Tversky, D. (2004). The language of online intercultural community formation. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 10(2). Retrieved from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue2/cassell.html Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. Cambridge, England: Polity Press. Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language. London, England: Longman. Gains, J. (1999). Electronic mail—A new style of communication or just a new medium? An investigation into the text features of e-mail. English for Specific Purposes, 18, 81-101. doi: 10.1016/S0889-4906(97)00051-3. Gimenez, J. C. (2000). Business e-mail communication: Some emerging tendencies in register. English for Specific Purposes, 19, 237-251. doi: 10.1016/S0889-4906(98)00030-1. Hale, C., & Scanlon, J. (Eds.). (1999). Wired style: Principles of English usage in the digital age. New York, NY: Broadway Books. Halliday, M.A.K. (1994). An introduction to functional grammar (2nd ed.). London, England: Edward Arnold. Michael, A.S., Chone, L.S., Muthusamy, C., Veeravagu, J. (2010). Gendered-linked differences in speech styles: analysing linguistic and gender in the Malaysian context. Cross-cultural communication, 6 (1), 18-28. Retrieved from http://cscanada.net/index.php/ccc/article/viewFile/1224/1298. Palli, P., Vaara, E., & Sorsa, V. (2009). Strategies as text and discursive practices: A genre-based approach to strategizing in city administration. Discourse and Communication, 3(3), 303-318. doi: 10.1177/1750481309337206. Salager-Meyer, F. (1994). Hedges and textual communicative function in medical English written discourse. English for Specific Purposes, 13(2), 149-171. doi:10.1016/0889-4906(94)90013-2. Sully, P. and Dallas, J. (2005). Essential communication skills for nursing. Edinburgh, England: Elsevier Mosby. Turnage, A. K. (2007). Email flaming behaviors and organizational conflict. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), article 3. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/turnage.html. Van Dijk, T. A. (1981). Discourse studies and education. Applied Linguistics, 2(1), 1-26. doi:10.1093/applin/II.1.1 Witte, S. P., & Faigley, L. (1981). Coherence, cohesion and writing quality. College Composition and Communication, 32(2), 189-204. doi:10.1177/003368820003100104. Yates, J., & Orlikowski, W. J. (1993). Knee-jerk anti-LOOPism and other email phenomena: Oral, written, and electronic patterns in computer-mediated communication (MIT Sloan School Working Paper No. 3578-93). Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management. Zimmerman, I. (1983). The use of repetition in technical communication. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication. PC-26 (1), 9-10. Retrieved from http://kmh-lanl.hansonhub.com/pc-26-9-zimmerman.pdf.

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

Boosting Autonomous Foreign Language Learning: Scrutinizing the Role of Creativity, Critical Thinking, and

Vocabulary Learning Strategies

Mania Nosratinia Islamic Azad University at Central Tehran, Iran

Alireza Zaker (Corresponding author)

Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch, Tehran, Iran E-mail: alirezazaker@gmail.com

Received: 05-12- 2014 Accepted: 01-02- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015 Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.86 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.86 Abstract This study set out to investigate the association among English language learners' Autonomy (AU), Creativity (CR), Critical Thinking (CT), and Vocabulary Learning Strategies (VLS). The participants of this study were 202 randomly selected male and female undergraduate (English as a Foreign Language) EFL learners, between the ages of 19 and 26 (Mage = 22 years). These participants filled out four questionnaires estimating their AU, CR, CT, and VLS. The characteristics of the collected data legitimated running Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient. The results suggested that there is a significant and positive relationship between EFL learners' AU and CR, AU and CT, AU and VLS, CR and CT, CR and VLS, as well as their CT and VLS. Considering AU as the predicted variable for this study, it was confirmed that CT is the best predictor of AU. The article concludes with some pedagogical implications and some avenues for future research. Keywords: creativity, critical thinking, foreign language learning, learning autonomy, vocabulary learning strategies 1. Introduction It is now a widely held belief that learners’ psychological, mental, and personal factors play a determining role in realizing pedagogical objectives and achieving the best possible outcomes from the instructional practice (Lightbown & Spada, 2013; Nosratinia, Saveiy, & Zaker, 2014; Nosratinia & Zaker, 2014). These internal factors, according to Ryan and Deci (2000, 2002), can regulate learners’ motivation which would facilitate personal growth, social development, and psychological well-being. Among these internal factors and psychological needs, Autonomy (AU) is one of the highly influential factors (Deci, Vallerand, Pelletier, & Ryan, 1991). It has been argued that AU would make learners feel more competent, feel more related to others, attempt to grow, and be more centered and focused (O' Donnell, Reeve, & Smith, 2012). AU is known to be the psychological need to experience authority in the initiation and regulation of one's behavior (Deci & Ryan, 1985). In the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context, student-centered methodology and AU are currently given a primary focus (Akbari, 2008; Bell, 2003; Benson, 2003). Put another way, EFL learners are now given a meaningful role in pedagogic decision making by being treated as active and autonomous players (Kumaravadivelu, 2008, 2012). Based on this premise, language learners are given the main focus in the process of designing curricula (Nation & Macalister, 2010) and both theorizer and practitioners (the controversial categorization rejected by today’s pedagogical concerns) are acknowledging the fundamental role of learner AU in achieving Second Language (L2) proficiency (Bell, 2003; Benson, 2003; O' Donnell et al., 2012). AU has been generally defined as the freedom and authority to manage one's own activities which also calls for the right to make decisions (Scharle & Szabo, 2000). An autonomous individual, according to Paul and Elder (2008), is not reliant upon others for the direction and control of their thinking. They further add that AU is the self-authorship on one's beliefs, values, and ways of thinking. Chang (2007) argues that the basis of AU among learners is that they accept responsibility for their learning and mastering L2 proficiency. More specifically, Little (1995) argued that promoting AU in educational contexts necessitates learning how to learn. There seems to be many reasons for valuing and promoting AU among EFL learners. For instance, Nation and Macalister (2010) argue that a major reason for promoting learner AU is that EFL learners may not have a permanent access to teachers for correction, guidance, and instruction. As a result, AU would proffer learners the ability to know "how to learn a language and how to monitor and be aware of their learning, so that they can become effective and independent language learners" (p. 38). Moreover, there seems to be an intimate relationship between AU and learning effectively. Put another way, the development of AU implies better language learning (Benson, 2001).

Flourishing Creativity & Literacy

IJALEL 4(4):86-97, 2015 87 It is believed that promoting AU requires an environmental support, and in the context of classroom, teachers play a key role in supporting and encouraging AU among learners (O' Donnell et al., 2012). More specifically, when EFL teachers support and value AU among learners, it would directly affect the degree of AU among learners (Chan, 2001). Nonetheless, any attempt to develop learners’ AU calls for having a broader perspective on the process of learning and the factors which directly or indirectly affect the process of learning, AU in learning, and L2 competence (Bell, 2003; Kumaravadivelu, 2012; Lightbown & Spada, 2013; Little, 1991). Accordingly, attempting to establish techniques to enhance AU and to know the nature of AU seems to a very well justified effort. Being conversant with the nature of AU can be achieved through inspecting the relationship between AU and other psychological, cognitive, and metacognitive factors (Nosratinia & Zaker, 2014). Such an attempt would also equip EFL teachers with a higher degree of knowledge regarding the characteristics of their learners and the way they can properly regulate their learning process. From the myriads of theoretically and operationally defined mental factors, the present study investigates the way EFL learners’ AU is related to their Creativity (CR) Critical Thinking (CT), and Vocabulary Learning Strategies (VLS), an attempt whose reason would be provided in the following sections. For starters, CR, CT, and VLS not only are among popular topics in the TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) profession, but they also are widely acknowledged as three metacognitive factors which substantially impact, influence, and shape the process of learning English as a second/foreign language (Connolly, 2000; Kabilan, 2000; Nation, 2001, 2004; Nation & Meara, 2002; Sarsani, 2006; Schmitt, 2000). Accordingly, inspecting the relationship among EFL learners’ AU, CT, CR, and VLS seems to be justified and even promising towards the elevation and furtherance of TEFL practice and teacher education. It has been argued that for learners to become proficient in the language (L2), they should employ CT through the target language (Kabilan, 2000). It is believed that Socrates was the founder of CT as he established the tradition of reflectively questioning common beliefs and expectations. He also attempted to separate reasonable and logical beliefs from those that lack evidence or rational foundation (Zireva & Letseka, 2013). CT has also been viewed as a social practice and language itself (Kress, 1985). CT, as a highly cognitive function, "is a purposeful, self-regulatory judgment which results in interpretation, analysis evaluation, and inference, as well as explanations of evidential, conceptual, methodological or contextual considerations upon which the judgment is based" (Astleitner, 2002, p. 53). An ability of this kind would make it possible to look at issues from different perspectives and angles (Willingham, 2008). That is why many educators have argued for the importance of promoting higher-order thinking skills in EFL contexts (Chamot, 1995; Tarvin & Al-Arishi, 1991). The significance of CT and teaching CT skills in EFL contexts has been confirmed by empirical evidence (Chapple & Curtis, 2000); however, the nature of CT and the way it interacts with other mental factors is yet to be investigated in different contexts. CR, as another variable of this study, is a metacognitive attribute which is believed to profoundly influence the process of learning (Mishan, 2005). Based on this premise, Pink (as cited in Rao & Prasad, 2009) argues that humankind is "entering a new age where creative thinking is becoming increasingly important" (p. 31). The field of CR has received significant contribution from Guilford and Torrance who have made CR being known as it is today (Sternberg, 2009). Since CR is complex in nature, different viewpoints have been put forward to explain the concept emphasizing its different aspects (Sarsani, 2006). Lubart (as cited in Nosratinia & Zaker, 2014) states that CR is generally characterized as the ability to create new and original products which are considered appropriate for the features and limitations of a given task, where products can refer to a variety of ideas, viewpoints, and innovations. Lubart and Guignard (2004) believe that these products must be original as they cannot be just a mere copy of what already exists. This feature seems to have made Carter (2004) to argue that, "Discussions of creativity in relation to language teaching and learning have been extensive and continue to be a very major point of application of a wide range of theories of creativity" (p. 213). Therefore, it seems to be quite reasonable to state that the TEFL/TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) practice can be highly influenced by CR (Fahim & Zaker, 2014). Coming to VLS, as another factor included in this study, it should be stated that for many EFL learners, vocabulary learning is an extremely challenging task (Catalan, 2003; Hiebert, 2011; Read, 2000). Therefore, recently, many EFL researches have attempted to provide and suggest effective techniques in order to increase the efficiency of vocabulary learning, called VLS (Atay & Ozbulgan, 2007; Fan, 2003; Nation, 2001, 2004; Nation & Meara, 2002; Nosratinia, Abbasi, & Zaker, 2015; Schmitt, 2000; Shen, 2004; Tsuchida, 2002). Vocabulary learning is believed to be a multifaceted process which involves many factors, i.e. memorizing words, being able to recall them, and using them appropriately (Nation, 2004; Verhallen & Schoonen, 1993). Therefore, VLS are defined as the "knowledge about the mechanisms (processes, strategies) used in order to learn vocabulary as well as steps or actions taken by students (a) to find out the meaning of unknown words, (b) to retain them in long-term memory, (c) to recall them at will, and (d) to use them in oral or written mode" (Catalan, 2003, p. 56). However, the need is felt to inspect the way this cognitive and metacognitive ability interacts with and influences other metacognitive/psychological/internal factors, especially AU. The put forward premises have been the driving force for many studies in our field that aim at conducting further investigation into the nature of AU, CR, CT, and VLS and the way they promote L2 learning. However, the question that is raised is whether AU, CR, CT, and VLS are associated to each other and if so, to what extent. In order to answer this question and fulfill the objective of this study, the following research questions were proposed:

Research Question 1: Is there any significant relationship between EFL learners' AU and CR? Research Question 2: Is there any significant relationship between EFL learners' AU and CT? Research Question 3: Is there any significant relationship between EFL learners' AU and VLS?

IJALEL 4(4):86-97, 2015 88 Research Question 4: Is there any significant relationship between EFL learners' CR and CT? Research Question 5: Is there any significant relationship between EFL learners' CR and VLS? Research Question 6: Is there any significant relationship between EFL learners' CT and VLS?

Assuming a significant relationship among the four variables, the following research question was posed:

Research Question 7: Is there any significant difference among EFL learners' CR, CT, and VLS in predicting AU? 2. Method 2.1 Participants The participants in this research consisted of undergraduate EFL learners majoring in English Translation and English Literature at the Islamic Azad University, Central Tehran and Roudehen branches. In these full-time undergraduate courses, English is the main medium of instruction, but occasional use of learners’ L1 (Persian) is allowed. From the abovementioned population, 202 male and female EFL learners (153 females, 76%, and 49 males, 24%), between the ages of 19 and 26 (mean age = 22 years) were selected via cluster random sampling. 2.2 Instruments Four instruments utilized to collect data pertaining the subjects' levels of AU, CR, CT, and VLS were as follows: 1. A questionnaire of AU by Spratt, Humphreys, and Chan (2002);

2. A questionnaire of CR created by O’Neil, Abedi, and Spielberger (1992); 3. A questionnaire of CT developed by Honey (2000); & 4. A questionnaire of VLS by Schmitt (1997).

2.2.1 Learner AU Questionnaire To evaluate participants' level of AU, a questionnaire of AU including 52 items was administered. The questionnaire though designed by Spratt, Humphreys, and Chan (2002), is strongly influenced by Holec's (1981) definition of AU. Holec defines AU as "the ability to take charge of one's own learning and where to take charge of one's learning is to hold the responsibility for all the decisions concerning all aspects of this learning"(as cited in Spratt, Humphreys, & Chan, 2002, p. 249). Holec, according to Spratt et al. (2002), argues that ability and responsibility are functioning in five principal areas which are: "determining objectives; defining contents and progressions; selecting methods and techniques to be used; monitoring the procedure of acquisition; and evaluating what has happened" (p. 249). All these notions of ability and responsibility are incorporated in the questionnaire. The questionnaire has four sections. The first section (13 items) focuses on examining students' views of their responsibilities and those of their teachers. The second section (11 items) evaluates the students' confidence in their ability to operate autonomously. The third section (1 item) aims to measure the levels of student motivation to learn English. The fourth section (27 items) investigates students' practice of autonomous learning in the form of both inside and outside class activities. Respondents were asked to indicate their answers in 20 minutes in a Likert scale, sequentially assigning values of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 to options of not at all, a little, some, mainly, and completely in section one; counting 1 for very poor to 5 for very good in section two; setting 5 to 1 beside the first to the last choices in section three; and attributing values of 1, 2, 3, and 4 to options of never, rarely, sometimes, and often in section four. In this regard, the result can vary from 52 to 233. It is self-evident that the higher the mark, the more autonomous the participant is. In this study, the Persian version of this questionnaire that was translated and validated by Fahim and Sheikhy (2011) was employed to make sure the participants fully comprehended it. The reliability of AU questionnaire in this study was estimated to be 0.86 using Cronbach's alpha coefficient which demonstrated a good degree of reliability. 2.2.2 CR Questionnaire This questionnaire was originally designed by O'Neil, Abedi, and Spielberger in 1992 and is called the Abedi-Schumacher Creativity Test or the ACT (as cited in Cropley, 2000). According to Abedi (2002), the estimated correlation coefficient between the four subscales of the ACT and the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) was meaningful at 0.01 level of significance. Therefore, the concurrent validity of ACT was established. It is worth noting that the TTCT is one of the best known tests of CR which consists of two sections: verbal and nonverbal or figural sections. In fact, the development of the ACT was an attempt to shorten the time needed for the administration and scoring of the TTCT. The estimated reliability of each of the subscales of the ACT was 0.61 to 0.75 which demonstrated that the test is also reliable (Auzmendi, Villa, & Abedi, 1996). In this study, the Persian version of this questionnaire, developed and validated by Zaker (2013) based on the original test, was utilized. Zaker (2013) provides the following sections in order to assess and appraise the validity of the instrument: a report on content validity, checking the criterion-related validity, an analysis of the internal structure of

IJALEL 4(4):86-97, 2015 89 the instrument employing exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and a report on the reliability of the instrument including 50 items. The 50 multiple-choice items of this test have three options ranging from least to most creative responses with a range of scores between 0-2; therefore, the scores of the test could range from 0 to 100, and the participants are allocated 50 minutes to respond to the questionnaire. In this study, the internal consistency of this test was estimated to be 0.83 employing Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. 2.2.3 CT Questionnaire The CT Questionnaire intends to explore what a person might or might not do when thinking critically about a subject. Developed by Honey (2000), the questionnaire aims at evaluating the three main skills of comprehension, analysis, and evaluation of the participants. This questionnaire is a Likert-type questionnaire with 30 items which allows researchers to investigate learners' ability in note-taking, summarizing, questioning, paraphrasing, researching, inferencing, discussing, classifying and outlining, comparing and contrasting, distinguishing, synthesizing, inductive and deductive reasoning. The participants were asked to rate the frequency of each category they use on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from never (1 point), seldom (2 points), sometimes (3 points), often (4 points), to always (5 points). The participants' final scores are calculated by adding up the numbers of the scores. The ultimate score is computed in the possible range of 30 to150. The participants were allocated 20 minutes to complete the questionnaire. In this study, the Persian version of this questionnaire was employed which was translated and validated by Naeini (2005). In a study conducted by Nosratinia and Zaker (2014) on EFL learners, the reliability of this questionnaire was estimated to be 0.81 using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. The estimated reliability of CT questionnaire in the present study was estimated to be 0.79 using Cronbach's alpha coefficient which demonstrated a fair degree of reliability. 2.2.4 VLS Questionnaire The 60-item VLS questionnaire by Schmitt (1997) was used in this study. Schmitt's taxonomy of VLS is known to be one of the most comprehensive and practical taxonomies in the domain of L2 VLS. It contains five categories that are: metacognitive, cognitive, memory, determination, and social. The researchers used the Persian version of this questionnaire which has been translated and validated by Fahim & Komijani (2010) in order to make sure that participants’ answers would not be affected by their level of English language proficiency. The participants were asked to rate the frequency of each category they use on a 5-point Liker-type scale, ranging from never (1 point), seldom (2 points), sometimes (3 points), often (4 points), to always (5 points). The time limit for the completion of the questionnaire was 35 minutes. The scores ranged in the possible range of 60 to 300. In this study the reliability of this questionnaire was estimated to be .89 using the Cronbach's alpha coefficient. 2.3 Procedure To achieve the purpose of this study and address the questions posed, certain procedures were pursued which are explained below. The data gathering phase began with obtaining a formal approval for conducting the research in the universities mentioned above (see participants). For every session of administration, three available classes were codified. Next, one class was chosen randomly and the other two classes were excluded from the study. This procedure resulted in having samples selected on a cluster sampling basis which according to Springer (as cited in Nosratinia & Zaker, 2014) would increase the validity and generalizability of the findings of a descriptive study. All the EFL students in the selected class were then informed about the aim of the study and were given the choice whether to fill in the questionnaires or not. They were also informed that the information supplied by them will be treated as confidential. Before administering the questionnaires, the participants were fully briefed on the process of completing the questionnaires through their L1. Due to the nature of this correlational study, no criterion for establishing homogeneity was adopted. Moreover, the researchers intentionally randomized the order of questionnaires administered to control the impact of order upon the completion process and validity of the data. Thereafter, the four questionnaires were administered to the participants, and they were given 125 minutes (with a 15-minutes break after the first 60 minutes) to complete them. The researchers randomly observed the filling out process of some individuals to make sure they were capable of fully understanding the questions and responses. Subsequently, the questionnaires were scored to specify participants' degrees of AU, CR, CT, and VLS. This was followed by the statistical analyses which will be elaborated later in the following parts. It is worth mentioning here that, out of the initial 310 administered questionnaires, 202 sets of fully answered questionnaires of all the four ones were considered for statistical analyses to determine the relationship among the variables. The other 108 sets of questionnaires were excluded from the analyses due to their incomplete answers. 3. Results The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship among EFL learners' AU, CR, CT, and VLS. In order to achieve this goal, a series of pertinent calculations and statistical routines was conducted whose results are elaborated comprehensively in this section. The data analysis provided both descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. Those in the former category such as Mean (M), Standard Deviation (SD), and Standard Error of the Mean (SEM) were obtained. Next, in order to check the normality of distributions, the assumptions of linear correlation were checked. Moreover, the reliability of the research

IJALEL 4(4):86-97, 2015 90 instruments was estimated through Cronbach's alpha coefficient. In view of the normal distribution of the variables in the inferential statistics, Pearson's product-moment correlation was then applied to the data. The design of the present study is descriptive since the primary motivation of the researchers was to investigate the relationship among the four variables with no preceding manipulation (Best & Kahn, 2006; Springer, 2010; Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007). CR, CT, and VLS were considered the predictor variables of the predicted variable, AU. Furthermore, age and gender were assumed as potential confounds. 3.1 Checking the Assumptions of Linear Correlation According to Tabachnick and Fidell (2007), in order to run correlation, the following assumptions should be checked:

1. Linear relation between each pair of variables; 2. Normality of the distribution of the variables; & 3. Homoscedasticity.

3.1.1 Linear Relation between Each Pair of Variables and Homoscedasticity To check the linearity of relations, it was needed to visually inspect the data by creating scatter plots. Since there were multiple variables in the study, the researchers created a multiple scatterplot for AU, CR, CT, and VLS which showed that there was no kind of non-linear relationship between the scores on the four variables, such as a U-shaped or curvilinear distribution. Consequently, the linearity of relations was confirmed. Moreover, the distributions were not funnel shape, i.e. wide at one end and narrow at the other; therefore, the assumption of homoscedasticity was met. 3.1.2 Normality of the Distributions To check the normality of the distributions, the descriptive statistics of the data were obtained which are reported in Table 1. Table1. Descriptive Statistics of the Scores of Autonomy, Creativity, Critical Thinking, and Vocabulary Learning Strategies

N Mean SEM SD Skewness

SE

Skewness

Skewness

ratio Kurtosis SE kurtosis

Kurtosis

ratio

Autonomy 202 163.98 .930 13.217 .197 .171 1.15 -.174 .341 -.51

Creativity 202 54.85 .786 11.175 -.018 .171 -.1 -.015 .341 -.04

Critical Thinking 202 103.96 .869 12.357 .068 .171 .4 -.069 .341 -.2

Vocabulary

Learning Strategies

202 150.63 1.165 16.559 .328 .171 1.92 -.449 .341 -1.32

As demonstrated in Table 1, the distribution of data for AU, CR, CT, and VLS was normal as both the skewness and kurtosis ratios fell within the range of -1.96 and +1.96. This means that, the distribution did not show a significant deviation from normality. Moreover, the actual shapes of the distributions for the four variables were inspected by checking the histograms of distributions which supported the normality of the scores’ distributions. 3.1.3 Homoscedasticity Based on the Regression Model Although the assumption of homoscedasticity was checked while inspecting the multiple scatterplot of the scores (see section 3.1.1), in order to check the assumption of homoscedasticity based on the regression model, that is, the assumption that the variance of residuals for every pair of points on the independent variable is equal (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007), the residuals plot was examined (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Plot of studentized residuals for autonomy

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As demonstrated in Figure 1, the cloud of data is scattered randomly across the plot; therefore, the variance seems to be homogeneous. Since the assumptions of linear correlation were all observed for AU, CR, CT, and VLS, the data was analyzed by Pearson's correlation, as a parametric formula, to seek the answers to the questions of the study. 3.2 The Relationship between AU and CR Previous studies favor the idea that CR and AU are both highly influential in the process of learning (Benson, 2003; Sarsani, 2005). However, in order to systematically investigate the relationship between CR and AU among EFL learners, the subsequent question was posed as the first research question of this study: Research Question 1: Is there any significant relationship between EFL learners' AU and CR? To answer this question, the data were analyzed by Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient. The results obtained showed a significant and positive correlation between the two variables, r = .667, n = 202, p < .05, and high levels of CR were associated with high levels of AU. This signified a large effect size (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2007; Larson-Hall, 2010) supplemented by a very small confidence interval (CI = [0.58 – 0.74]). 3.3 The Relationship between AU and CT By giving EFL learners the role of autonomous players in pedagogic decision making (Kumaravadivelu, 2008, 2012) and considering the empirical evidence which supports the significant impact of CT on the process of second or foreign language learning (Chapple & Curtis, 2000), another objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between these two factors; accordingly, the second research question was posed as follows: Research Question 2: Is there any significant relationship between EFL learners' AU and CT? To answer this question, the data were analyzed by Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient. The results showed that there was a significant and positive correlation between the two variables, r = .73, n = 202, p < .05, and high levels of CR were associated with high levels of AU. This signified a large effect size supplemented by a very small CI = [0.66 – 0.79]. 3.4 The Relationship between AU and VLS It was stated earlier that AU has a positive impact on learning language (O’Donnell, Reeve, & Smith, 2012). Moreover, many studies have emphasized the importance of VLS in making L2 learning faster and more autonomous (Nation, 2001, 2004; Nation & Meara, 2002). Based on these ideas, the following research question was posed in order to inspect the way EFL learners’ AU and VLS are systematically associated. Research Question 3: Is there any significant relationship between EFL learners' AU and VLS? In order to answer this question, learners' AU scores were correlated with those of VLS using Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient. As suggested by the results, there is a significant and positive relationship between EFL learners’ AU and overall use of VLS, r = .685, n = 202, p < .05. This signified a large effect size supplemented by a very small CI = [0.61 – 0.75]. 3.5 The Relationship between CR and CT Many educators and psychologists argue that CR and CT are closely associated, and they both amplify and foster higher-order thinking (Chamot, 1995; Kabilan, 2000; Sarsani, 2006). However, in order to systematically investigate the association between CT and CR among EFL learners, the following research question was posed as the fourth research question of this study: Research Question 4: Is there any significant relationship between EFL learners' CR and CT? In order for this study to answer this question, the data were analyzed by Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient, results of which showed a significant and positive correlation between the two variables, r = .830, n = 202, p < .05. This signified a large effect size supplemented by a very small CI = [0.78 – 0.87]. 3.6 The Relationship between CR and VLS It seems to be a common belief held by many educators and psychologists that CR can significantly amplify higher-order thinking and learning (Chamot, 1995; Kabilan, 2000; Sarsani, 2006). On the other hand, many hold the opinion that VLS is an important factor in making L2 learning faster and more autonomous (Nation, 2001, 2004; Nation & Meara, 2002). Based on this proposal, the following question was posed in order to systematically investigate the way CR and VLS are associated among EFL learners: Research Question 5: Is there any significant relationship between EFL learners' CR and VLS? To answer this question, the data were analyzed by Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient. The results showed that there was a significant and positive correlation between the two variables, r = .473, n = 202, p < .05, and high levels of CR were associated with high levels of VLS. This signified a modest to moderate effect size supplemented by a very small CI = [0.359 – 0.573]. 3.7 The Relationship between CT and VLS

IJALEL 4(4):86-97, 2015 92 It is believed that CT has a major influence on the process of learning (Chamot, 1995; Nosratinia & Zaker, 2014). Moreover, many hold the opinion that VLS are important cognitive and metacognitive factors which promote the process of language learning (Nation, 2001, 2004; Nation & Meara, 2002). Accordingly, in order to inspect the way CT and VLS are associated in this context, the following research question was posed: Research Question 6: Is there any significant relationship between EFL learners' CT and VLS? In order to investigate this relationship, the results of Learners' CT scores were correlated with those of VLS, using Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient. Results suggested that there is a significant and positive relationship between EFL learners’ CT and overall use of VLS, r = .476, n = 202, p < .05. This signified a modest to moderate effect size supplemented by a very small CI = [0.362 – 0.576]. 3.8 AU as Predicted by CR, CT, and VLS Since the observed correlations between the four variables of AU, CR, CT, and VLS turned out to be significant, it was legitimate to opt for the multiple regression analysis between the variables in order to answer the following research question: Research Question 7: Is there any significant difference among EFL learners' CR, CT, and VLS in predicting AU? As reported in Table 2, R turned out to be 0.82 and Adjusted R2 was 0.676. This means that the model explains 67.6 percent of the variance in AU (Cohen et al., 2007). Moreover, f2 = 2.135 indicated a large effect size for the regression. Table 2. Model Summary – R and R2

Model R R2 Adjusted R2 SE of the Estimate 1 .825a .681 .676 7.523 a. Predictors: (Constant), Vocabulary Learning Strategies, Creativity, Critical Thinking b. Dependent Variable: Autonomy

Table 3 reports the results of ANOVA (F (3, 198) = 140.78, p = 0.0005), the results of which were considered significant.

Table 3. Regression Output: ANOVAb Table Model Sum of Squares Df M2 F Significance 1 Regression 23904.550 3 7968.183 140.787 .000a

Residual 11206.326 198 56.598 Total 35110.876 201

a. Predictors: (Constant), Vocabulary Learning Strategies, Creativity, Critical Thinking b. Dependent Variable: Autonomy

Also, Table 4 demonstrates the Standardized Beta Coefficients which signify the degree to which each predictor variable contributes to the prediction of the predicted variable. Inspection of the Sig. values showed that CT and VLS make statistically significant unique contributions to the equation as their both Sig. values were less than .05. However, this was not the case for CR. Table 4. Regression Output: Coefficients

Model Unstandardized Coefficients

Standardized Coefficients

T Significance B SE β 1 (Constant) 56.749 5.989 9.476 .000

Creativity .110 .086 .093 1.273 .204 Critical Thinking .478 .078 .447 6.117 .000 Vocabulary Learning Strategies .342 .037 .428 9.261 .000

The comparison of β values revealed that CT has the largest β coefficient (β = 0.447, t = 6.117, p = 0.0005). This means that CT makes the strongest statistically significant unique contribution to explaining AU. Therefore, it was concluded that CT could predict more significantly the AU scores of the candidates. Moreover, VLS was ranked as the second predictor of AU. By contrast, CR did not exhibit a significant prediction of AU (p = .204). Based on the results of the multiple regression analysis, the following formula was provided in order to calculate EFL learners’ AU scores when CR, CT, and VLS scores are available in this context (Cohen et al., 2007):

AU Score = 9.476 + .093 (CR Score) + .447 (CT Score) + .428 (VLS Score)

Ultimately, although normality of the distributions were checked for correlation in the previous sections, the residuals table (Table 5) also verified the absence of outstanding outliers as the Cook's distance values did not exceed 1 and Mahalanobis distance values did not exceed 16.27 (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007).

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Table 5. Regression Output: Residuals Statistics Minimum Maximum M SD

Mahal. Distance .101 11.080 2.985 2.308 Cook's Distance .000 .087 .006 .011 a. Dependent Variable: Autonomy

The P-P Plot (Figure 2) was used to visually inspect the result.

Figure 2. P-P plot for diagnosing normal distribution of residual 4. Discussion and Conclusion There is now a unanimous consensus among those involved in the TEFL practice that EFL learners’ internal factors play a determining role in realizing pedagogical objectives (Lightbown & Spada, 2013; Nosratinia & Zaker, 2014). Among these internal factors, AU is believed to be one of the highly influential factors (Deci, Vallerand, Pelletier, & Ryan, 1991) which truly justifies any attempt to inspect the way AU is associated with other mental, cognitive, metacognitive, and personal factors (Nosratinia & Zaker, 2013a, 2013b). Based on this premise, the current study attempted to investigate the possible relationships among EFL learners' AU, CR, CT, and VLS through addressing the following questions:

Research Question 1: Is there any significant relationship between EFL learners' AU and CR? Research Question 2: Is there any significant relationship between EFL learners' AU and CT? Research Question 3: Is there any significant relationship between EFL learners' AU and VLS? Research Question 4: Is there any significant relationship between EFL learners' CR and CT? Research Question 5: Is there any significant relationship between EFL learners' CR and VLS? Research Question 6: Is there any significant relationship between EFL learners' CT and VLS?

Observing a significant relationship among the four variables made it possible to pose the following question:

Research Question 7: Is there any significant difference among EFL learners' CR, CT, and VLS in predicting AU? As stated above, for every session of administration, one class was randomly selected from the available classes, and the participants were informed about the purpose of the study. After collecting the data through administering four pertinent questionnaires, the statistical analyses were carried out to answer the abovementioned questions in this descriptive study. After testing the preliminary assumptions, Pearson’s product-moment correlation coefficient, as a parametric test, answered the first six research questions. Following this, as the correlations between the variables were significant, a multiple regression was ran to answer the seventh research question. It has been stated that CR and AU are both highly influential in the process of learning (Benson, 2003; Sarsani, 2005). However, the existence of such a relationship should be tested systematically. As suggested by the results, this study observed a significant and positive relationship between EFL learners’ AU and CR, r = .667, n = 202, p < .05. This finding confirmed the findings of another study (Nosratinia & Zaker, 2014) which observed a statistically significant relationship between CR and AU. This confirmation would make it more reasonable now to argue about a causal

IJALEL 4(4):86-97, 2015 94 relationship between CR and AU (Springer, 2010). Moreover, this result confirms that the more an EFL learner is creative, the more automatically s/he will make progress in L2 learning. As a result, it is highlighted that promoting the elements of CR (e.g. fluency, flexibility, originality, imaginativeness, and elaboration) would directly and indirectly facilitate L2 learning. By giving EFL learners the role of autonomous players in pedagogic decision making (Kumaravadivelu, 2008, 2012) and considering the significant impact of CT on the process of L2 learning (Chapple & Curtis, 2000), another objective of this study was to systematically investigate the relationship between EFL learners’ AU and CT. The data analysis by Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient showed that there is a significant and positive correlation between the two variables, r = .73, n = 202, p < .05, and high levels of CT were associated with high levels of AU. This finding was in line with the findings of previous studies, i.e. Nosratinia and Zaker (2014) (r = 0.73) and Fahim and Sheikhy (2011) (r = 0.546). This highlights the significance of including the elements of CT (e.g. identifying and challenging assumptions, imagining, exploring, and enumerating other options, respecting evidence and reasoning, defining the context, listing reasons explicitly, and self-correction) in all aspects of the TEFL practice. Moreover, it seems reasonable to argue that CT should be promoted when a higher level of AU use is expected. The positive impact of AU on learning language (O’Donnell, Reeve, & Smith, 2012) and the stated importance of VLS in making L2 learning faster and more autonomous (Nation, 2001, 2004; Nation & Meara, 2002) justified the attempt to systematically inspect the association between EFL learners’ AU and VLS. The results suggested that there is a significant and positive relationship between EFL learners’ AU and overall use of VLS, r = .685, n = 202, p < .05. This result was in line with the findings of another study by Nosratinia, Shakoori, and Zaker (2013) (r = 0.77). Therefore, this relationship, also, shows the tendency to confirm and/or support a causal relationship. The theoretically supported relationship between CR and CT (Chamot, 1995; Kabilan, 2000; Sarsani, 2006) legitimated the attempt to systematically investigate the way they are associated in an EFL context. The results of data analysis confirmed a significant and positive correlation between the two variables, r = .830, n = 202, p < .05. This result confirmed the findings of another study by Fahim and Zaker (2014) (r = 0.825). This highly significant relationship provides ample support to argue that CR and CT and their underlying constructs are closely associated and can promote each other. By and large, it can be argued that when there is variance in CR, there also exists variance in CT, and vice versa. This confirmation also paves the way to consider the existence of a causal relationship. Many EFL researchers have argued that CR can significantly amplify higher-order thinking and learning (Chamot, 1995; Kabilan, 2000; Sarsani, 2006) which seems to have in common the metacognitive processes with VLS (Nation, 2001, 2004; Nation & Meara, 2002). The systematic investigation of the relationship between CR and VLS by Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient showed that there was a significant and positive correlation between the two variables, r = .473, n = 202, p < .05, and high levels of CR were associated with high levels of VLS. This relationship, however, was the least significant observed relationship in this study. Therefore, regarding the large size of the sample, it might be argued that the association between CR and VLS is not so much influential and illuminating, and that CR would not function as a reliable predictor for VLS. Vocabulary learning is a multifaceted process which involves many mental processes, i.e. memorizing words, being able to recall them, and using them appropriately (Nation, 2004; Verhallen & Schoonen, 1993). On the other hand, CT is a significant internal factor which is believed to have a major influence on the process of learning and the way EFL learners deal with the input and produce the output (Chamot, 1995; Nosratinia & Zaker, 2014). Based on these theoretical arguments, the sixth analysis examined the way CT and VLS are associated. Results suggested that there is a significant and positive relationship between CT and overall use of VLS, r = .476, n = 202, p < .05, in this context. This is to say that the higher level of CT a learner has, the higher number of VLS s/he uses, and vice versa. This result confirmed the results of the same analysis carried out by Nosratinia, Shakoori, and Zaker (2013) (r = 0.72) in an Iranian context. However, the less significant relationship observed warns us about making generalizations about the association between CT and VLS. It also necessitates inspecting the other factors which might have influenced the way CR and VLS are associated, i.e. the potential confounds. The final analysis was a multiple regression analysis between the variables in order to see if there is any significant difference among EFL learners' CR, CT, and VLS in predicting their AU. The obtained results, R = 0.82, Adjusted R2 = 0.676, revealed that: a) this model explains 67.6 percent of the variance in AU; b) f2 = 2.135 indicated a large effect size for the regression; c) CT and VLS make statistically significant unique contributions to the equation; d) CT makes the strongest statistically significant unique contribution to explaining AU; and e) VLS was ranked as the second predictor of AU. Moreover, the following formula was suggested in order to calculate EFL learners’ AU scores in this context.

AU Score = 9.476 + .093 (CR Score) + .447 (CT Score) + .428 (VLS Score)

Based on the above-mentioned findings, this study suggests that EFL teachers inform EFL learners of the ways through which CT, CR, and VLS can contribute to a more independent, reliable, and effective learning process. In this research, it was revealed that possessing higher levels of CR, CT, and VLS would make learners equipped to act autonomously and independently which would result in a more personalized learning. More specifically, CR, CT, and VLS can predict 67.6 percent of the variance in AU. Therefore, EFL teachers are recommended, when planning classroom activities, to include CT, CR, and VLS oriented activities. These activities would be based on highlighting the basic components of CT and CR and introducing VLS. Moreover, creating an environment in which CR, CT, and VLS are properly valued

IJALEL 4(4):86-97, 2015 95 and in which learners take the responsibility for their own learning seems to be a considerable step toward benefiting from the potential capacities of CR, CT, and VLS toward learning and making autonomous progress. Due to the fact that language learning is a multidimensional phenomenon, not only language teachers, but also language learners should play their role properly in order to facilitate and optimize this complicated process. Therefore, the results of the current study have implications for language learners, encouraging them to become more creative and critical about their learning activities and attempt to improve their vocabulary learning through employing VLS. It is hoped that, the results of this study would make EFL learners more internally motivated to value autonomous learning, CR, CT, and VLS. Furthermore, improving thinking and learning skills in a learning context can help learners to be equipped with tools designed to instill positive attitudes toward learning a new language and positive views of themselves as learners. Given the content of EFL/ESL materials, the results of this study would also assist syllabus designers and curriculum developers to integrate AU, CR, CT, and VLS into the body of EFL materials in a way which serves the purpose of instruction and teaching best. Moreover, possessing a higher degree of understanding regarding these metacognitive variables would enable syllabus designers and curriculum developers to proffer the learners the capability to know how to learn a language better, how to observe and monitor their L2 progress, and how to develop their learning so that they can become effective and independent language learners (Nation & Macalister, 2010). It is also reasonable and well-justified to incorporate CR, CT, and VLS into the body of achievement and diagnostic tests where it might provide the context-sensitive teachers with a better understanding of the mental and cognitive states of the learners and the way the instruction has been successful or should be adapted (Nosratinia & Zaker, 2014). In the same vein, it is also suggested to include CR, CT, and VLS in the prognostic tests of English courses, namely placement tests. The findings of this study confirmed that CR, CT, and VLS would facilitate learning a new language through promoting AU. Moreover, it was observed that, in this context, CT makes the strongest unique contribution to explain AU. However, considering the inherent lack of control or knowledge regarding the influential factors in correlational research (Best & Kahn, 2006; Springer, 2010), further studies may inspect the way other mental and personality factors interact with the variables of this study. Moreover, the same study could be conducted among other age groups regarding the difference amongst different age groups with respect to mental and personal qualities. This study can also be replicated employing some qualitative instruments, e.g. interviews, in order to increase the validity and generalizability of the findings.

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International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

Resuscitating the Earth: A Linguistic Analysis of Selected Poems in Niyi Osundare’s The Eye of the Earth

Abosede Adebola Otemuyiwa (Corresponding author)

Department of English, Ikeji-Arakeji, Joseph Ayo Babalola University, P.M.B 5006, Ilesa, Osun–State, Nigeria E-mail: otemuyiwa2011@yahoo.com

Adetokunbo O. Akinyosoye

General Studies Department, Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta, Ogun-State, Nigeria E-mail: toksfunm@gmail.com

Received: 09-11- 2014 Accepted: 02-02- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015 Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.98 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.98 Abstract This study analyzed three of Niyi Osundare’s poems in the ‘Eye of the Earth’. We considered the syntactic patterns and semantic applications used in the selected poems to drive home the thematic pre-occupation of the poet. Hassan (1985) asserts that linguistic stylistics has its major purpose of relating language use in literary texts to its artistic function. The selected poems are Let Earth’s Pain Be Soothed, First Rain and Meet me at Okeruku. Linguistic Stylistic Analytical Framework is used for the analysis. Use of diction, meanings and figurative expressions of the poems were the focus. Result of the analysis revealed that to discuss the language of poetry is to reveal those stylistic features which conform to and deviate from the norms of the language of poetry. The analysis indicated that linguistic stylistics operates on some key concepts like deviation or foregrounding. Keywords: Osundare’s poems, linguistic, syntactic, grammatical, semantic, patterns, figurative expressions 1. Introduction The importance of linguistic stylistic for the study of Literature in English cannot be over-emphasized. Linguistic Stylistic started in the early 1960s as an approach to complement literary criticism. Linguistics is defined as the scientific study of language. Hence, it employs objective and verifiable methods of analysis in analyzing and interpreting texts. As such, linguistic stylistic is an analytical approach used by scholars to objectively study both literary and non-literary texts and materials. Awonuga (1988) observes that one important advantage of linguistic stylistics for the study of literary texts is the opportunity it provides the readers to systematize their response to the various works of literature that they have cause to study. . Chapman (1973) believes that deviation occurs due to the fact that poets enjoy the poetic license to manipulate rules of grammar and conventions generally observed by users of the language. Leech (1981) claims that the liberties poets have taken with language have been of immense varieties and sometimes reached a pathological degree of abnormality. One can say that ‘deviation’ is purposely used for comprehension and for creation of beauty in the use of language. Deviation occurs at all levels of language analysis. So we have semantic, grammatical, graphological, lexical and phonological deviations. 2. Theoretical Framework Linguistic stylistics handles the relationship between literary and ordinary language more effectively than other approaches as it is found to be a very reliable method of literary appreciation and interpretation. Crystal (1974) defines linguistics as the scientific study of language. He also asserts that scientists arrive at a conclusion after they might have taken various stages, which include observation, formulation of hypothesis, experimentation and finally formulation of results, which are then integrated into the body of scientific knowledge. Linguistic stylistics is the study of linguistic pattern of either non-literary or literary texts. 3. Foregrounding Foregrounding is that psychological effect resulting from the conspicuous elements that hold a promise of stylistic relevance, and thereby rouse the readers’ interest or emotions. Such foregrounded elements often include a distinct patterning or parallelism in a text’s typography, sounds, word choices, grammar, or sentence structures, repetition of some linguistic elements and deviations from the rules of language in general. Foregrounding generally means violation of norms. It should be noted that violation of norms (foregrounding) can still occur in the same linguistic environment within the unviolated norms, since the unfamiliar could be described in relation to the familiar. We have the deviational and non-deviational foregrounding. Deviational foregrounding is where the reader’s attention is arrested by way of violating the rules and norms of the language, whereas non-deviational foregrounding is the kind of structure that acquires a prominent significance in a text as a result of making use of a certain aspect of language or literary norms in such a constant and systematic manner that it attracts the attention of the reader.

Flourishing Creativity & Literacy

IJALEL 4(4):98-107, 2015 99 4. Data Analysis 4.1 ‘Let Earth’s Pain Be Soothed’

S P C 1 The sky / carries / a boil of anguish

A S P 2. Let / it / burst

S P C 3. Our earth / has never lingered / so dry

A 4. In the season of falling showers

S P A 5. Clouds / journey / over trees and over hills

A 6. Miserly with their liquid treasure

S P C 7. The sky / carries / a boil of anguish

A S P 8. Let / it / burst P A

9. Prostrate / like famished horses S P A

10. brown hills / cast / vacant looks A

11. at balded plains where playing kids P S A

12. provoke / the dust / in what once was A

13. the cradle of green S P C

14. The sky / carries / a boil of anguish A S P

15. Let / it / burst S

16. Dust S A

17. dust / in brewing kitchens

S A 18. dust / in eating halls

S A 19. dust / in scheming boardrooms

S A 20. dust / in retrenching factories

A 21. dust / in power brothels S P C

22. The sky / carries / a boil of anguish

P S P

23. Let / it / burst P S A

24. Let / it / rain today S P

25. that parched throats / may sing P S P 26. Let / it / rain

S P C 27. that earth / may heal / her silence

P S A 28. Let / it / rain today

S P C 29.that cornleaves / may clothe / the hills

P S P 30. Let / it / rain

S P S C 31. that roots / may swell / the womb / of lying plains

P S A 32. Let/ it / rain today

S P C 33. that stomachs / may shun / the rumble of thunder

P S P 34. Let / it / rain

S P 35. that children / may bath and bawl and brawl

S P C 36. The sky / carries / a boil of anguish

P S P 37. Let / it / burst

S P A 38. The roofs / have been silent / too long

S A A 39. the seeds / noiseless / in the dormitory of the soil

S P A 40. the earth / has been lying / too long, and songless.

A 41. Time to leap, time to lilt

P S P A 42. Let / the sky’s boil of anguish / burst / today

S A P 43. The pain / of earth / be soothed.

4.2. First Rain

S P C 1. A tingling tang / awakes / the nose

A S P 2. When / the first rain / has just clipped

C 3. The wing of the haughty dust

A S P 4. a cooling / warmth / embraces

C 5. our searching soles

A S P 6. as / the land vapour / rises

A C 7. like / a bootless infantry

8. and A C

9. through / her liberated pores

S P A 10.our earth / breathes / again

IJALEL 4(4):98-107, 2015 100 4.3 Meet Me At Okeruku

P S A A 1 Meet / me / at / Okeruku

A S P A 2 Where / earth / is / one compact

A S 3 of reddening / powder P A 4 daubed / coquettishly A S S 5 on / the harmattan / brow A S 6 of trembling / houses

A S A 7 And when / the rains /are here A S A A 8 When / this dust / is clod / and clay P S A S 9 Show / me / hurried / toemarks A S A S 10 on the ciphered / pages / of narrow/ alleys P A S 11 awaiting / the liquid / eraser A S 12 of the next / shower

5. Discussion 5.1 Linguistic Features Manifested in the Poems 5.1.1 Sentence / Clause Typology In the poem Let Earth’s Pain Be Soothed, there are nine (9) SPC structure sentences. The nine lines have basic simple sentence pattern. According to Aremo (2004), non-basic simple sentences are formed through these operations: movement, deletion and insertion. In this poem, there are 14 lines of non-basic sentences, which are formed by moving the predicator before the subject (movement). Five of the lines of the poem are purely adverbial clauses. These are lines 4, 6, 11, 13, and 41. Out of the 43 lines that make up the poem ‘Let Earth’s Pain Be Soothed’, 12 lines are starting with ‘let’ which make those lines to have subjectless verb (Aremo 2000). Concerning the use of commands with ‘let’ as the theme of the sentence or clause, Quirk et al (1976) has it that first person imperatives can be formed by proposing the verb ‘let’ followed by a subject in the objective case. In the poem, we have structures like, line2: Let it burst, line 24, Let it rain today, line 26, Let it rain today, all this shows the eagerness of the poet in wanting the rain to fall. Quirk et al (1976) further asserts that in every colloquial English, ‘let’ is sometimes used for a 1st person singular. See the table 1 and the figure 1 below: 5.1.2 Forms and Types of Clauses Prominent in the Poems and their Functions Table 1. Prominent Structural Patterns in Let Earth’s Pain Be Soothed

Structural Patterns Number of Occurrences % Usage

SPC 29.5 SPA 9.8 SA 16.9 PSP 26.7 A 16.9

Figure 1. The Percentage Usage of Prominent Structures in ‘Let Earth’s Pain Be Soothed’

IJALEL 4(4):98-107, 2015 101 The SPC structural pattern forms 29.5% of the patterns, SPA pattern forms 9.8%, SA pattern forms 26.7% and A pattern form 16.9% as represented in the figure above. 5.1.3 Metaphorical Features in ‘Let Earth’s Pain Be Soothed’ There are some metaphorical words, phrases and clauses that run through the poem ‘Let Earth’s Pain Be Soothed’. Examples are: Line 1: ‘The sky carries a boil of anguish’, line 5: Clouds journey over trees and over hills, line 6: Miserly with their liquid treasure, line 10: brown hills cast vacant looks, line 11: at balded plains where playing kids, line 12: provoke the dust in what once was, line 13: the cradle of green. These metaphorical expressions give a kind of beauty to the poem and the run-on lines make the poem rhythmical and sonorous. This is revealed in lines: 16 – 21 below: Dust, dust in brewing kitchens, dust in eating halls, dust in scheming boardrooms dust in retrenching factories, dust in power brothels ‘Dust’ is being repeated for emphasis on the bad effects that lack of rain brings to brewing kitchens, eating halls, scheming boardrooms, retrenching factories and power brothels. The poet explained that all these places are seriously affected when there is no rain. He puts the following lines as interlude in the poem after mentioning these bad effects. The sky carries a boil of anguish, Let it burst Let it rain today, He then makes a sort of digression by mentioning the good effects that can occur when there is rain from Line 24 to 33. Let it rain today that parched throats may sing Let it rain that earth may heal her silence Let it rain today that cornleaves may clothe the hills, Let it rain that roots may swell the womb of lying plains Let it rain today that stomachs may shun the rumble of thunder Let it rain that children may bath and bawl and brawl From line 36 – 43, the poet mentioned that the roofs have been silent for too long, the seeds being noiseless in the dormitory of the soil and the earth to have been lying too long and songless. All these lines of the poem below show the extent to which the rain is needed. line 37: Let it burst, line 38: The roofs have been silent too long, line 39: the seeds noiseless in the dormitory of the soil, line 40: the earth has been lying too long, and songless, line 41: Time to leap, time to lilt, line 42: Let the sky’s boil of anguish burst today, line 43: The pain of earth be soothed. 5.1.4 Coercive Features in ‘Let Earth Pain Be Soothed’ The coercive features used by the poet are found in his choice of words. In ‘Let Earth Pain Be Soothed’, twelve of the lines of the poem are beginning with ‘Let’ which is a command word. ‘Let the sky’s boil of anguish burst today’ is spread all over the poem’s lines. All the lines that are started by ‘let’ are referred to as subjectless verb clauses. 5.1.5 Pronouns Reference in ‘Let Earth’s Pain Be Soothed’ Two pronouns ‘it’ and ‘her’ are predominant in the poem ‘Let Earth’s Pain Be Soothed’. While ‘it’ refers to the ‘rain’, ‘her’ refers to the earth. Kirkpatrick (2010) refers to he, she, it and they as third person personal pronouns and that when they are in the object position, they take the form of him, her, it, and them consecutively. In the poem, ‘it’ is in the subject position and ‘her’ in the object position. 5.1.6 Lexical Items in ‘Let Earth’s Pain Be Soothed’ This is one of the linguistically accepted ways by which registers can be differentiated. The classes of words in the lexical items in the poem are given below:

IJALEL 4(4):98-107, 2015 102 Adjectives: Many adjectives are used in the poem. The adjectives in ‘Let Earth’s Pain Be Soothed’ include: boil of anguish, miserly, famished, brown, vacant, balded, brewing kitchens, eating halls, scheming boardrooms, retrenching factories, power brothels, parched, rumble, noiseless, songless, falling showers. Some of the adjectives are used attributively and some are used predicatively. Examples for attributive adjectives in the poem are brewing kitchens, falling shower, example for predicative adjective retrenching factories etc. Nouns: In ‘Let Earth’s Pain Be Soothed’ we have the following nouns: The sky, earth, clouds, horses, hills, plains, dust, kitchens, halls, boardrooms, factories, brothels, throats, cornleaves, womb, stomachs, thunder, children, roofs, seeds, dormitory, soil, cradle, kids. It is discovered here that all the nouns are names of things, places and animals. Some of them are regular and some irregular. Examples of regular nouns are horses, hills, plains etc. while that irregular are children, factories etc. Children in the poem can also be referred to as ‘dual gender’ (Kirkpatrick 2010:98). Verbs: In ‘Let Earth’s Pain Be Soothed’, we have the following verbs: carries, lingered, journey, burst, prostrate, cast, provoke, may sing, may heal, may clothe, may swell, may shun, may bath and bawl and brawl, have been silent, has been lying, soothed. Murthy (2012) acknowledge that some verbs are always used with adjectives expressing the quality of the subject. Some examples in the poem reveal different kinds of verbs that such as transitive verbs as in playing kids. It also reveals some nouns that change their form in the plural case as in carries. It is also reveals that many helping verbs were employed to carry out the message as in has been lying, have been silent, may swell etc. Prepositional Group: In ‘Let Earth’s Pain Be Soothed’, we have the following prepositional groups ‘in brewing kitchens’,’ in eating halls’, ‘in scheming boardrooms’, ‘in retrenching factories’ and ‘in power brothels’. All the prepositional groups find in the poem are obligatory adverbials because their removal from the sentences can render such sentences ungrammatical. Adverbial Groups: In ‘Let Earth’s Pain Be Soothed’, we have the following adverbs: Noiseless, songless, miserly, over trees and over hills. Most of the adverbs in the poem are that of manner. Adverb of manner indicates how something happens (Kirkpatrick 2010:69). Examples are: Clouds journey over trees and over hills, Miserly with their liquid treasure. Coordinators and Subordinators: In Let Earth’s Pain Be Soothed, we have two, a coordinator and a subordinator: ‘and’ and ‘that’. Modal Auxiliaries Usage In Let Earth’s Pain Be Soothed, ‘may’ is used as a modal auxiliary to take permission and to express possibility. In this poem, it is used to express the possibility of the rain to fall. It is used in lines 25, 27, 29, 31, 33 and 35. These lines are sandwiched with the clause ‘let it rain’, ‘let it rain today’, which further shows the anticipation of the expectation of the rain by the poet. 5.1.7 Figurative Expressions in ‘Let Earth’s Pain Be Soothed’ In this poem, the title itself shows that the earth is personified and that she is undergoing a painful situation without the rain falling on her. And that it is only when the rain falls that the pains can be soothed. There are series of personification used in the poem. These are seen in the following phrases: the sky carries a boil of anguish, clouds journey over trees, cradle of green, the earth may heal, cornleaves may clothe the hills, the roots may swell the womb of lying plains, stomachs may shun the rumble of thunder, roofs have been silent too long, the seeds noiseless, the earth has been lying too long and songless, brown hills cast vacant looks, provoke the dust, and the pain of earth be soothed. The above mentioned personified elements gave a kind of living effects on the reader of the poem and make the poem real. Hyperbolic expressions are also used in the poem. Examples are: The sky carries a boil of anguish, Let it burst. Euphemism is also used. Examples are: ‘The roofs have been silent for too long’, ‘the seeds noiseless in the dormitory of the soil’, ‘the earth has been lying too long’, and ‘songless’. Simile is one of the figures of speech that beautify the diction of the poem. An example is: ‘prostrate like famished horses’. Onomatopoeia is also used –‘falling showers’, ‘the rumble of thunder’. Alliteration is another figure of speech used – ‘that children may bath and bawl and brawl’. 5.1.8 Symbolism: In Let Earth’s Pain Be Soothed, we have the following: boil of anguish, dust, rumble of thunder, clouds journey, liquid treasure, balded plains, cradle of green 5.1.9 Contextual Semantic Implications of the Features From the poem Let Earth’s Pain Be Soothed, we are able to deduce that, it has been a long time since they have had rain in the person’s area. This is seen in the poet’s choice of words. Violent and aggressive words are used for example: boil of anguish, let it burst, provoke the dust, the pain of the earth be soothed. The semantic implications of this is that the person in the area is eager to have rainfall so that parched throats may sing, that the earth may heal her silence, that the cornleaves may clothe the hills, that the roots may swell the womb of lying plains and that children may bath and bawl and brawl. 5.2 First Rain 5.2.1 The ‘First Rain’, has 10 lines which discusses the effects that the first rain has on both human beings and the earth herself. Line 1, a tingling tang awakes the nose, line 4, cooling warmth embraces, line 5, our searching soles, line 9, through her liberated pores, line 10, our earth breathes again. It further discusses the revival that comes upon human lives and even the earth after the rain. The prominent structural patterns are seen in table 2 and figure 2 below.

IJALEL 4(4):98-107, 2015 103 Table 2. Prominent Structural Patterns in “First Rain”

Structural patterns No of occurrences % Usage SPC 11.1 ASP 33.3 C 22.2 AC 22.2 SPA 11.1

Figures 2. The Percentage Usage of Prominent Structures in “First Rain”

5.2.2 Metaphorical Features in ‘First Rain’ Almost all the lines in this poem are metaphorical except ‘line 8’ as we can see below: line 1: A tingling tang awakes the nose, line 2: when the first rain has just clipped, line 3: the wing of the haughty dust line 4: a cooling warmth embrace, line 5: our searching soles, line 7: like a bootless infantry, line 9: through her liberated pores line 10: our earth breathes again 5.2.3 Coercive Features in ‘First Rain’ In the other poem, ‘First Rain’ there is the usage of coercive words in Line 1 of the poem- ‘A tingling tang’ which explains the prickling or stinging sensation that the first rain causes the nose of everybody. Line 3, ‘The wing of the haughty dust’ which explains how arrogantly the dust behaves when the first rain falls. Pronouns: In ‘First Rain’, two pronouns are used: ‘our’ and ‘her’. ‘our’ refers to the human beings and ‘her’ refers to the earth. 5.2.4 Lexical Items in ‘First Rain Nouns: Nouns in ‘First Rain’ are nose, rain, dust, wing, soles, land, infantry, pores and earth. Adjectives in ‘First Rain’ are tingling, haughty, cooling warmth, searching, bootless, and liberated. Verbs in ‘First Rain’ are ‘awakes’ ‘clipped’, ‘embraces’, ‘rises’ and ‘breathes’. There is no preposition in ‘First Rain’ Adverbs in ‘First Rain’, we have the following: when and bootless. But there is no modal auxiliary in First Rain. In First Rain, there is only one coordinator, ‘and’ throughout the poem. 5.2.5 Figurative Expressions in ‘First Rain’: In this poem, alliteration used: A tingling tang awakes the nose, ‘our searching soles’ Personification used:’ The wing of the haughty dust’, ‘a cooling warmth embraces’, ‘through her liberated pores’, ’our earth breathes again’. Simile used: ‘like a bootless infantry’. Paradox used: ‘a cooling warmth embraces’ 5.2.6 Symbolism: In First Rain, bootless infantry, liberated pores, earth breathes are used as symbolism. 5.2.7 Contextual Semantic Implications of the Features In First Rain, the joy of the poet and the effect of the first rain on both human and non-human beings are registered in the poet’s choice of words. Words that show these are found in the following lines: line 1: A tingling tang awakes the nose, line 2: when the first rain has just clipped, line 3: the wing of the haughty dust

IJALEL 4(4):98-107, 2015 104 line 4: a cooling warmth embrace, line 5: our searching soles, line 7: like a bootless infantry, line 9: through her liberated poresline 10: our earth breathes again. 5.3 Meet me at Okeruku 5.3.1 All lines in ‘Meet me at Okeruku’ are subjectless. About 40% of the clauses begin with predicate while the rest 60% begin with adjunct. Unlike the two earlier discussed poems, the sentence types are non-basic sentences. As Aremo (2004) has said and has earlier been referred to in this paper that non-basic sentences are formed through grammatical operations like movement, deletion and insertion. There are twelve non-basic statements in the poem. Movement operation occurred in lines: 1, 4, 9, 11. In these lines, the predicators come before the subjects. Eight of the lines in the poem are adverbial clauses. The lines are 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 and 12. The prominent structural patterns are represented in the table 3 and figure 3 below. Table 3. Prominent Structural Patterns in “Meet me at Okeruku”

Structural Patterns Number of Occurrences PSAA 11.1 PA 11.1 PSAS 11.1 PAS 11.1 ASPA 22.2 AS 33.3 ASS 11.1 ASPAA 11.1 ASAS 11.1

Figures 3. The Percentage usage of Prominent Structures in “Meet me at Okeruku”

5.3.2 Metaphorical Features in ‘Meet me at Okeruku’ Sentence /Clause Typology in the Poem This poem describes a physical feature that exists in a town in the South Western part of Nigeria. Okeruku is a place in one of the towns in Ekiti State. The poet revealed the characteristics of Okeruku. He described the earth of the place as a reddening powder or dust that metaphorically beautifies houses in the dry harmattan season. But when it rains the dust becomes lump of mud and becomes sticky that toemarks will be secretly written on the earth until when another rain, which the poet refers to as the liquid eraser, falls. Most of the lines in this poem are also metaphorical, only lines 1, 7, and 12 are not. Lines 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, and 11 are metaphorical. Line 2: where earth is one compact, Lines 3: of reddening powder, Line 4: daubed coquettishly, Line 5: on the harmattan brow, Line 6: of trembling houses, Line 8: When this dust is clod and clay, Line 9: Show me hurried toemarks, Line10: on the ciphered pages of narrow alleys, Line 11: awaiting the liquid eraser. It is noted that as usual in the three poems, two seasons are considered, the harmattan and the rainy seasons. Lines 2-6 expresses how red powder of the earth, due to dryness, is raised on the roofs of houses and make them look like a woman who frequently tries to attract the attention of men as described by the poet. The poem is characterized by good choice of words and run-on lines which makes it rhythmic and sonorous.

IJALEL 4(4):98-107, 2015 105 5.3.3 Coercive Features in ‘Meet me at Okeruku’ Just as we have coercive features in the first lines of the aforementioned poems, so is the situation with the first line of this poem too. Line 1: Meet at Okeruku is a ‘command’ in sentence typology. Here, the poet is commanding the ‘rain’ to meet him at Okeruku. Line 9 also displays another ‘command’, ‘show me hurried toemarks’. Line 10: ‘on the ciphered pages of narrow alleys’, which is the place where the toemarks are to be shown. He further explains that there is a liquid eraser that will come and erase all the toemarks which is ‘rain’. 5.3.4 Lexical Items in ‘Meet me at Okeruku’, Pronouns: In ‘Meet me at Okeruku’, the pronoun ‘me’ is used twice in the poem. This pronoun is used immediately after the words depicting ‘command in the poem. Line 1: ‘Meet me’, line 9: ‘Show me’. This shows the eagerness and the anxiousness of the poet in awaiting rainfall and it also shows how important rain is to human’s existence. Nouns: Nouns in ‘Meet me at Okeruku’ are the following: Okeruku, earth, powder, harmattan, brow, houses, rain, toemarks, pages, alleys, eraser and shower. Adjectives: In ‘Meet me at Okeruku’ we have compact, reddening, coquettishly, trembling, clod, clay, hurried, ciphered, narrow and liquid as adjectives. Verbs in ‘Meet me at Okeruku’ we have the following verbs: ‘meet’, ‘daubed’, ‘show’, ‘awaiting’. There are auxiliary verbs too: ‘is’ and ‘are’. Adverbs: In ‘Meet me at Okeruku’ ‘of reddening powder’, ‘on the harmattan brow’, ‘of trembling houses’, ‘on the ciphered pages of narrow alleys’ and ‘of the next shower’. In ‘Meet me at Okeruku’ we have all the adverbial groups that are present as obligatory adverbial since they are identified in the prepositional groups. Asiyanbola (2013) opines that when a nominal group is governed by a preposition, then we have obligatory adverbials. All that had been mentioned under the prepositional group as examples here too. In ‘Meet me at Okeruku’, ‘and’ is used twice in lines 7 and 8. In Meet me at Okeruku the auxiliary verbs used are the verb ‘be’ which are ‘is’ and ‘are’. ‘is’ is used twice and ‘are’ is used once. 5.3.5 Figurative Expressions in ‘Meet me at Okeruku’ The title of the poem shows that the poet really needs the want it to fall by force. The title shows that a command is passed across to the rain and the place of meeting is even mentioned by the poet. Personification is used in some of the lines of the poem e.g ‘on the harmattan brow’ and ‘of trembling houses’. This is to bring reality in the imagination of the poet to the readers of the poem. The personified elements are found in lines ‘harmattan’ and ‘houses’. Hyperbolic elements are found in: daubed coquettishly, show me hurried toemarks, the ciphered pages of narrow alleys. Paradox is used in ‘awaiting the liquid eraser’. Metaphor is used in almost all the lines of the poem except lines 1, 7. 5.3.6 Symbolism In Meet me at Okeruku, we have the following symbolism in ‘where earth is one compact’, of reddening powder, ‘daubed coquettishly’, ‘on the harmattan brow’, ‘of trembling houses’, ‘when this dust is clod and clay’, ‘show me hurried toemarks’, ‘on the ciphered pages of narrow valleys’ and 'awaiting the liquid eraser'. 5.3.7 Contextual Semantic Implications of the Features In ‘Meet me at Okeruku’ expectation of rain is also shown in the poet’s use of words. This is found in the following phrases: ‘where the earth is one compact’, ‘of reddening powder, ‘daubed coquettishly’, ‘on the harmattan brow’. He further explains what will happen when the expected rains come, in line 8:’when this dust is clod and clay’ and that all hurried toemarks will on the ciphered pages of narrow alleys be erased away by the liquid called rain. There is an allusion here in that liquid eraser is used to represent ‘rain’. We can see the eagerness in the diction of the poet. the semantic implications that we have in this poem is that, when rain comes, all effects of dryness found on roofs and on the earth will vanish with immediate effect and their environment will be relieved of dust and its effects on human beings. 6. Comparative Analysis of the Three Poems 6.1 Percentage Usage of Lexical Items in the Poems This is to show the percentage usage of lexical items used in the three poems.

Table 4. Shows the % of Occurrences of Word Classes

Classes of Words Let Earth Pain Be Soothed First Rain Meet me at Okeruku

Nouns 53.3 20 26.6 Adjectives 48.3 19.3 32.2 Verbs 59.2 18.5 22.2 Prepositions 50 00 50 Adverbs 36.3 18.1 45.4

IJALEL 4(4):98-107, 2015 106

Figure 4. The Representation of Percentage of Occurrences of Word Classes

From Table 4 and Figure 4 above, it is clearly seen that we have higher usage of all the word classes in the poem Let Earth Pain Be Soothed. This might be due to the greater number of lines contained in the poem. But between the remaining two poems, we discover that in the usage of prepositions, ‘Meet me at Okeruku’ has 50% usage, while ‘FirstRain’ has none there. In the usage adverbs, ‘Meet me at Okeruku’ has 45.4% and ‘First Rain’ has 18.1%. This might be because ‘Meet me at Okeruku’ refers to places that will have the effect of rain on them most, when it comes. The adjectives take 32.2% in ‘Meet me at Okeruku’ while ‘First Rain’ has 19.3%. It also reveals clear differences between the two poems in the use of nouns, verbs. The difference in the use of adverbs is not much in the two poems. It distinctively reveals that there is no preposition at all in First Rain. The fact remains that the usage of lexical items depends on the length of the poem and the message of the poet. 6.2 Percentage Usage of Figures of Speech in the three Poems Table 5. Shows the % Usage of Figures of Speech in the poems.

Figures of Speech Let Earth Pain Be Soothed First Rain Meet me at Okeruku Personification 70 20 10 Hyperbole 40 00 60 Euphemism 100 00 00 Simile 50 50 00 Onomatopoeia 100 00 00 Alliteration 33.3 66.6 00 Paradox 00 50 50 Metaphor 00 00 100

Figure 5. The Representation of the % Usage of Figures of Speech in the three poems

IJALEL 4(4):98-107, 2015 107 From Table 5 and Figure 5 above, personification is highly used in ‘Let Earth’s Pain Be Soothed’. Even the title is personified. This might be due to the greater number of lines of the poems. The usage of all other figures of speech is low in two of the poems: First Rain and Meet me at Okeruku. Hyperbole, Euphemism and onomatopoeia are not used in the ‘First Rain’ at all while paradox is not used at all in ‘Let Earth’s Pain Be Soothed’. In the use of ‘simile’, there is uniformity in two of the poems even though their number of lines varies. In the use of alliteration and paradox, ‘First Rain’ which has fewer numbers of lines has the higher usage of the two figures of speech. The usage of figures of speech reveals that the beauty of any poem lies in the choice of words and the figures of speech used by the poet. The poet uses run-on lines in the two poems and this brings out the coherence and sonorous effects found in the poems. 7. Conclusion Let earth’s pain be soothed reveals that imperatives in which ‘let’ is no more than an introductory particle should be kept separate from the ordinary 2nd person imperative of ‘let’ as a transitive verb. From Figure 1, we discover that the SPC pattern has 21% number of occurrences, which is the highest pattern of the structures. This reveals that there are more simple declarative clauses in the poem. The PSP pattern takes the second position. These lines are those with ‘let’, which is a command at the beginning. These imply clauses which normally have no overt grammatical subject and whose verbs are in the imperative mood. The clauses are subjectless. In this poem, we discover that most of the lines have only one subject and one predicate in each clause and complement. Also the result reveals that there are striking regularities in the relative position of elements: subject first, predicate second and complement in a post-verb position as seen in lines 1, 3, 7, 14, 22, 27, 29, 33 and 36 of the poem. It further reveals that, in some of the lines of the poem, the adverbials are closely tied to the predicate as seen in lines 5, 9, 10, 24, 32, 40 and 42. It also reveals that from line 16 through line 21, we have verbless clauses because the subjects of these lines are followed immediately by adjuncts. So the structure is (S A). The First Rain reveals that the ASP structural pattern has the highest number of occurrences; this is seen in lines 2, 4, 6, 7 and 9 of the poem. Two of the lines in the poem are solely complements. It also reveals that only one line of the poem is a simple declarative clause and that is line 1. Verbless clauses are lines 3, 5, 7 and 9. ‘Meet me at Okeruku’ reveals that all the lines of the poem are subjectless. There is no simple declarative clause. Four of the lines of the poem begin with predicate and the remaining six lines begin with adjunct. Most of the adjuncts are adverbials, e.g lines 2, 5, 7, 8 and 10. Generally, at the grammatical level, kinds of clauses and sentences used have been examined with their functions. At the lexical level, deixis and word classes were x-rayed in the text. The figurative expressions used in the three poems were also taken into cognizance. But the benefit derived from this study is that it exposes what a linguist does to literature to measure the quality of the language employed. It has also revealed the concept of cohesion, which is needed by the literary critic in order to appreciate literature. Lastly, it reveals that linguistic stylistics has its major purpose of relating language use in literary texts to its artistic function. In conclusion, it is observed that some things are common to the three poems. First, ‘rain’ is a phenomenon that is common to all the poems. Second, the ‘dry effect of lack of rain’ on all that is expectant of it, and third, the cooling effect of the rain after it falls on all that is expectant of it.

References Awonuga, C. O. (1988). Linguistic Stylistics as a Method of Literary Interpretation, Ife Studies in English Language, 2(1), 38-48. Aremo, B. (2004). An Introduction to English Sentences 1 &11: Ibadan: SCRIBO Publications Limited. Asiyanbola, A. (2012). Basic English Grammar for Universities: An Introduction, Lagos: Olivetree Publishing Venture. Chapman, R. (1973). Linguistics and Literature: An Introduction to Literary Stylistics: London: Edward Arnold. Crystral, D. (1971). Linguistics, England: Penguin Books Ltd. Hassan, R. (1985). Linguistics, Language and Verbal Art: Greelong, Victoria: Deakin, UP Ltd. Kirkpatrick, B (2010) Correct Grammar Correct English. Scotland: Waverley Books Ltd. Leech, G .N., & Short, M. H. (1981). Style in Fiction: A Linguistic Introduction to English Fictional Prose. London: Longman. Murthy, J.D. (2012). Contemporary English Grammar. Lagos, Nigeria: Book Master. Randolph Quirk et al. (1976). A Grammar of Contemporary English. London: Longman Group Ltd.

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

The Impact of Texting on Comprehension

Jamal K. M. Ali (Corresponding author) Department of English, Faculty of Science and Arts, University of Bisha, Bisha, Saudi Arabia

E-mail: jamal.alhomaidi@gmail.com

S. Imtiaz Hasnain Department of Linguistics, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India

E-mail: imtiazhasnain.57@gmail.com

M. Salim Beg Department of Electronics Engineering, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India

E-mail: salim.beg@amu.ac.in

Received: 04-12- 2014 Accepted: 03-02- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015 Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.108 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.108 Abstract This paper presents a study of the effects of texting on English language comprehension. The authors believe that English used in texting causes a lack of comprehension for English speakers, learners, and texters. Wei, Xian-hai and Jiang (2008:3) declare “In Netspeak, there are some newly-created vocabularies, which people cannot comprehend them either from their partial pronunciation or from their figures.” Crystal (2007:23) claims; “variation causes problems of comprehension and acceptability. If you speak or write differently from the way I do, we may fail to understand each other.” In this paper, the authors conducted a questionnaire at Aligarh Muslim University to ninety respondents from five different Faculties and four different levels. To measure respondents’ comprehension of English texting, the authors gave the respondents abbreviations used by texters and asked them to write the full forms of the abbreviations. The authors found that many abbreviations were not understood, which suggested that most of the respondents did not understand and did not use these abbreviations. Keywords: abbreviation, comprehension, texting, texters, variation 1. Introduction The advent of modern electronic communication has created a whole new world of information, giving access to unlimited variety of fields. Millions of literate and illiterate people around the world text everywhere. They are either using keyboards or keypads to input data into computers or mobile phones. They text in classrooms, buses, trains, houses and even religious places; while walking, working, sitting, standing, driving, stretching, taking rest and eating. This must have an impact on Standard English and this is what the authors are going to discuss in this paper. In this present paper, the authors will explore how the English used in texting affects the comprehension of English language among speakers and learners of English. In this paper, modern electronic communication refers to the three tools of communication; email, SMS and chat, while texting refers to English used in these three tools of communication. The authors use the term ‘texting’ throughout this paper to refer to the English used in email, SMS, and chat texts. Texting is also known as MEC English, ICT English, txtng, text messages, short messaging, CMC, textspeak, netspeak, SMSing, netwrite, short email, mobile messaging, chat messaging etc.

2. Review of Literature Baron (2008: 199) labels texting as a threat. For her, if email more or less entirely replaces the old-fashioned letter, the culture as a whole will end up with a deficit; it will have lost in quality whatever it has gained in quantity. Wei, Xian-hai and Jiang (2008:3) declare; “In Netspeak, there are some newly-created vocabularies, which people cannot comprehend them either from their partial pronunciation or from their figures.” Crystal (2007:23) claims; “variation causes problems of comprehension and acceptability. Crystal (2007:23) maintains, “If you speak or write differently from the way I do, we may fail to understand each other”. One of the problems of texting, according to Shaw (2008: 48), is “the uncertainty and variation of spelling words: anything can appear as anything, nething, nethin, anyfing, anyfin, nefin, anyting, anytin or netin”.Crystal (2008: 46) has rightly talked about the abbreviated forms which appear in different guises, as he says; “Abbreviated might appear in half a dozen different guises. I have seen tonight written as tnight, tonyt, tonite, tonit, 2nt, 2night, 2nyt, and 2nite, and there are probably several more variants out there.” In this connection, Baron (2008), warns that “unless we learn to regulate our current language use, we will have difficulty understanding each other and the standardized forms of our written language will be lost.” (as cited in Maynard, 2010:2). Mphahlele and Mashamaite (2005) report confusion as one of the main problems of texting as the word ‘hand’, which means the part of body at the end of arms, appears in texting to mean ‘have a nice day’; the word ‘ATM’ which means in Standard English ‘automated teller machine’ is SMSed to mean ‘at the moment'.

Flourishing Creativity & Literacy

IJALEL 4(4):108-117, 2015 109 According to Choudhury et al. (2007:16) texting may seriously hamper the understanding of the message. Thus, two opposing forces, shorter message length, and semantic ambiguity shape the structure of this compressed non-standard form. Kesseler and Bergs (2003) argue that despite their wide usage, new message types like SMSes and emails still appear unnatural or odd at least to parts of the public. Walker (2010) argues that “society is split between those who embrace technology and those who don't have the skills – or the money – to live in a wired world.” Huang (2008:1) argues that texting is “a horrifying language … a nascent dialect of English that subverts letters and numbers, drops consonants, vowels, and punctuation.” For him, this makes no distinction between letters and numbers, and people will no longer know how they are really supposed to communicate. Sutherland (2002) makes the interesting observation that the word "text" etymologically originates in Latin for "tissue". “It’s writing on Kleenex. One blows, then throws.” “Throw” and “blow” metaphorically suggest a lack of ownership. If there is no consistency between texters, or even within a single texter, as Crystal (2008) has rightly pointed out, then who will own and comprehend texting?

3. Methods 3.1 Subjects Selection This paper was particularly intended to measure the respondents’ familiarity and comprehension of texting. To conduct the study and achieve its objectives, a convenient sample was selected. This sample consisted of ninety AMU participants who were enrolled at Aligarh Muslim University, India. They were grouped according to their levels: Plus Two, Bachelor, Master and PhD. The subjects were supposed to be equally distributed across all the levels of education, i.e. the same number from each level of education. However, this was not possible because some faculties did not have Plus Two level. Hence, only 15 respondents were taken from Faculty of Social Science and 15 respondents from Faculty of Engineering and Technology, while 25 respondents were taken from all other Faculties which have Plus Two levels, i.e. 25 respondents from Faculty of Arts, 25 respondents from Faculty of Science and 25 respondents from Faculty of Commerce. The following table shows the distribution of the subjects of the study:

Table 1. The distribution of the subjects of the study

Level of Education

Faculty

Plus

Two

Bachelor Master PhD Total

Arts 5 5 5 5 20 Social Science - 5 5 5 15 Engineering and Technology - 5 5 5 15 Science 5 5 5 5 20 Commerce 5 5 5 5 20 Total 15 25 25 25 90

The Plus Two level in India refers to a pre-bachelor course which covers the span from Intermediate and Higher Secondary. The researcher selected this group because they are almost younger than other levels of this study. 3.2 Data Collection In this paper, the authors gave to the respondents questionnaire in text forms like “ILNY” and asked them to write their Standard forms which is “I love New York”. They were asked to write the Standard forms of 35 short forms (see Appendix) that are commonly used among internet users with the directive as follows: “Please write the standard/full form of the following. Please include the appropriate capitalization and punctuation, and spell out all words”. An example was given to make it clear. Most of these 35 short forms were given in contexts because some of the items, if not given in proper context, could get interpreted in a different way by texters. The short forms were carefully picked to achieve the aims of this particular test. They included varieties of short forms used by internet users such as single letters which represented full words, numbers which represented words or parts of words, a group of letters which stood for words, or a group of words. The full forms given by the participants were counted on each participant’s page. They were grouped as ‘comprehended by respondents’, ‘not comprehended’, ‘repetition of the same short form’ and ‘missing’. The items of the ‘not comprehended’ group were further subcategorized into the variations given by the participants. The questionnaire was evaluated by experts of designing and experts of statistical analysis before its final distribution. The questionnaire that is described here was the final version after edition and correction. The completed questionnaires were transferred to a text file and then imported to SPSS, version 16.0, for analysis. 4. Linguistic Analysis of Texting This part includes the analysis and interpretations of the data collected from AMU participants. As mentioned above, the respondents were ninety. They had to translate the ten items from texting forms to Standard English. As mentioned above, this paper aimed at examining the respondents’ comprehension and familiarity of texting. The authors gave the respondents texting forms like” ILNY” and asked them to write their standard forms which is “I love New York”. The texting items were categorized in the following way: ‘Comprehended by the respondents’, ‘Not comprehended by the respondents’, ‘repetition of the same short form’ and ‘missing’. The following table shows the statistics of the categories of this study.

IJALEL 4(4):108-117, 2015 110 Table 2. The statistics of the categories of fill-in-blank questionnaire across levels

Level Comprehended by the respondents

Not comprehended by the respondents

Repetition of the same short form

Missing

Plus Two Mean 20.4000 4.2000 .6667 9.7333 Sum 306.00 63.00 10.00 146.00 % of Total Sum 16.4% 17.3% 10.4% 17.7%

Bachelor Mean 19.6400 4.3600 1.0000 10.0000 Sum 491.00 109.00 25.00 250.00 % of Total Sum 26.3% 29.9% 26.0% 30.3%

Master Mean 21.5600 3.8400 1.4400 8.1600 Sum 539.00 96.00 36.00 204.00 % of Total Sum 28.9% 26.3% 37.5% 24.7%

PhD Mean 21.1200 3.8800 1.0000 9.0000 Sum 528.00 97.00 25.00 225.00 % of Total Sum 28.3% 26.6% 26.0% 27.3%

Total Mean 20.7111 4.0556 1.0667 9.1667 Sum 1864.00 365.00 96.00 825.00 % of Total 59.17 11.59 3.05 26.19

Figure 1. The use of short forms among texters across the levels of education (in percentages)

As shown in table (2) and graph (1), out of the short forms given, 59.17% were comprehended by the respondents, 11.59% were not comprehended by the respondents, 3.05% were repeated, i.e. the same short forms were written as they were, and 26.19% were missed.

Table 3. The ANOVA test in the categories of fill-in-blank test Category Sig. (P-Value) Comprehended by the respondents .269 Not comprehended by the respondents .846 Repetition of the same short forms .579 Missing .385

As shown in table (3) above, there was no significant difference between the level groups in any of the categories of the test. 4.1 The variations which were given by the respondents Table 4. The variations of the short form wr as given by the respondents

Short Form variations given by respondents Count wr With respect 2

Where 2 wr (were) The abbreviation wr that stands for were offered two variations. Two of the respondents wrote that wr stood for where and two wrote that wr stood for with respect.

IJALEL 4(4):108-117, 2015 111 Table 5.The variations of the short form CWOT as given by the respondents

Short Form variations given by respondents Count

CWOT caught 5 quiet 1 cute 1 somewhat 2 kuwait 1 see what 4 short 1 come with our tour 1 coming 2 completely out of station 1 covered 1 quite 1

CWOT (complete waste of time) This abbreviation was given to the respondents in a context, but no one of the respondents wrote its standard form. Some of them repeated the same short form or left it blank. The short form CWOT offered twelve variations in interpretation. Five respondents wrote that CWOT stood for caught, one wrote that it represented quiet, one wrote cute, two wrote somewhat, one wrote Kuwait, four wrote see what, one wrote short, one wrote come with our tour, two wrote coming, one wrote completely out of station, one wrote covered and one wrote quite.

Table 6. The variation of the short form b4 as given by the respondents Short Form variations given by respondents Count B4 but 1

B4 (before) Almost all of the respondents comprehended this abbreviation, as they wrote that it meant before. Only one of the respondents wrote but.

Table 7. The variations of the short form NY as given by the respondents Short Form variations given by respondents Count NY any 4

and why 1 nice 2 near 1 Norway 1 night 1 new year 2

NY (New York) Some respondents knew that NY stood for New York. The abbreviation NY offered seven variations in interpretation. Four respondents wrote that NY stood for any, one wrote that it represented and why, two wrote nice, one wrote near, one wrote Norway, one wrote night and two wrote new year.

Table 8. The variations of the short form 2C as given by the respondents Short Form variations given by respondents Count 2C twice 1

took 1 to come 1

2C (to see) Almost all of the respondents understood this abbreviation, as they wrote that 2C stood for to see. Only one of the respondents wrote twice, one wrote took and one wrote to come.

Table 9. The variation of the short form GF as given by the respondents

Short Form variations given by respondents Count Gf grandfather 3

IJALEL 4(4):108-117, 2015 112 GF (girlfriend) Almost all of the respondents understood this abbreviation, as they wrote that GF meant girlfriend. Only three of the respondents wrote grandfather.

Table 10. The variations of the short form thr as given by the respondents

Short Form variations given by respondents Count Thr there 21

other 1 thr (their) Some of the respondents comprehended the full form of this abbreviation, as they wrote that thr stood for their. 21 of the respondents wrote there which is similar to their in spoken form and one wrote other. Table 11. The variation of the emoticon:-@ as given by the respondents

Emoticon variations given by respondents Count

:-@ other 1 at 5 at the rate of 6 small 1 adult 1 and 1

:-@ (screaming) The emoticon :-@ which stands for screaming offered six variations in interpretation. One respondent wrote that :-@ stood for other, five wrote at, six wrote at the rate of, one wrote small, one wrote adult and one wrote and. Table 12. The variation of the short form FTF as given by the respondents

Short Form variations given by respondents Count

FTF fit and fine 3 for the fall 2 fifty 2 fighting 1 five to fifteen 1

FTF (Face to Face) None of the respondents understood what FTF stood for. Most of them just tried to write its full form by understanding the meaning or by understanding the spoken form. All the respondents failed to get the intended full form by guessing the intended form from the context or from its spoken form. Some respondents repeated the same short form or left it blank. The abbreviation FTF offered five variations in interpretation. Three respondents wrote that FTF stood for fit and fine, two wrote that it represented for the fall, two wrote fifty, one wrote fighting and one wrote five to fifteen. Table 13. The variation of the short form ILNY as given by the respondents

Short Form variations given by respondents Count

ILNY

if New York 1 I only 2 I will new 1 only 1 I living in New York 2 I love new year 1

ILNY ( I love New York) The respondents offered six variations of the short form ILNY. One respondent wrote that ILNY stands for If New York, two wrote that it represents I only, one wrote I will new, and one wrote only, two wrote I living in New York and one wrote I love new year. Table 14. The variation of the short form gr8 as given by the respondents

Short Form variations given by respondents Count gr8 grow at 1

IJALEL 4(4):108-117, 2015 113 gr8 (great) Almost all of the respondents understood that the abbreviation gr8 stood for great. Only one of the respondents wrote grow at which was really meaningless.

Table 15. The variation of the short form plc as given by the respondents

Short Form variations given by respondents Count Plc pleasure 3

plc (place) Almost all of the respondents comprehended the full form of the abbreviation plc, as they wrote that it meant place. Three of the respondents wrote pleasure. They understood it as “it is a great pleasure” instead of “it is a great place”.

Table 16. The variation of the emoticon 2b as given by the respondents

Short Form variations given by respondents Count 2b to bother 1

2b (to be) Almost all the respondents comprehended the full form of the abbreviation ‘2b’, as they wrote that it meant to be. Only one of the respondents wrote to bother.

Table 17. The variation of the short form tht as given by the respondents

Short Form variations given by respondents Count tht what 2

this 1 tht (that) Almost all the respondents translated the abbreviation ‘tht’ correctly. They wrote that ‘tht’ stood for that. Only two of the respondents wrote what and one wrote this.

Table 18. The variation of the short form th as given by the respondents Short Form variations given by respondents Count

th something 2 truth 2 there 2 that 2 this 3 so 2

th (the) The abbreviation th offered six variations in interpretation. Two respondents wrote that th stood for something, two wrote that it represents truth, two wrote there, two wrote that, three wrote this and two wrote so.

Table 19. The variation of the short form lyk as given by the respondents

Short Form variations given by respondents Count lyk look 2

lyk (like) Almost all the respondents had no difficulty in understanding this abbreviation, as they wrote that it meant like. Only two of the respondents wrote look.

Table 20. The variation of the short form ttyl as given by the respondents

Short Form variations given by respondents Count ttyl Title 19

Total 2 Totally 6 Till 2 try till 1 Telephone 1 Style 5 Tell 1

IJALEL 4(4):108-117, 2015 114 ttyl (talk to you later) The abbreviation ‘ttyl’ offered eight variations. Nineteen respondents wrote that ttyl stood for title, two wrote that it represents total, six wrote totally, two wrote till, one wrote try till, one wrote telephone, five wrote style and one wrote tell.

Table 21. The variation of the short form y as given by the respondents

Short Form variations given by respondents Count Y yes 12

you 1 bye 2 yea 1

y (why) The abbreviation offered four variations. Twelve respondents wrote that ‘y’ stood for yes, one wrote that it represents you, two wrote bye, one wrote yea.

Table 22. The variation of the short form IMHO as given by the respondents

Short Form variations given by respondents Count

IMHO I am hand of 3 I am honoured 2 I am 11 I am honest 1 I may 1 I am who 3 I am Mohd. 3

IMHO (In my humble opinion) The abbreviation IMHO offered seven variations in interpretation. Three respondents wrote that IMHO stood for I am hand of, two wrote that it represents I am honoured, eleven wrote I am, one wrote I am honest, one wrote I may, three wrote I am who and three wrote I am Mohd.

Table 23. The variation of the short form gr8 as given by the respondents

Short Form variations given by respondents Count

gr8 grow at 1 graduate 2

gr8 (great) Almost all the respondents comprehended the full form of the abbreviation ‘gr8’, as the overwhelming majority of them wrote that it meant great. One wrote that gr8 stood for grow at and two of the respondents wrote graduate.

Table 24. The variation of the short form brb as given by the respondents

Short Form variations given by respondents Count

brb brother 4 bihar board 1 bribe 11 Brave 6 Barber 2

brb (be right back) The abbreviation brb offered five variations in interpretation. Four respondents wrote that brb stood for brother, one wrote that it represents Bihar Board, eleven wrote bribe, six wrote brave and two wrote barber.

Table 25. The variation of the short form btw as given by the respondents

short form variations given by respondents Count btw Between 68

but way 1

IJALEL 4(4):108-117, 2015 115 btw (by the way) The abbreviation btw offered two variations. Sixty eight respondents wrote that ‘btw’ stood for between and one wrote that it represents but way.

Table 26. The variation of the short form lol as given by the respondents

Short Form variations given by respondents Count lol loly pop 1

lovely 1 loyal 3 boys 1 loll 1 laughter of laughter 1 friend 1 loveable 2 one zero one 1 Kidding 2 one by one 1 less of luck 1

lol (laugh out loud/ lots of love) The abbreviation ‘lol’ offered twelve variations in interpretation. One respondent wrote that lol stood for loly pop, one wrote that it represents lovely, three wrote loyal, one wrote boys, one wrote loll, one wrote laughter of laughter, one wrote friend, two wrote loveable, one wrote one zero one, two wrote kidding, one wrote one by one and one wrote less of luck.

Table 27. The variation of the short form aslmh? as given by the respondents

Short Form variations given by respondents Count

aslmh? Assalamalaikom 54

aslmh? (age, sex, location, music and hobbies?) Most of the respondents interpreted ‘aslmh?’ as assalamalaikom which is Muslim’s salutation as almost all the respondents were Muslims.

4.2 The Comprehended Short Forms The short forms such as ‘summr’, ‘hols’, ‘2go2’, ‘bro’, the digit ‘3’, etc. were not misunderstood, but there were some respondents who repeated the same short forms or left them blank. 5. Interpretation From the linguistic analysis of texting, it was found out that texting creates lack of comprehension for the respondents. Wei, Xian-hai, and Jiang (2008: 3) found that “In Netspeak, there are some newly-created vocabularies, which people cannot comprehend them either from their partial pronunciation or from their figures.” (Crystal 2007:23) claims “variation causes problems of comprehension and acceptability. If you speak or write differently from the way I do, we may fail to understand each other.” The important factor regarding abbreviations is that people interpret abbreviations differently. In one geographical area, or within one group of people, the abbreviation gf could mean “girlfriend”, and in another area it could mean “grandfather”. In a third area it could mean something entirely different. The abbreviations that seem to be relatively frequently used in text messaging were the ones that were interpreted in the same way by most of the respondents. Less established abbreviations within the language of text messaging, such as CWOT and FTF, etc. opened for different interpretations, and will most probably lead to misunderstandings in many cases if they are used. Many abbreviations were not understood, which suggests that most of the respondents do not understand and do not use these abbreviations. Often, one can understand what is intended by looking at the context, but the texts are often sent without much context because some people abbreviate almost every word, and do not make the messages long. Though the authors in this paper gave the respondents text forms in a context to write their full or standard form, it was found that the context did not help the respondents to comprehend the intended meaning. Ali, Hasnain and Beg (2011) argue that the context does not always help in understanding texting language which an author /writer intends to convey. The short form CWOT for example, opened for different interpretations which show how much confusion this language creates. The twelve variations offered by the respondents have some meanings. They were not written randomly. Most of the respondents have their own meanings and they translated texting according to their guessing and not according to the given context. They tried to translate the short form CWOT and fail to get the intended meaning. Those who wrote that CWOT stands for quiet, cute,(in) Kuwait, short, coming, completely out of station, quite and covered, have something right. They

IJALEL 4(4):108-117, 2015 116 understood it as “my summer holidays were quiet or cute or (in) Kuwait or short or coming or completely out of station or quite or covered”. They created a new context which is grammatically correct and sometimes contextually correct, but not the one which is intended. Fifteen respondents looked at CWOT as one word, two translated it as four words: one translated it as come with our tour and one looked at it as completely out of station. Four looked at it as two words which is see what. Others repeated the same short form or left it blank. If we look at completely out of station, we will find a cultural explanation, as Indians always say out of station for someone who is outside the city or state. Those who wrote that CWOT stands for see what, somewhat, caught went only by the spoken form and that is why we cannot find any meaning in them. The one who wrote come with our tour tried to go by spoken form and meaning, but he could not get the intended meaning. 6. Conclusion and Suggestions The authors found that many abbreviations were not understood, which suggests that most of the respondents did not understand and did not use these abbreviations. In cases where the respondents took a guess at what the abbreviation could mean, their interpretation was an indication of how much texting creates confusion for speakers and learners of English language. The authors also found that most of the respondents interpreted the well-established abbreviations within the language of text messaging in more or less the same way, and the abbreviations that are coming into more use opened for different interpretations by most of the respondents of the five Faculties. There are certain measures to be adapted in order to minimize the negative effects of texting that the authors described above. The authors and those who are raising the alarm strongly believe that email, SMS, and chat are distorting and destroying Standard English language. This warning should not go unheard. Realistic methods should be found to deal with the issue in a way that can make the intelligibility, status, consideration, and value of Standard English survive among the English speakers, students and texters. Ali (2012) argue that email, SMS and chat could also be useful tools to teach standard English. As they have become global ways of communication, they might be exploited in teaching Standard English and making the acquisition of Standard English more accessible for everyone using email, SMS and chat. He maintains as texting is inevitable and there is no way to stop it completely, methods and measures should be created to make students differentiate between the standard and non-standard English and separate them accordingly. The differences between Standard English and non-standard English should be shown especially to the young people and school students where the major complaints are raised. Longman (2006, 2) argues that; “the message we must present to students is that this non-standard is perfectly acceptable for use in text messages and in chat rooms but school work, formal letters, business communication and examinations require conventional language.” The authors recommend that texting should be confined to its own communication context. In other words, the students must be aware of where and when texting can be used and where and when it cannot be used. Nadler-Nir, R. (2008) suggests that “we need to accept it [texting] and seek for solutions to the complaints that it is invading the standard written language use”. (as cited in Barasa and Mous 2009).

Acknowledgments The authors would like to express their thanks to the respondents who filled up the questionnaires and to Dr. Ghazwan Al-Mekhlafi, who did the statistical analysis of the collected data. References Ali, J., Hasnain, S. I. & Beg, M. S. (2011). The linguistic features of texting. A paper presented in 33rd All India Conference of Linguists (33rd AICL), Department of English and Culture Studies, Punjab University, Chandigarh, India, 1-3 October. Ali, J. (2012). Influence of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on English Language Structure. PhD thesis submitted to the Department of Linguistics, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, U. P. India Barasa, S. & Mous, M. (2009). The oral and written interface in SMS: Technologically mediated communication in Kenya. In I. van de Craats & J. Kurvers (Eds.), Low-Educated adult second language and literacy acquisition 4th symposium – Antwerp (234-242).Utrecht: LOT Publications. Baron, N. S. (2008). Always on: Language in an online and mobile world. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Choudhury, M., Saraf, R., Jain, V., Mukherjee, A., Sarkar, S. & Basu, A. (2007). Investigation and modelling of the structure of texting language. International Journal on Document Analysis and Recognition, 10 (3-4),157-174. Crystal, D. (2007). The fight for English: How language pundits ate, shot and left. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Crystal, D. (2008). Txting: The gr8 db8. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Huang, L. (2008). The death of English (LOL). Newsweek. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/214038261?accountid=27804 Kesseler, A., & Bergs, A. (2003). Literacy and the new media :vita brevis, lingua brevis? In J. Aitchison & D. Lewis (Eds.), New Media Language (75-84). London: Rutledge.

IJALEL 4(4):108-117, 2015 117 Maynard. M. (2010). Review on always on: Language in an online and mobile world By Naomi S. Baron. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 6 (4)345-349). Mphahlele, M. L., & Mashamaite, K. (2005). The impact of short message service (SMS) language on language proficiency of learners and the SMS dictionaries: A challenge for educators and lexicographers. IADIS International Conference Mobile Learning. Retrieved from http://www.iadis.net/dl/final_uploads/200506L022.pdf Pearson Longman. (2006). Are text messages killing grammar and spelling? Pearson Longman. Retrieved from www.pearsonlongman.com/teaching-tips/pdf/texting.pdf Shaw, P. (2008). Spelling, accent, and identity in computer-mediated communication. English Today, 24 (2), 42-49. Sutherland, J. (2002). Cn u txt? The Guardian, Retrieved From http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2002/nov/11/mobilephones2 Walker, T. (2010). Decoding Britain's digital divide. The Independent. Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/decoding-britains-digital-divide-1887395.html Wang Wei, Xianhai Yu & Jiang-li Qu (2008). Development of society and language variety: The influence of netspeak on daily communication. US-China Foreign Language, 6 (7), 1-8.

Appendix Questionnaire

Dear Respondent, This questionnaire is intended to measure your familiarity and comprehension of texting. You are kindly requested to fill up the following questionnaire. The results of the questionnaire will only be used for research purposes and kept confidential. Your participation would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Part I General Information

Faculty: Arts Social Sciences

Engineering and Technology

Science Commerce

Educational Level:

Plus Two Bachelor Master Ph D

Part II Please write the full form of the following as in the example given. Please include the appropriate capitalization, punctuation, and spell out all words.

I h8 txtng (I hate texting).

1) My smmr hols wr CWOT. B4, we used 2go2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & thr 3 :-@ kids FTF. ILNY, it’s a gr8 plc ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ ...................................................................................................................................................................... 2) 2b or nt 2b.... tht is th ? .……............................................................................………………………. 3)lyk.......................................................................................................................................................... 4) ttyl..…..................................................................................................................................................... 5) y ………………………………………………………………..………………………………..…… 6) IMHO U R GR8....................................................................................................................................... 7) brb........................................................................................................................................................... 8) btw……………..................................................………………..…………………...………………… 9 ) lol ……………………………………………………………………………………..………………. 10) aslmh?…………….........................................…................................……….…...…………………..

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

Deixis in Arabic and English: A Contrastive Approach

Fatima Ahmad Al Aubali Faculty of Letters, University of Sana’a, Yemen

E-mail: fadfaun@yahoo.fr

Received: 06-12- 2014 Accepted: 07-02- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015 Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.118 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.118 Abstract In this article, the author will investigate the way of utilizing deictic expressions for social relations as well as diplomacy, which are of great importance to translators, teachers and diplomats. Recognizing the five types of deixis and their implicaions and different connotations, the author will show the similarities and differences between the two languages and how they are used. The consequences of misunderstanding these differences might lead to diplomatic conflict and complete failure of translating the speaker’s intention from the source language to the target language which may lead to world conflict. Thus the author will point out the semantic features and pragmatic functions of personal, spatial and temporal deixis of English, and Arabic pointing out similarities and differences. Thus the writer points out their importance to language teaching which is of great importance. However, the translation is not only for academic purposes but for the international community at large. Keywords: deixis, social- discourse, anaphora, Indexicals, politeness, connotations, pragmatics 1. Introduction The word 'deixis' derived from Greek 'deiktiktikos' is used in modern Western linguistics to refer to certain personal, spatial and temporal elements which events on the basis of spatio-temporal dimensions. There are three main types of deixis: person, place and time, and two minor ones in English and other languages including Arabic, discourse deixis and social deixis. The present paper discusses mainly the first three types; it only touches lightly on the other two minor types; it points out the basic similarities and differences in deixis between the two languages. In philosophy deictic elements are usually called indexical expressions or just indexicals, a term also used by Peirce (1931:58) in the sense of deixis. As expected, the Arab linguists and grammarians have not discussed the notion of deixis in one comprehensive topic; it occurs in scattered places like pronouns, demonstratives, verbs, adverbs and particles. In discussing these grammatical elements, the Arab grammarian makes casual reference to the notion of deixis. 1.1 Deixis and Anaphora Both deixis and anaphora share the deictic or pointing feature, but in deixis the pointing feature points to the context of utterance or context of situation; whereas in anaphora it points to the antecedent or to its referent. The example below illustrates the difference: The pronouns 'I ' and ' you' refer to the speaker and the addressee, who can be recognized from the context of situation; they are deictic elements. 1.1.1 Want to speak to Peter Black. Do you know where he is? The pronouns ‘I, you’ refer to the speaker and the addressee, who can be recognized from the context of situation; they are deictic elements. The pronoun ´he’ refers to the referent of the expression `Peter Black’; it is therefore anaphoric. Following Bühler (1934, p. 120 ), some linguists distinguish between an anaphoric function of a pronoun as that of ‘he’ in (1), where it points to the referent of a preceding antecedent, and the cataphoric function of a pronoun, where it points to the referent of a forward antecedent as in ( 2): 1.1.2 Because he was angry, Peter resigned. Assuming that `he’ refers to the referent of ‘Peter’, we say that ´’he ‘is used cataphorically Traditionally, anaphora covers both the more usual backward and the less usual forward anaphora. This is the use adopted in this research. There is another point which needs to be clarified before this section is concluded, namely: What does an anaphoric pronoun refer to? So far it has been stated that it refers to the referent of the antecedent i.e. it is co-referent with its antecedent. Thus in (1) above ‘he’ refers to the referent of the expression ‘Peter Black’. There is, however, an older and traditional view which says that a pronoun refers to the antecedent expression rather than the referent. In this use adopted by Bloomfield and others a pronoun is a substitute of a noun or a nominal expression (a noun phrase); often no distinction was drawn between the two units, which sometimes results in considerable confusion. In the present article

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IJALEL 4(4):118-124, 2015 119 the more recent view is adopted, where an anaphoric pronoun refers to the referent of the antecedent. This is also the use found in various philosophical schools How do traditional Arab grammarians envisage the antecedent and the referent of a pronoun? The following standard definition of the pronoun in Arabic may shed some light at this point. الضمیر اسم جامد یدل على متكلم او مخاطب او غائب(The pronoun is an indeclinable noun which points to a speaker, an addressee or an absent person (Hassan, 1975, p. 217). It is clear from this definition that the first and the second pronouns are viewed as deictic, and the third person pronoun either anaphoric or deictic pointing to the referent of an expression. This will be confirmed later when the author discusses the antecedent of the pronoun (Hassan, 1975, p., 255).

فال بد لھا من شيء یزیل ابھامھا . فاما المتكلم ‘ سواءا كانت للمتكلم ام المخاطبام للغائب –كما عرفنا –الضمائر ال تخلو من ابھام وغموض اما ضمیر الغائب فصاحبھ غیر ‘ او حاضر یكلمھ غیره مباشرة ‘ فھو حاضر یتكلم بنفسھ ‘ والمخاطب فیفسرھما وجود صاحبھما وقت الكالم النھ غیر حاضر وال مشاھد . فال بد لھذا الضمیر من شيء یفسره او یوضح المراد منھ.‘ روف مع

(Pronouns are characterized by being vague or ambiguous – as we have seen – whether they belong to the first person or second person or third person. There must be something to disambiguate them or eliminate their vagueness. As for the first person and the second person, they can be identified by the fact that their referents are present at the time of utterance; one is present and speaking and the other is present and addressed by the speaker directly. As for the third person pronoun, its referent is unknown because he is neither present nor witness. Therefore the third person should have something to identify its referent. It should be noted that the interpretation of the third person is different from that of modern linguistics, where the referent is neither the speaker nor the addressee; he may be present or witness but he is not a participant in the speech event. The Arabic definition is influenced by the designation of the third person pronoun as ضمیر الغائب (literally the pronoun of the absent). 2. Person Deixis Pronoun deixis grammaticalizes the participants’ roles of the speaker, the addressee and the one who is neither the speaker nor the addressee. These three roles of the speaker are known as the first person, the second person and the third person. The word 'person' in Western tradition is derived from a 'persona' an actor wearing a mask on the stage. Technically, the third person is not a participant since he/she plays no active role in the speech activity. Morphologically, English pronouns are realized as separate morphemes while Arabic pronouns are realized, in their unmarked form, as affixes attached to verbs, nouns and particles. They are also realized markedly as separate forms indicating emphasis or contrast. In English there are two first person pronouns, 'I' and 'we' showing number but not gender. This is also true of the first and second persons in Arabic: اناand نحن. The plural of the first person in both languages is slightly different from the usual sense of plural; in that 'we' does not mean '1+ 1 + 1' as the plural ‘books means 'book + book + book’; the plural 'we' and نحن rather means 1st + 2nd + 3rd persons’ or '1st + 3rd persons'; the first is called inclusive plural and the second exclusive, as in the examples below.

2. a We will stay here and you will go there (exclusive 'we'). b. Let's go, you, John, and I to the zoo (inclusive 'we'). Similarly in Arabic: 3. a نحن نبقى ھنا وانت تذھب الى ھنالك (exclusive) b. لنذھب انا وانت وجون الى حدیقة الحیوان (inclusive)

Note the order of the three pronouns is different in English, '2nd + 3rd + 1st from Arabic, 1st + 2nd + 3rd. A greater difference is found in the pronouns of the second person in English and Arabic. English has only one form, 'you' which realizes the role of the second person participant or the addressee. Arabic second person pronouns are no fewer than five showing number, gender and case انت (you-sing-masc.), انت(you-sing-fem), انتما انتم(pl- masc.), and انتن (pl-fem). To this may be added the forms representing case: o case covering the accusative and the genitive. In practice this means that Arabic refers to the second person pronoun in a more specific way, identifying the referent in terms of number, gender and case, besides the participant role. The Yiddish joke in Levinson (1983, p. 68) based on the identity of 'you' for masculine and feminine cannot be rendered into Arabic, which uses two different forms for the two genders:

A melamed [Hebrew teacher] discovering he had left his comfortable slippers back in the house, sent a student after them with a note for his wife. The note reads ''Send me your slippers with this boy'. When the boy asked why he had written 'your slippers' , the melamed answered: 'Yold!' if I wrote 'my' slippers, she would read 'my' slippers and would send her slippers. What could I do with her slippers? So I wrote 'your' slippers, she will read 'your' slippers and send me mine' (Rosten, 1968, pp., 443-4; cited by Levinson, 1983, p., 68).

Probably in most languages including English and Arabic, the basic function of the third person pronoun is anaphoric rather than deictic. They often point to the referent of their antecedent (a referent of) the expression in the co-text)

IJALEL 4(4):118-124, 2015 120 rather than to a referent in the context of situation... However, a third person pronoun may have a deictic function; in this case the utterance of the pronoun is normally accompanied by a gesture.

4. a He is reading a short story. (The speaker pointing to a man). Under the same conditions the third person pronoun in انھwould be deictic. 4. b انھ یقرأ قصة قصیرة

Out of context may be in several ways ambiguous. The third person pronoun in (5) reads with a normal stress can have two interpretations.

5. The manager smiled when he left the room. The pronoun 'he' may be anaphoric co-referential with 'the manager' or anaphoric but co-function is meant (Lyons, 1977, p. 660). The subordinate clause may be placed initially.

6. When he left the room, the manager smiled. The pronoun has the same two readings as in (5). The interpretation of the third person pronoun is more restricted in coordination; its referential function is confined to backward anaphoric use. Thus only (7) has two interpretations, (8) has one interpretation only.

7. The manager smiled and he left. 8. He left and the manager smiled.

In (7) the pronoun 'he' may be co-referential with 'the manager' or with another expression; in (8) the pronoun 'he' cannot be co-referential with 'the manager', it can only point to the referent of another expression. The points discussed above also apply to the use of the third person pronoun in Arabic, with one exception: forward anaphora illustrated in (6). Forward anaphora is highly restricted in Arabic; example (6) nearly always occurs with the antecedent preceding the pronoun.

لما غادر المدیر ابتسم .9غادر المدیر وھو یبتسم .10

In both (9) and (10) the implied and the explicit pronoun ھوmay be co-referential with المدیرor refers to the referent of another expression. With a strong stress, the pronoun in (11) can be deictic, anaphoric co-referential or anaphoric non-referential. Rendered into Arabic, the strong stressed pronoun would be expressed by a separate morpheme. ابتسم المدیر وھو یغادر .12 The Arabic sentence in (12) will have the same deictic and anaphoric readings of the corresponding English sentence in (11). The third person pronouns are differently realized in English and Arabic. English has four pronouns; 'he, she, it, they' minimally marked for gender, number, and case. The forms he, she, it are singular and show personal and non-personal gender; the plural form of the three pronouns is ‘they’, which lacks gender. Likewise Arabic third person pronouns are marked for gender , number and case; but Arabic gender is grammatical rather than personal and identifies the referent as either masculine or feminine; there are three numbers: singular, dual, and plural, all of which show gender.( ‘ ھي ‘ ھو ,’except the dual which is the same for masculine and feminine. The distinctions of gender in English ‘he (ھما؛ ھم ؛ ھن‘she’, and ‘it’ help considerably to identify the referent, but the realization of the plural in one form, 'they/ works unfortunately in the other direction. Arabic gender with its minimal two-way grammatical basis is compensated for by the fact that each of the two genders is relevant for singular and plural ھما؛ ھم ؛ ھن‘ھي ‘ھو ). 3. Place Deixis Place deixis identifies the referent on the basis of location; the point of reference being proximity from the speaker at the time of utterance. The English place deictic elements are the demonstratives, 'this –that', the adverbs, 'here-there' and the definite article 'the'; besides certain verbs like 'come-go', which show direction or towards the speaker. The spatial deictic elements are egocentrically arranged as follows:

Near the speaker away from the speaker This (these) that (those) Here there Come go

The definite article 'the' is neutral with regard to the principle of proximity. The corresponding spatial deictic elements in Arabic are the demonstratives, which etc.), the adverbs ھذا and ھنالك ‘ھناكand certain verbs showing direction towards the speaker جاءor away from the speaker ذھب. Again these elements may be arranged as follows:

Near the speaker away from the speaker ذاك ذالك ذانك ذنیك اولئك تلك تاك تانك تینك اوالئك االئك ھذا ھذان ھذین ھذه ھاتان ھاتین اوالء االء

ھناك ھنالك ھنا جاء ذھب

IJALEL 4(4):118-124, 2015 121 The dimension of proximity in the demonstratives, whether in English or in Arabic is complicated by two other factors, the temporal factor which belongs to the next section, and the psychological factor which tends to use the proximal pronoun for favourable objects and situations and the distal pronoun for unfavourable ones. The precise use of these dimensions in English is too complicated to be formulated into rules (Lyons 1977, p. 668) and the problem is more complicated in Arabic. However, here the two languages seem to show some difference in their use of the demonstratives. English uses the distal’ 'that' for unfavourable objects and situations, while Arabic, on the other hand, uses the proximal ( ھاذا ھذه)as the following examples (taken from (Faulkner's Sound and Fury and its Arabic translation by Jabra Ibrahim Jabra) show:

13. Not that blackguard Caddy (Sound and Fury, p. 94) (Jabra, p. 158) ال ھذا النذل یاكادي

14. … Damn that horse damns that horse (Sound and Fury, p. 96) .(Jabra, p. 158) لعنة هللا على ھذا الحصان لعنة هللا على ھذا الحصان 15. That that grin at you that thing through them (Sound and Fury, p. 95). .(Jabra, p. 158)ھذا الي یكشر من خاللھم The definite article in Arabic is realized as a prefix الand its use is not based on proximity, but like the English article, on the unique local position and shared between the speaker and the addressee. Besides the dimension of proximity, the demonstratives also show dimension of nakedness. In English 'this' is marked and 'that' is unmarked (Lyons, 1977, p647), the opposite is true in Arabic, the proximal ھذاis unmarked, the distal form .is marked. The following examples illustrate this point(ذاك ) (ذلك)

17. Listen at you, now, Luster said, 'Ain't you something. Thirty–three years old, going on that way. (Sound and Fury, p. 1)

وتستمر على ھذا النحو‘ وقال لستر:"اسمعوه یاعالم . ألیس عجبا أنك في الثالثة والثالثین من عمرك (Jabra, p., 159)

واسألھ عما خالط عقلھ‘ یسامحك! أنا مجنونة بنت مجانین فدعنا من ھذا هللا .18 (Zuqaq al-Midaq, p. 117)

"God forgive you! All right, so I'm lunatic and so were my parents. Let's forget about that. Just ask him what is on his mind"

ا مطلقا ابدا ال اشكو ھذ .19 (Zuqaq al-Midaq, p. 119) "Never, never, I am not complaining about that". There is a positional difference between the English and the Arabic demonstratives. In English a demonstrative, when used as a determiner, precedes the head, in Arabic the 'determiner' and the demonstrative can precede or follow the head. 20. I have read this book. قرأت ھذا الكتاب أو قرأت الكتاب ھذا The rules governing the pre-and postposition of Arabic demonstratives had not been fully elaborated. Infomationally, elements preceding the head have an anticipatory function; those following the head have a trailing function (Leech and Short, 1981, p. 225-226); thus the demonstrative determiner in English points forward because it precedes the head; whereas the Arabic demonstrative can look forward or backward, since it can precede or follow the head. 4. Time Deixis The elements realizing time deixis of English are nouns, 'tomorrow', 'yesterday', 'today'; adverbs 'now' and \then\ and tenses. Arabic also uses nouns, البارحة‘ غدا‘الیوم , adverbs یومئذ, ‘حینئذ‘اآلن particles, اذا ‘ لما and tenses. As in the case of spatial deixis, time deixis may be arranged on the basis of proximity from the speaker as follows:

Near the speaker Away from the speaker Today tomorrow now present tense yesterday then past tense ك تانك تینك اوالئك االئك ذاك ذالك ذانك ذنیك اولئك تلك تا ھذا ھذان ھذین ھذه ھاتان ھاتین اوالء االء

االنانئذن Present tense past tense

The demonstrative pronouns in English and Arabic are also used as time deixis, the proximal elements indicating the present; the distal elements pointing to the past, as in the following examples:

22. These are hard times (proximal –temporal). 23. Those were real days (distal –temporal).

IJALEL 4(4):118-124, 2015 122 .(proximal –temporal)ھذه اوقات صعبة .24تلك ایام العز كانت 25 (distal – temporal).

In English, tense is the most important time deixis; it locates a situation (an event or a state) in the present (including the future) or the past: go-went: Here the point of verb always plays a supplementary role:

26. They arrived here yesterday. 27. She is here now.

Tense in Arabic has a weaker deictic feature; Arabic tenses are usually described as 'relative', which they can take their point of reference either from the speaker-now like English or from any other point in the linguistic context. Thus یكتبmay be deictic if it takes its time from the speaker –now as in (28) below in case it is equivalent to the English 'write' or it may derive in time from a point in the co-text as in (29). یكتب اآلن .28 29. رأیتھ وھو یكتب The discussion shows that it is important to distinguish between the two (29) یكتبpoints to the past 'he was writing’ because it relates for its time on the previous verb رأى which are types of tenses: absolute tenses which take their point of reference from the speaker-now, and relative tenses which use other points in the context as focus of deixis. The first type, to which English tenses belong, is an important deictic element; the second type, to which Arabic tenses belong, is an important deictic element. Thus the two English tenses, present and past (go-went) are absolute and locate a situation within the time of speaking or before it. It may be said that the past is a marked tense since it places a speech event in the past, whereas the present tense may be considered unmarked because it indicates a present or future action, i.e. a non-past action. Thus the past tense in (26) and the present in (27) above are absolute, and hence deictic. Arabic tenses are realized by the two from imperfect تب یك and perfect كتبcan be absolute as in (28) or relative as in (29) above; the first type is deictic while the second type is non-deictic. Since tense in English is deictic, the adverb of time normally plays a supplementary role, as stated above in connection with (26) and (27). In Arabic, on the other hand, adverbs of time play an essential role in determining dimension of the verb form (tense). This point is well- illustrated in the following example: باالمس تقاتلون معاویة لتھدوا سلطانھ والیوم تقاتلون معھ لتشدوا سلطانھ ثم نظر ھوثرة الى اھل الكوفة و قال: انتم .30 (Ibn Abdi Rabid Rabhi, 1948, pp. 216-197). In the direct speech above تقاتلون points to the past since it takes its time from the adverb باالمس(yesterday), the second The first verb may be rendered in .(today)الیوم refers to the present because it derives its time from the adverb تقاتلونEnglish as 'were fighting’, the second 'are fighting' Some linguists go as denying that Arabic has any tenses in the European sense of this term; they regard the two forms, imperfect (یكتب) and perfect (كتب) as aspects. This is probably an extreme view which draws no distinction between absolute and relative tenses. 5. Social Deixis Social deixis identifies the participants in an exchange on the two dimensions for rank and familiarity An often quoted example of social distinction is the contrast between ‘tu’ 'du' in French and 'du and 'Sie' ' in German, the former indicates that the addressee is inferior in rank or close to on the scale of familiarity; the latter, on the other hand, shows that the addressee is superior in rank or distant on the horizontal scale. English has only one second person pronoun ‘you’ and has no way of drawing a social distinction by means of pronouns. However, the use of titles like ‘sir’, 'lady', 'your honour', etc. is a mark of social distinction. Arabic has two plural forms, one for males ' انتمand the other for females ' انتنHowever, the use of Arabic has two plural forms, one for males أنتم.and the other for females أنتن. The male form is sometimes used as an honorific term of address, and usually contrasts with أنت masculine singular ‘you’.The honorific use of أنتم is much less common than the French ‘vou’ and . nearly always confines to addressing male persons of a high rank. Arabic also uses titles, دكتور, ‘ سید‘مھندس etc. Kinship terms like اخ (brother), اخت(sister), عم(uncle); and ,(Ahmad's father) ابو احمد .followed by the name of the first born, e.g (mother) ام and (father) اب مد ام اح (Ahmad's mother) are used to show respect and some familiarity. 6. Discourse deixis Discourse deixis refers to certain expressions which point to a part of discourse in which the deictic element occurs (Levinson, 1983). In both English and Arabic, the proximal demonstratives 'this' and ھذا; and the distal demonstratives, 'that' and ذلك ‘ذاك are used as a discourse deixis, whereas the distal demonstrative always points to a preceding part of discourse. The following examples illustrate these points in English and Arabic:

31. Have you heard this joke? (The joke follows). 32. This is the funniest joke I have heard (referring to the preceding joke). 33. This is the funniest joke I have heard (as in 32). 31a فھل سمعت ھذه النكتة ؟ 32a. النكتة لم اسمع قط أحسن من ھذه

IJALEL 4(4):118-124, 2015 123 33a. .لم اسمع قط احسن من تلك النكتة While the distal 'that' is more common than the proximal 'this' for backward (anaphoric) reference in English (Ex 33), the opposite is true in Arabic; the proximal ھذا ھذهis more common than the distal تلك ذلك for an anaphoric function. Arabic also uses the demonstratives in such examples as (34), where English uses (stressed pronouns). Lit: Ahmad and Selma entered: this (Selma) was smiling and that)دخل احمد وسلمى: ھذه تبتسم وذاك یصرخ .34(Ahmad) was shouting. 35. Ahmad and Selma came in; she was smiling and he was shouting. The proximal demonstrative in Arabic refers to the nearest part of the discourse, the distal to the farthest. This is also true of example (35), where the same gender (masculine) is involved. وذلك باع نفسھ للشیطان لقاء تجربة ‘ ... وفاوست غیر سیزیف: ھذا أدرك عبثیة الصخرة فرضي بھا لكي یعطي لبقائھ وجود .36

(Jabra 1982, pp. 89-90) Since the Arabic demonstrative shows gender and number its use in such examples is close to that of the pronouns in the English example in (34) with one essential difference: the demonstrative in Arabic is linked proximally with a part of discourse, hence it is considered discourse deixis, the pronoun in English points to the referent of the antecedent, and is therefore anaphoric. Probably, the purest function of discourse dexis is realized by the Turkish 'bu' ( this one) 'o' (that one) which show gender and number, and their function is merely deictic, the former proximal, the latter distal with regard to the part of discourse in which they occur (cf: Lyons 1977, pp. 669-70). Discourse deixis also involves the use of the distal demonstrative 'that' in (37) from Lyons 1977, p. 668). 37. A. I have never seen him. B. That is a lie. Where the reference is to the entire utterance of the previous speaker, or to the proposition expressed by it. Lyons (1977) terms this image 'impure textual deixis’. In Arabic the proximal demonstrative ھذا is normally used: 38. A. لم اره قط B. ھذا كذب Other elements involved in discourse deixis are the so called ‘pronouns of laziness' illustrated by the well-known example from Karttunen (Lyons, 1977, pp. 673-4): 39. The man who gave his pay check to his wife was wiser than the man who gave it to his mistress. The pronoun 'it' is not co-referent with 'his paycheck ' but with the expression 'the pay check' which is not mentioned in the sentence. This may be rendered into Arabic by a corresponding pronoun:

اعطى راتبھ لزوجتھ اعقل من الذي اعطاه لعشیقتھ Levinson (1983) finds special cases of discourse deixis in English as in the examples (40) and (41) below (the first is from Lyons 1977, p. 667; the second from Levinson, 1983, p. 86): 40. A. That is a rhinoceros. B. Spell it for me. 41. This sentence is not true. The pronoun in (40) refers to 'rhinoceros' as mentioned rather than used; 'that in (41) is taken reflexive]. In (41) Arabic would most probably use a feminine singular form of the third person pronoun: 42A. ھذا راینوس B كیف تتھجاھا؟ An Arab grammarian would explain the use of the feminine singular ھاby saying that the pronoun refers to the implied

الكلمة (the word). In (41) Arabic, like English uses the proximal demonstrative ھذهas a token reflexive expression. ھذه الجملة غیر صادقة. .43 Discourse deixis will probably help to solve the philosophical problem raised such sentences as (41) and (43), which says that these sentences are true if they are false and are false if they are true (Levinson, 1983, p. 80). 7. Conclusion The five types of deixis in English and Arabic show a number of similarities and differences. In person deixis Arabic uses other features besides the deictic dimension, namely, gender, number and case. The contrast is greater between deixis in the two languages in the case of the second person, where English has just one form ‘you’, whereas Arabic has five forms, أنت[anta], أنت [anti], أنتما[antuma], أنتم [antum], and أنتن [antuna]. The third person pronouns of the two languages also show considerable differences. Arabic has more third person forms, which help to identify the referent. Arabic demonstratives may precede or follow the head and thus have anticipatory (cf . Leech and Short, 1981:225-228, for anticipatory and trailing elements). The proximity dimension of the demonstratives may be neutralized, in which case English uses the distal form ‘that’, whereas Arabic uses the proximal form ھذا[hatha], ھذه[hathhe].

IJALEL 4(4):118-124, 2015 124 The most important element in time deixis in English is tense, which places a situation before the time of utterance (past) or at the time of utterance or after it (present or future). Tenses in English take their time from the speaker-now: they are sometimes termed ‘absolute’. Arabic tenses, on the other hand, may use their point of reference from the speaker now, in which case they are absolute and deictic; or they may use other points of reference; in this case they are relative and non-deictic. This gives adverbs of time a greater role in determining the deictic dimension of the verb than it is the case in English. The social deixis in Arabic has a plural form of the second person (besides the singular and the dual) but it is less commonly used than the French /vou /tu to indicate a social status. English has only one second person pronoun form. Both languages depend heavily on the sets of titles as means of social deixi. Discourse deixis involves expressions which point to a part of discourse including the part in which the expression occurs. However, in certain cases Arabic uses demonstratives, whereas English uses pronouns, as in examples (34) and (34a.) The use of the distal and proximal demonstratives as discourse deixis often differs in the two languages; thus English uses the distal ‘that’ (example 37), where Arabic favours the proximal ھذا[hatha] (example 38). The field of deixis is a wide one even in one language, let alone in two languages. Several points have been disregarded, others are briefly discussed. Nevertheless, it is hoped that the discussion in this Article is helpful for teachers and translators concerned with English and Arabic in particular and other languages in general. References Bühler, K. (1934). Sprachtheorie: Die Darstellungsfunktion der Sprache. 3 Haulage. G. Fischer, Stuttgart Faulkner, W. (1992). Sound and Fury. London: Everyman’s Library . Arabic translation by Jebra Ibrahinm Jabra in 1998. Abu Dhabi: Dar Al-Mada. Hassan, A. (1975). Al-Nahu Al-Wafi 1. Cairo: Dar Al-Ma’arif.Ibn Abi Rabbihi. (1948). Al-‘Aqdu Al-Faridu 1. Cairo: Matba’at Al-Ta’lif was Al-Tarjama wa Al-Nashir. Leech, G. N., Short, M. (1983). Style in Fiction: A Linguistic Introduction to English Fictional Prose. Berlin: Ger Levinson, S.C. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Lyons, J. (1977). English Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Peirce, C. (1931& 1958): Collected Writings (8 Vols.). (Ed. Charles Hartshorne Paul Weiss & Arthur W Burks). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Stuttgart/New York: Fischer (UTB 1159). [ungekürzter Neudruck der Ausgabe Jena: Fischer 1934], 2. Das Organonmodell der Sprache: S. 24-33.

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

Fluid Identity of the Daughter in Jackie Kay's The Adoption Papers

Gamal Elgezeery

English Department, Suez Faculty of Arts, Suez University, Egypt Department of Languages and Translation, College of Arts and Humanities, Taibah University, KSA

E-mail: elgezeery@gmail.com

Received: 09-12- 2014 Accepted: 08-02- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015 Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.125 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.125 Abstract This paper deals with the issue of fluid identity in the Scottish poet, novelist and dramatist Jackie Kay’s first poetry collection The Adoption Papers (1991). Having African roots and being adopted by a white Scottish family lead Kay to employ some elements from her real life in creating a sequence of poems that fictionalizes different manifestations of identity and shows their interplay and apparent contradictions at the same time. Kay views identity as a fluid flux that does not take a fixed form and that distances itself from any preconceptions because it is a continuous and changing formation. She negotiates, questions, fantasizes, reinvents, modifies, imagines, fictionalizes, synthesizes, and even lyricizes her different and multi-faceted identities in an open-ended poetic presentation. Keywords: Jackie Kay, fluid identity, textual history, linguistic identity, ethnic identity, social identity, self-discovery, identity dramatization 1. Introduction Jackie Kay (1961-) is one of the most important Scottish writers today; she writes poetry, plays and fiction. She was born to a Nigerian father and a Scottish mother in 1961, and she was adopted by a Scottish couple, John and Helen Kay. She has got many prestigious awards such as the Saltire Society Scottish First Book Award, Somerset Maugham Award, and the Guardian First Book Award Fiction Prize. Currently, she holds the position of Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University. However, she is one of the contemporary Scottish women writers whose work, according to the remark and complaint of Nancy Gish, “is neither read nor heard by more than a few outside Scotland or England” (Gish, 2013, 47). Jackie Kay’s poetry celebrates “the capacity human beings have to create and to transform themselves” (Arana and Ramey, 2004, 5). She regards her identity as a whole-life-engaging process, because she is always "interested in identity, how fluid it is, how people can invent themselves, how it can never be fixed or frozen" (Kay, 1999, 73). In an interview in Poetry Archive, Kay argues that no one can have the same identity forever: “identity's something that's fluid, it's not something that's static and fixed and I'm really interested in writing about identity and how fluid it is” (Kay, 2005). Kay’s adoption places her in a trans-cultural environment and makes her have different familial, social, ethnic, cultural affiliations. Literature on “transculturality” describes it as oscillating “between hybridity and purity, fluidity and fixation, globalization and localization” (Ambos, 2011, 267). This oscillation in theory may turn to be a symbiosis in practice, with the person living in a transcultural community moving between the poles of such dichotomies without inhabiting either pole. I argue that Jackie Kay, in her The Adoption Papers (1991), tends to adopt hybridity and fluidity as the main markers of identity in a trans-cultural community. This collection “explores cultural identity and genetic origin” (Korzeniowska, 2013, 421) and fictionalizes elements from her real life in a poetic sequence that portrays identity as a process whose formation never ends. In this paper, I will study the fluidity of identity in Kay's titular poetic sequence of The Adoption Papers, which occupies the first part of her collection bearing the same title. Fluidity here means that the various aspects of identity may have no clear-cut boundaries among them, because identity is subject to change, modification, reinvention, and even questioning. Although this sequence is presented through three different voices, each one having her fears, expectations and versions of identity, subjectivity and selfhood, and the contrast between these voices can shed light on the various dimensions of the issues of identity involved in this sequence, I will limit my discussion to the voice of the daughter because fluidity of identity is a paramount issue for her, as she goes on an incessant quest for her identity throughout the sequence which may stand for a journey of self-discovery and identity apprenticeship. I will start with a brief survey of the concept of fluidity with reference to identity. Then I will analyze the first appearance of the daughter, before the start of the sequence, in the three captions that precede it. Next, I will follow the different manifestations, representations, and dramatization of the daughter’s fluid identity throughout the sequence.

Flourishing Creativity & Literacy

IJALEL 4(4):125-136, 2015 126 2. Identity and Fluidity Fluidity is a concept that differs from the hybridity of identity as propagated by structuralist theory which sees it as “a construct, a hybrid in its many forms and one that is predicated upon a ruse, a performance, a stade" (Phipps, 2003, 10) because structuralism denies the agency of the subject and regards it as an abstraction. It also does not recognize meaning or subjectivity, although they are integral part of personhood, individuality and subjecthood. Andrew Robinson maintains that “human agency … leads to a conception of a fluid-yet-fragile self-identity, a conception of community as context of value, and a conception of personal autonomy as situated autonomy” (Robinson, 2007, 8). This agency makes the identity of a person “fluid” because no one keeps the same traits or conceptions forever. He/she keeps changing and developing with the new or changing circumstances they get involved in and the new ontological questions they raise or face. These circumstances make the person situated within community, time and place whose conceptions and manifestations are not static or fixed. Robinson correlates fluidity of self-identity with “identifications with multiple and often conflicting communities” (Robinson, 2007, 8). Such conflict largely results from the perceptions that one receives from the intersections of cultures and ethnicities. Postmodernism conceives of identity as a multiplicity consisting of many parts that do not have clear-cut boundaries. According to Aaron Balick, “postmodern discourse … argues strongly against unitary expressions of self in favour of identities that are multiple, fluid, and decentred” (Balick, 2014, 145). Decentering should not be understood here in a structuralist light, that is, the subject is removed from the center. Rather, it implies that the subject has no central or single identity that can underscored as a unitary and characteristic marker. He/she has multiple identities that are subject to different conditions and angles of vision. Grad and Rojo attribute this fluidity to the “complexity and context sensitivity of identities” because individuals “even within one setting may appeal to a range of identities” (Grad and Rojo, 2008, 5). They also call our attention to the fact that “fluidity does not call continuity into question” (Grad and Rojo, 2008, 10) because fluidity is a mode of existence that aims at maintaining the adaptable continuity of individuals’ lives within cultures and communities. Julie Mostov argues against fixing identities because it serves “to naturalize relationships of domination and reject the notion of persons as interdependent actors and potential political agents” (Mostov, 2007, 139). The fluidity, multiplicity and overlapping of identities in the same individual do not suggest the fragmentation of individuals or prevent “them from holding consistent views, pursuing coherent interests, making and keeping commitments, and having long-lasting affiliations or allegiances” (Mostov, 2007, 139). In this light, fluidity implies adaptability, personal quest, and a never-ending process of identity formation. Michael Ostwald argues that the fixedness or fluidity of identity “is linked to the way in which the individual is prompted, by the characteristics of the environmental bubble, to alter their projected persona” (Ostwald, 2001, 194). He establishes a strong connection between identity and the environment. This can be true as long as it does not exclude individuals’ personal contributions to the formation and shaping of their identities because a person’s longings, aspirations, self-image, worldview and even self-performance play significant roles in their views of their identities and how these identities are manifested or performed. Rebecca Kay attributes agency to individuals in forming, performing and adapting their identities which “may be the result of a very individual process of reflection and choice and an empowering expression of beliefs, tastes and values” (Rebecca Kay, 2005, 1). She also focuses on the importance of identities for the “marginalized people” who “often use identities, both individually and collectively, as a means of challenging normative assumptions and prescriptive values” (Rebecca Kay, 2005, 2). Identity is seen here as a form of resisting stereotyping and racism, and of ethnic survival. Beth-Sarah Wright finds common aspects among the cultural identities of “the Black Diaspora;” these identities are “characterized by a fluidity and an advanced capacity to negotiate and shift in the face of change” (Wright, 2000, 294). Negotiation, shifting, adaptability, and resistance are integral parts of components of the fluidity of identity. 3. Identity Thresholds Jackie Kay highlights three captions on the page that immediately precedes the first part of "The Adoption Papers" sequence of poems, and these captions embody the microcosm of the sequence as a whole. They highlight the dialogic nature of this sequence and introduce the three voices that will populate it: the adoptive mother, the daughter and the birth mother respectively. As the voices of the birth and adoptive mother dramatize forms of identity that do not directly relate to the identity interests of the daughter, especially maternal and gender identity, and their view of identity are not characterized by fluidity, I will focus only on the caption belonging to the voice of the daughter because it encapsulates many of the issues that will be foregrounded throughout the sequence as a whole. The voice of the adopted daughter is highlighted in the second caption that precedes the sequence. This caption deals with a scene from the babyhood of the daughter:

I was pulled out with forceps left a gash down my left cheek Four months inside a glass cot but she came faithful from Glasgow to Edinburgh and peered through the glass I must have felt somebody willing me to survive; she would not pick another baby (Kay, 1991, 10)

IJALEL 4(4):125-136, 2015 127 The reference to the “forceps,” which is a product of culture, implies that culture dominates nature and that the baby is forced out of the belly of her biological mother. However, the “gash” on the cheek of the baby foreshadows the conflicts and struggles experienced by the daughter later on in her life because they stand for the problems resulting from adoption in a conservative culture that looks down upon adopted children, especially when these children have a color different from that of the dominant group. The “gash” also suggests how the daughter was harshly detached from the womb of her birth mother, as if her birth act was an act of liquidating blood relationships between her and her biological mother and putting them to a forced end. This will give rise to the daughter's search for her (partial) identity through blood-marked lines although she is aware that blood ties are not significant. The daughter’s non-reference to the birth mother in this caption anticipates the absence of this mother from the life of the daughter throughout the sequence, an absence which urges the daughter to search for her textual history and textual identity. The phrase “somebody willing me to survive” creates a tension between biological identity on the one hand and adoptive and social identities on the other; this tension persists throughout the sequence and motivates the daughter’s never-ending quest that leads her to change her initial view of identity and adopt a more flexible conception of her own identity. In addition, the infant's wish for survival re-emerges in the adult daughter's enduring resistance to all forms of racism and challenges to her identities in her "foster" community. Describing the adoptive mother as “faithful” and highlighting the spatial universe of “Glasgow” and “Edinburgh” complicates the multi-faceted relationships that the daughter will be involved in throughout the sequence and sheds light on the not-easy-to-resolve-or-synthesize manifestations of social, political, linguistic, cultural, and even biological identities that the daughter will get engaged in via their interrelated network. The line “she would not pick another baby” implies that the daughter is an unwanted baby. This is later concretized through three main incidents in the sequence: the adoption agency’s view of the black baby as lacking babyhood, the birth mother’s indifference to her daughter, and the white community’s racism against the daughter. All these implications have different impacts on the daughter’s sense of identity and push her to question stereotypical views of identity and her own view of self-identity. That Kay is a black girl adopted by white parents leads some critics to assume that the sequence is directly autobiographical. This view cannot be accepted because Kay employs three voices throughout the narrative, and the narrative itself was originally written for performance and it was actually “broadcast in BBC Radio 3’s Drama Now series in August 1990,” as Kay herself declares in the “acknowledgement” page before the table of contents in the first edition of the collection. Dramatization, fictionalization, and lyricism cast the author’s autobiography into an artistic form that has its own life away from the life of the author. Also, adding the voice of the birth mother, who is always absent, and depending on fantasizing in important sections of the sequence underline the fictionalized form of the text. Partial autobiography is manipulated artistically and aesthetically to convey the poet’s view of the interconnected issues of identity. Kay herself asserts that her work is not a writing of her own life: “Sometimes people read too much into what I’m trying to say about myself. It is not as autobiographical as people think it is” (Kay, 2002b). She highlights its mixed character, as its composition is subject to the blending and synthesizing processes of the imagination and seeks “to take a bit of the real and a bit of the imaginary, a bit of the familiar and a bit of the strange, and blend those things together in some sort of way” (Kay, 2002a). This act of blending changes the nature of the blended elements in such a way that makes them transcend their former "fixed" meaning and significance and places them in a border-zone that is neither here nor there. Perhaps this blending explains the fluid character of identity as explored in the poems of "The Adoption Papers" sequence. Kay says about The Adoption Papers, "I think that we write often in order to try and discover or understand ourselves and so The Adoption Papers was a cathartic book for me to write. I wrote it before I had ever traced a birth parent and it made me think about nature and nurture and the conflict of identities. It was a searching book to write and in the end it did feel healing too" (Kay, 2010). Writing the sequence is a journey of exploration, self-discovery, understanding, self-expression, and getting conflicts out so that she can understand them and get purged of their negative impacts. Thus, the poet's presentation of the issue of identity can be regarded as a process of identity-meaning production that has many phases without a definite product. It is characterized by a fluidity which de-stabilizes any preconceived or prescriptive ideas of the manifestations of identity. Her exploration of her own identities is marked by continuity and successive mutability, implying that identity formation and conceptualization are a continuing construction that lasts throughout a person’s life. 4. The Daughter’s Multi-faceted Quest for Identity The first appearance of the daughter in "The Adoption Papers" sequence is in the second poem "Chapter 2: The Original Birth Certificate" where she begins a quest for her ethnic and biological or blood identities. She tries to squeeze any data related to her birth origin from the man at the desk in the birth registration office. She wants to get "my original birth certificate," and begins a search for her birth or biological parents. She waits for these data in suspense and alarming expectation:

So slow as torture he discloses bit by bit my mother's name, my original name the hospital I was born in, the time I came.

IJALEL 4(4):125-136, 2015 128 Outside Edinburgh is soaked in sunshine I talk to myself walking past the castle. So, so, so, I was a midnight baby after all. (12)

She attaches great importance to these things which may seem trifles to other people because they are the roots that plant her in place and time. The contrast between the "sunshine" and the "midnight" sheds revealing light on these “origin” data. She feels that she does not belong to this sunshine which covers Edinburgh, as she hypothetically or originally affiliates with the midnight/black ethnicity. In this context, she reverses the conventional connotations of sunshine, as she transfers them to the midnight, in order to endow blackness with positive attributes. Concomitant with her search for her ethnic identity through the blood ties that link her with unremembered infancy are the birth mother's reaction to the birth of her unwanted daughter and the adoptive mother's search for her gender identity through adoption. The birth mother's reaction occupies the rest of "The Original Birth Certificate", while the adoptive mother's quest inaugurates, and occupies the greatest part of, the next poem "Chapter 3: The Waiting Lists". Rajeev S. Patke establishes a connection between this search for ethnic or biological identity and the daughter's textual history: “Whatever she may have thought she was, up to that point, will have to be revised depending on what the document reveals about her birth and origin” (Patke, 2004, 39). This revision is apparent in the daughter's reviewed view of the "sunshine" which stands in the context of the poem for Edinburgh/white British. Her birth certificate makes her realize that she is associated with the "midnight" of Nigeria (her father being a Nigerian visiting Edinburgh when he met her mother), not the "sunshine" of Edinburgh/her birth place/Britain at large. However, this association is only temporary, as the daughter’s quest leads her, later on in the sequence, to accept association with and dissociation from her roots and to accept this sort of “contradiction.” In "The Waiting Lists", the daughter receives some information related to her birth and her mother:

Your mother was nineteen when she had you. You weighed eight pounds four ounces. She liked hockey. She worked in Aberdeen as a waitress. She was five foot eight inches. (Kay, 1991, 14)

These data do not have any identity markers because they relate only to factual matters that do not help the daughter in her identity quest. Consequently, she asks "the counselling agency in Edinburgh" "to trace through marriage certificates" (Kay, 1991, 19). The unavailability of sure knowledge about her ethnic identity weighs heavy upon her mind, and she begins to contemplate the relationship between biological/blood inheritance and the self:

That night I turn it through till dawn a few genes, blood, a birth. All this bother, certificates, papers. It is all so long ago. Does it matter? Now I come from her, the mother who stole my milk teeth ate the digestive left for Santa (Kay, 1991, 20)

Here she considers how the factor of heredity may influence her identity or self-image. This influence relates to a mere moment in the past when "a few genes" were transmitted into her through "a birth". Although she sometimes questions the great importance of this biological past for the construction of self and identity in the present, the photograph "Human chromosomes" on the cover of the whole collection foregrounds this biological variety of identity. However, this foregrounding may be ironic because the sequence as a whole shows how society’s preoccupation with what is “natural” or hereditary negatively constructs the daughter as an inferior other. Nevertheless, the cover of the collection may refer to “the symbolic importance of the birth mother and the weight she carries for an individual” (Taylor, 2001, 264). This symbolism is related to one’s roots and the importance these roots have for him/her. One’s origins are part of his unconscious and conscious memory. In this context, it is significant to recall Langston Hughes’s “Afro-American Fragment” where he expresses his longing for Africa, and at the same time he realizes that going back to Africa is impossible and that his life is a fragment that has nothing to complete although Africa is already there. Textual history is an important aspect of this biological identity. Along with "genes" and "blood", there are "certificates" and "papers" whose significance cannot be reduced or neglected because they give the sequence, and the collection as a whole, its title. It appears that the title of the collection is symbolic because it foregrounds the papers that the daughter regards as both important and unimportant, and it correlates these papers with “adoption” as if this title creates a symbolic coexistence or symbiotic existence between nature, biology, roots, blood ties, and history one the one hand and culture, environment, community, nurture and the present on the other. Although the daughter tries to locate herself "within the perceived certainties of a biological past" (Lumsden, 2000, 80), she realizes that her birth mother has violated the terms of this biological relationship because she "stole my milk teeth". The mother is portrayed unfavorably as a woman who does not observe her maternal duties and who is ready to eat "the

IJALEL 4(4):125-136, 2015 129 digestive" allotted to the celebration of Christmas. Although the daughter cannot form a distinct notion of her biological identity, "she may acknowledge the limits of a biologically grounded notion of self" (Lumsden, 2000, 80). While "Part One," which covers the first two years of the daughter's life, ends with the adult daughter's intricate search for her biological roots, "Part Two: 1967-1971" begins with the six-years-old daughter's discovery that her (adoptive) mother is not her real mother. Here she explores her identity in the light of the model which posits it as "a social and familial construct" (Lumsden, 2000, 79). The family represents the backdrop to which this child resorts to consolidate her view of the self at this early age:

Ma mammy bot me oot a shop Ma mammy says I was a luvly baby Ma mammy picked me (I wiz the best) your mammy had to take you (she'd no choice) Ma mammy says she's no really ma mammy (just kid on) ……………………… She says my real mammy is away far away Mammy why aren't you and me the same colour But I love my mammy whether she's real or no …………………… She took me when I'd nowhere to go my mammy is the best mammy in the world OK. (Kay, 1991, 21)

First, the daughter shows how she is admired in the family. Within her family, her personal identity is actualized. This supports her self-image, as she regards herself as the best girl: she interprets her being "picked" by her mother as a sign of her being the best child. The daughter presents her personal identity through the mirror of her social identity. The personal and the social interact with one another and provide the daughter with a satisfactory self-image. In other words, thinking that she is the best child, she brings the personal to interact with her social identity represented in her belonging to her adoptive family. Her satisfaction with her minor social milieu gives her some sort of personal satisfaction, and consequently fulfills some of the requirements of personal identity. However, someone, perhaps a child belonging to the white community where she lives, tries to de-stabilize this self-image, confronting her with the fact that her mother had "no choice". Although this fact shocks her, she internalizes it and goes to her mother for support and clarification. Now she takes her mother's earlier revelation that she is not her real mother seriously. She begins to accept the separation between biological identity (nature) and the social/familial one (nurture/socialization). Despite this separation, they do not negate or annul each other. This is emphasized by her insistence on loving her mother "whether she's real or no". “It is in the capacity of the identity to indicate spaces of liminality and difference within itself that presents new challenges to previous theoretical paradigms of identity formation” (MacDonald, 1998: 10). These “new challenges” are represented here in the “adoptiveness” of her mother. That her mother is only adoptive, not real, makes her check her earlier concept of identity. This act of checking results in her acceptance of the non-lineal relationship between her and her mother. It also leads her to reformulate her concept of social identity. As the context in which the daughter’s conscious search for, or exploration of, identity constantly changes, her formulation of her identity can never be a finished product; it is better to view it as a process that goes on non-stop. The difference in colour between the daughter and the adoptive mother does not appall the former with reference to her social/familial identity which she sees in a new light, but it pushes her to resume her search for biological roots. Her recognition of that difference and separation enables her to feel much gratitude to her adoptive mother who has guaranteed her survival, transferring the epithet "the best" from herself at the beginning of the above extract to that mother at its end. However, this revelation inculcates in her mind the insecurity of her familial identity:

After mammy telt me she wisnae my real mammy I was scared to death she was gonnie melt or something or mibbe disappear in the dead of night and somebody would say she wis a fairy godmother. So the next morning I felt her skin to check she was flesh, but mibbe it was just a good imitation. How could I tell if my mammy was a dummy with a voice spoken by someone else? So I searches the whole house for clues but I never found nothing. Anyhow a day after I got my guinea pig and forgot all about it. (Kay, 1991, 22)

IJALEL 4(4):125-136, 2015 130 She dramatizes her fears through the language of the fairy tales in which she is used to think as a child. This dramatization reflects how she attaches great importance to her familial identity without which she will have little scope for any sense of identity, as she now realizes that her birth mother is "away far away". She fears that her adoptive mother might not be real, a fear which pushes her to question the phenomenal presence of that mother. Anyhow, the shared linguistic identity (Scottish) implicitly turns us to the assertion of both forms of identity. For "language is seen to serve as one of the principal means by which a sense of common ethnic identity is maintained, the loss of which necessarily corresponds to a diminished community" (Woods, 2006, 44-45). If one loses her ethnic identity, she will lose all other aspects of identity and turn into an identity-void sign. Moreover, language is the first step to identity which “is by definition a never-ending quest in which we constantly seek permanence: first in language and then beyond it" (Crawshaw et al., 2001, 103). Without this symbolic representation of the self through language, the self will turn into a mere corporeality that has nothing else within or beyond. Although the daughter’s ethnic identity, or more exactly the figures who might give her a sense of ethnic belonging – her birth mother and her Nigerian father – is/are not present, she shares the ethnic identity of her adoptive mother. The first step to the actualization of this identity is language. Her use of Scottish here implies that she has the ability to move freely across the boundaries among the different aspects or concepts of identity. Moreover, the shared linguistic identity between the daughter and the adoptive mother intersects with their shared political identity which is manifested in activism and fighting racism and oppression. Paul Mercieca argues that “Cultural identity is more fluid than ethnic and social identity, and is typically influenced by such experiences as language learning and migration” (Mercieca, 2014, 30). His argument is verifiable in so far as it gives equal fluidity to cultural and social identities. As we have seen, the daughter’s natural use of Scottish in the poetic sequence attests to the fact that she linguistically regards herself as having a Scottish identity. Also, the harmonious social relationships she has within her Scottish adoptive family and the antagonistic relations she has within the community at large show how she can easily move between two markers of her social identity. The stereotypical views the community have of a Black girl or woman in a white society and the intimate and parental attitude of a family belonging to the same white society towards the same girl demonstrate that social identity is not fixed because the daughter both belongs and does not belong to the same society. Thus, “stable identity is eroded” (Kouta and Saleh, 2013, 218), but this erosion does not engender identity loss. It opens space for identity to be freely and multiply manifested in a continually changing act of identity formation. In "Black Bottom", the daughter explores the dangers that threaten her ethnic identity in a society biased against ethnic minorities. Her schoolmates call her "Sambo Sambo" (Kay, 1991, 24), an epithet she cannot accept. Her dissatisfaction with such racist names externalizes her violent drives and she punches the guts of her mate. But as soon as she lets him go, he calls her "Dirty Darkie"(Kay, 1991, 24). This collective racism becomes manifest in the reaction of their teacher who blames her alone, "warning" her that "In a few years time you'll be a juvenile delinquent", and calling her names such as "thug", "vandal", and "hooligan" (Kay, 1991, 25). The whole atmosphere at school smacks of ethnic derision. When students practice for “the school show" and try to "do the Cha Cha and the Black Bottom" dances, the daughter cannot "get the steps right", a situation which any student might find themselves in. But the teacher blames her on ethnic grounds:

my teacher shouts from the bottom of the class Come on, show us what you can do I thought you people had it in your blood. My skin is hot as burning coal like that time she said Darkies are like coal in front of the whole class – my blood what does she mean? I thought (Kay, 1991, 25)

The school atmosphere is full of rampant clichés and stereotypical racist views of the daughter and her ethic roots. This kind of stereotypical categorization which regards all blacks as very good at these dances does not allow for any exceptions as if it were unquestionable truth. Although the daughter cannot perform these dances, the teacher does not question her own clichés about "Darkies", as if the former were responsible for de-stabilizing these clichés. In other words, instead of acknowledging an exception which should make her doubt the universality of these clichés, the teacher wants to perpetuate them by forcing the daughter to comply with them. This racial confrontation pushes the daughter to get into a reflective process that questions many of the static concepts related to identity and society. In other words, the daughter’s interaction with the school community leads her to question the bases of the construction of her ethnic identity in such a community. This questioning deconstructs the stereotypical image and explores other possibilities. The daughter’s inability to perform a dance that most Africans are hypothetically used to dance attests to the fact that the daughter’s Black identity is not a given or inherited fact and removes “any notion of an essentialist Black identity” (Schrage-Früh, 2009b, 70). If identity was essentialist, the daughter would have danced this dance naturally. This implies that identity is a process that the person is continually involved in, or a skill that can be acquired at any time. This supports our view in this paper of how the concept of identity is a conception that continuously develops

IJALEL 4(4):125-136, 2015 131 throughout one’s life, and highlights Jackie Kay’s understanding of “identity as constantly and flexibly changing” (Hácová, 2005, 63), and the poetic “sequence does not provide any clear-cut answers to the question of [the daughter’s] core identity” (Schrage-Früh, 2009a, 171). These group images are stereotypical and cast whole communities into an undifferentiating and uniforming mold. They do not leave any space for personal or individual identity. The community in which the daughter lives assumes a superficial and stereotypically fixed identity for her and deals with her accordingly. However, her exclusion from those “group we-images” does not disappoint her. It only urges her to search for her blood. This quest makes her search for other figures who belong to her ethnic group and look like her. Therefore, she identifies with the American political black activist Angela Davis:

Angela Davis is the only female person I've seen (except for a nurse on TV) who looks like me. She had big hair like mine that grows out instead of down. My mum says it's called an Afro. If I could be as brave as her when I get older I'll be OK. Last night I kissed her goodnight again and wondered if she could feel the kisses in prison all the way from Scotland. Her skin is the same too you know. I can see my skin is that colour … I worry she's going to get the chair. I worry she's worrying about the chair. My dad says she'll be putting on a brave face. He bought me a badge home which I wore to school. It says FREE ANGELA DAVIS. And all my pals says 'Who's she?' (Kay, 1991, 27)

Both have the same origin, colour, and perhaps fate. The daughter regards the similarity of her colour and hair with those of Angela Davis as an identity marker. She is not alone in having such physical characteristics. Being shared, these characteristics highlight a sense of belonging to an ethnic group, albeit in diaspora. Moreover, she wishes to attain the bravery of Angela Davis in fighting racism and defending the rights of Afros. That is why she is concerned about her destiny and takes up the slogan "FREE ANGELA DAVIS". This slogan serves a symbolic or indirect purpose as well. It expresses the daughter’s desire for fighting racism in her own community. Fighting her schoolmate back earlier on in the sequence suggests her child-suitable activism. The daughter’s identification with this Black activist is not a mere identification with someone who has the same ethnic roots. It is a means of fighting racism at school whose ignorance of that activist highlights the mystifying educational apparatus that sheds darkness on any ideologically opposing existence. However, the role of the daughter's adoptive parents in fighting this deep-seated racism highlights the role of the family in supporting identity. Although her parents are white, they do not share their community's inherent racism against ethnic minorities. This divergence from public consensus may be due to their different political orientations: both are communists who fight for social equality, human rights, and world peace. This favorable familial milieu encourages the daughter to stick to her political identity. The daughter’s fighting for the cause of Angela Davis equals fighting for her own cause in a society which does not acknowledge her right to exist within its boundaries and hierarchies. The implications of this intricate social and ethnic web for the daughter are quite revealing. She has no clear-cut boundaries between the various aspects of identity. While she seeks her ethnic roots, she finds self-actualization within "her" white family. She acknowledges "the tension between essential and constructed models of identity" (Lumsden, 2000, 82). This tension does not take the form of conflict. Rather it has a symbiotic nature where both models coexist and do not negate one another. Also, her political identity cannot be separated from her ethnic one, as this identity is supported by her parents' political affiliations. The poem "Generations" that inaugurates "Part Three: 1980-1990," which covers the life of the adult daughter, visualizes her fluid conceptions of her biological past. As she has no concrete model before her, she has to conceptualize this past through her mirror image:

I don’t know what diseases come down my line; when dentists and doctors ask the old blood questions about family runnings I tell them: I have no nose or mouth or eyes to match, no spitting image or dead cert, my face watches itself in the glass" (Kay, 1991, 29).

IJALEL 4(4):125-136, 2015 132 This shows how she is completely ignorant of her biological roots, an ignorance which tortures her and pushes her to get any knowledge about these roots whatever subjective it might be, because Kay and other ethnic identity-seeking writers recall roots in “their endeavour to find their ancestry” (Little, 2011, 244). The reference to “diseases” implies that white doctors and dentists take it for granted that her color is correlated with diseases and that her “blood” is not pure or clean. However, this situation leads her to question the great importance people attach to blood and biological difference from her adoptive:

I have my parents who are not of the same tree and you keep trying to make it matter, the blood, the tie, the passing down generations. We all have our contradictions, the ones with the mother's nose and father's eyes have them; the blood does not bind confusion, yet I confess to my contradiction I want to know my blood. (Kay, 1991, 29)

She finds in her adoptive parents real parenthood. The reference to the “tree” implies that parenthood is a concept that transcends the barrier of blood; biology does not play a decisive role in her sense of familial and social identity. The pronoun “you” in this extract questions the reader and the immediate audience of the previous dramatic presentation of the poem. However, it can have another interpretation in the light of the “contradiction” mentioned later on in the extract. It appears that the daughter dramatizes her two internal voices: one recognizing that actual parenthood does not have a direct relationship with blood and biology, and the other feeling a need for knowing her biological parents. However, these contradictions are not regarded as negative; they attest to the symbiotic nature of the different aspects of identity. This attempt at knowledge does not necessarily imply a desire to get unified with these blood roots; it is only an act of contemplation that indulges in the symbolic importance of these roots:

It is the well, the womb, the fucking seed. Here, I am far enough away to wonder – what were their faces like who were my grandmothers what were the days like passed in Scotland the land I come from the soil in my blood. (Kay, 1991, 29)

The daughter expresses her longing for getting information about her matrilineal relatives. She realizes that the family plays a role in the construction of her identity represented in "the soil in my blood." But this is not its only role, as there is another role played by "the land I come from." Both soil and land imply roots, a fact which suggests that familial construction of identity is as important as the biological one. The daughter cannot get sure knowledge about her “grandmothers.” She can only speculate on “the well, the womb, the fucking seed.” All these things are potential metaphorical roots that she does not know anything about. She feels that biology is part of her identity, and she searches for her biological roots just because she wants to get some knowledge about the different manifestations of her identity. The well may stand for Africa in general, the womb for the mother, and the seed for the father. These three things mix biology, ethnicity, and even textual history, things which belong to an unknown past that the daughter tries to reconstruct. This act of reconstruction shows that many aspects of identity formation are only tentative and do not take a fixed form because imagination plays a major part in their (re-)construction. “While Kay recognises in her writing the fictional nature of our identities, she is also aware of the need for those fictions to give us a sense of ontological security” (Taylor, 2001, 246). Then the daughter tries to figure out the landscape of that "land"/her mother. This act of visualizing a never-seen figure largely fails, as it does not engender specific details:

She is faceless She has no nose She is five foot eight inches tall She likes hockey best … She was a waitress … She wears no particular dress …

IJALEL 4(4):125-136, 2015 133 She is faceless, she never weeps. She has neither eyes nor fine boned cheeks (Kay, 1991, 30)

This formless body implies that the birth mother does not have any form of existence in the life of her daughter. She is tough-hearted, and does not appear in the life of the daughter except as a mere abstraction which cannot be concretized. Thus, the daughter does not identify with her. Her quest for her mother is for the sake of mere knowledge, knowledge which cannot alter the status quo. Therefore, she wishes to see her once: "Once would be enough, / just to listen to her voice / watch the way she moves her hands / when she talks" (Kay, 1991, 30). This wish of the daughter aims only at making sure that her birth mother has a physical presence, not a mere abstraction that exists in her mind only. This may suggest that biological identity is less important than the familially and socially constructed ones. For the former is portrayed here as a mere idiosyncratic formulation or fabrication on the part of the daughter. She only wants to know that she has a biological mother. In order to highlight this idiosyncratic formulation, the poet concludes the sequence with the daughter imagining a meeting with her birth mother to lessen the emotional shock that might result from a real meeting:

If I picture it like this it hurts less We are both shy though our eyes are not, they pierce below skin. We are not as we imagined (Kay, 1991, 32)

Here the daughter focuses on the contrast, if not the contradiction, between appearance and reality. Reality, like the real meeting, hurts much. The apparent shyness of both shows how they are strangers to one another. There is nothing that might relate them together, and their imaginative meeting places them in an embarrassing situation. On the other hand, the real piercing looks maximize the inquisition which is concomitant with utter difference between them, a difference between reality and the mental image each one has formed of the other. It appears that this inquisition does not bring any intimate or positive results. None of them can tolerate even the physical presence of the other:

There is no sentiment in this living-room, a plain wood table and a few books. We don't cuddle or even shake hands though we smile sudden as a fire blazing then die down. Her hands play with her wedding-ring, I've started smoking again. We don't ask big questions even later by the shore. We walk slow, tentative as crabs No, so what have you been doing the past 26 years. Just what are you working at, stuff like that. (Kay, 1991, 32-33)

Their meeting does not bring about any form of intimacy; even the signs of minimal intimacy, such as shaking hands, are absent. Here smiles represent a form of inauthentic compliment, and they disappear as quickly as they have appeared. In addition to the absence of intimacy, there is some sort of discomfort with the meeting as a whole: the mother plays with her wedding-ring (this wedding-ring suggests that she has her new familial world and that the daughter represents, for her, a mere phase of her past life), and the daughter resumes smoking. In other words, they cannot tolerate one another; and their meeting represents a burden for both. This uncomfortable meeting turns out to be a nightmare. It leads to the death of the original meeting "dream" of the daughter with her mother:

If I picture it like this it hurts less One dream cuts another open like a gutted fish nothing is what it was; she is too many imaginings to be flesh and blood. There is nothing left to say. Neither of us mentions meeting again. (Kay, 1991, 33)

The daughter realizes that reality is completely different from what she has dreamt of. Her biological identity is nothing but a never-realizable dream. Her biological mother is a mere mental and emotional image in her own mind. This image is projected upon an abstraction which the birth mother fails to concretize. Thus, another meeting will effect nothing but spoil this image.

IJALEL 4(4):125-136, 2015 134 The last lines of the sequence are as follows:

I lie there, duvet round my shoulders fantasising the colour of her paper whether she’ll underline First Class or have a large circle over her ‘i’s. (Kay, 1991, 34)

Although the daughter is aware that her birth mother is far away from her on all levels, and that she comes to realize that “blood” does not have much importance for her, she engenders fantasies about the supposed letter that her birth mother would send her. She has earlier met her birth mother in a dream that has proved the futility of a real meeting between them. However, in these last lines of the poem she wants to have a factual meeting, not with her mother, but with her handwriting, a desire that recalls the daughter’s search for her textual history, symbolized in her “birth certificate,” at the very beginning of the sequence. The end of the poem does not have the daughter searching for such a history; rather she longs for a textual-identity present through the expected letter from her birth mother. “The desire for written communication is a desire for a reading of her mother’s identity physically, through her own inscription” (Kanneh, 1998, 187). The act of fantasizing at the very end of the poem opens this end and symbolizes the continuity of the quest and of the wilful and fluctuating formation of self-identity. The end of the sequence does not resolve the questions that the daughter poses throughout it. It opens the sequence and does not fix or contain the issues of identity. It is apparent that identity for the daughter is a continuing process that cannot come to an end because it is related to the changing questions that the daughter as a multifaceted ontological subject poses to herself, society, culture, and existence at large. This imaginative dimension of identity creates some sort of intended fragmentation which equals complementation and integration, as different and even separate manifestations and presentations of the identity amount to a synthesis that mixes many not-usually-mixable identity components. This fragmentation does not mean that her identity is lost because when reality fails to provide her with some missing aspects of her identity, she imagines and reconstructs, or rather constructs, them. For Jackie Kay, “confident assertions about identity are difficult precisely because of the multiplicity and irresolvability of her own” identity (Thurston and Alderman, 2014, 207). In brief, biological and ethnic identities depend on much fantasizing and imagination. The imagined meeting with the biological mother shows that imagination and fantasy play a major role in the formation, or rather construction, of both kinds of identity. The daughter’s quest for her biological and ethnic identities has proven that these identities have no stable form. Moreover, they are largely metaphorical and symbolic because they are invented through an imaginative discourse that tries to give shape to a mother who is “faceless.” 5. Conclusion Through the imaginative autobiographical journey that the daughter makes in the poetic sequence of “The Adoption Papers,” Jackie Kay adopts a flexible view of identity that does not essentialize or fix it. She accommodates different manifestations of identity that do not exclude one another. She recognizes that her multi-affiliative identities are interconnected or linked together, at least in the creative and imaginative act of writing a semi-autobiographical sequence where they become integrated and where the fictional cannot be separated from the real or factual. Kay does not regard Black or ethnic identity as essentialist because the sequence creatively or artistically proves that it is a marker derived from socialization and personal relationships. When the daughter expresses her confusion regarding her teacher’s stereotypical view that she must know how to perform the bottom dance, she repudiates the essentialist view of a whole race because she is black and cannot perform this dance. The same can be said about biological identity. In her imaginative meeting with her mother, the daughter does not feel intimacy with her, and sees her as a strange person she does not know. The anxiety and boredom felt by both daughter and birth mother during this meeting show how biology is not an important marker of identity. In a diasporic or trans-cultural community, linguistic identity does not relate to roots or innately acquired language, as the daughter, and the poet behind her, sometimes uses Scottish within the sequence which is mainly written in English. This shows that Kay regards herself as Scottish, and that she uses Scottish in an English text in order to resist the cultural and linguistic hegemony of English. Resistance here implies that she adopts Scottish as a manifest marker of linguistic identity. This linguistic identity proves the fluidity of her overall identity because Scottish society has racist and discriminatory practices against her just because of her different color. In other words, she affiliates with Scotland in some aspects and distances herself from it in others. The sequence foregrounds the interrelated issues of identity, or rather identities, in a way that makes use of dramatization, narration, and lyricism and mixes them together, a mixture which symbolizes the flux of identity formation in the sequence. This sequence represents identity as a riddle that engages Kay in a long-term quest for a solution that is never reached, or rather that does not take a stable form because it is always changing. The self in Kay’s poems is reinvented in many forms that show how identity formation is a creative act that is frequently performed so that the self can undertake a renewable process of self-discovery and self-actualization. Kay highlights the imaginative or inventive character of identity and how it can be made for a specific purpose. The acts of fantasizing and dreaming and the fictionalization of autobiographical elements in the sequence show how identities can be imagined, dramatized and performed. Kay’s presentation of these acts of imagination, dramatization and

IJALEL 4(4):125-136, 2015 135 performance in an imaginative, creative form that can be received by readers at any time and place emphasize the view of identity as a flux, process and symbiotic fluidity. The findings of this paper repudiate the traditional view which regards the search for identity in trans-national or diasporic communities as a search for roots and originary/original homelands. The daughter in Kay’s poetic sequence searches for her roots temporarily in her attempt at getting knowledge of these roots, mere knowledge that does not make her take action to get united with these roots. The figure of the biological father does not appear as a character in the sequence, and the daughter does not regard him as having a role in her quest for multi-faceted identity. Even biological roots as represented in the figure of the biological mother prove to be less important than what they are taken to be in studies on adoption. Genetic factors are not in harmony with paternal/maternal love. In the imagined meeting between the daughter and the birth mother, the daughter realizes that she does not know or love her birth mother, and that her familial identity does not relate to the biological one because she finds her truthful familial identity in her adoptive family. The daughter’s search for her biological or birth mother proves to be a search for having a sufficient background about her biological roots, without necessarily having to get united with these roots. This makes us reconsider previous studies on adoption such as that of Katarina Wegar (1997) who maintains that "The adoptee is doomed to stand outside the natural order of things" (103) or that “the overwhelming majority [of the adoptees] initiate the search for the biological mother" (63) because the daughter stands inside such a “natural order” in most cases except at school where the school community regards her as a misfit or looks down upon her. But within her adoptive family, she has her “natural” place. Moreover, both the birth and adoptive mothers are white Scottish women, and the birth and adoptive fathers do not appear as characters in the poetic sequence. This shows that familial identity is largely matrilineal, and that the absent Nigerian father does not matter in the daughter’s process of identity formation. In brief, the daughter’s quest for her roots is largely hypothetical in the sense that it takes the form of a theoretical exploration that aims at getting sure information for the sake of knowledge only. The daughter herself, as we have seen in our discussion above, realizes that she is contradictory and that she is aware of her own contradiction because she knows well that blood and roots do not matter because she has a satisfactory image of familial identity and her search for blood and roots does not mean that she wants to have reunion with her birth mother.

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IJALEL 4(4):125-136, 2015 136 Korzeniowska, A. (2013). Crossing Racial Frontiers in the Quest for Cultural Acceptance as Seen Through Selected Works by Jackie Kay. In J. Fabiszak, B. Wolski and E. Urbaniak-Rybicka (Eds.) Crossroads in Literature and Culture (pp. 421-31). Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Kouta, A., and Saleh, E. (2013). From Alienation to Connectedness: A Postmodern Ecocritical Reading of John Steinbeck’s The Winter of Our Discontent. European Scientific Journal 9.11, 216-236. Little, H. (2011). Identifying the Genealogical Self. Archival Science. 11, 241-252. Lumsden, A. (2000). Jackie Kay's Poetry and Prose: Constructing Identity. In Aileen Christianson and Alison Lumsden (Eds.), Contemporary Scottish Women Writers (pp. 79-91). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. MacDonald, E. (1998). Critical Identities: Rethinking Feminism through Transgender Politics. Atlantis. 23.1, 3-12. Mercieca, P. (2014). Changing Perspectives of Literacy, Identity and Motivation: Implications for Language Education. In Katie Dunworth and Grace Zhang (Eds.), Critical Perspective on Language Education: Australia and the Asia Pacific (pp. 29-48). Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. Mostov, J. (2007). Soft Borders and Transnational Citizens. In Seyla Benhabib, Ian Shapiro, and Danilo Petranović (Eds.), Identities, Affiliations, and Allegiances (pp. 136-58). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ostwald, M.J. (2001). Identity Tourism, Virtuality and the Theme Park. In David Holmes (Eds.), Virtual Globalization: Virtual Spaces/Tourist Spaces (192-204). London and New York: Routledge. Patke, R. S. (2006). Postcolonial Poetry in English. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Phipps, A. (2003). Languages, Identities, Agencies: Intercultural Lessons from Harry Potter. Language and Intercultural Communication 3.1, 6-19. Robinson, A. M. (2007). Multiculturalism and the Foundations of Meaningful Life: Reconciling Autonomy, Identity, and Community. Toronto: UBC Press. Schrage-Früh, M. (2009a). “Jackie Kay.” In R. Victoria Arana (Eds.) Dictionary of Literary Biography: Twenty-First-Century "Black" British Writers (pp. 166-77). Detroit: Gale. Schrage-Früh, M. (2009b). ‘The Multiplicity of What I Am’: Black Scottishness in the Poetry of Jackie Kay. Folia Litteraria Anglica 8, 67-78. Taylor, J. (2001). “The Country at my Shoulder”: Gender and Belonging in Three Contemporary Women Poets. PhD Diss: University of Warwick, Centre for the Study of Women and Gender. December 2001. Retrieved from http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/56237/1/WRAP_thesis_Taylor_2001.pdf Thurston, M., and Alderman, N. (2014). Reading Postwar British and Irish Poetry. West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell. Wegar, K. (1997). Adoption, Identity, and Kinship, New Haven: Yale University Press. Woods, E. (2006). Multiculturalism and Identity in Canada: A Case-Study of Ukrainian-Canadians. An M. A. thesis, College of Graduate Studies and Research, Department of Political Studies, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada, 2006. This thesis is available at http://library2.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-04122006-150407/ Wright, B. (2000). Dub Poet lekka mi: An Exploration of Performance Poetry, Power and Identity Politics in Black Britain. In Kwesi Owusu (Eds.). Black British Culture and Society: A Text Reader (pp. 293-313). London and New York: Routledge.

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

Form-based Approaches vs. Task-Based Approaches

Zahra Talebi (Corresponding author) Islamic Azad University, Ahar Branch, Iran

E-mail: Zahra.talebi04@gmail.com

Nader Assadi Aidinlou Islamic Azad University, Ahar Branch, Iran

Sima Farhadi

Islamic Azad University, Ahar Branch, Iran

Received: 05-12- 2014 Accepted: 08-02- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015 Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.137 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.137 Abstract This study aimed at investigating whether task-based approaches bear any superiority to that of more traditional ones evident in presentation-practice- and production phase .to fulfill the purpose of the study, the participants within the age range of 11-19, took part in the study. Following a pretest, treatment, and a posttest, the obtained data was analyzed using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to examine the effects of the variables. The results of the analysis showed that participants in the PPP group did significantly better in the grammar recognition of the posttest than that of the task group. However, their counterparts in the task group gained better scores in the writing section of the test .this research study provided evidence in support of task proponents' claim in the merit of task-based activity in raising learners' implicit knowledge claiming to play the primary role in spontaneous speech. Keywords: Task-based language teaching, PPP model, focus on form, focus on meaning 1. Introduction The communicative approach has dominated English language teaching. It has firmly established itself in ESL-based contexts where learners have enough opportunities to put into practice the formal aspects of language under real operating conditions. However, a great deal of L2 learning occurs in EFL contexts where learners mostly have to be preoccupied with grammatical properties of language which is more evident in structural oriented approaches of which PPP is a typical example. PPP standing for presentation, practice, and production consists of the following three stages: a) presentation phase: the teacher presents a grammatical rule and illustrates its meaning. b) Practice phase: participants of the study practice items under teacher control activities, and c) production phase: learners produce the items in more communicative-based activities such as role play, stimulation and conversations (Willis and Willis, 2007). However, when involved in a meaningful activity, learners seem to be at a loss to carry over the acquired structures in their production. The shortcomings associated with such traditional form-based approaches led interactionist hypothesis advocators to contend that learners acquire a second language best when their attention is focused on meaning rather than language forms. Very soon this approach attracted a number of researchers (Krashen, 1982; Krashen & Terrel, 1983; Prabhu, 1987). However, gradually waves of criticism revealed that, meaningful communication which focuses solely on meaning processing are not adequate for learning a second language. In order to strike a balance between meaning and form and in order to get the best of two worlds, 'task' was proposed as the desired solution (see e.g., Prabhu, 1987; Skehan ,1996; Ellis, 2003; Nunan, 2004). 'Task' seems to be an appropriate candidate for engaging learners in using language pragmatically, where the primary attention is devoted to meaning and any formal acquisition that occurs during conversing with an interlocutor is incidental (Ellis , 2003). The claim put forward by TBLT advocates in the superiority of this approach over other traditional ones have rarely been touched. This study is an attempt to tackle the issue and investigate the TBLT proponents' claim in efficiency of task in delivering what their proponents promise.as Ellis suggests, the general goal of language learning, unlike what is perceived in traditional approaches, is not to make learners accumulate a pile of knowledge 'about' language but to enable them to make use of it for communication purposes. The current study attempts to (dis)confirm the claim put forward by TBLT advocates (i.e., the advantage of TBLT-oriented approaches to the other more form-based ones). The following tentative research questions have been formed for which the current study seeks to find answer.

Flourishing Creativity & Literacy

IJALEL 4(4):137-143, 2015 138 RQ1: Is there any significant difference between the performance of PPP and task-bases group members in grammar test? RQ2: Is there any significant difference between the performance of PPP and task-bases group members in writing activity? The following hypotheses are put forward for the above research questions: H1: there is not any significant difference between the performance of PPP and task-based group members in grammar test. H2: there is not any significant difference between the performance of PPP and task-based group members in writing activity.

2. Literature Review In the 1990s, researchers began to pay more attention to grammar instruction in the classroom where it has taken on various roles in second and foreign language instruction. In the style in which the classical languages (Latin & Greek) were taught, grammar teaching formed an essential part of language instruction which led to focus on forms. Focus on forms is defined as “an occasional shift of attention to linguistic code features- by the teacher and/or one or more students- triggered by perceived problems with Comprehension or production” (Long & Robinson, 1998, P.23). Within this type, there is obviously no communicative context. However a glance through the last decades of language–teaching practices in the field of second language acquisition reveals a shift of attention from purely linguistic to more communicative approaches (Brown, 2001). During the last decades some researchers attempt to abandon the grammar-accuracy tenet in favor of more communicatively-oriented approaches that focused on language use and functions, without any form of grammar instruction. According to Nassaji & Fotos (2004) traditional methods on isolated grammar forms were not sufficient to promote learners’ acquisition in second language. The communicative language Teaching (CLT) proponents advocated that second language acquisition is driven by exposure to positive Evidence and comprehensible input without any need for corrective feedback (e.g., Allwright, 1975; Krashen & Terrell, 1983; Krashen, 1985, 1994, 1998; Prabhu, 1987; Dulay & Burt, 1973; Gass, 1997).However, most of the researchers, consider positive evidence and communicative activities which focus solely on meaning processing are not adequate for learning a second language (e.g., Hatch, 1978; Long, 1983, 1996, 1997; White, 1987). Therefore, in order to keep the two opposing poles of language, i.e. form and meaning, language teaching professionals (Prabhu, 1987; Skehan, 1996; Ellis, 2003; Nunan, 2004) suggested task as the desired solution, claiming that task provides the ideal condition for L2learning and caters both for form and meaning. By provision of opportunities for learners to engage in meaningful communication, learners are believed to enhance their communicative competence, and drawing attention to specified forms employed in the course of communication increases the likelihood of their internalization by learners. 2.1 Task-oriented studies Skehan (2003), comments that "although there are still areas of disagreement within task research, there has been significant progress in developing better performance measures. The complexity-accuracy-fluency dimensions of task performance have been justified both theoretically and empirically" (p.8). Kim (2009) investigated the impact of task complexity on the occurrence of language related episodes with thirty four ESL learners in two different tasks. Two groups of learners with different level of complexity performed four tasks. Kim's findings partially confirmed Robinson's Hypothesis claiming more cognitively demanding task leads to more negotiation of meaning and language related episodes( LREs) dvocates of strong version of TBLT (see e.g. Krashen, 1982; Willis and Willis, 1998) view task as a necessary and a sufficient condition for L2 learning. To them, no explicit grammar instruction is required in stretching learners' interlanguage and task can be incorporated into the syllabus as a unit of teaching in its own right. Vilches (2003) points out that the changes in the syllabus of the university produced a positive effect on learners' proficiency compared to that of former syllabus. Interested in investigating which writing task, (a composition task, an editing task, or a text reconstruction task) generates the greatest amount of grammar attention. Storch (2001) assigned tertiary second language learners to one of the above conditions. He conceptualized focus on grammar as the frequency of LREs observed in leraners' production. Participants in the composition task were required to write a composition based on a diagram; editing task learners were presented with a text containing grammatical errors and instructed to correct them; and the third group was given a text which comprised content words, where learners were asked to provide necessary function words. His findings revealed that text reconstruction task was more successful in eliciting form focused episodes than the other form of editing task. Foster and Skehan (1999) compared the different foci of planning in two different groups. Their study revealed that, preplanning had a significant effect on learners' production based on fluency, accuracy, and complexity. Among the three groups of planners, the teacher-fronted ones had the highest score in accuracy and achieved a high score in complexity. They concluded that teachers play a facilitative role in pre-planning phase. Regarding the second point of the study, that is focus on planning, the groups did not differ from one another significantly. Mayo (2002), attempted to find out which kind of activity was most successful in eliciting focus on form in meaningful interaction. The study indicated that the editing task was the most successful one due to its nature of presentation. A number of studies with different aspects of task have been investigated. However, no study was found to specifically investigate the efficacy of TBLT and its superiority to other structurally-oriented models particularly in an EFL context. Therefore, a need is felt to investigate the claim put forward by task proponents (Prabhu, 1987; Skehan, 1996; Ellis, 2003; Littlewood, 2004; Nunan, 2004) in advantages they claim task enjoys compared with PPP model.

IJALEL 4(4):137-143, 2015 139 3. Methodology 3.1 Participants The participants of current study were thirty pre-intermediate female learners from two intact classes. The number of participants in both the control (PPP) and experimental (task-supported) group was fifteen. 3.2 Instruments Instruments used in this study were a grammar recognition test and a writing task to elicit required structure from the participants once as a pretest and as a posttest. The grammar recognition test consisted of thirty question items. The questions were taken from Top Notch textbook and workbook. After the grammar recognition test, learners were involved in a writing task as a productive activity to investigate learners' ability to engage in a meaningful activity. All the items of the grammar recognition test targeted Simple Past Tense, Simple Present Tense, Present Continuous Tense, and There is/ There are/ How much/How many structure which were the focus of treatment. Two texts were used to function as the primary source of input and as the secondary source of input for the task group and control group. Text A consisted of 250 words and 20 tokens of the target form. Text B comprised 200 words and 16 tokens of the target form. Another 120-word easy passage had 18 tokens of simple present tense to function as a dictogloss task. For instructing present continuous tense, There is/ There are/ How much/How many structure in the task group, learners received a picture sequence .pictures were chosen to meet the objectives of using target forms. Since learners were not able to see their partners 'pictures, they had to negotiate with each other and determine the difference between two pictures. 3.3 Procedure The experiment lasted for ten sessions of instruction eight of which were devoted to instruction and two, to conducting pre-test and post-tense. The experimental group received the treatment through tasks and the control group, through PPP model. Fifteen participants formed the experimental group. The presented task targeting the structure of simple past tense was an information gap activity in which each pair of learners received two texts. Before reading their texts, learners were given new words used in the texts with their equivalent L1 meaning. In other words, if learners' attention is not drawn to lexical items, they can focus on the content information. The dyads were asked to read their texts carefully and they were not allowed to see their partners'. Having finished reading their texts they had to retell descriptions to their partners. And finally, they were asked to come to a joint decision and provide their justifications. The task with a focus on simple present tense was in the form of a dictogloss. In a dictogloss, a short passage is devised in which a structure has been focused on. The students listen to get a general idea of the text and then they jot down key words. Each dyad was asked to produce a single reconstructed text. It was a passage about an individual's daily activity with few unknown words. Learners were presented the present continuous tense structure through two pictures. Each one depicted different daily activities. Each dyad was given the two pictures. They were not allowed to see the other dyad's picture. Participants were asked to negotiate and not down the differences which they specified between the pictures. The last structural point was similar to present continuous tense task. The input was presented in the form of illustrations and each pair held a different picture in each dyad. The procedure was like that of the previous task. The PPP model group received the same linguistic structures. While the task group engaged in task-based activities, the learners in the control group followed the PPP treatment. The target structure was introduced and learners practiced them in different exercises such as fill- in-the-gaps, multiple choice tests and drills, and finally produced them in activities such as role play. 4. Results To establish whether the levels of homogeneity of learners between two groups in the grammar section and writing of the pretest, the analysis of covariance(ANCOVA)formula was performed before the study. Table 4.1 shows the results.

Table 4.1 Tests of Between-Subjects Effects Source Type III Sum of

Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Corrected Model 365.417a 2 182.708 8.845 .001 Intercept 720.300 1 720.300 34.869 .000 group2 225.333 1 225.333 10.908 .002 group 140.083 1 140.083 6.781 .012 Error 929.583 45 20.657 Total 18170.000 48 Corrected Total 1295.000 47 a. R Squared = .282 (Adjusted R Squared = .250)

Table 4.2 Tests of Between-Subjects Effects

IJALEL 4(4):137-143, 2015 140

Source Type III Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Corrected Model 66.042a 2 33.021 23.060 .000 Intercept 13.333 1 13.333 9.311 .004 group2 46.021 1 46.021 32.139 .000 group1 20.021 1 20.021 13.982 .001 Error 64.438 45 1.432 Total 1148.000 48 Corrected Total 130.479 47 a. R Squared = .506 (Adjusted R Squared = .484)

According to table 4.1, the rate of significance in the grammar section of pretest is .012. and according to table 4.2, the rate of significance in the writing section of pretest is001 .Since the rate of significance in both groups is greater than 0.05, it would be concluded that two groups were homogenous in the pretest. As mentioned before, all of the learners were chosen with the same level of proficiency. Therefore, the results of the test showed that there were not significant differences among the groups in both pretests. In order to determine which group (control or experimental) did better in the posttest, as table 4.3 illustrates, the mean pre-test writing score of the control group is 4 and the post-test mean is 5.54. This means that the participants did better in the post-test than in the pre-test. To see whether this difference is significant or not, a matched T-test was used.

Table 4.3 Paired Samples Statistics Mean N Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean Pair 1 prewriting 4.000 24 1.59 0.454

post writing 5.542 24 1.1172 .0.322 Table 4.4 shows the effect of instruction presented through PPP-oriented activity in the control group.as the table indicates, the sig= 0.01. It can be inferred that there is a meaningful difference between the pre-posttest writing tasks in the control group. Table 4.4 paired sample statistics

Paired Differences

t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean

Std. Deviation

Std. Error Mean

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference Lower Upper

Pair 1 prewritting - postwritting

-1.5417 1.711 0.496 -2.378 -0.454 -2.860 11 0.010

According to table 4.5, the participants' mean pre-test grammar score of the control group is 17.58and the post-test mean is 18.25. This means that the participants did better in the post-test than in the pre-test. To see whether this difference is significant or not, a matched T-test was used.

Table 4.5 Paired Samples Statistics

Mean N Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean Pair 1 Pre grammar 17.58 24 4.44 1.25638

post grammar 18.25 24 3.27 .66434 The result of the analysis indicates that the difference was indeed significant.

Table 4.6 Paired Samples Test

Paired Differences

t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean

Std. Deviation

Std. Error Mean

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference

Lower Upper Pair 1 pregramm -

postgram -0.066 5.821 1.68 -4.36 3.032 -0.39 11 0.000

IJALEL 4(4):137-143, 2015 141 As table 4.7 illustrates, the mean pre-test writing score of the experimental group is 3.40 and the post-test mean is 4.50. This means that the participants did better in the post-test than in the pre-test. To see whether this difference is significant or not, a matched T-test was used.

Table 4.7 Paired Samples Statistics

Mean N Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean

Pair 1 prewr 3.40 24 1.59 0.454

postwr 4.50 24 1.1172 .0.322

To see whether this difference is significant or not, a matched T-test was used.as table 4.8 shows, there is a meaningful difference at 0.05 significance level.

Table 4.8 Paired Samples Test

Paired Differences

t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean

Std. Deviation

Std. Error Mean

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference

Lower Upper

Pair 1 prewr - postwr

-1.5417 1.711 0.496 -2.378 -0.454 -2.860 11 0.030

As table 4.9 illustrates, the mean pre-test grammar score of the experimental group is greater than that of the pre-test. To see whether this difference is significant or not, a matched T-test was used.

Table 4.9 Paired Samples Statistics

Mean N Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean

Pair 1 pregramm 15.58 24 4.44 1.25638

postgram 19.25 24 3.27 0.66434

According to table 4.10, the amount of significance is 0.66 which indicate that although participants in the experimental group did better in the grammar section of the post-test compared to their pre-test performance , this difference is not significant.

Table 4.10 Paired Samples Test

Paired Differences

t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean

Std. Deviation

Std. Error Mean

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference

Lower Upper

Pair 1 pregramm - postgram

-0.066

5.821 1.68 -4.36 3.032 -0.39 11 0.669

5. Discussion & Conclusion The results of the findings of the present paper indicated that in an EFL setting, task-based approaches was effective. That is, learners in experimental group performed better than those who were in the control group. These results seem to support the conclusions from several previous studies in the EFL context (Ellis, 2000; Kim, 2009; Willis, 1998; Vilches, 2003;Storch, 2001; Mayo, 2002 ;Skehan, 1996; Ellis, 2003; Littlewood;2004; Nunan, 2004) to name a few, proposing that task has a significant effect on learners' performance. The current study aimed to examine whether task-based activities bear any superiority to other structurally oriented approaches. Another more specific question was that if task-oriented activities are proved to be more efficient in developing learners' interlanguage, what areas of language are more likely to benefit more from this approach: a

IJALEL 4(4):137-143, 2015 142 productive written activity or a grammar recognition test? The results of the study show that task group demonstrated development in their writing task. However, the results of the grammar section is somewhat ironic in the task group. Tis does not fully correspond with initial researchers' presupposition who assumed that grammar instruction through task-based activities can help learners internalize structural points more efficiently. Plausible explanation for this performance may be attributed to the nature of the posttest questions; while the instructional activities during the sessions in the task group catered to lead to implicit learning, the test called for the explicit knowledge of the learners in the control group. Moreover, most of the activities in the control group were explicit in nature and targeted participants' explicit rather than implicit learning. What this study implies is the fact that where developing explicit is the paramount concern of the learners, the reliance can be toward the PPP model and when learners need to form a good command of implicit knowledge which enables them to function efficiently in meaning-driven context, TBLT can be of immense help. Fuente (2006) investigated the efficacy of task-based approaches compared to PPP model. Although the immediate post-test did not reveal any significant difference between the groups, participants in the task group outperformed in the delayed post-test. In the current study, the results are not in line with those of Fuente at least where structure was not concerned; the participants' performance in the writing task of the test in the PPP group was not to differ from that of task-based group in any significant way. In the grammar section of the test the results reveal the superiority of task based performance compared to that of control group. Vilches (2003) points out that replacing class activities with task-based activities had a significant effect on the learners' language proficiency. Learners were shown to have improved significantly in their productive skills of writing and speaking. The results of the writing section of the task group are in oppose with his observations. 5.1 Implication The current study suggest that language teachers and syllabus designers can make use of task as a unit of activity which caters for fluency and implicit learning. Therefore, It should draw learners' primary attention to meaning and only peripherally to form. In pursuing this goal task-related activities should be introduces before form instruction. Once learners worked hard to communicate meaning, practiced language in a meaningful context, and realized the existing gap in what they wanted to say and the way they should say it, they would be ready to receive those forms in a more explicit manner. References Allwright, D. (1975). Problems in the study of the language teachers’ treatment of learner error. In M. Burt & H.Dulay (Eds.). New directions in second language learning, teaching, and bilingual education: TESOL 75 (pp. 96-109). Washington, DC: TESOL. Brown, H. D. (2001). Teaching by principles. New York: Pearson Education Company. Dulay, H. & Burt, M. (1973). Should we teach children syntax? Language Learning, 24, 245-258. Ellis, R. (2001). Investigating form- focused instruction. Language learning, 51(1), 1-46. Ellis, R. (2003). Task-based language learning and teaching. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2003). Ellis, R. (2006). Current issues in the teaching of grammar: An SLA perspective. TESOL Quarterly, 40(1), 83-107. Foster, P., & Skehan, P. (1999). The influence of source of planning and focus of planning on task-based performance. Language Teaching Research, 3, 215-247. Fuente, M. J. (2006). Classroom L2 vocabulary acquisition: investigating the role of pedagogical tasks and form-focused instruction. Language Teaching Research, 10 (3), 263-295. Retrieved March 10, 2007 from http://lrc.cornell.edu/events/past/2006-2007/fuentes.pdf. Gass, S., (1997). Input, interaction and the second language learner. Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ. Hatch, E. (1978). Second Language Acquisition. Rowley, Mass: Newbury House. Kim,Y. (2004). The effects of task complexity on learner-learner interaction. System, 37(2), 254-268. Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon. Krashen, S. (1985). The input hypothesis: issues and implications. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Krashen, S. & Terrell,T. (1983). The natural approach: Language Acquisition in the Classroom.Oxford: Pergamon. Krashen, S. (1998). Comprehensible output? System, 26, 175-182. Krashen, S. (1994). The input hypothesis and its rivals. In N. Ellis (Ed.), Implicit and Explicit Learning of Language. London: Academic Press. Littlewood, w. (2004). The task based approach: some questions and suggestions. ELT journal, 58(4). Littlewood, W. (2007) Communicative and task-based language teaching in East Asian classrooms. Language Teaching, 40, 243249.

IJALEL 4(4):137-143, 2015 143 Long, M., (1983). Native speaker/ non-native speaker conversation and the negotiation of comprehensible input. Applied Linguistics, 4, 126-141. Long, M. (1991). “Focus on Form: A design feature in language teaching Methodology”. In Ginsberg, K. & Kramsch, C. (Eds), Foreign Language Research in Cross-Cultural Perspective (pp.39-52). Long, M. (1996). “The role of the linguistic environment in second language acquisition”. Handbook of second language acquisition. San Diego: Academic Press. Long, M. (1997). Construct validity in SLA research: a response to Firth and Wagner. Modern Language Journal, 81, 318-323. Long, M., & Robinson, P. (1998). Focus on form: theory, research, process. In C. Doughty & J. Williams (Eds.): Focus on form in Classroom Second Language Acquisition. (pp.15-41). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mayo, G. (2002). The effectiveness of two form focused tasks in advanced EFL pedagogy, International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 12(1), 156-175. Nassaji, H., & Fotos, S. (2004). Current developments in research on the teaching of grammar. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24, 126-145. Nunan, D. (2004). Task based language teaching. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2004). Pica, T. (1994). Questions from the language classroom: research perspective. TESOL Quarterly, 28, 49-79. Prabhu, N.S. (1987). Second Language Pedagogy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Skehan, P. (1998). A cognitive approach to language learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Storch, N. (2001). An investigation into the nature of pair work in an ESL classroom and its effect on grammatical development Unpublished doctoral dissertation: the University of Melbourne. Vilches, C. L. M. (2003). Task based language teaching: The case of EN 10. RELC, 34 (1), 82-99. White, L. (1987). Against comprehensible input: the input Willis, D. & Willis, J. (2007) .Doing Task-based Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press Willis, J. (1996). A Framework for Task-based Learning. Harlow: Longman. Willis, J. (1998). A Framework for Task-Based Learning. Longman: de Henseler Books.

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

The Impacts of Task-based Teaching on Grammar Learning by Iranian First Grade High School Students

Seyyed Morteza Tale Chabahar University, Iran

E-mail: hojjat_tale@yahoo.com

Ahmad Goodarzi (Corresponding author) Arak University, Iran

E-mail: ahmad.goodarzi1234@gmail.com

Received: 07-12- 2014 Accepted: 08-02- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015 Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.144 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.144 Abstract During last decades, new methods and approaches were put forward to resolve teaching grammar problem. Among them, Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT), focusing on learner’s involvement in tasks, tried to prepare efficient learners for successful handling of real-world performance and communication. The present study aims at investigating the impact of Task-Based Instruction (TBI) on grammar learning of elementary EFL Learners and their motivation after implementing TBI. In so doing, 74 Elementary EFL learners were selected randomly and whose proficiency level and grammar homogeneity were established via administering a Nelson grammar proficiency test and Michigan grammar test, respectively. Then, the treatment group enjoyed TBI by implementing different tasks for about fifteen 35-minute sessions. The control group benefited the same amount of grammar instruction, but not through the TBI. At the end, students of both groups were given the Michigan grammar-oriented post-test to gauge the effect of TBLT on improving the grammar proficiency of the learners. The data were analyzed through statistical techniques of t-test. The results revealed that TBI had a significant impact on promoting the grammar proficiency of Iranian elementary EFL learners. Moreover, by analyzing the mean of experimental group, it is understood that the level of motivation was high. The study concluded that TBI instruction on grammar could be used effectively for Iranian language learners especially for the improvement of their motivation. Keywords: Task-Based Instruction, Motivation, Grammar, Task, Communicative Approach 1. Introduction Linse (2005) states that language learning, mainly, covers four areas of speaking, listening, writing, and reading and there is a clear relationship between all these skills. Newby (2003) believes that, ''grammar is a subsystem in a network of other linguistic sub-systems and sub-skills''. Grammar is an essential component in language teaching and learning. It is also one of the most difficult aspects of language teaching. Throughout history of language teaching, several different approaches to foreign language learning and teaching have been introduced. Consequently, grammar is undergoing changes by different methods. For example, it was the central aspect of learning in the Grammar Translation Method, while the Direct Method and Natural Approach viewed grammar in a marginalized way (Brown, 2007). Lock (1997) mentioned some of the dichotomies that considered when working with grammatical structure instruction, which are form vs. meaning, form vs. function, meaning-based instruction vs. form-based instruction, fluency vs. accuracy, and the most emphasized one: grammar vs. communication. Teaching language communicatively was first affected by with a notional functional view of language by linguists, and then, the meaning, function, and communication would be encompassed within the study of grammar and linguists should concentrate on the language use rather than on its grammatical rules itself. Consequently, meaning-based approaches appeared and Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) was generated from these communicative approaches. In TBLT, a task is the main focus of instruction as it engages the learners in fulfilling the meaning-focused activities (Eliss, 2003). Therefore, the aim of the study was to investigate the impact of the task-based instruction on promoting grammar mastery. Another goal of the research was to examine the motivation of the EFL students in learning grammar structures and to find whether TBLT has any impact on the motivation of the leaners or not. 2. Literature Review 2.1 Grammar Brown (2001) defined grammar as “The system of rules governing the conventional arrangement and relationship of words in a sentence…Technically grammar refers to sentence-level rules only, and not rules governing the relationship among sentences, which it refers to as discourse rules” (p. 362).

Flourishing Creativity & Literacy

IJALEL 4(4):144-153, 2015 145 In the eighth edition of Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2010), grammar is defined as “study or science of, rules for, the words into sentences (syntax), and the forms of words (morphology)”. The first edition of Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2009) has defined grammar as “the study of use of the rules by which words change their forms and are combined into sentences”. Grammar has been taught in universities and colleges majoring English language for years. Chang (2011) stated that ensuring the accuracy of the sentences mainly is highly reliant on the learner’s grammar proficiency. Due to the fore-mentioned facts, implementing grammar instruction productively and efficiently is a consequential task for language researchers and teachers. The modern way of teaching grammar in schools is still presented by the traditional teaching methods, which resembles GTM and ALM. In this model, language forms are introduced by the instructor, then elaborated in the speaking or writing activities, and then implemented by the learners in less controlled spoken or written activities (Chang, 2011). Of course the traditional grammar teaching method gives the learners the opportunity to extend mastery of the grammatical structures, but the learners cannot use these structures properly in conversation. This could be said that the GTM and ALM has the disadvantage which keeps the students away from raising their communicative competence, due to the fact that the traditional grammar teaching is teacher-centered. In these classes, teachers explain English grammatical structures and all the students pay a direct attention to them. So, communicative competence is ignored to some extent. The use of the English language is little. The main exercise is to translate texts from English into Native Language or vice versa, to fill in the blank and to judging erroneous sentences. So the students face no communicative tasks. In GTM and ALM, memorizing and rote-learning are the main ways, which cannot increase students’ favors and develop their learning strategies and, of course, forces them to be afraid of grammatical structure learning. Another grammar instruction method is the Communicative Approach. The Communicative Approach makes language teaching as in real-world context. Chang (2011) hold that grammar learning occurs via communication through learners’ attendance or cooperation of teaching tasks between or among learners and teachers, and then grammatical structures can be learned naturally by learners. 2.2 Task based language teaching During the last two decades, task based language teaching (TBLT) received a lot of attention of second language acquisition (SLA) researchers, teachers, curriculum developers, and teacher trainers (Branden, 2006). The SLA researchers and language instructors made a term, in response to rule-based SL classroom activities (Long & Norris, 2000). Long (1985) and Prabhu (1987)supported a framework in which learners experience functional tasks that let them concentrate on meaningful tasks and language use (Branden, 2006).In the TB instruction, the aim is to make a requirement to learn and use language. The tasks will create their own language and produce a chance for learning language explicitly. Willis and Willis (2007) have created a task-based framework. This task-based framework creating a connection between the language tasks and pedagogic unit includes three sections and some sub-parts (Willis, D., & Willis, J., 2007).According to this framework, instructors do not explicitly make the structures to be taught and the vocabulary to be covered in a unit, but they use tasks to achieve some ends, according to the students’ needs and favors. Besides, it might go beyond the traditional method of setting language instruction introduced by Skehan (1998) as the 3 Ps, Presentation, Practice and Production (Eliss, 2003). There are some advantages to this framework. This framework moves beyond the concept of assessment in a traditional view. TBLT framework can help teachers and students have opportunities for communication. This approach has to be amalgamated with the three following factors, language awareness, the intercultural competence, and the content-based approach. 2.2.1 Grammar in Task-Based Approach One approach to language teaching that has received much attention over the last years is task-based approach. In task-based instruction, the focal point of classroom activities is on tasks, and secondly on meaning. Jane Willis’s model of TBI (1996) is one of the best in which Learners start by doing a communicative task, with no focus on form. After doing the task and completed them, they elaborate how they did it. The advantage of the task-based approach is that during the task the students are permitted to put to use whatever language they wish, letting them to concentrate, completely, on the meaning of their utterances. This makes a similar real communicative situation (Richards & Rodgers, 2001). One of the disadvantages of TBLT is that the Learners become fluent, but their speeches are not often uttered correctly. However, they use strategies to fulfill the tasks quite rapidly and develop a shortcut in their language use and form. 2.3 Motivation With regard to the rising interest in motivation in SLA, Ushioda (2009) stated that: “Primarily, SLA researchers have been interested in motivation because it seems to play such an important role in whether learners learn or not, how much effort they put into learning, how long they persist at learning, and how successfully they learn a language” (p. 218). Motivation is very important in educating a child, hence teachers and students should be motivated enough to teach and to learn well. Children are naturally curious and eager to learn new things. As children become older, their motivation fades. At this point parents and teachers must find ways to keep students involved in the learning process. Motivation is psychological matter that awakens an individual to behave towards a desired end and extracts, manages, and keeps up certain end directed actions. It can be viewed a driving power; a psychological one that forces or fortifies a behavior toward a desired end. (Schacter, 2011, p. 325).Motivation has roots in physiological, behavioral, cognitive, and social areas (Schacter, 2011).To put it shortly, motivation could be viewed as the aim for, or a psychological reason of an action (Today, 2013).

IJALEL 4(4):144-153, 2015 146 2. 3.1 Motivation in Education Motivation is an interesting issue for educationalist because of the vital part it has in learner’s educational achievements. However, the motivation studied in pedagogy is different from the general aspects of motivation. Motivation in pedagogy has some impacts on how learners acquire and how they handle subject matter. It can:

1. Control behavior toward specific ends 2. guide to extended exertion and energy 3. escalate beginning of, and permanence in, tasks 4. improve cognitive processes 5. settle what results would be 6. guide to the extendedachievement (Vallerand, Pelletier, Blais, Brière, Senécal ,1992).

2.4 Previous Studies Bugler & Hunt (2002) conducted a research at a Japanese university with nearly 340 first year students attending in a speaking class to investigate how tasks could be implemented as a foundation of teaching. The participants were needed to work in two-four person groups and to pick out a topic they favoured. Then, the groups made a questionnaire to analyse the viewpoints of a peculiar target group about the selected theme. The findings revealed that the experiencing TBI was pleasant, intrinsically interesting, and educationally helpful for the learners who attended in the task-based classes; therefore, the final product was highly qualified. The results of the study also proved that working collaboratively on tasks provide learners with a chance to act beyond the abilities of any student, which resulted in helpful educational gains besides motivating learners to resume doing the tasks. Using task-based materials in the language classroom exposed EFL/ESL learners to the real-life use from the starting point of language research. The materials reflected a naturalness of rules (Rogers & Medley, 1988). Based on the results of the study, the grammar learning in EFL/ESL leaners showed to develop through exposure to TB incoming data. Another study was conducted by Lopez(2004) to use TBI to teach English in two classes in a school in Brazil instead of presentation-practice-production (PPP). He found that because in TBI students were manipulating the language to reach information, solve problems, and to state life experiences, they learned English more effectively. Moreover, they could handle real-life situations when they faced them outside the classroom because they enjoyed authentic materials that involved the learners in the real-like tasks. The findings of Lopez's study affirmed the principle of the sociocultural perspective that stated social interaction facilitates learning through the process of scaffolding. Providing learners with authentic material also affected their performance in fulfilling the tasks and consequently the real-world situation. Fotos and Ellis (1991) revealed that the choosing of "task-based language teaching" to communicate about grammar is helpful to both learning and communication. They also revealed that teaching grammar communicatively with TBI helped Japanese EFL students improved their understanding of difficult grammatical forms. In a semi-experimental research with the title of the effect of Task-based method on learning of There is/ there are in English, Mohammadi (2006) investigated the effect of TBI on elementary students in Isfahan. Findings showed that TBI had a significant effect on students. The traditional approach does not have a significant effect on students’ learning and did not guarantee the success of students (Mohammadi, 2006). 3. Method and Design of the Study The present study had a quasi-experimental intact design in which data were collected to examine the effect of two different tasks on grammar proficiency. 3.1 The Question of the Study The two following research questions were addressed:

1. Is Task-based instruction significantly more effective than traditional grammar instruction on the grammatical proficiency of first grade high school students?

2. Does task based instruction have any significant impact on the motivation of the first grade high school students in improving their grammatical proficiency?

3.2 Hypotheses 1. Task-based instruction is significantly more effective than traditional grammar instruction on the grammatical proficiency of first grade high school students? 2. Task based instruction has some significant impact on the motivation of the first grade high school students in improving their grammatical proficiency 3.3 Subjects This is study was done in 2 high schools in Chabahar, Iran. The number of students was 35 in control group and 39 in the experimental group. All of the students were male and their first language was Persian or Baluchi. 3.4 Instrumentation The study employed two different instruments: instructional and testing materials. Here the researchers present an overview of the utilized instruments.

IJALEL 4(4):144-153, 2015 147 In this study, two pre-tests were administered: the Nelson test (050 A) ensuring the participants' level of English command as elementary EFL learners and and Cambridge Michigan Grammar Test to ensure their grammar proficiency as elementary-level EFL learners. Then a questionnaire was given to learners to investigate their motivation. A motivation questionnaire was administered at the beginning as well as the end of the experimental. It was developed to elicit relevant information on the participants' level of educational motivation. The questionnaire was given before instruction to find the level of their motivation. The course book used for instruction in both groups was 1st grade high school English book which has 6 lessons. It was taught as the Instructional material. Besides this course book, for the purposes of this study,different worksheet and games and task activities were used. The source for the task activities was the fresh ideas of the authors of interchange series Richards (2013), Littlejohn & Hicks (1997) and Oxenden, & Latham-koeni (2008). The same pre-test of grammar proficiency, namely Michigan grammar test that was administered prior to the treatment to ensure the comparability of the two groups' grammar proficiency with regard to the grammatical points included in their text book at the beginning of the study, was applied as the post-test at the end of the instruction to determine the possible progress in the grammar proficiency of the participants. 3.5 Procedures The study was conducted in two high schools for male students in Chabahar, Iran. There were 2 groups of subjects in this study. In experimental group the number of subjects was 39 and in control group the number of subjects was 35. They were divided into an experimental group and a control group. Before starting this study, a pretest and a proficiency test were administered to both groups to find the homogeneity of the groups. The control groups received traditional instruction of grammar by another teacher. In traditional instruction the teacher first states the rules in the students’ mother tongue then some exercises are provided for the students in order to practice the rules afterwards. Students were also required to do the exercises of the book related to each particular structure. The experimental groups received task based instruction through all sessions; the researchers first introduced the tasks to the learners. The whole process lasted about 5 months and classes were held once a week. Conducting these tasks took 35 to 45 minutes per session. At the end, all of the groups received the post-test to assess the effects of task based grammar instruction in comparison to traditional ways of teaching grammar. At the beginning and the end of the study, students filled out a questionnaire to measure of their motivation toward learning English. The effect of the TBLT on learners` motivation was to be investigated. The 1st grade English book of high school was taught to both groups. They were at elementary level. At the beginning of the study, two pre-tests to ensure the English language knowledge as well as the grammar proficiency of the subjects were applied. After administering the pre-tests, the researchers started conducting the treatment and at the end of the experiment the post-tests were administered in order to find answers to the research questions. 4. Data Analysis 4.1 Performance of the Participants on the General Proficiency test The control and treatment group of learners’ language proficiency were compared to ensure their comparability in providing answer for the questions of the study. All the participants were given the Nelson grammar proficiency test to make sure that they were all homogenous and elementary EFL learners. The estimated language proficiency mean of treatment group was 34.51 and that of control group was 34.00. 4.2 Performance of the Learners on the Motivation Pre-test The participants of the treatment and control groups were decided as elementary EFL learner, and then the researchers compared the motivation of participants to ensure their comparability in providing answer for the second question of the study. As Tables 1 shows the mean and standard deviation for the control participants came to 2.8 and 1.2, respectively and the evaluated mean and standard deviation for the treatment participants came to 2.4 and 1.3, respectively. An independent-samples t-test that was run to measure the difference in the control and treatments' mean scores showed that there was no significant difference between them in terms of their motivation (Sig.=0.94>0.05). Table 1. Results of motivation in both treatment and control group

TBI N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean

Pre-test TREATMENT 39 2.4769 1.34326 .21509

CONTROL 35 2.8295 1.27632 .21574

4.2.1 Performance of the treatment and control on the Post-test The first question of study states that ‘Is Task-based instruction more effective than traditional grammar instruction on the learning of the grammatical structures by first grade high school students?’ The first null hypothesis of thesis states that ‘There is no significant difference between traditional grammar instruction and Task-based instruction on first grade high school students.’

IJALEL 4(4):144-153, 2015 148 To answer the first question of the study, the instructors ran a paired- sample t-test and independent sample test. The results of post-test were analysed to investigate any effect of TBI on the grammar proficiency of the learners more precisely. Tables 2 and 3 display the post-test results for the treatment and control groups. The estimated grammar proficiency development mean and standard deviation (Table 2) of the participants in the treatment group amounted to be 25.95 out of 30, and 2.9 respectively, and the estimated grammar proficiency achievement mean score and standard deviation of the participants in the control group amounted to be 14.12 and 1.8 respectively. An inspection of the mean scores showed that there was a considerable difference between the treatment group and the control group in terms of overall grammar proficiency development. Moreover, the independent-samples t-test analysis showed that this difference was statistically significant (p= 0.000). Therefore, the first null hypothesis is rejected (Table 3). Table 2. Performance of the Participants on the Michigan Post-test

TBI N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean

TREATMENT treatment group 39 25.95 2.955 .473

control group 35 14.12 1.822 .312

Note. No. of Cases = 74, mean for treatment and control=25.9, 14.1 Table 2 displays the number of participants, mean value, standard deviation, and standard error of means, in both treatment and control groups.

Table 3. Independent Samples t-test Performance of the Participants on the Michigan Post-test

Levene's Test for Equality of Variances t-test for Equality of Means

F Sig. T df Sig. (2-tailed)

Mean Differe

nce

Std. Error

Difference

95% Confidence Interval of the

Difference Lower Upper

TREATMENT

Equal variances assumed

18.843 .000 20.222 71 .000 11.831 .585 10.665 12.998

Equal variances not assumed

20.863 64.283 .000 11.831 .567 10.698 12.964

Note. DF= degree of freedom; F=18.8; sig. =.000 The independent-samples t-test for the performance of treatment and control groups on the pre-test is shown in table (3). Considering what is indicated in the table, we can find out the following results: Sig. = p-value = 0. 000 < 0.05 = ą 4.2.2 Performance of the Treatment Group on the Pre- and Post-test In order to find out to what extent the TBI has succeeded in promoting the grammar proficiency of the learners, the pre- and post-tests of each treatment and control groups were compared via paired-samples t-tests. The comparison of the pre- and post-tests of the treatment group revealed a remarkable achievement in the grammar proficiency mean scores (Table 4) of the participants. The pre-test and post-test mean values of 7.79 and 26.03 as well as a significant level of p= 0.045 shows a great development in the grammar proficiency of the treatment participants (Table 4).

Table 4. Results of the Treatment Group on the Michigan Pre- and Post-test

Mean N Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean

Pair 1 POSTTEST 26.03 39 2.954 .479

PRETEST 7.79 39 1.989 .323

Note. No. of Cases = 38, mean for post and pre-test=2.9, 1.9 Table 4 displays the number of participants, mean value, standard deviation, and standard error of means, in both treatment and control groups. The figure 1 indicates the Results of the Treatment Group on the Michigan Pre- and Post-test more tangibly.

IJALEL 4(4):144-153, 2015 149 Table 5. Results Paired Samples test of the Treatment Group on the Michigan Pre- and Post-test

Paired Differences

T Df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean

Std. Deviation

Std. Error Mean

95% Confidence Interval of the

Difference Lower Upper

Pair 1

POSTTEST - PRETEST

18.237 2.972 .482 17.260 19.214 37.823 37 .000

Note. DF= degree of freedom; DF=37; sig. =.000 The paired samples statistics of the treatment group is shown in table (5). As indicated in this table, the mean scores of the subjects on the pre-test and post-test were 7 and 18.23 respectively. The paired-samples t-test for the performance of treatment groups on the post-test is shown in table (5). Considering what is indicated in the table, we can find out the following results: Sig. = p-value = 0. 045< 0.05 = ą 4.2.3 Performance of the control Group on the Pre- and Post-test Although the comparison of the pre- and post-tests of the control group indicated achievement in grammar proficiency mean scores of the participants (Table 6), it was not a significant development. The pre-test and post-test mean values of 6.88 and 14.12 shows development in the participants' grammar ability but the level of p= 0.893 obtained through paired samples t-test indicates no statistical difference in the grammar proficiency of the control participants.

Table 6. Results of the Control Group on the Michigan Pre- and Post-test Note. No. of Cases = 34, mean for post and pre-test=2.9, 1.9 The paired samples statistics of this control group is shown in table (6). As indicated in this table, the mean scores of the subjects on the pre-test and post-test were 6.8 and 14.12 respectively.

Table 7. Results of Paired Samples t-test of the control Group on the Michigan Pre- and Post-test

Paired Differences

T df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean

Std. Deviation

Std. Error Mean

95% Confidence Interval of the

Difference Lower Upper

Pair 1

POSTTEST – PRETEST

7.235 2.475 .424 6.372 8.099 17.047 33 .000

Note. DF= degree of freedom; DF=33; sig. =.893 The paired-samples t-test for the performance of control groups on the post-test is shown in table (7). Considering what is indicated in the table, we can find out the following results: Sig. = p-value = 0. 893 > 0.05 = ą. In an attempt to accept or reject the first null hypothesis, the hypothesis that which stated that TBI had no significant effect on the grammar proficiency of Iranian elementary EFL learners, the researchers presented all the above obtained data via tables. The results rejected this hypothesis through the systematic analyses of the pre- and post-tests. 4.3 Performance of the Participants on the motivation Post-test Research question two of the study examined the impact of TBI on motivation of the first grade high school students in improving their grammatical proficiency. To test the second null hypotheses of the study that predicted no significant effect of TBI on motivation of learners a sequence of pared sample – test and independent samples t-tests were conducted to compare the average scores of the experimental groups on the posttest. The second research question of this study dealt with investigating the motivation level of learners after TBI instruction. It was hypothesized that task based instruction had no significant impact on the motivation of the learners in improving their grammatical proficiency. As mentioned in the analysis of research question one, task based method of teaching applied in the study was effective in promoting the grammatical proficiency of the learners. However, the following analyses were employed to answer the second research question. Paired sample and independent t-test were conducted to compare the mean scores of motivation groups. It revealed a significant difference in the mean scores of motivation. These findings indicated that TBI method used in this study had a significant effect on promoting the motivation of the Iranian elementary EFL learners. Therefore, the second null hypothesis is rejected at p-value less than 0.05.

Mean N Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean Pair 1 POSTTEST 14.12 35 1.822 .312

PRETEST 6.88 35 1.719 .295

IJALEL 4(4):144-153, 2015 150 Table 7 displays the number of participants, mean value, standard deviation, and standard error of means, in both treatment and control groups. The figure (1) indicates the Results of the Performance of the Participants on the motivation Post-test more tangibly.

Figure 1. Results of the Performance of the Participants on the motivation Post-test

Table 8. Results Paired Samples test of the treatment Group on the Motivation Pre- and Post-test

Mean N Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean

Pair 1 Pre-test 2.4769 39 1.34326 .21509

Post-test 5.3496 39 1.16322 .18627

Note. DF= degree of freedom; DF=37; sig. =.000 Table 8 displays the number of participants, mean value, standard deviation, and standard error of means, in both experimental and control groups.

Table 9. Results Paired Samples test of the treatment Group on the Motivation Pre- and Post-test

N Correlation Sig.

Pair 1 Pre-test & post test 39 -.328 .042

The paired-samples t-test for the performance of treatment groups on the post-test is shown in table (9). Considering what is indicated in the table, we can find out the following results: Sig. = p-value = 0. 042 < 0.05 = ą

Table 10. Independent-samples t-test results for the motivation post-test of the treatment and control groups

Levene's Test for Equality of Variances t-test for Equality of Means

F Sig. t df Sig. (2-tailed)

Mean Differen

ce

Std. Error

Difference

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference

Lower Upper Motivation posttest

Equal variances assumed

26.944 .000 6.672 72 .000 1.32481 .19857 .92896 1.72066

Equal variances not assumed

7.032 39.749 .000 1.32481 .18840 .94397 1.70566

Note. DF= degree of freedom; DF=72; sig. =.000 The independent-samples t-test for the performance of treatment and control groups on the post-test is shown in table (10). Considering what is indicated in the table, we can find out the following results: Sig. = p-value = 0. 000> 0.05 = ą. 5. Discussions As was stated previously, this study examined whether applying TBI to Iranian elementary EFL learners had any effect on improving their grammar proficiency or not. Moreover, it also compared the effects of TBI on the motivation of control and treatment group. In what follows the findings of the study for the investigated research questions are discussed.

IJALEL 4(4):144-153, 2015 151 5.1 Research Question 1 Returning to the research questions, one aim of this study was to answer the following question: 1- Is Task-based instruction significantly more effective than traditional grammar instruction on the grammar proficiency of the Iranian first grade high school students? After examining the homogeneity of the experimental and control groups before treatment through administration of the Nelson language proficiency test, a standardized grammar test was administered as the pretests to both experimental and control groups to ensure the homogeneity of their knowledge of grammatical structures. After the treatment both groups were administered a posttest the same as pretest. To examine the impact of TBI on high school learners' grammatical proficiency, a couple of paired samples t-tests were used. The comparison of the pre- and post-tests displayed a considerable improvement in the grammatical proficiency mean scores of the participants. The participants of experimental group significantly improved their knowledge of the target structures from the mean score of 7.77 on the pretest to 26 on the posttest .P value was lower than 0.05, so the null hypothesis for the first research question is rejected. Considering this research question, it is possible to claim that TBI do have significant effect on learners’ grammatical knowledge and proficiency. It is now possible to state that the mean score results of the grammar exam, which were administered after implementing TBI, indicated that the treatment group participants (p< 0.05) performed significantly better than those in the control group. Therefore, TBI has significantly affected the grammar proficiency of the elementary EFL learners. The data generated in this study also suggest that implementing task based instruction at the elementary level of English language can help EFL learners improve their grammar performance. Although both the experimental and the control groups in received same length of time instruction, the experimental groups in revealed higher improvement and their mastery of the grammar structures was gained from performance of task activities. Therefore, one can argue that TBI causes such a progress. 5.2 Research Question 2 The second question that was examined in this study was: Does task based instruction have any significant impact on the motivation of the learners in improving their grammatical proficiency? After implementing TBI on elementary EFL learners, the researchers administered a motivation questionnaire to answer of the second question. Based on the results of this test, there is a significant impact on motivation of EFL learners after implementing TBI. The participants of experimental group significantly improved their motivation from the mean score of 2.4 on the pretest to 5.4 on the posttest .P value was lower than 0.05, so the null hypothesis for the first research question is rejected. Considering this research question, it is possible to claim that TBI do have significant effect on learners’ academic motivation. These findings rejected the second null hypothesis that claimed task based instruction did not have any significant effect on the motivation of the students in improving their grammatical proficiency. Many motivation theories believed that there is a positive relationship between educational motivation and educational performance, such as Gottfried (1990), Berndt & Miller (1990), Pintrich & De Groot (1990), Deci et la. (1991), Vallerand et la. (1992), Deci & Ryan(2000), Marsh & Hau (2004), Cokley & Patel( 2007), and Areepattamannil & Freeman (2008).The findings of this study also showed that the motivated students also performed better in the grammar test. This study also revealed that TBI has a significant impact on the motivation of the elementary EFL students. Lochana and Deb's (2006) project in India,done by the Basaveshwara Education Society, also demonstrated evidence supporting TBI. Their results suggested that task-based instruction is helpful to learners not only in terms of proficiency development but also in terms of motivation. The present study is in line with Lochana and Deb's (2006) findings. Richards and Rodgers (2001) mentioned that success in achieving the goals of task which is assumed by learners increases learners' motivation. Skehan (1998) argued "although task accomplishment always leads to a sense of satisfaction, the completed outcome of project-oriented tasks caused much more motivation and satisfaction". (p. 107). The present study is also in line with Richards and Rodgers (2001) and Skehan (1998). Considering cognitive effect of tasks, findings of this study is in congruence with what Prabhu (1987) stated as one of the criteria for selecting task-based syllabuses. He believed that the tasks in language classes make a challenge and are motivate learners and provide them with a sense of achievement. The present study is in accordance with the findings of Prabhu (1987) in the fact that after implementing tasks, learners were more pleased and got more motivated to resume and perform more tasks. 6. Conclusions and pedagogical implications of the study 6.1 Conclusion This study, although limited in scope, was an attempt to investigate the impact of TBI on promoting the grammatical proficiency of Iranian Elementary EFL learners, as well as to gauge the motivation of EFL leaners after implementing TBI. The survey indicated the significant influence of TBI on the grammatical proficiency of elementary EFL learners. The findings provided evidence that the learners who performed tasks became better motivated than those who didn`t

IJALEL 4(4):144-153, 2015 152 which means that TBI had a positive and significant effect on the motivation of EFL learners who experienced grammar learning through this method of instruction. 6.2 Pedagogical Implications of the Study Much information can be found by getting learners to do language tasks. Information of the study provides valuable data about the students’ grammar learning and how to develop it. The results may be of relevance to task designers and teachers in better understanding the TBI. The type and amount of TBI in this study may give teachers a measure when deciding how much time to dedicate to structures. Studies such as these are likely to make teachers to feel comfortable applying TBL in language classes. Replication of the study to other populations is called for before accepting above conclusions with confidence. References Areepattamannil, S., & Freeman, J. G. (2008). Academic achievement, academic self concept, and academic motivation of immigrant adolescents in the greater Toronto area secondary schools. Journal of Advanced Academics, 19, 700-743. Batstone, R. (1994). Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Berndt, T. J., & Miller, K. E. (1990). Expectancies, values, and achievement in junior high school. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 319–326. Branden, K. V. (2006). Task Based Language Education from theory to practice. cambridge: cambridge university press. Brown, H. D. (2001). Teaching by principles:An integrative approach to language pedagogy. New York: Addison Wesley Longman. Brown, H. D. (2007). Principels of language Learning and Teaching (5th edn). NY: Pearson education. Bugler, D., & Hunt, A. (2002). Implementing task-based language teaching. In J. C. Richards & W. A. Renandya , Methodology in language teaching: Ananthology of current practice. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. Chang, S.-C. (2011). A Contrastive Study of Grammar Translation Method and Communicative Approach in Teaching English Grammar. English Language Teaching, 4(2), 13-24 Cokley, K., & Patel, N. (2007). A psychometric investigation of the academic selfconcept of Asian American college students. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 67, 88-99. Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “what” and “why” of goalpursuits: Human needs and the selfdetermination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11, 227-268. Eliss, R. (2003). Task-based language learning and teaching. Oxford: Oford University Press. Fotos, S. and Ellis, R. (1991). Communicating about grammar: A task based approach. TESOL Quarterly, 25, 605-628. Gottfried, A. E. (1990). Academic intrinsic motivation in young. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82,525 – 538. Linse, C. T. (2005). Practical English language teaching: young learners. New York: a Second The McGraw-Hill Littlejohn& Hicks (1997) Cambridge English for Schools 3 work Book, Cambridge ,Cambridge University Press Lochana, M. and Deb, G. (2006). Task based teaching: learning English without tears. Asian EFL Journal, 8(3), 140-154. Long, M.H. & Norris, J.M. (2000). Task-based teaching and assessment. In M.Byram(ed.) encyclopedia of language teaching, p.597-603.. London:Routledge Long, M. (1985). A role for instruction in second language acquisition: Task-based. In K. Hyltenstam, & M. Pienemann, Modelling and assessing, 377-93. Lopez, J. (n.d.). Introducing TBI for Teaching English in Brazil. Retrieved October 18, 2012, http://etd.auu.et/dspace/%E2%80%A6/1/Microsoft%20-%20-%20tagesse Marsh, H. W., & Hau, K.T. (2004). Explaining paradoxical relations between academic selfconcepts and achievements: Crosscultural generalizability of the internal/external frame of reference predictions across 26 countries. Journal of Educational Psychology, 96(1):56-57. Mohammadi. M. (2006). The effect of Task-based method on learning of There is/ There are in English. M.A Thesis. Isfahan, Isfahan University.(Persian). Newby, D. (2003). Cognitive+Communicative Theory of Pedagogical Grammar. Habilitationsschrift: Karl-Francens Universität Graz. Oxenden& Latham-koeni (2008) American English File, Oxford, Oxford University Press Pintrich, P. R, & De Groot, E. V. (1990). Motivational and self –regulated Learing components of classroom academic performance. Journal of Educational Psychology,Vol.82, 33-40. Prabhu, N. (1987). Second language pedagogy. Oxford: Oxford University Prees. Richards , R. (2001). approaches and methods in language teaching. USA: Cambridge University Press.

IJALEL 4(4):144-153, 2015 153 Robinson, P. (2013). The Routledge Encyclopedia of Second Language Acquisition. UK: Routledge . Rogers, C. V., & Medley, F. W. (1988).Language with a purpose: Using authentic materials in the foreign language classroom. Foreign Language Annals, 21, 467-478. Ryan, R., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New Directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 65, 54-57. Schacter, D. (2011). PSYCHOLOGY. United States of America: Catherine Woods. Skehan, P. (1998). A cognitive approach to language learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Today, P. (2013). Motivation . Retrieved from psychology today: http://www.psychologytoday.com/ Ushioda, E. (2009). A person-in-context relational view of emergent motivation, self and identity. In Z. Dornyei & E. Ushioda (Eds.), Motivation, language identity and the L2 self (pp. 215-228). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Vallerand, R. J., Pelletier, L. G., Blais, M. R., Brière, N. M., Senécal,. (1992). The academic motivation scale: A measure of intrinsic, extrinsic, and amotivation in education. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 52,1003-1017. Willis, D., & Willis, J. (2007)Doing task-based teaching. Oxford: Oxford University press. Willis, J. (1996a). A framework for task-based learning. Harlow: Longman Addison. Willis, J. (2007). Task-based language teaching:how teachers solve their problems. IATEFL Annual Conference Aberdeen. Fellow Aston University

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

Diasporic Authenticity Assertions: Analysis of Amy Tan’s The Bonesetter’s Daughter

Naeimeh Tabatabaei Lotfi Department of English Language Translation, Shahr-e-Qods Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

E-mail: natabatabaeilotfi@gmail.com

Received: 08-11- 2014 Accepted: 09-02- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015 Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.154 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.154 Abstract This essay is an attempt to examine the active interaction of history and memory, in formulation of a diasporic authentic picture of past, in Amy Tan’s The Bonesetter’s Daughter (2001). Amongst discursive disciplines, memory and history perform vitally, in picturing past; both attempt to reproduce events, by emblematic narrative acts. However, their erratic quality endorses the existence of counter- stories that endangers displaying a homogeneous past. Among miscellaneous categories of memories, autobiographical memory asserts to obtain an authentic presentation, but as any other forms of accounts, it exhibits an imprecise fictional image. This psychological alleviation ensures the future mental integrity of trauma victims. In memory narratives, the contingent temperament of power network and continual formulation of resisting frameworks might be explored. Tan’s diasporic assertion of authenticity, as a migrant writer, amalgamated with employment of fantasy is to obtain a shared diasporic identity, among her characters, although personal accounts of characters undergo an extensive amount of contingency. The newly forged identity is collective in nature and defies the geographical and temporal borders and grants a humane picture rather than a diasporic one; an identity that is established to venerate the cardinal role of personal memory, in endowing legitimate truth. Keywords: Amy Tan- Authenticity Assertion- Memory- History- Diasporic Narrative 1. Introduction Tentatively, the act of reproducing fragmentary memories is via narration. By narrating, an individual is generates signification of past events. Similarly, history, in a larger scale, is the field of contemplation about past.. The immense theoretical disparity of history and memory’s dichotomy has eliminated, since memory is entitled as a public topic, recently. The historians inquire about past incidents to shape a seemingly coherent narrative; this individual appropriation is constituted based on the present socio- cultural demands. History and memory, equally, are fluctuating disciplines are easily manipulated by fictionalization. Recalling memories and documenting history, are entangled with fantasy. Subsequently, the genuine manifestations of these discourses are traced in literary texts, as well as socio- cultural consensus, media and political activities. Exhibition of past is accompanied with articulation of fact and fantasy; thus, truth is scarified in favor of parading a plausible and assiduous portrayal of events and it becomes, yet, another fiction to recite and signify. In the case of memory narratives, this procedure embroiders and evaluation of the validity of individual recollections becomes more ambiguous. Recently, there is a resilient social affinity to favor memory studies over historical surveys. The shift of preferences, since history is not considered the absolute source of authenticity. Modern era, glorifies the retrieval of discursive disciplines’ legitimacy, regarding authenticity. Memory narratives, in public and individual levels, have avowed sincerity. Verification of the discerning nature of history has threatened its majestic posture, among objective disciplines; consequently, memory’s position is reinvigorated, in bestowing a subjective admittance to past. In diasporic literary texts, there is a stronger tendency to declare authenticity, since it would lead to construction of a communal identity, among the migrant communities. There have been numerous amounts of studies on the nature of authenticity and truth, in migrant writers’ accounts of past. For instance, the texts of Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan are scrutinized for their authenticity claims. Nevertheless, since these strong assertions are mixed with fantasy, it has been criticized for being fake and fictional. The migrant writers have overcome this accusation, by inserting the personal reminiscences of past, in the novels, to ensure its validity. This study scrutinizes the diasporic assertion of past via memory and history, in Amy Tan’s The Bonesetter’s Daughter. History and memory present past, controversially. Ostensibly, individual state of memory opposes objective allegations of history; therefore, this troubles the true prominence of both fields. With the emergent interests in public dimensions of memory, the autobiographical accounts, such as Amy Tan’s novel, have obtained repute, in attempting to appear authentic. The struggle between the supreme official history and undocumented personal reminiscences may well be observed by the existence of multiple versions of stories in the of text of Amy Tan who parades different dimensions of events by her characters; although, at the end of her novel, a collective sense of identity is constructed among her characters. Tan’s novel is set in a pre-communist China, in order to render the predestined socio-cultural discrepancies, in a diasporic context. Situating her narrative in China might be regarded as a wistful desire to reunite with her true

Flourishing Creativity & Literacy

IJALEL 4(4):154-160, 2015 155 national identity; however, a trace of a collective discernment is depicted, in this newly fashioned diasporic identity. As a result, the main aim of diasporic narratives is to glorify the authentic, yet subjective, past that has been reproduced by memory accounts. 2. Facsimileing Past Memory is positioned in the edge of subjective and objective spheres of contemporary studies; its subjectivity is a protecting shelter against the dominant representational approaches. Truth and authenticity are prevailing notions in discursive disciplines, such as history and memory. The concept of authenticity is eclipsed, as history and memory assert retrieving past fictionally, equally. Both of these discourses have evaded their correlation with legitimacy; this imperils the assessment of recollected narratives’ veracity. Susannah Radstone (2003) elaborates on prominent tendencies toward the issue of memory, in Regimes of Memory. It is suggested that the ascendancy of subjective memory over public history is rooted in postmodern interests in relativity of truth, “memory’s locatedness and its particularity are in line with postmodernist critiques of grand narratives and History” (p. 10). Hence, memory is categorized as knowledge, connected with power networks; it is exposed to contingent elucidations, over time. Memory’s subjectivity and its allegations to compete with objective history generates creates a struggling issue; intersection of these disciplines constructs an interlaced bundle of fictional accounts of past. Olike and Robbins (1998) explicate memory and its indisputable interaction with history; they states that not only individual memories, but heterogeneous national identities are shaped by preserving certified past. Each distinctive memory has its own history, maintained by certain amount of persistence over time (pp. 133-4). Erratic temperament of memory enables it to generate counter- narratives, in opposition with monolithic, official and authoritarian discourse of history. Memory and history are interrelated, profoundly, and none is privileged. The collective memory formulates the identity of its members. Memory and history are potentially represented in narrative form; just like personal memory narratives, history is confirmation of collective memories, yet in a susceptible mode. History is categorized a sub-branch of memory by Aleida Assmann (2008) who suggests that, “the concepts of art, religion and history are active areas of cultural memory which shape the identity of a society. History is a form of cultural memory which helps nations to produce a narrative versions of their past which are taught, embraced, and referred to as their collective autobiography” (p. 101). In this sense, communal cultural memories fashion history in a diverse and contingent manner, despite its holistic temperament. Past is safeguarded through individual memories, to be appropriated in another time, in the form of continuous narratives. This demoralizes history’s declaration on its objective excellence; therefore, memory is honored as the validate source of knowledge. Accordingly, despite the arrogant allegations of history in parading an objective past, memory generates an equally ingenuous and yet subjective past. Both discourses are fashioned by narratives; this emasculates their faithful depiction of past. Nevertheless, the discipline of memory has found its righteous position in formulating the legitimate account of truth, despite its subjective temperament. The next section of this research studies the issue of authenticity in recalling past, by history and memory. 3. Truth and Validity Postmodern era demoralizes the supreme nature of truth and its eternality, as a relative concept, truth, resides in the subjective elucidations that are in direct relevance with the present. Thus, past and its veracity are open to multiple perceptions. Since memory studies have emerged from the personal spheres has altered into to a public issue, the concurrence upon the relativity of truth and its subjective status is the only solution for solving the dilemma of authenticity in narration. Foucault (1971), in “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History”, scrutinizes the strategies of totalitarian systems of knowledge to avert the fragmentation, in narrating history. Accordingly, there is a constant exertion to articulate signification, in traditional history to illustrate a rational, continuous past; and this makes the state of truth a controversial one, “the purpose of history, guided by genealogy, is not to discover the roots of our identity, but to commit itself to its dissipation. It does not seek to define our unique threshold of emergence, the homeland to which metaphysicians promise a return; it seeks to make visible all of those discontinuities that cross us” (p. 95). It implies that history is unable to transmit a coherent past, but it uncovers irregular predisposed data, despite its boasting of objectivity. Obviously, Foucault is receptive to the disparate role of memory. He suggests that history is incapable to attain ultimate truth, without having memory as its counterpart. Memory grants a completely different ground of insight. He elaborates on different historical senses that dissents Platonic conception of history. They donate a unique mode of past. One of the historical ideas incriminates memory, in attaining a totally distinct pattern of orthodox truth, instead of history, “the third is sacrificial, directed against truth, and opposes history as knowledge. They imply a use of history that severs its connection to memory, its metaphysical and anthropological model, and constructs a counter memory-a transformation of history into a totally different form of time” (p. 93). Foucault, subsequently, expounds the obstinate delegation of historians, in creating coherence in their documents; they aim to eradicate any trace of discontinuity. However, he eulogizes Nietzsche, in depicting an insightful past, “historians take unusual pains to erase the elements in their work which reveal their grounding in a particular time and place, their preferences in a controversy-the unavoidable obstacles of their passion. Nietzsche’s version of historical sense is explicit in its perspective and acknowledges its system of injustice” (p. 90). Scrutinizing the genealogy of events, would indicate the efforts of historians, in creation of a coherent authentic image, to be a futile task. Foucault‘s conjectures is based on Nietzsche’s radical theories on truth. Truth, for

IJALEL 4(4):154-160, 2015 156 Nietzsche (2004), is an account to generate a relentless ground of belief, in society. Accordingly, truth is not absolute, “Truth is therefore not something there, that might be found or rediscovered –but something that must be created and that gives a name to a process, or rather to a will that has itself no end –introducing truth, as a process in infinitum, an active determining-not a becoming conscious of something that is in itself firm and determined” (p. 270). Here, the fashioned eminence of truth is emphasized. Each community implicates its conventional means of signification, in order to inject its desired type of truth to its members; thus, a homogeneous spectrum of subjects would be generated. Certainly, the codes of significations are regulated by distinct socio-cultural paradigms. Even, the definition of ‘truth’ that is supposed to be an essential abstract notion is fashioned, by socio-cultural patterns; these models are governed by powerful ascendant ideologies. In the case of diasporic subjects, insinuation of the authentic meaning of events is more intricate, because there are multiple numbers of struggling power networks, chiefly, stimulated by the cultural principles of host country, as well as the customs of diasporic context. As any other human act, exhibiting truth is an egocentric performance that eliminates any indication of non- conformity. Mary Warnock (1994) quotes Don Cupitt, in What is a Story who accentuates the constructive eminence of truth in modern era, in the form of self-rewarding narratives, “truth is no longer something out there; it is a way with the words. The preacher, the artist or interpreter is now making truth in the telling of the tale…. The interpreter is no longer just a servant of the truth, but has become someone whose job is the endless production of the truth. Truth is like music or love; it has to flow continually. Out of us, like living water” (as cited in Don Cupitt, 1991 p. 94). Story is now considered a timeless instrument to allocate the assumed truth, in a relative approach. Usually, the desired stratagem to present truth is a subjective one. This transforms, even, the most factual documentations into a fiction. The status of truth is a controversial one, since many historical and personal documentations of past are narratives, in autobiographical writings; however Mark Freeman (1993) states that even the fictional narration of past is an integral recognition of the concept of truth and the concept of self in the form of confession. (p. 32). This explicitly glorifies the partial perception of truth, in different time spans. The writer is concerned about the possibility of mixing fact and fiction, in documenting autobiographical memories, but he also implies that the diversity of perception will lead to a more comprehensive version of it. In migration literature, in which many versions of truth have been subverted by authoritative powers, memory narratives play an imperative role in representing past; they are the manifestations of dissident voices of migrant communities. These memories, frequently, dispute the official national history. Often, migratory narratives are accused of picturing a distorted image of past, by dominant groups. Memory, as a discursive discourse, allocates the prospects of existence of multiple elucidations, exclusion and selection over time with history, as both go through interpretation, for personal and social tendencies. The discursiveness of mentioned disciplines will imperil the faithful parading of them. One of the problematic fields of dealing with the query of validity is the concept of memory and its correlation with history. Memory is the basic raw material of autobiography, according to Warnock,

Memory claims are claims of knowledge, and like other such claims, they are not self-guaranteeing, even if often we are inclined to accept them. When we do accept them, it is not only because they seem true but because they have an intrinsic plausibility, given other things we know. (p. 134)

The allegation of remembering an eligible past implies that the individual has experienced a certain incident, in a certain geographical and temporal dimension. This, alone, creates a version of truth that is not challengeable by others and at the same time, contestable. In inscription of autobiographies, fictionally or in reality, there is an assertion to recall an undeniable continuous past. The aim is to declare that ‘I am the one who has experienced these events and these are not going to be lost’. This insinuates that to articulate a consistent sense of subjective integrity, certified memories are preserved and recalled, “our sense of continuity with the past, and with the future, carries with it an obscure sense of timelessness, past, present and future amalgamated into one…we feel ourselves to be a part of something that has survived and will survive, and which we value as we value our lives” (p. 128). The desire to be eternal is ushered with each and every act of recalling autobiographical memory. To eternalize a sense of self, memories are presented, to survive the individual from banishment in time, especially in diasporic context, in which not only the future of a single person but the whole nation is at risk. Memory, in an autobiography, is an essential element, since recalling is a fluid act and subject to the agent’s present condition. Considering the fact that memories are constructed based on the snapshots of past, there is not a certain ground of trust on their authenticity. There is an inevitable sense of absence in registering events, by historians and autobiographers. Both must rely on their imagination, but the problem is that memories have changed, as well as the moment of incident. Demands of society and their new ‘self’ compels a special magnitude of restraint that creates quite an impeccable version of truth; not to forget the natural egocentric feelings of individuals that direct recalling to a special way. The new adaptation of truth, fashioned by recalling agents, may be different or even in contradiction with reality. Susannah Radstone (2004) believes that there is a strong impulse to recall repressed memories, which are recovered as fantasy; this makes evaluation of the validity memories an obscure task. The only resolution is to consider mingling of fact and fantasy, a predestined act. The act of remembering is a natural way to craft a qualified past and construction of a sense of self and identity; it ensures an undoubted picture of truth. However, some think that because memory is not a

IJALEL 4(4):154-160, 2015 157 camera recorder to pick up exact past, without prejudice, it is somehow subject to distortion. This defies the nature of embodied truth, in memories. As all recalled memories are reconstructed, partial and egocentric version of past, the notion of false memory proliferates, in the act of remembering. Because presentation of memory has lost its connection with the moment of occurrence, the truth of the narratives are disputed over. 4. The Status of Authenticity in The Bonesetter’s Daughter This section is an analysis of the interaction of history and memory, in creation of a plausible, continuous past, by Amy Tan. The Interrelatedness of these disciplines enriches the eligibility of the texts; yet, it endangers the authenticity of the offered data, as both discourses are exposed to miscellaneous elucidations. The migratory narratives avow truth, due to a necessity to generate an integrated collective identity, among their members; amazingly, Tan has obtained this by fusing multiple fragments of characters’ memories who all claim that their recollections is reliable. By attaching different memories, Tan suggests distrust on the veracity of the documentary history, which boasts on its accuracy; thus, she exalts the incoherent individual memories of her characters, to accentuate the dynamic nature of memory, in a diasporic context. Accordingly, a collective diasporic, fragmentary and multiple identities are formulated among characters. This paradoxical shared identity is enriched by personal memory narratives that highly assert authenticity and make the act of judging the validity of the stories a complicated one. Autobiography is an indivisible feature of The Bonesetter’s Daughter. The assertion of authenticity intensifies as she seeks to appear more Chinese, by displaying the picture of her old grandmother, on the cover of the novel. This renders the novel a non-fictional quality; in other words, it strengthens the semi-autobiographical temperament and satisfies reader’s assumption about the novel’s authenticity. In The Opposite of Fate (2003), Tan summons up memories of her mother about communicating with the ghosts of her father and brother whom she lost, because of brain tumor, “because my mother still believed I was sensitive to the other world, she often asked me to use an Ouija board to communicate with the ghosts of my father and brother and sometimes […] my grandmother” (p. 25). This mentioned in The Bonesetters’ Daughter where Ruth is forced, recurrently, by LuLing to communicate with the ghost of Precious Auntie. War and its traumatic impact is another issue which prevails in the narratives of Tan. Japan and China’s war which resulted in a mass migration to the United States, as an ally to China, is depicted, usually in Tan’s narratives. Obviously, memory and history are fused to create an apparently subjective history of migrants, which resides beyond the official, objective and documented domains of history, resulting in articulation of a shared identity, despite the assorted experiences of characters. 4.1 Authentic Portrayal of Past in The Bonesetter’s Daughter Jago Morrison (2003) suggests that, migrant women writers such as Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan are intentionally overlooked in Asian- American anthologies that attempt to present a “traditionally heroic literary canon”, just because there is not a “positive and strong masculinity” in their texts; they are blamed of illustrating a “distorted representation” of past, rather than an authentic one (p. 88). The prominent collection, Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian- American Writers (1974), undeniably, be regarded as a landmark in Asian- American literary history. It also signifies the commencement of Asian- American identity debates; it was edited by writers such as Frank Chin, Jeffery Paul Chan, Lawson Fusao Inada, and Shawn Wong. It was later followed by The Big Aiiieeeee! (1991). Again, it had a misogynistic standpoint, that declared a war on misrepresentation of Asian images in Aiiieeeee!. (Preface xxvi)

Frank Chin’s excuse for excluding some writers was portraying a popular westernized picture of East; he described as an effort to sell oriental texts to western audience. He challenged the authenticity of most of these texts,

We describe the real, from its sources in the Asian fairy tale and the Confucian heroic tradition, to make the work of these Asian American writers understandable in its own terms. We describe the fake - from its sources in Christian dogma and in Western philosophy, history, and literature - to make it clear why the more popularly known writers such as Jade Snow Wong, Maxine Hong Kingston, David Henry Hwang, Amy Tan, and Lin Yutang are not represented here. Their work is not hard to find. (Introduction, Big Aiiieeeee! Xv)

However, many praised Tan for her legendary presentation of Chinese- ness.In “ ‘Sugar Sisterhood’ Situating the Amy Tan Phenomenon”, Sau-ling Cynthia Wong (1998) adores Tan for her talent, in perceiving the readers’ petition for a true Chinese oriented novel, she suggested that tan’s novels are in harmony with current favors of specific audiences such as feminists and ethnic communities, “ I suggest it is neither literary fate nor psychological destiny that has conferred favored status on Chinese American mother-daughter relationship, but rather a convergence of ethnic group-specific literary tradition and ideological needs by the white-dominated readership—including the feminist readership—for the Other’s presence as both mirror and differentiator”(p. 52). She, then, designates the autobiographical features of Tan’s novels as “markers of authenticity”, which are artistically arranged to bequeath the desired outcomes, “I call these details ‘markers of authenticity’, whose function is to create an ‘Oriental effect’ by signaling a reassuring affinity between the given work and American preconceptions of what the Orient is/should be” (p. 61). Cynthia Wong, reveres the “timeless mythical” truth that is pictured, by Tan, suggesting that these “presumably authentic details—are ultimately Orientalist in spirit”. She, then, denigrates Frank Chin for accusing Tan on her lack of knowledge on history, “paradoxical as it may seem, an author with more direct historical knowledge about China than Amy Tan may well be less successful in convincing the American reading public of the ‘truthfulness’ of her picture, since, in such a case, the element of cultural mediation would be correspondingly weaker” (p. 63). The stratagem of infusing different narrative

IJALEL 4(4):154-160, 2015 158 forms enables Tan to captivate a wide range of readers. Although she is not equipped with the official Chinese history, she is well acquainted with many personal memories that deepen her narratives. As a migrant, she perceives the thirst of western society in receiving a plausible image of orient, and presents ‘her’ own version of truth. This is accomplished, partly, by visual presentation of orient’s image, by her grandmother’s picture on the cover of The Bonesetter’s Daughter. Principally, Tan’s narratives try to institute an innovative fabrication of history and autobiography, a mixture of a constant nostalgia for past and a plea for grasping of it. Since her texts are congested with ghosts and eccentric events, many consider her texts as fictional strife, in pursuit of a lost identity and history. Exploring an authentic past in her narratives, as most of critics are, is to emasculate her efforts to structure a new connection with the notion of homeland. Her narratives, mostly utilizing the technique of re-memory, are considered an opportunity to perceive the undocumented history of a nation that struggles to attain a sense of communal nationality. Autobiographical data such as the true story of her mother, in escaping the tyranny of communist China, leaving daughters behind or the suicide of her grandmother, which are portrayed, in two of her novels could be considered as artistic attempts to represent an authentic past. Nonetheless, Tan has been, severely, disparaged for her lack of historical knowledge; she confesses that she detested the subject. She states in an interview (1997), “I thought it [history] was completely a waste of time. It had absolutely no relevance.” (p. 17). In The Bonesetter’s Daughter, however, she acts differently. The text is rich with Chinese historical references. Tan suggests, “Today, I love history. I find it is absolutely relevant to everything that is going on. It’s not just some philosophical babble of how things repeat themselves” (p. 17). This is a radical rejection of the hierarchy of memory over history; thus, believing in them as two equally constructive discourses that bestow access to past. In this section, the ‘markers of authenticity’, in The Bonesetter’s Daughter is examined. Tan utilizes more autobiographical elements in the novel to ensure its veracity which is constructed on the bones of real life experiences. Moreover, in the mass circulation of the book, an old photograph of Tan’s grandmother is selected, for the cover. This picture is entitled as the major source of inspiration that motivated her to narrate. Tan’s choice makes this fiction more controversial than her previous texts, for it blurs the boundary between real and fictional, history and story, private and public. And from this starting point, the audience would be curious about Tan’s view who locates her own self-promotion, in fabricating the fictional aspects of the novel. The Bonesetter’s Daughter (2001) initiates with following lines, which try to persuade the readers of their authenticity, “these are the things I know are true: My name is LuLing Liu Young. The names of my husbands were Pan Kai Jing and Edwin Young, both of them dead and our secrets gone with them. My daughter is Ruth Luyi Young. She was born in a Water Dragon Year and I in a Fire Dragon Year. So we are the same but for opposite reasons” (p. 2). LuLing points out to the possibility of multiple existence of truth, when she compares herself and her daughter as two similar and yet opposite versions of an individual. The central theme of the novel is based on the ancestral heritage that Precious Auntie has left for her daughter LuLing; dragon bones that serve as a source of income for the family, later turned out to be belonging to human being. This, itself, emphasizes on the dynamicity of truth; the bones which were once supposed to be curative dragon bones, later change to a familial curse, “the bones you have are not from dragons, he said: “They are from our own clan, the ancestor who was crushed in the Monkey's Jaw. And because we stole them, he's cursed us. That's why nearly everyone in our family has died” (p. 98). Relativity of truth is vividly depicted in the course of the novel, where Ruth suspects the validity of her mother’s memory and tries to find it tainted, “sometimes Ruth listened with interest, trying to determine how much of the story LuLing changed in each retelling, feeling reassured when she repeated the same story” (p. 166). According to Tabatabaei Lotfi (2014), “the capacity to construct stories in a linear, temporal order creates a sense of coherence in individuals, which is then contributed to all aspects of life. In patients with severe cases of memory loss, the sense of fragmentary ‘self’ is the major reason for social withdrawal; it gradually kills the feeling of belonging to a community. In the case of migrant communities who are highly dependent on close familial and tribal intimacies, this memory loss would result in identity loss of a nation” (p. 144). In the novel, the danger of amnesia, in the form of Alzheimer, urges the mother to narrate her past, hastily, to remember her exact ancestral family name. LuLing frequently tries to recall the past and preserve it, “these are the things I must not forget… And Precious Auntie flapped her hands fast: A person should consider how things begin. A particular beginning results in a particular end” (p. 86). There is a precise tendency in making meaning of past, in accordance with the present condition of LuLing. In preserving a continuous account of past, there is a strong claim of truth,

Her mother often surprised her with the clarity of her emotions when she spoke of her youth, elements of which matched in spirit what she had written in her memoir…. At times she also blended the past with memories from other periods of her own past. But that part of her history was nonetheless a reservoir which she could draw from and share. It didn't matter that she blurred some of the finer points. The past, even revised, was meaningful. (p. 192)

Mingling real past experiences with fantasy is a natural method to extract meaning out of memories that had no signification, at the time of occurrence. This is also true for history, since it is considered to be the subjective testimony of objective events, open to interpretations over time. To solve the dilemma of memory and history and their eternal assertions of authenticity, the best stratagem is to consider these disciplines the “enigmatic interweaving of traces deposited” by the mixture of “fantasy and memory”, without regarding the “false dichotomies” of them (Showalter,

IJALEL 4(4):154-160, 2015 159 2004, p. 252). It means to affirm memories’ role in exhibiting a fractional history that is inevitably interwoven with fantasy. This fantasy is at the service of truth, too. The second half of the novel is composed mainly of LuLing's manuscript. Images of bones preoccupy the script and the life of LuLing, as she struggles to make sense of past, before she forgets all about it. The bones are used as a cure that also connect generations, as Precious Auntie tells LuLing that the bones are the means of reviving the past, “Someday, when you know how to remember, I'll give this to you to keep. But for now you'll only forget where you put it” (p. 90). When the scientists begin excavating fossils from the mountain, the bones become the key to understand the mysterious past; eventually, they convert into the instruments of preserving familial history. The act of excavation and searching for bones becomes the metaphor for probing about the past, as LuLing digs in her memories to discover the real name of her mother. The third part of the novel is solving the mysteries, by translation of LuLing’s manuscript by Mr. Tang. The real identity and ancestral name of the family is revealed; Ruth sympathizes with her mother and initiates documenting her own ancestral history, “and side by side, Ruth and her grandmother begin. Words flow. They have become the same person” (p. 197). The novel ends with the reunion of generations, a deep appreciation, followed by foundation of a collective identity, yet in a diasporic context that is marked by heterogeneity and multiplicity. Ruth, as a ghost writer, instigates to chronicle her familial history, in order to preserve not only the ‘oracle bones’ which she has inherited from LuLing, but also the memory of her family, in a book. She knows that documenting the real truth is unfeasible, as memories mingle with fantasy. LuLing’s reminiscences are appropriated, based on the present condition of her life, but the only thing that matters is that it makes sense, “Ruth remembers how her mother used to talk of dying, by curse or her own hand. She never stopped feeling the impulse, not until she began to lose her mind, the memory web that held her woes in place. And though her mother still remembers the past, she has begun to change it. She doesn't recount the sad parts. She only recalls being loved very, very much” (p. 196). The genuineness of memories, “ensure a sense of self and identity” and the nature of the “self –guaranteeing” truth in the memories “could not be doubted” (Showalter 138). This is exactly what LuLing does, generating an integrated wholeness that protects her from mental breakdown. LuLing’s crisis resides in her inability to communicate with her daughter. This is one of the difficulties of patients, afflicted by dementia. They lose the connection with present, being caught in the past. Their stories are always perceptible by a mixture of sorrow and anger to recall. In the case of migrants, who feel a moral commitment to transfer their narratives to next generation, the response is more severe, because there is a danger of identity loss for the victim and her/his nation, in diaspora,

Indeed, these accounts are characterized by the attempt of the caregiver to remember and recreate a past life that preserves the person’s identity. But they also speak of the great frustration, anger and guilt that arise from the inability to establish communicative links to the person in the present. (Soulsby, 2006, p. 88)

This is vividly demonstrated in the novel, by LuLing’s frustrated repetitive attempts to recall her mother’s name. Remembrance would fabricate a secure sense of identity. She is threatened by her disease, since the present time is an alien temporal zone. She, almost, lives in past and connecting to current stream of life is impossible. This is the reason of her incapacity to communicate with her educated American girl. The wide gap between them is deepened by their cultural differences. One belongs to the first generation of migrants who tries to preserve her national identity and the other struggles to assimilate with the host culture, completely, in a diasporic context. Unlike the common tendencies to evaluate the authenticity of claimed past, by referring to the official documented histories, there is an affinity to trust the personal memories of characters, among the migrant writers. They ensure the legitimacy of such narratives by inserting factual subjective memories into the fictional realm of the novels. It is worthy to suggest that assertions of authenticity, in this novel, are very strong, even if the writer is unaware that memory and history are commingled with fantasy. Apparently, Tan distrusts the claims of objective history, in favor of creating a partial history, based on memories, to articulate a collective Chinese identity, not only among her fictional characters, but also among Chinese readers. This is accomplished by referring to the historical events and autobiographical elements. “I don't know. So much of history is mystery. We don't know what is lost forever, what will surface again. All objects exist in a moment of time. And that fragment of time is preserved or lost or found in mysterious ways. Mystery is a wonderful part of life” (p. 194). By these lines, Tan accentuates enigmatic temperament of memory; some part of this secret is lost and some will be discovered by mind. However, memory is a part of an individual’s life that cannot be ignored or completely excluded by suppressive external forces. 5. Conclusion This essay was an analysis of the concept of authenticity in Tan’s The Bonesetter‘s Daughter by investigating the contingent interrelatedness of memory and history, in documentation of past. Amy Tan’s strong claim of genuineness, despite her use of fantasy, is in concordance with a quest for gaining a shared collective identity in the characters of her novel; although, cultural multiplicity is practiced by characters, in the form of disparate modes of demonstrating past. Diasporic assertions of authenticity among different characters make the evaluation of truth very difficult. Amy Tan challenges the fortified structure of acknowledged national histories and substitutes it with a more subjective, yet authentic adaptations of personal memories which will result in construction of a communal identity among the characters of the novel. Accordingly, a pristine diasporic identity is fashioned that defies the geographical and temporal borders by presenting a humane perspective of past.

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International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

The Impact of Multimodal Texts on Reading Achievement: A Study of Iranian Secondary School Learners

Bahareh Baharani Department of English, Khorasan e Razavi Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Neyshabur, Iran

Department of English, Neyshabur Branch, Islamic Azad University, Neyshabur, Iran E-mail: b.baharani@hotmail.com

Narjes Ghafournia (Corresponding author)

Department of English, Neyshabur Branch, Islamic Azad University, Neyshabur, Iran E-mail: narjesghafournia@yahoo.com

Received: 08-12- 2014 Accepted: 10-02- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015 Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.161 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.161 Abstract This study was designed to investigate the impact of multimodal text on reading comprehension test performance of Iranian intermediate learners. A total of 80 students participated in this study. All of them were Iranian female EFL learners with the age ranging from 16 to 18. They were selected from a boarding high school in Nasr Abad, Torbat Jam in Khorasan e Razavi, Iran. The students were randomly settled in four groups, who received different instructional approaches through using linear texts, multimodal printed texts, non-printed multimodal texts, and both multimodal printed and non-printed texts. A pre-test and post-test were used to find out the differences before and after the experimental treatment. The results reflected that the printed and non-printed multimodal texts had significant impact on reading comprehension test performance. In contrast, applying linear texts or traditional texts did not exert significant influence on reading comprehension ability of the participants. The findings provide useful hints for language instructors to improve effectiveness of instructional reading curriculums and reading ability of language learners. The participants who learned reading comprehension through using multimodal printed and non-printed texts enjoy reading programs and develop their intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for improving reading ability. Keywords: multimodal printed text, multimodal non-printed text, linear text, motivation, reading comprehension I. Introduction In recent years, Information Communication Technology (ICT) has provided EFL learners with many opportunities to learn English with relative ease through conforming them to multimodal texts (Verhoeven & Perfetti, 2008). There is protracted debate over the textual shift for today’s students, who are faced with an environment full of visual, electronic and digital texts called “multimodal text” (Walsh, 2007, p.26). The above-mentioned discussion leads to another challenge concerned with the type of pedagogies or theories that can be applied in multimodal learning environments. Although traditional literacy approaches have placed great emphasis on printed and linear texts, modern teaching approaches put great emphasis on multimodal texts and digital technology (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 1996, 2001). As Walsh (2007) indicated, printed or linear texts are monomodal texts, whereas multimodal texts are concerned with a variety of sensory modes, working in a synchronized way to convey meaning. It means that a multimodal text can be a combination of spoken and written languages, still or moving images, which can be presented on paper or electronic screen. It is inferred from the definition that multimodal texts can be divided into two types of texts. The first type of text is printed texts, such as picture books, newspapers, magazines, and information books. In comparison, the second type of text is concerned with non-printed texts such as videos, films, and, digital media. Good examples of digital media are CD ROOMs or DVDs and texts through electronic screen such as e-mails and internet. To put it simply, a multimodal text enables language learners to read comprehensively through using different learning channels (Verhoeven & Perfetti, 2008). In an experimental study, Mayer and Gallini (1990) asked students to read expository passages, related with the way scientific devices work. Each passage contained either no illustrations, static illustrations of the device with labels for each part, static illustrations of the device with labels for major actions, or dynamic illustrations, showing off or on states of the device along with labels for each part and each major action. The results indicated that the parts and steps illustrations consistently improved performance on recall of conceptual information and problem solving retention. The findings of Mayer and Gallini’s study on modality representation showed that the language learners who read a text with illustrations were more successful in accomplishing problem solving tasks and transferring knowledge than the learners who read a text with no illustrations. One of the main problems of Iranian language learners, particularly secondary school learners is their poor performance in reading comprehension tests (Karimi, 1386). Many L2 readers are engaged in slow and laborious reading process, which is due to underdeveloped word recognition of target words, lower level phonological processing, and inability to

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IJALEL 4(4):161-170, 2015 162 derive meaning from the texts (Grabe, 2004; Grabe & Stoller, 2002; Kuhn & Stahl, 2003). Slow readers lack enough motivation and self-efficacy for processing target language reading; therefore, they cannot get gist of meaning suffering from poor reading comprehension ability (Koda, 2005). Koda described a similar scenario, in which inadequate reading practice among poor readers does not let them develop their conceptual growth. Day and Bamford (1998) believed that reading practice helps L2 learners have access to necessary linguistic, world, and topical knowledge to improve their reading skills. One probable explanation is concerned with the excessive use of linear texts with no pictures and illustrations. It should be kept in mind that Iranian language learners, like any other foreign language learners, have limited vocabulary knowledge. Therefore, the use of multimodal texts in printed or non-printed forms by language teachers can help language learners predict the content better leading to more effective long-lasting comprehension. Therefore, this study tried to find out whether reading comprehension test performance of Iranian high school language learners at intermediate level was significantly affected by employing multimodal texts in language teaching classes. Furthermore, this study attempted to investigate the differences among the test performances of four groups of participants who used four types of texts in their learning environments, including printed multimodal texts, non-printed multimodal texts, combination of both texts, and linear traditional texts. The findings were of significance as they revealed the significant influence of using multimodal texts in contrast with linear texts on EFL learners' reading achievement at the intermediate level. Furthermore, the findings reflected the extent to which different ways of multimodal presentation of reading texts influenced language learners’ test performance. The objectives of the study were achieved through answering the following questions: 1. Do multimodal printed English texts significantly affect Iranian students’ reading comprehension achievement? 2. Do non-printed multimodal English texts significantly affect Iranian students’ reading comprehension achievement? 3. Do multimodal printed English texts and multimodal non-printed English texts significantly affect Iranian students’ reading comprehension achievement? The relevant null hypotheses were reformulated as follows: 1. Multimodal printed English texts do not significantly affect Iranian students’ reading comprehension achievement. 2. Non-printed multimodal English texts do not significantly affect Iranian students’ reading comprehension achievement. 3. Multimodal printed English texts and multimodal non-printed English texts do not significantly affect Iranian students’ reading comprehension achievement. 2. Review of Literature 2.1 A Theoretical Framework for Multimodal Text Analysis Halliday’s (1976) systemic-functional linguistics (SFL) described language as a system with meaning potential. Halliday defined language as “a set of options in a stated environment” (p. 26) that were formed by how people use them to make meaning. He provided a tri-functional framework of meaning: ideational, interpersonal, and textual. Ideational meanings relate to what is going on in the world, which means how people get use of language to talk about their experiences. They relate to the way of using words in order to express actions, objects, places, events, people, things, qualities, and ideas. They deal with how people show their experiences concerning the type of processes and participants they use. Interpersonal meanings are related to the ways language is used to arrange the kind of speaker-listener interaction and how such interaction is settled. Textual meanings are concerned with how textual factors are composed of coherent messages relevant to context of situation. 2.2 Multimedia Learning In multimedia learning, the learner deals with three significant cognitive processes: selecting, organizing, and integrating. Selecting is used for incoming verbal information to produce a text base. It is also applied to incoming visual information to produce an image base. Organizing, as the second cognitive process, is applied to the word base to construct a verbal-based model to be-explained system. It is also applied to the image base to construct a visually-based model to be-explained system. In the verbally-based model and visually-based model, integrating happens when the learner creates connections between corresponding events (or states). Mayer (1997) explained the model in detail and created a series of experiments, consisting of five major principles of how to use multimedia to help students easily understand the model. The principles are further discussed. 2.2.1 Multiple Representation Principle Giving an explanation in words and pictures is better than an explanation only in words. According to the first principle, presenting an explanation using two modes of presentation is better than using only one mode of presentation. As an example, students who listened to a narration explaining how a bicycle tire pump works and at the same time had to view the corresponding animations provided more useful solutions to the subsequent problem-solving transfer questions than did the students who listened to the same narration without viewing any animations (Mayer & Anderson, 1991, 1992). Likewise, the students who read a text consisting of the captioned descriptions near the corresponding words generated about 65% more useful solutions to a subsequent problem-solving transfer test than did the counterpart students, who simply read the text (Mayer, 1989; Mayer & Gallini, 1990). The result indicates a multimedia effect, which is consistent with a cognitive theory of multimedia learning. Because students believed that multimedia

IJALEL 4(4):161-170, 2015 163 explanations could build two different mental representations, which were verbal and visual models, enabling them to build connections between them. 2.2.2 Contiguity Principle Contiguity principle is concerned with simultaneous presentation of words and pictures rather than separate presentation of them. In other words, the principle is concerned with presenting related words and pictures at the same time, which substantially enhances students’ comprehension and retention. The findings of some studies (e.g., Mayer & Anderson, 1991, 1992; Mayer & Sims, 1994) demonstrated that the students who listened to a narration about how a bicycle tire pump works while at the same time viewed the related animation generated 50% more useful problem-solving solutions than did the counterpart students, who solely viewed the relevant information before or after listening to the narration. Likewise, the findings of other studies reflected that the students who read a text giving an explanation of how tire pumps work with captioned descriptions generated about 75% more useful solutions on problem-solving transfer questions than did the counterpart students, who read the same text and descriptions, presented on separate pages (Mayer, 1989; Mayer, et.al, 1995). The result is called a contiguity effect. Parallel patterns have been presented by other researchers (Chandler & Sweller, 1991; Sweller & Chandler, 1994; Sweller, et.al, 1990; Paas & Van Merrienboer, 1994). This result is consistent with cognitive theory of multimedia learning as corresponding words and pictures must be in working memory at the same time for facilitating construction of referential links among them. 2.2.3 Split-Attention Principle When giving a multimedia explanation, presenting a word as auditory narration is better than presenting it as visual on-screen text. The third principle is that words should be presented in auditory mode rather than in visual mode. As an example, the students who viewed an animation illustrating the formation of lightning while simultaneously listening to a corresponding narration generated approximately 50% more useful solutions on a following problem-solving transfer test than did the counterpart students, who viewed the same animation with corresponding on-screen text, comprising similar narration words (Mayer & Moreno, in press). It is called a split attention effect (Chandler & Sweller, 1991; Mousavi, et al, 1995; Sweller, et al, 1990). The result is in accordance with cognitive theory of multimedia learning, as the on-screen text and animation can overload visual information processing system while the narration is processed in the verbal information processing system, and the animation is processed in the visual information processing system. 2.2.4 Individual Differences Principle The above mentioned principles are more significant for intelligent people than slow people. According to the fourth principle, multimedia effects, contiguity effects, and split-attention effects depend on individual differences in learners. For example, the students who have deficiency in prior knowledge are apt to show stronger multimedia effects and contiguity effects than the students who have high levels of prior knowledge (Mayer & Gallini, 1991, Mayer, et al, 1995). According to Mayer's, et al cognitive theory of multimedia learning, students with high prior knowledge may be able to produce their own mental images while listening to an animation or reading a verbal text, so having a contiguous visual presentation is not needed. Also, Mayer and Sims (1994) found that the students who have high scores on spatial ability tests showed greater multimedia effects than did the students who had low scores on spatial ability tests. Thus, the students with high spatial ability are able to keep the visual image in visual working memory and are highly probable to take advantage of contiguous presentation of words and pictures. 2.2.5 Coherence Principle The fifth principle asserts that students learn better from a coherent summary. This principle puts particular emphasis on learning through relevant words and pictures in a text. For instance, the students who read a text along with corresponding illustrations about the steps of lightning generated 50% more useful solutions on a succeeding problem-solving transfer test than did the students who read the same information with extra language details (Harp & Mayer, 1997; Mayer, et al, 1996). The use of relevant pictures and words to get gist of meaning is called the redundancy effect by the researchers (Bobis, et al, 1993; Chandler & Sweller, 1991). This result is consistent with cognitive theory of multimedia learning in that a shorter visual presentation makes learners choose related information and organize relevant information productively. Being familiar with the theory of how learners process multimedia information enables researchers to accomplish focused research using some preliminary principles of multimedia learning. Although the principles are subject to further investigations, they encourage teachers to implement learner-centered approaches and multimedia instruction, which is a great success. 2.3 Modeling Text Comprehension Processes Perfetti (1999) believed that the extent of reading comprehension depends on students' prior knowledge. Prefetti explained that reading comprehension process begins with recognition of individual words. It means that visual input changes into linguistic representations and comprehension of a text that requires word- to-text combining. As a result, Verhoeven and Perfetti (2008) proved that readers build situation models as they try to comprehend a text. They found that there are two levels of representation: a model of the propositions of a text (text model) and a model of what a text is about (situation model). Furthermore, they believe that comprehending a text cannot be completely clear; therefore, a reader makes inferences about what is in the text based on his/her prior knowledge. Mayer (2009) noted that multimedia presentation provides many possibilities to ease constructing knowledge. Similarly, Verhoeven and Perfetti (2008) proposed that researchers should examine how students learn from multimedia texts, particularly when ICT (Information and Communication Technology) is stressed in instructional curriculums. Mayer (2009) noted that cognitive theory of multimedia learning was established according to the idea that there are various

IJALEL 4(4):161-170, 2015 164 processing systems for two kinds of information. Verhoeven and Perfetti believed that the factors which are combined with multimedia cognitive theory present the opportunities to ease teaching and learning comprehension. In addition, they asserted that processing verbal information usually includes comprehension of written text, which can be considered as a secondary language process, partially obtained from primary spoken language processes, or an audio or verbal illustration of words. Different multimedia presentations provide the chance for students to make use of words and pictures. Mayer (2010) asserted that using a mixture of words and pictures is better than using words alone. When students are watching and listening, they comprehend better than when they are solely watching (Mayer & Mereno, 1998). Briefly, multimedia can enhance students' reading comprehension achievement. Likewise, Verhoeven and Perfetti (2008) detected that basic models of text comprehension, such as resonance model (Gerrig & McKoon, 1998), construction, integration model (Kintsch, 1988), and landscape model (Van den Broek, et al, 1996), have shown that text comprehension cannot be accomplished solely by the information that is present in the text. Based on the models, the learners have to apply their knowledge to construct new knowledge, which is related to their experiences and situations to process reading comprehension texts. Verhoeven and Perfetti (2008) believed that the factors which are combined in multimodal text processing let learners make inferences about what is in the text based on their prior knowledge. In the study done by Son (2003), the effect of three types of reading text formats was investigated. The text formats were: paper-based format (PF), computer- based non-hypertext format (NHF), and computer-based hypertext format (HF). The purpose of the study was to detect the degree of usefulness of hyperlinks on the online lexical resources, which presented readers with optional help during independent reading. The finding indicated that integration of text with sound and images actually made comprehension of reading text quite easy and led to better pronunciation and more effective contextual use of lexical items than conventional paper-based texts. Also, Kuo, et al (2010) administered a study to examine the effect of multimedia, specifically Reading Comprehend Platform (RCP), on students' reading comprehension. RCP concentrated on the integration of different multimedia. The result revealed that the students showed a high interest in RCP and reading comprehension. Therefore, the researcher concluded that the Platform increased students' performance in English reading comprehension. Thus, he asked for further research to examine other types of multimedia that can influence students' reading comprehension. Segers and Hulstijn-Hendrikse (2008) examined the effect of cognitive processes, underlying multimedia text learning among the students in basic schools. Applying different formats, the students were taught reading comprehension lessons. The formats were seen in written presentation, which was accompanied by pictures, oral presentation, and oral presentation with pictures. The findings demonstrated that the students using oral presentation with pictures did better than the students using written presentation without pictures. The theoretical framework of this study is concerned with Mayer's (2010) cognitive theory of multimedia learning as well as cognitive processes underlying text comprehension based on Verhoeven and Perfetti's (2008) model. According to Mayer's (2010) model, a meaningful learning happens when students choose suitable words and pictures, organize them into coherent pictorial and verbal models, combine them with each other, and use proper prior knowledge. Mayer believed when corresponding verbal and pictorial representation are processed in working memory simultaneously, active learning processes can take place. Mayer (2010) explained when given information is similar to cognitive processes, which take place inside a learner, the learner learns better. This helps the learner achieve information and store it in his/her long-term memory. If the presented information is only a text, a learner cannot comprehend the text, but also he/she can use his/her prior knowledge to construct new knowledge. In the middle of this process, the reader involves two levels of representation: the text model, a model of propositions of a text, and the situation model, a model of what the text is about (Verhoeven & Perfetti, 2008). Verhoeven and Perfetti proposed that through using other sources of information, readers read more comprehensively than the readers who use only a printed text. Thus, in multimodal text processing, the learners who use more than one source of information (text and picture) are expected to read more comprehensively. Finally, Verhoeven and Perfetti (2008) asserted that multimodal text enhanced students' reading comprehension achievement because students read comprehensively using more than one channel (Verhoeven & Perfetti, 2008). According to Mayer’s (2009) cognitive theory of multimedia learning, meaningful learning occurs when the students are engaged in active processing within two channels. Therefore, the students who make use of multimedia texts may read more comprehensively in comparison with the students who use conventional reading comprehension texts and use text model. The aim of this study is to explore the probable effect of applying multimodal printed and non-printed English texts on reading comprehension achievement of Iranian high school students. The findings are of significance as the use of multimodal texts enhances language learning process and encourages language learners to adopt a positive attitude toward language learning. 3. Methodology 3.1 Participants A total of 80 students participated in this study. All of them were Iranian female EFL learners with the age ranging from 16 to 18. They were selected from Ayatollah Khamenei boarding school in Nasr Abad, Torbat Jam. The participants were at the intermediate level of language proficiency. Thus, they shared similar linguistic and cultural background.

IJALEL 4(4):161-170, 2015 165 3.2 Instrumentation To investigate the purpose of this study, a pre-test, post-test, and Oxford Placement Test (OPT) were used. Through using Oxford Placement Test, the participants with intermediate proficiency level were selected, who were randomly divided into four groups. One group was considered as a control group, whereas the other three groups were regarded as experimental groups. The pre-test was also used as the post-test to avoid any inequality between them. Every item was graded dichotomously. In other words, one score was given for a correct answer, and zero score was given for an incorrect answer. The allotted time to answer either pre-test or post-test was 30 minutes. The pre-test and post-test contained three reading passages: The Wolf and Seven Little Kids; The Frog King; and Godfather Death, chosen from Brother Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Each text was followed by 20 multiple-choice questions. The test was given to some TEFL instructors, who provided feedback on the content of the test to remove the probable ambiguities. The test was administered to 30 participants, who also gave their feedback on the test items. The necessary revisions were made by the researcher to improve the content validity of the test. The reliability coefficient of the test was calculated by using a KR-21 formula (a = .090). In the experimental phase, three types of web-based linear reading passages were used. The passages were derived from Wolf and Seven Little Kids, Godfather Death and Frog King. The reading texts were linear printed texts with no illustrations, multimodal printed texts (reading passage with pictures) and non-printed multimodal texts. 3.3 Procedure An Oxford Placement Test was administered to all the participants in order to single out a group of homogeneous participants. An Oxford Placement Test consisted of three parts: structure, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. Initially, 120 female students participated in this study. After administration of OPT, 80 intermediate students, whose scores were between 32 and 79 (between + one standard deviation) were selected. The selected participants were at the intermediate level of language proficiency. They were randomly divided into four groups. One group was considered as a control group, and the other three groups were regarded as experimental groups. All the participants took the pre-test one week prior to the experiment. The pre-test measured the participants’ reading comprehension ability before receiving the designated treatment. Within eight weeks, each group received different teaching approaches by the researcher. The same text was taught in each group, but the first group or the control group received a traditional approach through using linear texts by the researcher. The second group received multimodal printed texts, accompanied by pictures. The third group received non-printed reading multimodal texts, such as related video films, accompanied by English subtitles. The fourth group received both multimodal printed texts (reading text with pictures) and non-printed text (related videos with English subtitle). The treatment lasted more than two months. In the last session, all groups took the same post-test. The results revealed whether the use of different types of text had a significant effect on reading achievement of four groups. In this study, the researcher attempted to explore the effect of using different types of multimodal texts in English classes on reading comprehension achievement of the participants. As a cause and effect relationship was explored, and random sampling was utilized to recruit the sample, the design of the study was experimental. To probe the corresponding research questions and null-hypotheses, a set of parametric statistical analyses such as descriptive statistics, one-way analysis of variance, and a Tukey HSD test were utilized in this study. 4. Results and Discussion 4.1 Parametric Assumptions This study aimed to investigate the effect of multimodal printed English texts on improving reading comprehension ability of Iranian EFL learners. A one-way analysis of variances was run to answer the research questions. Before discussing the results, it should be mentioned that the four assumptions, associated with parametric tests were met. First, the data were measured on an interval scale. Second, the groups performed independently on the tests, i.e. no treatment involving group of pair work was administered. Third, the data enjoyed normal distributions. As displayed in Table 4.1, the ratios of skewness and kurtosis over their respective standard errors were within the ranges of +/- 1.96. Table 4.1. Testing Normality Assumption

Note. PNP = Printed and Non-Printed, NP = Non-Printed P = Printed The last assumption – homogeneity of variances – is discussed when reporting the results of the one-way ANOVA.

Group Skewness Kurtosis StatisticStd. ErrorRatioStatisticStd. ErrorRatio

Multimodal PNPPre-test .087 .512 0.17 -.664 .992 -0.67 Post-test -.178 .512 -0.35 -.589 .992 -0.59

Multimodal NP Pre-test .361 .512 0.71 -.828 .992 -0.83 Post-test .069 .512 0.13 -.460 .992 -0.46

Multimodal P Pre-test .119 .512 0.23 .532 .992 0.54 Post-test -.461 .512 -0.90 -.578 .992 -0.58

Control(Control) Pre-test -.089 .512 -0.17 -1.095 .992 -1.10 Post-test -.167 .512 -0.33 -.631 .992 -0.64

IJALEL 4(4):161-170, 2015 166 4.2 Pre-test of Reading Comprehension

A one-way analysis of variances was run to compare the mean scores of the four groups on the pretest of reading comprehension in order to prove that they enjoyed the same level of reading comprehension ability prior to the administration of the treatments. Before discussing the results, it should be mentioned that the groups enjoyed homogeneous variances on the pretest of reading comprehension. As displayed in Table 4.2, the Levene’s F-value of .831 was not significant at (P < .05). Table 4.2 Test of Homogeneity of Variances

Table 4.3 displayed descriptive statistics of the four groups on the pretest of reading comprehension.

Table 4.3 Descriptive Statistics of Reading Comprehension Pretest N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error

Multimodal PNP 20 9.40 1.314 .294 Multimodal NP 20 9.50 1.504 .336 Multimodal P 20 10.05 2.089 .467 Control 20 10.30 1.689 .378 Total 80 9.81 1.685 .188

P = Printed, NP = Non Printed, PNP = Printed and Non Printed

As displayed in Table 4.3, the multimedia, printed and non-printed (M = 9.40, SD = 1.31), multimedia non-printed (M = 9.50, SD = 1.50), multimedia printed (M = 10.05, SD = 2.08), and control (M = 10.30, SD = 1.68) groups showed similar means on pretest. The means of the four groups in the pretests are shown in Figure 4.1.

Figure 4.1 Pretest of Reading Comprehension

Figure 4.1 demonstrated the mean scores of the four groups in reading comprehension pretest. The mean scores are close and not significantly different. To explore the differences among the mean scores of the four groups, a one-way ANOVA was conducted. The results are shown in Table 4.4. Table 4.4 A One-Way Analysis of Variance for Reading Comprehension Pretest

The results of one-way ANOVA, F (3, 76) = 1.337, P < .05, ω2 = .012 presented a weak effect size. The results indicated that there were not any significant differences among the means of the four groups on the pre-test of reading comprehension. Thus, four groups' means on the pretest of reading comprehension were homogenous, and all the participants enjoyed nearly the same level of reading comprehension ability prior to the administration of the treatments.

Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig. .831 3 76 .481

Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Between Groups 11.238 3 3.746 1.337 .269 Within Groups 212.950 76 2.802 Total 224.188 79

IJALEL 4(4):161-170, 2015 167 4.3 Post-test of Reading Comprehension A one-way ANOVA was run to compare four groups' mean scores on the posttest of reading comprehension in order to probe three research questions, posed in this study. The ANOVA test was followed by post-hoc Tukey tests to compare the groups two by two. Before discussing the results, it should be mentioned that the groups enjoyed homogeneous variances on the posttest of reading comprehension. As displayed in Table 4.5, the Levene’s F-value of 1.99 was not significant (P < .05). Table 4.5 Test of Homogeneity of Variances in Posttest

Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig.

1.994 3 76 .122

Table 4.6 displayed the descriptive statistics of four groups in the posttest of reading comprehension. Table 4.6 Descriptive Statistics for Reading Comprehension Posttest

The multimedia, printed group (M = 16, SD = 1.74) showed the highest mean score in the post-test. This was followed by the multimedia, printed and non-printed (M = 14.50, SD = 1.70) and multimedia non-printed (M = 14.10, SD = 1.07) groups successively, which showed similar means in the posttest. The control group showed the lowest mean score (M = 11.10, SD = 1.77). The results of one-way ANOVA, F (3, 76) = 32.92, P < .05, ω2 = .54 presented a large effect size, indicating significant differences among the means of four groups in the posttest of reading comprehension. The results are shown in Table 4.7. Table 4.7 One-Way ANOVA for Posttest of Reading Comprehension

As shown in Table 4.7, F-value of 32.92 at p = .000 indicated significant differences among the means of four groups. A post-hoc Tukey test (Table 4.8) was run to compare the mean scores of the groups two by two in order to probe the research questions. The results are shown in Table 4.8.

Table 4.8 Post-Hoc Tukey Tests for the Posttest of Reading Comprehension

*. The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level. The results indicated that there was a significant difference between multimedia printed and control groups (MD = 4.90, P < .05). Based on these results, the first null-hypothesis as multimodal printed English texts did not significantly affect Iranian students’ reading comprehension achievement was strongly rejected. The multimedia printed group also outperformed the control group on the posttest of reading comprehension. There was a significant difference between the mean of multimedia non-printed (M = 14.10) and control group (M = 11.10) (MD = 3, P < .05). Based on these results, the second null-hypothesis as non-printed multimodal English texts did not significantly affect Iranian students' reading comprehension achievement was strongly rejected. The multimedia non-printed group outperformed the control

N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error

Multimodal PNP 20 14.50 1.701 .380 Multimodal NP 20 14.10 1.071 .240 Multimodal P 20 16.00 1.747 .391 Control 20 11.10 1.774 .397 Total 80 13.93 2.380 .266

Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Between Groups 252.950 3 84.317 32.929 .000 Within Groups 194.600 76 2.561 Total 447.550 79

(I) Group (J) Group Mean Difference (I-J)Std. ErrorSig.

Multimodal PNP Multimodal NP .400 .506 .859Control 3.400* .506 .000

Multimodal NP Control 3.000* .506 .000Multimodal P Multimodal PNP 1.500* .506 .021

Multimodal NP 1.900* .506 .002Control 4.900* .506 .000

IJALEL 4(4):161-170, 2015 168 group on the posttest of reading comprehension. There was a significant difference between multimedia, printed (M = 16) and multimedia non-printed group (M = 14.10) (MD = 1.90, P < .05). Based on these results, the third null-hypothesis as multimodal printed English texts and multimodal non-printed English texts did not significantly affect Iranian students' reading comprehension achievement was strongly rejected. The multimedia printed group outperformed the multimedia non-printed group on the posttest of reading comprehension. Figure 4.2 demonstrates the mean scores of four groups in the post tests of reading comprehension tests.

Figure 4.2 Means of the Posttest of Reading Comprehension for the Four Groups

As demonstrated in Figure 4.2, the mean score of multimodal printed text was the highest among the mean scores of the other groups. The findings of this study confirm Verhoeven and Perfetti's (2008) finding in that multimodal text enables language learners to read comprehensively through using different learning channels. The findings of Mayer and Gallini’s (1990) study of modality representation was also proved in this study in that language learners who read a text with illustrations were more successful in accomplishing problem solving tasks and transferring knowledge than the learners who read a text with no illustrations. One probable explanation for the impact of multimodal texts on reading comprehension test performance resides in the way different modes are processed and the way particular modes activates a reader’s meaning-making process. Thus, in multimodal texts, a reader uses various senses, including sight, hearing, tactile, and kinesthetic to react to different modes and channels for effective learning (Walsh, 2007). 5. Conclusion and Pedagogical Implications Based on the findings of the present study, the use of multimodal texts has a significant impact on Iranian intermediate learners' reading comprehension achievement. It is worth mentioning that the students with high level of reading proficiency had better performance than did the other students. Using multimodal texts created more joy among the students who used multimodal texts. The role of the teachers should not be taken for granted here. Raising a learner's reading comprehension ability requires language teachers to identify the major factors that influence the reader’s comprehension ability. Taylor et al (2000) noted that students have some particular characteristics that can limit or improve their capacity to comprehend text. These characteristics comprise the reader's attention span, short-term memory, reasoning skills, motivation, knowledge of comprehension strategies, ability to concentrate and decode meaning, grammatical knowledge, and background schemata. Taylor et al (2000) introduced attention span as an important factor in a student's reading success. Through attention span, a reader can identify a meaningful connection between two elements if he/ she sees them at the same time. Block and Pressley (2002) stressed that existing research points to the fact that teachers must teach valid and accurate comprehension strategies to enhance students’ reading comprehension. It should be noted that appropriate modeling develop students' comprehension success. In their book "Integrating Language Arts through Literature and Thematic Units", Roe and Ross (2006) recommended that teachers should teach one or two strategies to students rather than many strategies to decrease the risk of confusion. Furthermore, teachers should represent strategic techniques in a real-life reading setting to engage the students in authentic activities (Roe & Ross, 2006). In such an authentic atmosphere, students can learn reading strategies to improve their ability to comprehend texts if they receive proper, explicit, and direct instruction. It should be kept in mind that Iranian language learners, like any other foreign language learners, have limited vocabulary knowledge. Therefore, the use of multimodal texts by language teachers can help language learners predict the content better leading to more effective long-lasting comprehension. As a result, learners who learn with words and pictures learn reading content more effectively and remember it better. The result of the study implies that guessing

IJALEL 4(4):161-170, 2015 169 the story content from pictures was highly effective in increasing the learners’ reading comprehension ability. Chayaburakul (2003) maintained that pictures provide implication for the reader to make intelligent guessing. Reading pictures motivate the readers and capture their attention to the content of reading materials as well as reading tasks. Bowen (1982) explained that variation of pictures stimulates language learners' thinking process to gain a far better understanding of the reading passage. The findings of this study manifested the great need to include a wide range of multimodal instructional materials, associated with digital communication environments, which are required for meaningful participation in a changing society (Mills, 2006). Teachers need to use innovative digital technologies and new literacy pedagogies to improve reading ability of second language learners. The findings also indicated that multimodal learning is more effective than traditional unimodal learning due to the fact that adding visuals to verbal learning can result in significant gains in higher-order learning. Multimodal instructional materials facilitate reading comprehension process through the interaction between texts and images. Multimodal texts, especially non-printed texts improve learners’ pronunciation due to providing language learners with the opportunity to listen to the texts. Multimodal texts also increase language learners' motivation to process reading comprehension texts. Second language learners, who use multimodal texts, are more motivated to deeply process reading texts than those who use linear texts.

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International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

Don Delillo’s Point Omega; Ecstasy and Inertia in a Hyperreal World: A Baudrillardian Reading

Faeze Yegane (Corresponding author) Department of English Language and Literature, Islamic Azad University, Central Tehran Branch, Iran

E-mail: faeze.yegane87@yahoo.com

Farid Parvaneh Department of English Language and Literature, Islamic Azad University, Qom Branch, Iran

Received: 13-12- 2014 Accepted: 13-02- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015 Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.171 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.171 Abstract This paper aims to present a Baudrillardian reading of Don Delillo’s Point Omega in the framework of Baudrillard’s definition of the contemporary world as ‘hyperreal’ and also his twin concepts of ‘ecstasy and inertia’. According to Baudrillard, the contemporary time is the hyperreal era in which subjects do not have access to ‘real’ primarily because they are supplied with the ‘simulations’ first and then with the ‘real’ entity and probably never confronted with the ‘real’ itself through media, advertisements, and virtual world. Thus, the perception they have from incidents, objects, places and even other people is ‘hyperreal’; edited, censored, beautified and exaggerated versions of reality; more real than real. In this study Point Omega will be examined as Delillo’s ‘hyperreal’ version of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho since the movie is screened in the course of the novel and despite the similarities between the novel and the movie they end contrastingly. Symbolically ‘real’ is not found in the novel due to ‘Mobius spiraling negativity’ which is one of the features of Baudrillard’s definition of ‘hyperreal’ age. Baudrillard believes in the triumph of objects over subjects. While the object’s world is perpetually cultivating frenziedly, objects and technologies begin to dominate the stupefied subjects consequently he states when the objects are moving toward their ‘ecstasy’, the subjects are stricken in ‘inertia’. This supremacy of objects and technologies will be displayed in Point Omega regarding Richard Elster’s inert behavior and reaching the ‘omega point’ that Teilhard de Chardin envisions for human race is rendered impossible due to Elster’s destiny in the framework of Baudrillard’s concept of evolution. Keywords: Ecstasy, Inertia, Hyperreality, Baudrillard, Don Delillo, Point Omega, Omega Point, Teilhard de Chardin,

Alfred Hitchcock. 1. Introduction Richard Elster, the central character of Point Omega is a retired scholar who has worked in Pentagon for two years to conceptualize the Iraq war. He is spending his retirement forlorn in a desert to distance himself from what Baudrillard calls the ‘hyperreal’ ecstatic world of objects and ‘simulations’, on the other hand he aspires to reach the ‘omega point’ that Teilhard de Chardin defines. Jim Finely, a documentary film maker, and Elster’s daughter, Jessie, also accompany him in his solitary withdrawal. But out of the blue one day Jessie disappears and there aren’t any traces which help others to detect her. There are two ‘anonymity’ sections in the beginning and ending of the novel in which an anonymous man watches Douglas Gordon’s 24Hour Psycho in the museum for consecutive hours and some links between Jessie and the anonymous watcher can be noted but which ultimately remain obscure. The affinities and the differences between the events which take place in Point Omega and in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho would be clarified in the framework of Baudrillard’s definition of ‘hyperreal’ era. 2. Theoretical Framework Baudrillard claims that the contemporary era is ‘hyperreal’ in which the references to real are lost and people are confronted with ‘simulations’. “The era of simulation is inaugurated by a liquidation of all referentials”. (Simulacra and Simulation, 1994, p. 2) When simulations expand in television and computers, their references to social, political and historical realities are lost and they instead refer to each other. Therefore, the depth and meaning is vanished and the individuals are only presented with the spectacle and not reality and meaning. He states that in the age of ‘ecstasy’ of meaning subjects are confronted with abundant information and superfluous meaning which creates a kind of ‘nebula’, the ‘entropy’ of excessive information and media messages , that results in the disappearance of meaning and renders the subjects stupefied and disappointed since they cannot grasp and make sense of it all. According to him due to ‘Mobius spiraling negativity’ the investigation for real entities and real causes remain impossible since:

The facts no longer have a specific trajectory, they are born at the intersection of models, a single fact can be engendered by all models at once. This anticipation, this precession, this short circuit, this confusion of the fact with its model…is what allows each time for all possible interpretations, even the most contradictory—all true, in the sense that their truth is to be exchanged, in the image of the model from which they derive, in a generalized cycle. (Simulacra and Simulation, 1994, p. 17)

Flourishing Creativity & Literacy

IJALEL 4(4):171-174, 2015 172 In the ‘hyperreal’ world that Baudrillard portrays the objects and the technologies are growing to be more sophisticated and intelligent progressively. This proliferation and complicatedness of objects which he calls the ‘ecstasy’ of objects, creates a catastrophe for the subjects, since the ‘ecstasy’ of the objects is accompanied by the ‘inertia’ of the subjects. The smart, developed objects and technologies are growing and replicating uncontrollably to the extent that they are surpassing the boundaries and going beyond the ‘use-value’ and ‘exchange-value’. “The only revolution in things is today no longer in their dialectical transcendence, but in their potentialization, in their elevation to the nth power, whether that of terrorism, irony, or simulation. It is no longer dialectics, but ecstasy that is in process.” (Fatal Strategies, 2008, p. 63) The subject is encircled to the ‘ecstatic’ and ‘obscene’ excrescence of powerful objects and begins to slow down and become numb and motionless. Therefore, in his Fatal Strategies (1983) Baudrillard discusses that subjects begin to surrender to the rules and strategies of the objects and are stupefied by their complexities; in this regard his conception of the contemporary man is quite contrary to Teilhard de Chardin’s concept of evolution of man. Teilhard believes in the metaphysics of evolution. In his theory “the universe is constantly developing towards higher levels of material complexity and consciousness” (Tonelli, 2011, p. 97) and human beings are also in the process of converging toward a final unity, the ‘omega point’ which is the supreme complexity of consciousness. He asserts that beyond the tendencies of the material world toward production and sophistication human being is also becoming more complex and more completely unified. He believes human’s body is evolved sufficiently with a sophisticated nervous system to permit rational reflection and self awareness. The ‘omega point’ that Teilhard envisions for human beings is in sharp contrast with the way Baudrillard portrays subjects in the ‘hyperreal’ era. “As information starts to circulate everywhere at the very speed of light. There is no longer an absolute by which to measure the rest. But behind this acceleration something is beginning to slow down absolutely. Are we now slowing down absolutely?” (Fatal Strategies, 2008, pp. 37-38).Consequently, Baudrillard challenges the evolution of man and claims that human beings are not accompanying the complicatedness and ‘ecstasy’ of objects and technologies. Don Delillo accordingly presents Richard Elster in his novel who believes in the ‘omega point’ and aspires to reach it in the silence and solitude of the desert but in the course of the novel and via Elster’s fate, Delillo discloses his opposition with Teilhard’s theory. 3. Baudrillardian Reading of Point Omega Point Omega centers on Richard Elster’s forlorn retirement in a desert in California. He is an emeritus intellectual who has worked in Pentagon for the last two years to provide them with “an intellectual framework for the Iraq war.” (Kakutani, 2010) He has escaped the very expansion of the objects’ predominance and is taking refuge in the empty landscapes of the desert. “The sun was beaming down. This is what he wanted, to feel the deep heat beating into his body, feel the body itself, reclaim the body from what he called the nausea of News and Traffic.” (Dellilo, 2012, p. 22) Elster distances himself from the ‘hyperreal’ ecstatic ‘simulations’ since he doesn’t want to surrender to the object’s rules and be stupefied by their complexities. As Baudrillard names Elster is in the state of ‘inertia’ and in the desert he is remote from the development and speed of objects and technologies: “Time slows down when I’m here. Time becomes blind…I don’t get old here.” (p. 30) Elster asserts that he is in the desert to “eat, sleep and sweat, here to do nothing, sit and think”. (p. 22) He has withdrawn to desert to stop being exposed to “News and Traffic. Sports and Weather” (p. 23) remote from the claustrophobic scenes of the city. Now he is in an underfurnished house in the desert and observes “nothing but distances, not vistas or sweeping sightlines but only distances.” (p. 22) Elster states that he used to come to this house before as well “to write, to think” (p. 29) but this time in what he calls his “spiritual retreat” (p. 29) he determines to solely reclaim his body and mind since he is ‘inert’ and is escaping the ‘ecstasy’ which has made him ‘inert’. As Michiko Kakutani puts: “All three central characters in this novel…are alienated, oddly detached people. They are individuals dwelling in a limbo state, searching for something that might give order or meaning to their lives or simply shell-shocked by the randomness and menace of modern life.” (Kakutani, 2010)Elster escapes to desert to stop being exposed to the flood of information. Jim, the documentary filmmaker who accompanies Elster and aims to make a documentary film starring him, also is impressed by the absence of information and media messages and decides to cease his exposure to them “I went inside to check my laptop for e-mail, needing outside contact but feeling corrupt, as if I were breaking an unstated pact of creative withdrawal.” (p. 31) Jim says: “I wasn’t using my cell phone and almost never touched my laptop. They began to seem feeble, whatever their speed and reach, devices overwhelmed by landscape.” (p. 82) Teilhard de Chardin states that human’s consciousness is reaching the ‘omega point’ similarly Elster comments: “human thought is alive, it circulates. And the sphere of collective human thought, this is approaching the final term, the last flare.” (p. 65) Teilhard’s notion of ‘omega point’ is in contrast with Baudrillard’s worldview according to which against the development and sophistication of the technology and the objects, human being is beginning to slow down and feel stupefied. The object’s world is accelerating toward its point of ‘ecstasy’ flourishing to a level which is beyond the perception of human being and people cannot reckon the complicatedness of objects and technology. Teilhard aspires an ‘omega point’ toward which human is pacing but according to Baudrillard the ‘ecstasy’ of objects and technology does not carry human being with itself too and humans have to conform to the rules and strategies of the objects and consequently they become ‘inert’. While Teilhard envisions an ‘omega point’ of supreme consciousness and intelligence toward which humans are approaching Baudrillard portrays human being entrapped by the sophistication of their world and being stricken in the state of ‘inertia’. While Teilhard believes in metaphysics of evolution of man to the final convergence with the supernatural order Elster ponders about human extinction in the desert, human is going to be extinct the way other species became extinct. He watches the landscapes in the desert and reflects about the species being extinct million years ago. Spreicer suggests “Point Omega portrays the exhaustion of the complex system of American-style visuality and connects it to the space of the desert, where the retardation of time functions as an

IJALEL 4(4):171-174, 2015 173 ominous foreboding of system entropy affecting the genuinely American sense of endless future development, the relentless self-perpetuation of the capitalist system.” (Spreicer, 2011) Elster suggests, humans are moving toward a dead point: “Do we have to be human forever? Consciousness is exhausted. Back now to inorganic matter. This is what we want. We want to be stones in a field.” (p. 67) Contemporary man lives in “the desert of the real” (Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 1994, p. 1) and Elster reflects about human’s extinction in a ‘hyperreal’ atmosphere with dumb experiences which are simulated what is the destiny of humankind? Earlier in the novel Elster accompanies Finely to the Museum of Modern Art where they watch Douglas Gordon’s 24Hour Psycho. He enjoys the movie though he doesn’t stay long, Scott Morris in his review on Point Omega explains Elster’s interest: “Gordon’s film appeals to him (we learn later) because its cosmological slowness anticipates the ‘heat death of universe’ a collective entropic end for the human species.” (Morris, 2010) Anyway Elster aspires to reach the ‘omega point’ in the silence and solitude of desert “where the mind transcends all the direction inward.” (p. 91) He wants to be all inside without connection to outside world. This is contrary to the notion of watching, a current theme in Point Omega, where as Mary K. Holland says “self becomes what self perceives”. (p. 10) She states that the novel becomes “a warning about the dangers of constituting the self purely externally, through image and representation.” (p. 10) The man who is watching 24Hour Psycho wants “complete immersion” (p. 146) with the movie. He wants to “bathe in the tempo, in the near static rhythm of the image…He wanted the film to move even more slowly, requiring deeper involvement of eye and mind, always that, the thing he sees tunneling into the blood, into dense sensation, sharing consciousness with him.” (p. 146) The postmodern man is assimilated to what Jessie names the “ritual” (p. 88) of watching and receiving the simulations. Jessie visits an old couple who watch TV all day long. The old woman watches her husband searching for his response to what he sees and Jessie watches the old woman and she is part of the ritual “one watching the other watch the other.” (p. 88) Therefore, Elster who seeks to reach the ‘omega point’ in the desert remote from all connections to outside world is also a part of the culture of watching via the simulations of which he construct parts of his identity. He is extremely connected to his daughter and the loss of her distances him violently from reaching the ‘omega point’ before Jessie’s disappearance he comments: “I feel the landscape more than see it. I never know what day it is. I never know if a minute has passed or an hour.” (p. 30) He seems to be thoroughly assimilated with the landscape and be drawn inside but he is on the other hand connected to Jessie. Jessie was “Elster’s possessiveness, his enclosing space…he wanted her near him all the time.” (p. 49) And the panoramas in the desert alter to be empty and leave him deserted. When Jessie is lost Elster deteriorates thoroughly, all his speech and egoism turns to grief for the loss of his daughter and he becomes a wretched old man. As David Cowart puts Elster “meets his fate in the desert. Implicated in deadly political folly, he retreats in chagrin to his own personal Iraq.” (p. 45) He had worked in Pentagon to prepare the Iraq war like an advertisement to be presented to the world. His job was to make a simulated, unreal war. In Pentagon they were dealing with simulations and not the realities as he himself claims: “they think they’re sending an army into a place on a map.” (p. 35) They were dealing with statistics, the risk assessments, policy papers, evaluations and they were far from the realities of the violence taking place in the war. The war for them is a ‘hyperreal’ entity in which the references to reality are obscure. “There were times when no map existed to match the reality we were trying to create.” (p. 36) They deal with the war like an advertisement to be shown on TV, the depth and realities of the war fade away in the simulated presentation of truth in TV. “We tried to create new realities overnight, careful sets of words that resemble advertising slogans in memorability and repeatability. These were words that would yield pictures eventually and then become three-dimensional.” (p. 36) Elster must justify the war and he is so remote from its violence. He says: “I hate violence. I fear the thought of it, won’t watch violent movies, turn away from news reports on television that show dead or wounded people…Violence freezes my blood.” (p. 63) But only after the disappearance of Jessie he can reckon the real grief of loss. Delillo reverses Teilhard’s ‘omega point’ to ‘point omega’ as David Cowart puts “therein lies the chief irony of Delillo’s title.” (p. 47) Jim reflects:

I thought of his remarks about matter and being, those long nights on the deck, half smashed, he and I, transcendence, paroxysm, the end of human consciousness. It seemed so much dead echo now. Point omega. A million years away. The omega point has narrowed, here and now, to the point of a knife as it enters a body. All the man’s grand themes funneled down to local grief, one body, out there somewhere, or not. (p. 124)

Point Omega is Delillo’s 21st century’s version of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Similarly the girl disappears in both tales. In the movie Marion Crane the character is murdered and she is looked for meticulously. There are traces she has left behind and finally her dead body is found. There are definite references to the ‘real’ which is the dead body of Marion, the others inspect them and they reach the ‘real’. But in Delillo’s version Jessie is lost, the ‘real’, and there are not any references for others to reach clues helping them find her dead or alive and ultimately she is not discovered. The ‘real’ is not to be grasped because in the ‘hyperreal’ there aren’t any references to real. Marion Crane in the movie is killed by a knife and similarly in the novel after a couple of days the searchers find a knife in an area called Impact Area in the desert but even they cannot assert the exact application of the knife; “could be a hiker’s or camper’s, any number of uses.” (p. 114) Baudrillard calls this feature of ‘hyperreality’, ‘Mobius spiraling negativity’:

If one envisions the entire cycle of any act or even in a system where linear continuity and dialectical polarity no longer exist, in a field unhinged by simulation, all determination evaporates…indeed the objectivity of the facts does not put an end to this vertigo of interpretation. That is, we are in a logic of simulation, which no longer has anything to do with a logic of facts and an order of reason. (Simulacra and Simulation, 1994, p. 16)

IJALEL 4(4):171-174, 2015 174 As Martin Paul Eve states in his article Point Omega encompasses “postmodern ontological indeterminacy” since “the reader is not given enough evidence to uncover what has happened to Jessie or what has caused her disappearance, only strongly suggestive clues and forking paths.” (Eve, 2014, p. 6) Delillo presents this logic of postmodernity in his work. The events happen and the definite cause of the events or the initiators of the events and catastrophes are not going to be discovered and the doors to interpretations are permanently open. For each event in the postmodern era there is not a clear cut source to be declared and accepted socially since events “are born at the intersection of models, a single fact can be engendered by all models at once”. (Simulacra and Simulation, p. 17) There are always rumors for other originators and diverse aims behind an event or a catastrophe. Delillo manifest this embedded logic in political and social events of the contemporary era in his version of Psycho. In Delillo’s tale Jessie disappears, this is the catastrophe but the reasons behind this event is not going to be discovered. It’s not definite, whether she is kidnapped or murdered or she has simply escaped the house since there aren’t any clues which direct the searches into a conclusion and even the dead body, if it is taken for granted that she is murdered, is not found. As Scott Morris puts, the same thing happens in 24Hour Psycho. He believes the movie: “is achingly slow, the events of the original movie are disconnected. Cause is sundered from effect, each forgetting the other. A masterwork of suspense like Psycho relies on pace and succession to achieve any emotional impact.” (Morris, 2010) In the movie version there is a private detector Arbogast and after he is murdered another detective scrutinizes the events, the clues and reactions and finally he lays bare all the motivation behind characters’ actions, the sequences of the events and the psychological trauma which intrigues Norman Bate to commit the chain of murders. Norman Bate’s psychological association to his mother when she was alive and after her death are declared but the reader’s urge to find out about the man who is watching the 24Hour Psycho and his psychological relation to his mother that engages his mind through the novel is not satisfied. Similar to Psycho which ends with Norman Bate’s mental dialogue with his mother, the novel ends with the watcher’s memory of his dialogues with his mother “Sometimes he sits by her bed and says something and then looks at her and waits for an answer. Sometimes he just looks at her.” (p. 148) But contrastingly the reader of Point Omega only knows that the first name of the man Jessie was dating is probably Dennis as Jessie’s mother guess who might be the watcher of the 24Hour Psycho and might not. In fact Point Omega is Delillo’s version of Hitchcock’s suspense movie in which the suspense is not resolved finally because as Jim says: “New York City…where people do not ask” (p. 47) where the riddles are not going to be solved since there are simulated clues which do not lead to ‘real’. At the end Elster asks Jim: “Jimmy what happened?” a question that Jim is not able to answer. According to Baudrillard “catastrophe is always ahead of the normal schedule; it’s always a telescoping, a sudden instantaneity of time…meaning is always too late…This is the eternal delay to which things are condemned by meaning.” (Fatal Strategies, pp. 198-199) And no information is gathered about Jessie’s disappearance and the reader is left with unanswered questions. 4. Conclusion Through a Baudrillardian reading of Point Omega, it would be clarified that reaching Teilhard’s ‘omega point’ is impossible in the contemporary ‘hyperreal’ era since while the objects’ world is pacing toward its ‘ecstasy’, the subjects approach to the state of ‘inertia’. In Point Omega, Delillo suggests that all themes of human’s evolution evaporate with the violence and terrorism which is happening worldwide. When Elster experiences the grief of loss, he is so far from reaching the ‘omega point’; on the other hand, in the ‘hyperreal’ era along with the triumph of objects over subjects the numbed subjects do not have the chance of being transcended to the ‘omega point’. The fact is that Elster as the embodiment of the ‘inert’ postmodern subject who is exposed to the ‘ecstasy’ of objects, technologies, and violence of terrorism on the other hand is far beyond reaching Teilhard’s ‘omega point’. Delillo has included Douglas Gordon’s 24Hour Psycho in his novel which is the slowed version of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and he presents the reader with his own version of Psycho but the logics of postmodernity; the loss of ‘real’ and ‘references’ in what Baudrillard calls ‘Mobius spiraling negativity’ direct the catastrophe and leads to the open-ended ending of the tale. Jessie disappears without any trace and there aren’t any references which leads the researches to find her dead or alive. Also her connection to watcher of 24Hour Psycho remains vague and she remains the ‘real’ which is not to be regained. The reader also remains in suspense; in the same way that humans are in suspense of finding the ‘real’ causes and initiators to the events and catastrophes happening worldwide. References Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and Simulation. (S. F. Glaser, Trans.) Michigan: University of Michigan Press. Baudrillard, J. (2008). Fatal Strategies. (P. Beitchman, & W. J. Niesluchowski, Trans.) Los Angles: Semiotext(e). Cowart, D. (Spring 2012). The Lady Vanishes: Don Delillo's Point Omega. Contemporary Literature, 31-50. Dellilo, D. (2012). Point Omega. London: Picador. Eve, M. P. (2014). "Too many goddamn echoes":Historicizing the Iraq War in Don DeLillo's Point Omega. Journal of American Studies, 1-18. Holland, M. k. (May/June 2013). This Is the point. American Book Review Volume 34 Number4, 10. Kakutani, M. (2010, 2 2). Make War. Make Talk. Make It All Unreal. The New York Times. Morris, S. (2010, October 24). Review: Point Omega, Don Delillo. Retrieved from Ohshillings.wordspress.com: http://ohshillings.wordpress.com/2010/10/24/review-point-omega-don-delillo/ Spreicer, J. (2011, November 30). Spectral visuality in novels by Don DeLillo. Retrieved from Knjižnica Filozofskog fakulteta : http://darhiv.ffzg.unizg.hr/1504/ Tonelli, R. D. (2011). Science of Spirit: Lost Keys to the Kingdom... on Earth. Bloomington: Xlibris Corporation.

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

The Impact of Parents’ Involvement in and Attitude toward Their Children’s Foreign Language

Programs for Learning English

Vida Hosseinpour Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch, Saveh/Faculty of Foreign Languages, Saveh, Iran

E-mail: V.hoseinpour@yahoo.com

Maryam Sherkatolabbasi (Corresponding author) E-mail: mary.sherkat@yahoo.com

Mojgann Yarahmadi

Islamic Azad University, Arak Branch, Arak, Iran E-mail: mojgan.yarahmadi@yahoo.com

Received: 12-12- 2014 Accepted: 14-02- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015 Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.175 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.175 Abstract Since parents and their involvement and attitude have a crucial role in children’s achievement in learning English, the present study is to explore and evaluate the impact of Iranian parents’ involvement in and attitude toward their children’s foreign language programs for learning English. In other words, the effectiveness of their high level of involvement and strength of attitude will be evaluated. Besides, this study is to explore whether some factors such as parents’ gender, knowledge of English, income, and educational background are related in the parents’ involvement and attitude or not. To this end, first of all, a reliable questionnaire, checked through a pilot study, was distributed among 140 parents to find out the level of their involvement in and attitude toward the programs. Based on the normal curve and the Z score, the parents were divided into two groups, one with a higher level of involvement and more positive attitude and the other with a lower level of involvement and less positive attitude. By using a standard final achievement test of the course book among 70 primary school student in third grade and Independent T-test analysis, the impact of parents’ involvement and attitude were checked. As the results revealed those parents who have high level of involvement in and positive attitude toward their children’s English language programs made their children’s higher level of achievement in the language program. Besides, the further outcomes showed that there are significant differences between the parents’ knowledge of English, income, and educational background and their level of involvement and attitude. The aforementioned factors affect children’s achievement test scores as well. Keywords: Involvement, Attitude, and Language program 1. Introduction English language is considered an international language for a long time. Since English is a “global language” and widely used in science and business, the number of English language learners has raised worldwide (Crystal, 2003). More specifically, English is considered as the most significant foreign language in Iran and it has an important role in education. The notion of when it comes to English learning, the younger the better, is widely accepted by people (Wang and Chang, 2011; Birdsong and Molis, 2001). It is proven that childhood education has to begin early and children learn most at early ages. Foreign language instruction in primary school has been justified by educators and experts with theoretical and empirical rationale. More particularly to the context of this study, Iranian parents are increasingly interested in English learning for their children from the early ages. Thus, this increasing significance of mastering English seems to have encouraged more primary schools to include English language programs as a subject in their curriculum. Regarding the parents’ roles, the impact of parents on children’s development and education is really crucial and it has been the topic of empirical studies for a long time. Parents are always in the center of their children’s life. Family or parents is an environmental factor that affects learners’ academic achievements. Traditionally parents think that teachers and schools are the only responsible agents for their children’s education and training. As teachers try to make a relationship with parents so that they involve the parents in their children’s education, parents may perceive teachers as being not appropriate teachers. The teacher must enlighten the parents on the physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional development of their children. (Latif, Rahmany & Hassani, 2013)

Flourishing Creativity & Literacy

IJALEL 4(4):175-185, 2015 176 As it was mentioned, a child’s family is the most influential part of his/her life. Therefore, parents have a major role in their children’s education. Parents’ involvement in and attitude toward a foreign language has a great effect on their children’s success in learning the language. This attitude can be passive or active. It is shown that children have a better foreign language achievement if their parents have an active attitude towards this foreign language even if these parents do not speak the foreign language. And vice versa is true if the parents have a passive attitude towards a foreign language. Parents can reveal their positive attitudes towards foreign language learning by being a part of their child’s learning inside or outside of the school (Rosenbusch, 1987). Parents’ attitudes toward language learning are especially important in concepts when predicting children’s level of success in language attainment (Baker, 1992). To the extent that parents definitely understand advantages of language learning and how to develop it, their children’s foreign language learning will be more effective via language programs. In case of parents’ involvement, Feuerstein (1990) stated that parents have cognitive, social, and emotional roles in students’ development. They can form their students’ self-concepts and through this efficient cognitive functioning, foster their language learning. This feature is culture-bound and differs in different societies (as cited in Williams and Burden, 1997). Buttery and Anderson (2000) documented that parents play an active role by monitoring their children’s activities. Parents might play a more indirect role by modeling attitudes that leads to language learning achievement. Keith and Keith (1993) confirmed that involvement by parents is particularly significant in work with young children. Parents can help their children in experiencing and making sense of the world. Parents also provide an important source of emotional. Thus, owing to the fact that a growing body of research has confirmed the role of parents’ involvement in and attitude toward their children’ language learning, it is of utmost importance to see how effective it is in students’ achievement and development in practice. Based on the purpose of the research, the present study seeks to answer the following questions. The first question is the main research question and the last four ones are considered as the minor ones: 1. Do the students whose parents have high level of involvement in and positive attitude toward their children’s

English language programs learn and achieve more in the programs? 2. Is there any significant difference between parents’ knowledge of English and their involvement in and attitude

toward their children’s English language programs? 3. Is there any significant difference between parents’ gender and their involvement in and attitude toward their

children’s English language programs? 4. Is there any significant difference between parents’ level of educational background and their involvement in and

attitude toward their children’s English language programs? 5. Is there any significant difference between parents’ level of income and their involvement in and attitude toward

their children’s English language programs? 2. Review of the Related Literature The purpose of this section is to review the literature relating to the theoretical and research issues so as to provide input into the construction of the framework for the present study. The theoretical and research background related to the effect of parents’ involvement in attitude toward children’s language programs for learning English is addressed herein respectively. 2.1 Theoretical Background Foreign language teaching in early ages or specifically elementary school has been justified by educators and experts with theoretical and empirical rationale. Theories and research suggests early onset and sustained study of second and third languages cause more effective conversational proficiency (McGroarty, 1997 & Brown, 2007), advantageous to those students’ future educational and occupational purposes. According to Ballantyne, Sanderman, & McLaughlin (2008), early childhood language programs can play an essential role in preparing young English language learners for later achievements in education. Children who have an opportunity to develop basic foundational skills in language and literacy in school programs will be more successful. In both theory and practice, it is extremely concluded that in early childhood development, parents especially mothers play a crucial role in young children’s life therefore parental education is important for the healthy development of children (Oncu & Unluer, 2010). Parents’, teachers’ and students’ beliefs are significantly important, since they can help conversations concerning the status of foreign languages and have effects on every language policy decision and determine a new direction for education, (Griva & Chostelidou, 2011; Nespor, 1987). Parents can play an important role in terms of improving children’s positive thinking towards foreign languages. Parental attitudes towards foreign languages influence their children’s success in multilingual competence. Both the way in which parents feel about foreign languages and the way they treat have effects on their children linguistic development (Young, 1994). Besides, Parents’ attitudes, motivations and home literacy practices can be affected by a variety of personal characteristics such as age, gender, educational levels, income etc. (Jang, 2012). Generally, concept of parents’ attitudes is important in understanding children’s language attainment because they influence parents’ language behavior with regards to children’s language learning (Tse, 1998, cited in Jang, 2012). In other words, parents’ attitudes toward languages considerably affect children’s attitudes (Baker, 1992).

IJALEL 4(4):175-185, 2015 177 In case of involvement, Keith and Keith (1993) confirmed that involvement by parents is particularly significant in work with young children. Parents can help their children in experiencing and making sense of the world. Parents also provide an important source of emotional. The literature related to parents and language programs at schools is rife with articles that convey a convincing and positive connection between parent involvement and academic achievement (Henderson & Mapp, 2002), school attendance (Sheldon, 2002), graduation rates (Harvard Family Research Project, 2006), educational aspirations (Greenwood & Hickman, 1991), positive classroom behavior (Cotton & Wikeland, 2001), enrollment in more challenging curricula, and favorable attitudes towards language program (Henderson & Mapp, 2002; Trusty, 1996; Astone & McClanahan, 1991). 2.2 Research background Boosting in the numbers of language institutes and their students, also boosting interest of parents for their children to learn English can be a good evidence for the recent importance of English language programs in Iran (Vaezi, 2008). However, it should be mentioned that teaching of English has long been a difficult task for both EFL students and teachers in Iran due to reasons such as lack of resources and little contact with the target language (Sadeghi, 2005). Oladejo (2006) examined parents’ attitudes towards bilingual education policy in Taiwan. The results of this study indicated that gender was not related to parents’ attitudes toward bilingual education. However, there was a significant difference between age and parents’ opinions on the statements claiming that foreign language learning would negatively influence children’s first language proficiency. The parents’ income was also influential. Lower income parents were less likely to agree than higher income parents. In the same question, the highly educated parents had more positive response than the lower educated parents. Furthermore, in another study, the components of parents’ language attitudes and involvement were also influenced by a variety of factors such a gender, ethnic background, parents’ language background, social class and income level (Cansler, 2008). In addition, a great deal of studies (Craig, 1996; Giacchino-Baker, & Piller, 2006) in relation to parents’ attitudes and motivations were conducted in second language learning contexts, whereas much less research was implemented in foreign language contexts (Chalak, & Kassaian, 2010; Csizer & Dörnyei, 2002). Many studies confirm significant effects of parents’ involvement for example, August and Hakuta (1997) stated that parent involvement could provide a significant source of support for students and teachers. Previous researches (e.g. Carter & Nunan, 2001; Waterman & Harry, 2008; Clark, & Hawkins, 2010) have suggested that parent involvement is central to academic achievement. To put it in a nutshell, the direct correlation between parental attitude and involvement in various capacities of schooling and student achievement has been documented in many empirical investigations (Cansler, 2008). 2.3 The current state of Children’s English language programs in Iran English is the most important foreign language in Iran because it is a mandatory subject at secondary schools and high school and generally in higher education. Many Iranians would consider English as their children’s second important language to learn. English skills are a requirement for most official jobs and are often crucial to improving one’s career. As it was mentioned above, English is a significant subject on entrance exams of high-ranking university admissions. Thus, most of Iranian parents are increasingly interested in bilingualism for their children and they want primary schools to have English learning program as a school subject. Based on the review of the literature, almost all parents’ attitudes, motivations toward and involvement in language learning are especially important in concepts when predicting children’s level of success in language achievement. 3. Methodology The design of this study is both descriptive and experimental. Since a questionnaire as one of the most common method of collecting quantitative data in applied linguistics is utilized to get parents’ involvement in and attitude toward their children’s English language programs, the present study first employed a quantitative method and a descriptive design. Regarding the experimental design, as the main research design of the study to see the effects of parents’ involvement in and attitude toward their children’s English language programs, the study employed a two-group posttest-only randomized experimental design. A pilot study was employed to examine the feasibility of the researcher-adapted questionnaire from the study which was carried out by Lois Elaine McLendon Cansler in North Carolina in 2008 and check the length, layout and item sequence since no previous research had been found in the context of Iran as a survey study in this regard. After administration of the questionnaires in the pilot study which was to check reliability and validity, PASW Statistics (SPSS version 18) software was used in order to calculate Cronbach’s alpha internal consistency reliability of the questionnaire. According to the reliability statistics, the questionnaire yielded a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.87 revealing satisfactory internal consistency reliability indexes which were highly acceptable.

IJALEL 4(4):175-185, 2015 178 3.1 Participants of the questionnaire Participants of this study consisted of both students’ fathers and mothers from Ferdows primary school in Tehran, Iran. As it mentioned before, all the students participating in the research were girls. It should be mentioned that both parents of a student were asked to participate and they were recognizable by the codes that the researcher assigned. They were randomly selected parents of school through the third grade students taking part in English Time 2 course. A total of 140 parents (70 fathers and 70 mothers) were accessed through their children attending the third grade of the primary school selected from a district with similar socio-economical levels. The parents were asked whether their children attend other English programs out of school or not and those whose children take part only in school language programs which was true about almost all of students were chosen to take part in the study. The school was chosen based on information presented on its website indicating that the school had a foreign language program. Based on the nature of the questions in questionnaire, in order to categorize the parents in two groups, one with high level of involvement and positive attitude and the other with a lower level of involvement and less positive attitude, a normal curve was employed. The data will be presented in the following. 3.2 Participants of post-test The students who participated in the present study were 70 ones who selected according to their parents’ total score (in both involvement and attitude) in questionnaire. Thus, there are two groups of students, the ones whose parents have a high level of involvement and positive attitude and the others whose parents have a lower level of involvement and less positive attitude. According to the similar codes which were assigned to the parents and their children, the total score of parents in questionnaire and the students’ achievement test score will be compared to see the effect of the parents’ involvement in and attitude toward language learning program. 3.3 Instruments As mentioned in research design section, this study utilized a questionnaire to get parents’ involvement in and attitude toward their children’s English language programs and divide them into two groups of parents with high level of involvement and positive attitude and vice versa. Afterwards, this study employed a standard final achievement test of the book, English time 2, in order to check the students’ achievement and then the effect of their parents’ involvement in and attitude toward their children’s English language programs. 4. Results First, based on the questionnaires analysis and according to the normal curve and Z score, the researcher found two groups of participants among the parents. The following graph and tables reveal the distribution of the parents:

Figure 1. Frequency distribution of participants based on attitude and involvement variables

Table 1. The Z Score for Involvement and Attitude Variables Statistic Std. Error

both Mean 3.7549 .06813

95% Confidence Interval for Mean Lower Bound 3.6202 Upper Bound 3.8896

5% Trimmed Mean 3.7613 Median 3.9231 Variance .650 Std. Deviation .80612 Minimum 2.38 Maximum 4.92 Range 2.54 Interquartile Range 1.54 Skewness -.117 .205 Kurtosis -1.531 .407

IJALEL 4(4):175-185, 2015 179 Based on the Z score, two classes were defined as Lower Bound and Upper Bound ones. Those parents whose total scores of the questionnaire were lower than the Lower Bound number which was about 3.6 were defined as the parents having a lower level of involvement in and less positive attitude toward their children’s language program. On the other hand, those parents whose total scores of the questionnaire were higher than the Upper Bound number which was about 3.9 were defined as the parents having a higher level of involvement in and more positive attitude toward their children’s language program. 4.1 Descriptive data of defining the main variables

Table 2. Defining the Main Variables

COMPUTE Attitude=(a1 + a2 + a3 + a4 + a5 + a9 + a10 + a13 )/8. EXECUTE.

COMPUTE Involvement=(i6 + i7 + i8 + i11 + i12)/5. EXECUTE.

COMPUTE both=(a1+a2+a3+a4+a5+i6+i7+i8+a9+a10+i11+i12+a13)/13. EXECUTE.

According to the computation on SPSS, adding the following ordinal questions a1 + a2 + a3 + a4 + a5 + a9 + a10 + a13 divided by 8 defines the main interval variable of attitude. It is worth mentioning that by adding the ordinal questions here, the interval variable of attitude was gotten. Besides, adding the following ordinal questions i6 + i7 + i8 + i11 + i12 divided by 5 defines the main interval variable of involvement. Again here, by adding the ordinal questions here, the interval variable of involvement was calculated. Furthermore, in order to have a variable to represent both attitude and involvement variables, all 13 questions of the questionnaire were added and divided by the total number of the ordinal questions and finally the interval variable showing both attitude and involvement turned out. 4.2 Responding the research Questions To answer the research questions, Independent Sample Tests and ANOVA analysis were employed. 1. Do the students whose parents have high level of involvement in and positive attitude toward their children’s

English language programs learn and achieve more in the programs? The following tables depict the results related to the first major research question: Table 3. Group Statistics of Both Level of Involvement and Strength of Attitude and Students’ Achievement Test Scores

both N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean

class.score high total score 35 4.3429 .59125 .09994

lower total score 35 2.6000 .97619 .16501

Table 4. Independent Samples Test of Strength of Both Level of Involvement and Strength of Attitude and Students’ Achievement Test Scores Levene's Test for

Equality of Variances t-test for Equality of Means

95% Confidence Interval of the

Difference

F Sig. t df

Sig. (2-

tailed)

Mean

Difference

Std. Error

Difference Lower Upper

class.score Equal variances

assumed

9.627 .003 9.034 68 .000 1.74286 .19291 1.35791 2.12781

Equal variances

not assumed

9.034 55.987 .000 1.74286 .19291 1.35641 2.12931

As the above tables and the results of Independent Sample Tests show, there are statistical significant differences, (p < 0.05). The outcomes state that there are two independent groups of the students whose parents have different levels of involvement in and attitudes toward their children’s English language programs. The scores of the students’ achievement test are significantly different considering their parents’ level of involvement and attitude. This difference as it was depicted in the first table shows those children whose parents had a higher level of involvement in and a more positive attitude toward their children’s English language programs got a higher achievement score.

IJALEL 4(4):175-185, 2015 180 2. Is there any significant difference between parents’ knowledge of English and their involvement in and attitude

toward their children’s English language programs?

Table 5. Group Statistics of Parents’ Knowledge of English and their Involvement and Attitude

speak.eng N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean

both yes 38 4.2045 .70779 .11482

no 102 3.5875 .77875 .07711

Table 6. Independent Samples Test of Parents’ Knowledge of English and their Involvement and Attitude

Levene's Test for Equality

of Variances t-test for Equality of Means

95% Confidence Interval of

the Difference

F Sig. t df

Sig. (2-

tailed)

Mean

Difference

Std. Error

Difference Lower Upper

both Equal variances

assumed

4.130 .044 4.269 138 .000 .61697 .14451 .33123 .90271

Equal variances not

assumed

4.461 72.497 .000 .61697 .13831 .34129 .89265

According to above tables, the statistical significant level is below 0.05, (p < 0.05), showing that the differences are significant. The parents’ knowledge of English shows higher level of involvement and more positive attitudes. Thus, there is a significant difference between parents’ knowledge of English and their involvement in and attitude toward their children’s English language programs . 3. Is there any significant difference between parents’ gender and their involvement in and attitude toward their

children’s English language programs? Table 7. Group Statistics of Parents’ Gender and their Involvement and Attitude

gender N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean

program.value male 70 3.7429 1.11233 .13295

female 70 3.7571 .92369 .11040

Table 8. Independent Samples Test of Parents’ Gender and their Involvement and Attitude

Levene's Test for Equality of Variances t-test for Equality of Means

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference

F Sig. t df

Sig. (2-tailed)

Mean Difference

Std. Error Difference Lower Upper

program.value Equal variances assumed

3.816 .053 -.083 138 .934 -.01429 .17281 -.35599 .32742

Equal variances not assumed

-.083 133.494 .934 -.01429 .17281 -.35609 .32752

Based on the above tables, the statistical significant level is higher than 0.05, showing that the differences are not significant. There is not any significant difference between parents’ gender and their involvement in and attitude toward their children’s English language programs.

IJALEL 4(4):175-185, 2015 181 4. Is there any significant difference between parents’ level of educational background and their involvement in and

attitude toward their children’s English language programs?

Table 9. Group Statistics of Parents’ Level of Educational Background and their Involvement and Attitude

N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error

95% Confidence Interval for Mean

Minimum Maximum Lower Bound Upper Bound

below diploma 8 2.6827 .11943 .04223 2.5828 2.7825 2.54 2.77

diploma 36 2.9209 .26295 .04382 2.8320 3.0099 2.38 3.31

bachelor's degree 61 3.9218 .66580 .08525 3.7513 4.0923 2.77 4.69

master's degree or higher 35 4.5670 .25382 .04290 4.4798 4.6542 4.23 4.92

Total 140 3.7549 .80612 .06813 3.6202 3.8896 2.38 4.92

Table 10. ANOVA Test of Parents’ Level of Educational Background and their Involvement and Attitude

Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Between Groups 59.019 3 19.673 85.459 .000

Within Groups 31.308 136 .230

Total 90.326 139

Based on the tables 9 and 10 and as the results of ANOVA show, the statistical significant level is below 0.05, (p < 0.05), showing that the differences are significant. In other words, there is a significant difference between parents’ level of educational background-including below diploma, diploma, bachelor's degree, and master's degree or higher- and their involvement in and attitude toward their children’s English language programs. 5. Is there any significant difference between parents’ level of income and their involvement in and attitude toward

their children’s English language programs? Table 11. Group Statistics of Parents’ Level of Income and their Involvement and Attitude

N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error

95% Confidence Interval for

Mean

Minimum Maximum Lower Bound Upper Bound

lower than average 8 3.0192 .39811 .14075 2.6864 3.3521 2.54 3.31

average 57 3.3198 .72449 .09596 3.1276 3.5121 2.38 4.69

higher than average 75 4.1641 .65909 .07611 4.0125 4.3157 2.77 4.92

Total 140 3.7549 .80612 .06813 3.6202 3.8896 2.38 4.92

Table 12. ANOVA Test of Parents’ Level of Income and their Involvement and Attitude Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Between Groups 27.677 2 13.839 30.262 .000

Within Groups 62.649 137 .457

Total 90.326 139

According to the above tables 11 and 12 and the results of ANOVA, the statistical significant level is below 0.05, (p < 0.05), showing that the differences are significant. In other words, there is a significant difference between parents’ level of income and their involvement in and attitude toward their children’s English language programs.

IJALEL 4(4):175-185, 2015 182 5. Discussion This section is to investigate and examine the consistency of the results of the present study mentioned above with what experts have theoretically stated and what similar studies have practically done. Before discussing the results, It should be mentioned that no exact research was found to compare and check whether the outcomes of this research are in accordance with the results of them or not. The results of numerous studies revealed that parental involvement had a potential to improve student achievement and behavior (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1990; De Graaf, 1986; Farkas et al., 1990). Also, Buchmann et al. (2010) indicated that the benefits of parental involvement incorporated higher test scores and grades, better school attendance, greater completion percentage of homework, more positive attitudes and behavior, superior graduation rates and greater enrollment in higher education. Specifically, the results of the present study are in harmony with the results of the study by Cansler, (2008), in which the direct correlation between parental attitude and involvement in various capacities of schooling and student achievement has been demonstrated in empirical investigations. More specifically, similar to the findings of further outcomes of the study mentioned before, Jang (2012) found parents’ attitudes, motivations, and involvement can be affected by a variety of personal characteristics such as age, gender, educational levels, income etc. All in all, similar to findings of this study, a lot of research have reported that parental involvement and positive attitude has a major influence on all students’ academic and overall success in general and language learning in specific (Epstein & Sanders, 2000; Henderson & Mapp, 2002; Henrich & Gadaire, 2008; Weiss, Caspe, & Lopez, 2006). 6. Conclusion The overall aim of this research was to evaluate the effect of parents’ involvement in and attitude toward their children’s foreign language programs for learning English in Iran. As the results revealed, the students whose parents have high level of involvement in and positive attitude toward their children’s English language programs learn and achieve more in the programs. In other words, the parents who have high level of involvement in and positive attitude toward their children’s English language programs caused their children’s higher level of achievement in the language program. According to the outcomes the next four questions were also answered. First, there is a significant difference between parents’ knowledge of English and their involvement in and attitude toward their children’s English language programs. Their knowledge of English leads to their higher involvement level and more positive attitude. Second, there is not a significant difference between parents’ gender and their involvement in and attitude toward their children’s English language programs. In other words, the parents’ gender does not affect their level of involvement and strength of attitude. Third, there is a significant difference between parents’ level of educational background and their involvement in and attitude toward their children’s English language programs. The more they are educated, the higher is their level of involvement and the more positive attitude they have toward their children’s English language programs. Fourth, there is a significant difference between parents’ level of income and their involvement in and attitude toward their children’s English language programs. The higher their income level is, the higher level of involvement and strength attitude they have toward their children’s English language programs. 6.1 Pedagogical Implication Broadly speaking, the review of literature in this study reveals that how important and effective it is to hold language programs from very early ages. More specifically, establishing language programs in which English is a mandatory subject for primary school is highly recommended. In fact, this study gathered information that will help them make effective decisions. As it was concluded, the results showed parents’ high level involvement in and attitude toward their children’s English language programs lead to their children’s improvement and achievement. Thus, education stakeholders should hold teacher-parent meetings in which they make parents aware of their crucial roles in their children’s education. References August, D., and Hakuta, K. (1997). Improving schools for language minority children: A research agenda. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Baker, C., (1992). Attitudes language. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Ballantyne, K.G., Serman, A. R., McLaughlin, N., (2008). Dual language learners in the early years: Getting to succeed in school. Washington, DC: National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition. Birdsong, D. and Molis, M. (2001). On the evidence for maturational constraints in second language acquisition. J. Memory Lang., 44, 235-249. DOI:10.1006/jmla.2000.2750 Bohner, G., and Dickel, N. (2011). Attitudes attitude change. Annual Review of Psychology Bourdieu, P. and J.C. Passeron (1990). Reproduction in Education, Society Culture. 2nd Edn., SAGE Publications, London, ISBN-10: 0803983204, pp: 254.

IJALEL 4(4):175-185, 2015 183 Brown, H. D. (2007). Principles of language learning teaching. 5thed. NY: Longman, White Plains. Buchmann, C., D.J. Condron and V.J. Roscigno (2010). Shadow education, American style: Test preparation, the SAT college enrollment. Social Forces, 89, 435-461. DOI: 10.1080/00221309.2013.783779 Buttery, J. T., and Anderson, J. P. (1999). Community, schools, parent dynamics: A synthesis of literature activities. Teacher Quarterly Education, 111-122. Carter, R. and Nunan, D. (2001). The Cambridge guide to teaching English to speakers of other languages. Cambridge University Press. Chalak, A., and Kassaian, Z. (2010). Motivation attitudes of Iranian undergraduate EFL students towards learning English. GEMA Online™ Journal of Language Studies, 10(2), 37-56. Clark, C. and Hawkins, L. (2010). Young People’s Reading: The Importance of the home environment family support. National Literacy Trust, 1-32. Cotton K. and Wikelund K. (2001). Parent involvement in education. Available online at Northwest Regional Education Laboratory www.nwrel.org/scpd/sirs/3/cu6.htmlS Craig, B. (1996). Parental attitudes toward bilingualism in a local two-way immersion program. Bilingual Research Journal, 20(3and4), 383-410. Csizer, K. and Dörnyei, Z. (2005). The internal structure of language learning motivation its relationship with language choice learning effort. The Modern Language Journal, 89, 19-36. De Graaf, P.M. (1986). The impact of financial cultural resources on educational attainment in the Netherls. Sociol. Educ., 59, 237-246. DOI:10.2307/2112350 Desforges, C. and Abouchaar, A. (2003). The impact of parental involvement, parental support family education on pupil achievement adjustment: A literature review. Department for Education Skills Research Report 433. Epstein, J. L., and Sanders, M. G. (2000). Connecting home, school, community: New directions for social research. In M. T. Hallinan (Ed.), Hbook on the Sociology of education (pp. 285−306). New York, NY: Kluwer Academic/Plenem. Farkas, G., Grobe, R., Sheehan, D., and Shuan, Y., (1990). Coursework mastery school success: gender, ethnicity, poverty groups within an urban school district. American Educational Research Journal 27, 807–827. Feuerstein, R. (1990). The theory of structural modifiability. In B. Presseisen (Ed.), Learning thinking styles: Classroom interaction. Washington, DC: National Education Association. Gardner, R. C. (1985). Social Psychology Second Language Learning. London: Edward Arnold. Giacchino-Baker, R., and Piller, B. (2006). Parental Motivation, Attitudes, Support, Commitment in a Southern Californian Two-Way Immersion Program. Journal of Latinos Education, 5(1), 5 -28. Greenwood, G. E., and Hickman, C. W. (1991). Research practice in parent involvement: Implications for teacher education. Elementary School Journal, 91(3), 279-288. Griva, E., and Chostelidou, D. (2011). Multilingual competence development in the Greek educational system: FL teachers’ beliefs attitudes. International journal of multilingualism, 1-15.Multilingual matters. Harvard Family Research Project. (2006). http://www.hfrp.org/publications-resources/browse-our-publications/family-involvement-makes-a-difference-in-school-success Henderson, A. T. and Mapp, K. L. (2002). A new wave of evidence: The impact of school, family, communityconnections on student achievement. Austin, TX: National Center for Family and Community Connections with Schools, Southwest Educational Development Laboratory. Henrich, C. and Gadaire, D. (2008). Head Start parental involvement. Infants Young Children, Vol. 21(1), 56-69. Jang, B. (2012). Reducing instruction, increasing engagement [blog post]. Available: http://blog.stenhouse.com/archives/2012/07/23/blogstitute-week-5-reducing-instruction-increasing-engagement/ Keith, T. Z., and Keith, P. B. (1993). Does parental involvement affect eights-grade student achievement? Structural analysis of national data. School Psychology Review, 22(3), 474-496. Latif, M., Rahmany, R. and Hassani, MT. (2013). the effects of teacher-parent relationships on Iranian EFL learners’ language proficiency. International Journal of Language Learning Applied Linguistics World, 4(3), 293-302. McGroarty, M. (1997). Language policy in the USA: National values, local loyalties, pragmatic pressures. In W. Eggington, and H. Wren (Eds.), Language policy (67- 90). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing Company. McLendon Cansler, L. E. (2008). Parent attitudes about involvement with foreign language programs for elementary students. Doctoral dissertation, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Mitchell, R. and Myles, F. (2004). Second language learning theories. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nespor, J. (1987). The role of beliefs in the practice of teaching. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 19(4), 317-328. Oladejo, J. (2006). Parents' attitudes towards bilingual education policy in Taiwan. Bilingual Research Journal, 30(1), 147-170.

IJALEL 4(4):175-185, 2015 184 Oncu, E., and Unluer. E. (2010). Preschool children's using of play materials creatively. Procedia Social Behavioral Sciences, 2(2), 4457–4461. Rosenbusch, M., H., (1987), "Second language learning in young children ". Retrospective Theses Dissertations. Paper 8581. bhttp://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/8581 Sadeghi, A. R. (2005). ESP in Iran: A transition from present state. In: G. R Kiany, M. Khayyamdar, (Eds.), Proceedings of the First National ESP/EAP Conference, 2, Tehran. Share, M., Kerrins, L., and Greene, S., (2011). Developing Early Years Professionalism, Ireland. Sheldon, S. B. (2002). Parents‘ social networks beliefs as predictors of parent involvement. The Elementary School Journal, 102, 301-316. Tse, L. (1998). Ethnic identity formation its implications for heritage language development. In S. Krashen, L. Tse, and J. McQuillan (Eds.), Heritage languagedevelopment (pp. 15-29). Culver City, CA: Language Education Associates. Vaezi, Z. (2008). Language Learning Motivation among Iranian Undergraduate Students. World Applied Sciences Journal, 5(1), 54-61. Wang, L. and H. Chang, (2011). Improve oral training: The method of innovation assessment on English speaking performance. Int. J. Distance Educ. Technol., 9, 56-72. DOI: 10.4018/jdet.2011070105 Waterman, R., and Harry, B. (2008). Building collaboration between schools parents of English language learners: Transcending barriers, Creating Opportunities. Culturally Responsive Educational Systems: Education for All, 1-24. Weiss, H. B., Caspe, M., and Lopez, M. E. (2006). Family involvement in early childhood education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Family Research Project. Whitmarsh, J. (2009). Othered voices: asylum-seeking mothers early years education. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 19(4), 535 – 551 Williams, M., and Burden, R. (1997). Psychology for language teachers: a social constructivist approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Young, A. S. (1994). Motivational State Process within the Socio-Linguistic Context. Birmingham: Aston University. Appendix

Questionnaire

Please check the item that best describes the experiences of your child and yourself.

Strongly Agree

Agree Not Applicable

Disagree Strongly Disagree

1. My child talks positively at home about foreign language class.

2. My child’s comments are positive about foreign language learning.

3. My child feels successful in the foreign language class.

4. My child likes the foreign language.

5. My child likes the foreign language teacher. 6. I am receiving enough information about the foreign language program at the school.

7. I have seen my child performing in a foreign language school program.

8. I have visited my child’s foreign language classroom. 9. My child brings home useful foreign language worksheets, song handouts, or information.

10. My child uses foreign language frequently at home. 11. I am in favor of teaching a foreign language to children.

12. I feel that studying foreign language has not jeopardized my child’s progress in other subject areas, such as math or reading

13. My child is benefiting from the elementary foreign language program at our school.

IJALEL 4(4):175-185, 2015 185 Now we have a few questions about you and your child. Please mark the blank next to your answer for each of the following items.

1. Is your child receiving additional foreign language instruction outside of the school program?

____ Yes

____ No

2. Can you speak English?

____ Yes

____ No

3. What is your gender?

____ Male

____ Female

4. What is your educational background?

____ Bellow diploma

____ Diploma

____ Bachelor's degree

____ Master’s degree or higher

5. In 2014, what was your family’s monthly income?

____ Lower than average

____ Average

____ Higher than average

Additional comments: If you feel this questionnaire did not allow you to adequately express your opinion, or if you would care to elaborate on a particular point(s), please do so in the space below.

Thank you for your time.

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

Verb-Noun Collocations in Written Discourse of Iranian EFL Learners

Fatemeh Ebrahimi-Bazzaz (Corresponding author) Department of English Translation, Islamic Azad University, Tehran North Branch

Language College, Bozorograh Shaid Babaei, Hakimieh, Chamanara Street, Tehran 1651153311, Iran E-mail: fatemehebrahimibazzaz@gmail.com

Arshad Abd Samad

Department of Language Education and Humanities Faculty of Educational studies University Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia

E-mail: arshad.samad@yahoo.com

Ismi Arif bin Ismail University Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia

E-mail: ismilina@gmail.com

Nooreen Noordin Department of Language Education and Humanities, Faculty of Educational Studies University Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia

E-mail: nooyeen@yahoo.com

Received: 15-12- 2014 Accepted: 16-02- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015 Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.186 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.186 Abstract When native speakers of English write, they employ both grammatical rules and collocations. Collocations are words that are present in the memory of native speakers as ready-made prefabricated chunks. Non-native speakers who wish to acquire native-like fluency should give appropriate attention to collocations in writing in order not to produce sentences that native speakers may consider odd. The present study tries to explore the use of verb-noun collocations in written discourse of English as foreign language (EFL) among Iranian EFL learners from one academic year to the next in Iran. To measure the use of verb-noun collocations in written discourse, there was a 60-minute task of writing story based on a series of six pictures whereby for each picture, three verb-noun collocations were measured, and nouns were provided to limit the choice of collocations. The results of the statistical analysis of ANOVA for the research question indicated that there was a significant difference in the use of lexical verb-noun collocations in written discourse both between and within the four academic years. The results of a post hoc multiple comparison tests confirmed that the means are significantly different between the first year and the third and fourth years, between the second and the fourth, and between the third and the fourth academic year which indicate substantial development in verb-noun collocation proficiency. The vital implication is that the learners could use verb-noun collocations in productive skill of writing. Keywords: Language proficiency, Verb-noun collocation, Witten discourse, Iranian EFL learners 1. Introduction According to Miyakoshi (2009), there are three main kinds of views on the work on collocations: (1) corpus research views, (2) sentence- and discourse-building views, and (3) linguistic views. In corpus-based research collocations have been discussed by Aijmer, Altenberg, and Svartvik (1991), Benson, Benson, and IIson (1997), Kennedy (1990), Kjellmer (1991), Liao (2010), and Sinclair (1991). In his corpus research on collocations, Kjellmer (1991) defines collocations as such sequences of items as are grammatically well formed. This definition adapts a broad interpretation of the term, giving the name to all greater-than-chance groups of words that are grammatically well-formed. Benson, et al., (1997) and Kjellmer (1991) adapt a practical operational approach which reflects the procedure they use to extract collocations from language corpora data and study them (cited in Miyakoshi, 2009, p. 1). In the sentence- and discourse-building view, Nattinger and DeCarrico (1992) examined both the psychological and the distributional phenomena of language. They suggest that lexical phrases are extremely common in fluent speech and writing, and that they are an important source of linguistic material for language learners to analyse and to derive syntactic and lexical information. In the linguistic view, the term collocation is reserved for a specific, quite linguistic phenomenon. Wood (2010), for example, considering the native speakers' entire repertoire of utterances, proposes a cline of language from productivity to frozenness. He considers semantic compositionality and productivity of form for phrases as factors that constitute a continuum from complete frozenness to full freedom of combination. While these three views related to collocations seem to have their advantages, it is not significant which view is better. Nevertheless, knowing these views and their

Flourishing Creativity & Literacy

IJALEL 4(4):186-191, 2015 187 applications help us to understand the nature of collocations, and how they can be studied in order to aid EFL learners in mastering them. In this study, I implement Lewis’s idea that: “A collocation is two or more words that tend to occur together” (Lewis, 2000, p. 73) as his definition is appropriately explains the phenomenon which I am studying. Collocations are the co-occurrences of words and have syntagmatic relations which are predictable to some extent. Firth (1957a) gave "collocation” its theoretical prominence, and in a later work (Firth, 1968), defines “collocations as statements of habitual or customary places of that word” (p. 181). Furthermore, Krishnamurthy and Kosem (2007) notes that Firth separated collocations from cognitive and semantic idea of word meaning and words obtain their meaning from their co-occurrence in texts. Following the same line of research as Firth (1968), Cruse (1986) proposes that collocations are a "sequence of lexical items which habitually co-occur" (p. 40). Nattinger and DeCarrico (1992) added more to the notion that a collocation unit includes a "node" that co-occurs with a "span" of words on either side. They define collocations as "strings of specific lexical items, such as rancid butter and curry favour that co-occur with a mutual expectancy greater than chance" (p. 36). They regard lexical phrases, such as how are you, as collocations with pragmatic functions. However, another explanation about collocations is presented by Lewis (1997a, 2010) who indicates collocations are the lexical items that co-occur naturally with deliberate frequency and usually are prefabricated. Yet, Carter (1998) argues that collocations are a group of words that recurrently appear in a language. "These patterns of co-occurrence can be grammatical in that they result primarily from syntactic dependencies or they can be lexical in that their relationship is lexical, although syntactic relationships are involved" (p. 51). In addition, Nation (2001) states that collocations are "closely structured groups whose parts frequently or uniquely occur together and have some elements of grammatical or lexical unpredictability or inflexibility” (p. 324). This research merely studied the verb-noun collocations. Although it is the most frequent form of collocation, as asserted by Bensen, et al. (1986) and has been investigated by other researchers like Aghaber (1990), Bahns and Eldaw (1993), Biskup (1992), Al-Zahrani (1998), Hsu and Chui (2008), and Bagherzadeh Hosseini and Akbarian (2007), competence in this collocation form may not inevitably show a learners’ overall collocational knowledge. Nevertheless, it is the focus of this study because of the frequency of verbs and nouns in everyday language. 2. Written Discourse Discourse refers to a vast area of human life; therefore, only discourse from the vantage point of linguistics, and especially applied linguistics, is explained here. It is conceptualised as “an on-going stretch of language bigger than a sentence, and it often constitutes a coherent unit like a sermon, argument, joke, or narrative” (Crystal, 1992, p.25). “Written discourse refers to non-reciprocal and production types of discourse in which the writer does not know the reader. It is usually well planned and has coherent sentences (Crystal, 1992, p. 291).” In other words, language used for communication is labelled as discourse that has been constructed as the consequence of an act of communication. Nattinger (1980) also designates that it is both fairly easier to keep and memorise a new word in a network of associations, and language chunks to help learners to remember information. Especially, Collocations are useful in improving comprehension for the association of words, contribute the learners in storing words in memory, and allow individuals to remember which words come together. In contrast, collocations are useful for teaching language production since students observe certain lexical restrictions use by memorising collocations as well. For instance, if students know collocations such as a convenient situation and a convenient time but not *a convenient person, they will realise subconsciously that the adjective convenient is merely employed with inanimate nouns. Students do not recreate the language whenever they wish to utter something, however, instead can manipulate these collocations as "pre-packaged building blocks", and ultimately, collocations will move learners' attention from single words to the larger structure of the discourse. Many researchers discussed the relationship between collocations and the productive language, especially writing (Al-Zahrani, 1998; Bazzaz and Samad 2011; Farghal & Al-Hamly, 2007; Hsu, 2002; Zhang, 1993). Zhang (1993) was the first to study the correlation between knowledge and the use of collocations and the quality of collocations in 30 native and 30 non-native Indiana University of Pennsylvania freshmen .Al-Zahrani’s study did not follow Zhang’s because Al-Zahrani did not consider the use of collocations. Therefore, he made no report about his subjects’ frequency of collocations in the Writing Test. Al-Zahrani’s study investigates the correlation between Saudi EFL students' knowledge of lexical collocations and their general proficiency in English and their academic levels. He suggests teachers should incorporate a large amount of collocations with special emphasis on collocations that do not have linguistic and cultural equivalence in the native language. Another suggestion which was given was that EFL teachers should encourage their students to use English collocational dictionaries, such as The BBI Dictionary of English Word Combinations. He concludes that even though Saudi EFL students' knowledge of lexical collocation develops along with their general language proficiency, learners still will benefit from intense instruction of collocations. On the production of collocations in written discourse, Farghal and Al-Hamly (2007) performed a study on collocations as a challenging feature of foreign language learning and as an integral component of communicative competence. They observed lexical collocations in Kuwait University EFL learners’ essay writing. The learner database included one hundred essays written as final examinations for ENG 208 (Essay Writing). Collocational errors were first inspected in terms of head type and collocator vs. collocate orientation. Subsequently, collocations were argued in light of their etiology, i.e. whether they were the output of L1 interference or creative construction. The researchers indicated that the majority of KU prospective English majors experienced a range of mild to serious problems in the area of lexical collocations, among other things. They conclude that the ability to utilise natural collocations in foreign language compositions can be taken as an indicator of workable competence in writing, but they did not concentrate on the spoken discourse of learners.

IJALEL 4(4):186-191, 2015 188 The goal of this study is to find the use of verb-noun collocations in written discourse of EFL learners in Iran. I hope that the study may contribute to a better understanding about the role of verb-noun collocation instruction in the development and enhancement of written discourse in EFL situations. 3. The present study The present study is part of my PhD thesis, first, the relationship between language proficiency and collocational competence was calculated. The results of the statistical analyses demonstrate that there is a high positive relationship between collocational competence and general language proficiency of learners (Ebrahimi-Bazzaz, Samad, Ismi, and Nooreen, 2012). Second, the relationship between verb-noun collocation proficiency and academic years was estimated. The results of ANOVA exhibited there was variability in the verb-noun collocations proficiency within each academic year and between the four academic years. The results of a post hoc multiple comparison tests proved that the means are significantly different between the first year and the third and fourth years, and between the third and the fourth academic year (Ebrahimi-Bazzaz, Samad, Ismi, and Nooreen, 2014). The review of literature exhibits that there is a necessity to perform research on the implementing verb-noun collocations in written discourse of Iranian EFL learners. However, a quite a few research concentrates on the development and relationship between verb- noun collocations and the productive language, especially writing (Al-Zahrani, 1998; Hsu, 2002; Zhang, 1993). Bazzaz and Samad (2011) scrutinized the correlation between knowledge of verb noun collocations and their use in writing stories. The subjects in the research were twenty seven PhD Iranian students in a Malaysian university. In this paper, verb-noun collocations in written discourse of Iranian EFL learners was discussed and the following research question was investigated:

• Is there a significant difference in the correct use of verb-noun collocations in written discourse among Iranian EFL students from one academic year to the next?

4. Method 4.1 Participants In this study, there were 212 participants. They were four groups of English major students in an English Department in a university in Tehran in April 2010. They were chosen from the second term of freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior. There were 44 males and 168 females who were between 18-35 at the time of the study. All of them were native speakers of Persian. In the test session, a demographic questionnaire, and a test of writing story were administered to students. The research design employed in this study was a Cross-sectional design and involved the collection of quantitative data. Nevertheless, the chief inadequacy in the Cross-sectional design, which comprises quantitative data, is the lack of the randomised sampling process and the researcher utilises the four intact groups of participants. This shortcoming was overcome by selecting groups through cluster sampling from the second terms of freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior to collect the data. Krejcie and Morgan’s (1970) Table was employed to calculate identical sample sizes in all cases where the researcher changes the t value exploited based on population size and knows the populations. Based on this formula, the population of this study was 480 and the needed sample size of the study was established as two hundred fourteen, but as in most of research, 10% is added to that number in case some students would not like to participate in the study. Therefore, two hundred thirty five students were selected from four intact groups of male and female students. However, some students withdrew from the experiment in the test session, two hundred and twelve students finished the test. All groups were selected through cluster sampling from the second term of freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior years. Therefore, participants in the present study belonged to four groups which represent each academic level. Group 1 comprised fifty-one students in the second term of their freshmen year. Group 2 included forty-seven students in the second term of their sophomore year, Group 3 consisted of sixty-four students in the second term of their junior year, and Group 4 comprised of fifty students from the second term of their senior year. All respondents were Iranian nationals and spoke Persian as their mother tongue. 4.2 Instruments The instruments of this study were a demographic questionnaire and a test of writing story. In the Writing Test, students wrote six stories in 60 minutes. Each story was based on a picture which was accompanied by three nouns. The respondents were requested to use them. These nouns were intended to elicit the use of verb-noun collocations yet limit the choice of the possible collocations. A pilot study was conducted in order to ensure that participants could produce verb-noun collocations based on a picture stimulus. A list of topics was given to the respondents. From the list, the participants selected the following six topics: A Picnic, An Accident, A Traffic Jam, Football, At the Restaurant, and Camping (see Appendix VII). An artist then drew a picture based on each topic. These pictures were then given to the participants, and they were asked to write a 250-word composition. The number of verb-noun collocations used in each picture was observed. The three most frequent collocations for every picture were then selected for the Writing and Speaking Tests. 995). 4.3 Data Analysis

In order to examine the research question, three statistical measures were used. First, descriptive statistics of all years were used to show the means, the standard deviations, the minimum and the maximum scores of each of the four groups on the Writing Test in which students wrote six stories about a series of six pictures to find the general distribution of the data in the written discourse. Second, to investigate the between-group and within-group differences, a One-Way

IJALEL 4(4):186-191, 2015 189 Analysis of Variance, ANOVA, was used. Third, after the results of the One-Way ANOVA were obtained, a post hoc multiple comparison test was performed to determine which means were significantly different from each other.

The results of descriptive statistical analysis show that there is an increase in the students' scores in the written discourse from one year to the next. The summary of the differences among the four academic years for written discourse are depicted in Table 1 below.

Table 1. Summary Table of the Differences among the Four Academic Years in Written Discourse Table 1 represents observable differences among the mean scores of the four academic years for writing. The increase in the use of collocations is greater between the first and the fourth years than the second year and the third year. In the Writing Test, the first year students' scores ranged from a minimum of 10 to a maximum of 17, with a mean score of 12.32. The second level students' scores ranged from 10 to 17, with a mean of 13.15 indicating a moderate increase from the first to the second academic year. The third year students' scores, however, showed a minimal increase as compared to the first and second year students' scores. That is, their scores ranged between a low of 10 and a high of 16, with a mean score of 13.96, and a standard deviation of 1.61. The fourth year students' mean scores are higher than the third year students' in the Writing Test with the range of 10 to17, with a mean score of 14.96 and a standard deviation of 1.68. Looking at the confidence intervals of means for the Writing Test; however, it can be observed that differences are less noticeable, as shown by the standard deviations of 1.97, 1.69, 1.61, and 1.68 in written discourse for the first, second, third, and fourth academic year students respectively.

A One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to measure the use of lexical verb-noun collocations in written discourse. The results of the One-Way ANOVA illustrated that there is variability in the use of verb-noun collocations within each academic year and between the four academic years. Table 2 shows the between-group and within-group variability in the use of verb-noun collocations in written discourse.

Table 2. One-Way Analysis of Variance for the Use of Collocations in Written Discourse Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Between Groups

Within Groups

194.335 623.717

3

64.778 21.603 0.0001

208 2.999

Total 818.052 211 Note: Difference is significant at the 0.05 level

Table2, clearly shows that there was a significant difference in the proficiency of lexical verb noun collocations both between and within the four academic years, F (3, 208) =20,637 at the p <0.0001 level which is much less than α≤ 0.05.

After the results of the One-Way ANOVA were acquired a post hoc multiple comparison test was carried out by using Tukey's Honestly Significant Difference (HSD) in order to find out which pairs of means were significantly different from each other. Table 3 shows the multiple comparisons of the means of the four academic years in collocation test performance.

N M SD SE

95% CIM

Min Max LB UB First 51 12.32 1.965 0.28 11.77 12.86 10.00 17.00

Second 47 13.15 1.681 0.25 12.66 13.64 10.00 16.00

Third 64 13.95 1.608 0.21 13.56 14.35 11.00 17.00

Fourth 50 14.96 1.678 0.24 14.49 15.43 10.00 17.00

Total 212 13.61 1.97 0.14 13.35 13.88 10.00 17.00

IJALEL 4(4):186-191, 2015 190 Table 3. Multiple Comparisons of the Means of the Four Academic Years in the Use of Collocations in Written Discourse

*The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level. LB = lower bound UB = upper bound MD= mean of difference (I-J) SE = standard error Table 3 above brings to light that the means are significantly different when the first year students’ score is compared with the third and fourth years in written discourse at p<0.0001. It shows that students had a significant improvement in their use of collocations in written discourse. For the second year and the third year students, Table 3 shows that there is no difference in written discourse, but there is significant differences between the mean score of second year and the fourth year students in written discourse, as shown by significant level p=0.077. There also exists the difference in the mean score of third and fourth years as Table 4-8 represents a significant difference at p=0.012 in written discourse. Hence, the findings reveal that there are statistical differences in the mean score of the four groups in written discourse. Although there is an improvement in the score from one academic year to the next, these improvements have not been found to be statistically significant. Nevertheless, significant values are obtained when students’ scores in an academic year are compared to scores obtained by students two or more years below them. These differences are the most prominent if the first and the fourth years are compared in written discourse. Based on these findings, such statistical differences clearly signify the increase in students’ use of collocations. The results in written discourse are in line with the findings of Zhang (1993) who was the first to examine collocations in EFL/ESL writing. Zhang found that there are correlations between the EFL students’ knowledge of collocations, use of collocations (i.e. frequency of accurately produced collocations recorded in student English), and English writing fluency. There are other studies which focus on the development and relationship between collocations and the productive language, especially writing (Al-Zahrani, 1998; Bazzaz & Samad, 2011; Hsu, 2002, 2007). Al-Zahrani’s findings are different from this study because Al-Zahrani did not take into account the use of verb-noun collocations, thus the frequency of verb-noun collocations in the Writing Test was not reported. 5. Discussion and Pedagogical Implication Considering the research question, the results from one-way ANOVA reveal that there are statistical differences in the mean score of the four groups in written discourse. Afterwards, Tukey test was utilised to find out which pairs of means were significantly different from each other. The results indicated additional evidence that there were significant differences both between-groups and within-groups in the use of verb-noun collocations in written discourse. Results discerned that there were significant differences between the first, the third and the fourth academic years, between the second and the fourth academic years, and between the third and the fourth academic years in written discourse. This result in written discourse is consistent with findings of Al-Zahrani (1998), Bazzaz & Samad (2011), Hsu (2002, 2007), Zhang (1993). These statistical findings revealed that there were differences in Iranian learners’ use of verb-noun collocations in written discourse with at least one year interval for the first and the second year students, but for the third and the fourth years every consecutive year. The implication of the research questions is that the ability to correctly use collocations in writing improves as the students’ progress through their academic years. Hence, it is not just knowledge of collocations that improves but also the ability to use them as well. Once again, this must be seen within the context of the education system or curriculum which does not explicitly teach collocations, and thus implies a form of learning or acquisition of this ability. There is also an indication that learners ‘acquire’ or ‘learn’ some collocations through some form of developmental process which includes first an incorrect collocation (e.g. shoot the ball) before the correct collocation (kick the ball) is acquired. The findings specify that teachers should focus and teach collocations which are different from the students’ mother tongue. The findings of the study have shown that students increase the knowledge and use of lexical collocations in written discourse through their academic years despite the absence of any formal teaching on collocations. Although this implies that students are able to acquire knowledge of collocations on their own, it does not indicate that formal teaching of collocations should be abandoned. Instead, the findings imply that the students’ cognitive processes are actively employed in dealing with collocations when they encounter them outside the classroom. Therefore, the presentation of collocations in the classroom will need to be built on how the students already respond to collocational input outside of the classroom. The role of instruction is to facilitate the acquisition process. This may be achieved by presenting input on collocation that is systematic and well planned. The teacher may want to be selective in presenting verb-noun collocations. This study focused on a few verb-noun collocations which were linguistically different between English and Persian. As previous research in collocations observed that there are a vast number of collocations in English which is calculated to be hundreds of thousands. The teacher may want to focus only on collocations that are linguistically different between the two languages.

(I) grade

(J) Grade

MD (I-J)

SE Sig. 95% Confidence Interval LB UB

First Second -.84 .35014 0.083 -1.74 .0716 Third -1.64* .32504 0.0001 -2.48 -.797 Fourth -2.65* .34463 0.0001 -3.54 -

1.753 Second Third -.80 .33265 0.077 -1.66 .057

Fourth -1.82* .35181 0.0001 -2.72 -.899 Third Fourth -1.01* .32684 0.12 -1.85 .-.16

IJALEL 4(4):186-191, 2015 191 References Aghbar. A. A. (1990).Fixed Expressions in Written Texts: Implications for Assessing Writing Sophistication. Paper presented at the meeting of the English Association of Pennsylvania State System Universities. Aijmer, K., Altenberg, B., & Svartvik, J. (1991).English corpus linguistics: studies in honour of Jan Svartvik: Longman Publication Group. Al-Zahrani, M. S. (1998). Knowledge of English lexical collocations among male Saudi college students majoring in English at a Saudi university: Unpublished doctoral dissertation Indiana University of Pennsylvania., Pennsylvania. Bagherzadeh Hosseini, M. S. & Akbarian, I. (2007). Language Proficiency and Collocational Competence. The Journal of Asia TEFL, 4(4), 35-58. Bahns, J., & Eldaw, M. (1993). Should we teach EFL learners collocations? System, 21(1), 101-114. Bazzaz, F., & Samad, A. (2011).The Use of Verb-noun Collocations in Writing Stories among Iranian EFL Learners.English Language Teaching, 4(3), 158-163. Benson, M. (1985).Lexical combinability. Research on Language & Social Interaction, 18(1), 3-15. Benson, M., Benson, E., & Ilson, R. (1997). The BBI combinatory dictionary of English: a guide to word combinations: John Benjamins Publishing Co. Biskup, D. (1992). Ll influence on learners' renderings of English collocations: A Polish/German empirical study. In P. L. A. H. Bejoint (Ed.), Vocabulary & applied linguistics. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan Academic & Professional Ltd. Carter, R. (1998). Vocabulary: Applied linguistic perspectives: Routledge. Crystal, D. (1992). Introducing linguistics: Penguin English. Ebrahimi-Bazzaz, F., Samad, A. A., bin Ismail, I. A., Noordin, N., (2012). Measuring Collocational Competence of Iranian Learners by Using C-test. The Iranian EFL Journal, 2, 227- 240. Ebrahimi-Bazzaz, F., Samad, A. A., bin Ismail, I. A., & Noordin, N. Verb-Noun Collocation Proficiency and Academic Years. International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature, 3(1), 152-162 Farghal, M., & Al-Hamly, M. (2007).Lexical Collocations in EFL Writing. The Journal of Asia TEFL, 4(1), 269-294. Firth, J. (1957a).Papers in linguistics 1934-1951. London: Oxford University Press. Hsu, J.T. & Chiu, C. (2008). Lexical Collocations and their Relation to Speaking Proficiency of College EFL Learners in Taiwan. Asian EFL Journal. Kennedy, G. D. (1990). Collocations: Where Grammar and Vocabulary Teaching Meet.In S. Anivan, (Ed.) Language Teaching Methodology for the Nineties (pp. 215-229). RELC, Singapore. Kjellmer, G. (1991). A mint of phrases.In K. Aijmer and B. Altenberg (Eds.) English Corpus Linguistics (pp. 111-127). Harlow: Longman. Krejcie, R. V., & Morgan, D. W. (1970). Determining sample size for research activities. Educ Psychol Meas. Krishnamurthy, R., & Kosem, I. (2007).Issues in creating a corpus for EAP pedagogy and research. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 6(4), 356-373. Lewis, M. (2000).Teaching collocation: Further developments in the lexical approach. London: Language Teaching Publications. Liao, E. H. (2010). An investigation of crosslinguistic transfer in EFL learners' phraseology. Alliant International University, San Diego. Miyakoshi, T. (2009). Investigating ESL learners' lexical collocations: The acquisition of verb+ noun collocations by Japanese learners of English. University of Hawai'i At Manoa. Nattinger, J. R. (1980). A lexical phrase grammar for ESL.TESOL quarterly, 14(3), 337-344. Nattinger, J. R., & DeCarrico, J. S. (1992).Lexical phrases and language teaching. USA: Oxford University Press. Sinclair, J. (1991). Corpus, concordance, collocation: Oxford University Press. Wood, D. (2010). Lexical Clusters in an EAP Textbook Corpus. Perspectives on Formulaic Language: Acquisition and Communication, 88. Zhang, X. (1993).English collocations and their effect on the writing of native and non-native college freshmen. Indiana

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

Investigating the Relationship between the Morphological Processing of Regular and Irregular Words and L2

Vocabulary Acquisition

Ahmed Masrai (Corresponding author) Department of English Language and Literature, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea SA2 8PP, UK

E-mail: a.m.masrai@swansea.ac.uk

James Milton Department of English Language and Literature, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea SA2 8PP, UK

E-mail: j.l.milton@swansea.ac.uk

Received: 14-12- 2014 Accepted: 17-02- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015 Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.192 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.192 Abstract The present study investigates the relationship between the morphological processing of regular and irregular words and second language (L2) vocabulary acquisition. In considering that monolingual Arabic speakers derive a large number of new words from roots by leaning heavily on the regularity of rules in Arabic (Bar & Dershowitz, 2012; Habash, 2010), they are expected to experience difficulty when developing the lexicon of a language with less regular rules, such as English. To examine this assumption empirically, data were collected by administering an English receptive vocabulary knowledge test that included 100 regular and irregular inflected and derived words to 450 Arabic English as a foreign language (EFL) learners from schools in Saudi Arabia. The test also included pesudowords (non-words) to act as ‘gatekeepers’ against the possibility of guessing. The t-test results revealed a non-significant difference in learners’ uptake of L2 words, whether regular or irregular. However, the study indicates that word frequency plays a statistically significant role in learning L2 vocabulary that is irregularly inflected or derived. The frequency effect on irregular word morphology found in this study is in line with the approach of a dual-route mechanism. This approach suggests that irregular words are not rule-based, so are stored in the mental lexicon as full entries, whereas regular words are not. This article suggests that introducing rules for deriving new words from base forms to EFL learners in the early stages of learning would be very useful for L2 vocabulary development. Keywords: morphological processing, vocabulary acquisition, frequency, Arabic, mental lexicon 1. Introduction Understanding the way morphological units are stored in second language (L2) learners’ mental lexicon and how they are retrieved through the use of language is an important area of investigation. As Chomsky (1957) has asserted in his ‘generative grammar’, having a knowledge of a finite set of rules leads to being able to produce an indefinite number of new words, and this concept can be translated into knowing a limited set of morphological rules and being able to generate many new lexical items without having to store a large amount of vocabulary in one’s memory. The question that is addressed in this study is how native Arabic speakers deal with learning the processes of regular and irregular L2 morphological structure. Arabic is a morphologically rich language and native Arabic speakers can derive a vast number of words from the same root (Bar & Dershowitz, 2012; Habash, 2010). Using the same root with different patterns, Arabic speakers can generate words with several different meanings. Therefore, because of this capacity for much greater rule-based generation of words, native Arabic speakers can build a large first language (L1) mental lexicon from a relatively small number of roots. When learning an L2, native Arabic learners might utilise this extensive rule generalisation in learning a language that is highly rule- based. Conversely, if the L2 is not very rule-based, the learning task for Arab learners will be somewhat daunting. The English language is the target language investigated in this study. Unlike Arabic, English has fewer derived words and a greater tendency to create new words or borrows them from other languages, e.g., Latin. As native Arabic speakers have the capacity through rule-based learning to generate large numbers of words from roots in their L1, they may try to implement this skill when learning English vocabulary. This might result in the more effective learning of words which are regular in English than those which are not. The current study thus seeks to address this assumption and tackle one of the key issues pertinent to the reportedly poor English vocabulary knowledge of Saudi school learners (Al-Bogami, 1995; Al-Hazemi, 1993; Alsaif, 2011). However, before demonstrating the study design, a brief background of how regular and irregular words are processed in L1 and L2 will be presented in the following section.

Flourishing Creativity & Literacy

IJALEL 4(4):192-199, 2015 193 1.1 Processing of regular and irregular words: A cross-linguistic overview In second language acquisition (SLA) research there is a long-standing debate in the literature on word recognition. The controversy lies in whether native speakers of a language process irregular (e.g., write-wrote) and regular (e.g., talk-talked) verb forms by a single or dual-route mechanism. One school of thought advocates a single processing system, claiming that words which are similar in form tend to be similar in meaning (Basnight-Brown, Chen, Hua, Kostić & Feldman, 2007; Li, 2006; McClelland & Elman, 1986; Rueckl, Mikolinski, Raveh, Miner & Mars, 1997; Rueckl & Raveh, 1999; Rumelhart & McClelland, 1986; Seidenberg & Elman, 1999). The other line of research supports the dual-route mechanism, which argues that recognition of a regular past tense verb utilises a rule-based process where an -ed affix is attached to the present tense to form the past tense verb. English, however, has about 180 verbs that do not follow this rule-based process but are created in an unpredictable fashion. Consequently, those irregular verbs differ in their orthographic and phonological forms. As irregular verbs are not formed by a rule, they should be stored in rote memory (Pinker, 1991). In more recent studies (e.g., Pinker, 1999; Ullman, 2004), it is suggested that irregular verbs are stored as separate entries in the mental lexicon and retrieved for use from associative memory. In contrast, regular verbs are more likely to use a computational method in the mental lexicon to create past tense forms. This implies that the base word is stored in the lexicon and affixes, such as -ing, -s and -ed, are added to form inflected word forms when needed (Ullman, 2000). A significant number of studies appear to support the dual-route mechanism, whereby regular English verbs are controlled by rule-based processing and irregular verbs occupy separate entries in the mental lexicon and are retrieved from memory. One of the most influential pieces of evidence to support a dual system originates from brain-damaged aphasic patients. A pioneer study conducted by Marslen-Wilson and Tyler (1997) examined brain-damaged aphasic patients using auditory priming tasks, including regular and irregular past tense forms. Marslen-Wilson and Tyler reported that two of the three aphasic patients were found to have a problem with processing irregular verb forms, while the other patient had problems with only regular forms. This result of double disassociation was interpreted as suggestive of the dual nature of past tense inflection in English (Pliatsikas & Marinis, 2013). Another piece of supporting evidence for a dual-route mechanism comes from an investigation of the effect of frequency on processing regular and irregular past tense inflection. Alegre and Gordon (1999) reported a number of studies that show that when irregularly inflected words are more frequent in a language usage they are produced faster than when they are less frequent. This kind of pattern, however, was not found with regularly inflected words. This finding was interpreted as supporting evidence that regularly inflected forms are processed online. The frequency effect seems only applicable to regular verbs which are ranked very high in the frequency scale. In contrast, irregular forms are stored as full-form entries in the mental lexicon and word frequency was found to be central to their recognition (Prado & Ullman, 2009). The first part of this section sheds some light on the processing of L1 regular and irregular words. In this part, a brief discussion of processing L2 regular and irregular inflection will be provided. Complete proficiency in L2 is always a matter of debate. According to some scholars (e.g., Grosjean, 1998; Johnson & Newport, 1989), there are a number of factors which have been suggested as influencing the acquisition of an L2. Those sorts of factors raise the question of whether L2 learners can achieve the automated processing that underlies rule application in an L1 or fall short of attaining that level of automatisation. One of the factors suggested by L2 acquisition research to play an influential role in acquiring an L2 is age. For instance, if the age of a learner when learning an L2 is beyond a critical period, the automatisation of L2 grammar is claimed to be less successful (Bialystok, 1997; Butler & Hakuta, 2004; Pliatsikas & Marinis, 2013). Corresponding to this idea, L2 learners who begin learning an L2 at the age of 11 or above are more likely to experience difficulty mastering regular inflection rules. Ullman (2001b) presented a model concerning the acquisition of grammar rules by L2 learners compared to L1 learners. In his model, Ullman used neurocognitive data to argue that if L2 is acquired after puberty, rule implementation becomes increasingly hard and, therefore, adult L2 learners face limitations in its application. In terms of inflection, the model suggests that the past tense rule will be absent in L2 learning. Consequently, L2 learners might be incapable of decomposing regularly inflected forms into their elements, but they should be able to memorise them as separate lexical entries, as is the case with irregular forms (Ullman, 2001b). Ullman, however, later proposed that it is possible for L2 learners to have access to L2 rules as a result of L2 learning experience (Ullman, 2004). The discussion reported above on L2 learners’ processing of inflected forms appears inconsistent, although support for dual-route mechanism is stronger than single-rout. This study, however, aims to explore one of the potential causes of the poor English vocabulary uptake by Saudi school learners referred to earlier by investigating the role of word regularity in building a larger L2 lexicon. The processes of inflectional forms and the ability to derive new words from base words in English can cause a problem for Arabic learners learning English vocabulary. Studies report low vocabulary knowledge by Saudi school learners but no clear explanation is found as to why those learners learn, on average, 1,000 English words after seven years of classroom input. Only two studies, to the best of the researchers’ knowledge, have suggested that the nature of the vocabulary presented in learners’ textbooks (Alsaif & Milton, 2012) and lack motivation (Al-Akloby, 2001) might explain the humble uptake of English vocabulary. This study, therefore, hopes to bring more evidence to elucidate the cause of poor vocabulary uptake by Saudi school learners.

IJALEL 4(4):192-199, 2015 194 1.2 Aims and objectives As the available studies on vocabulary research in Saudi Arabia have not yet provided a clear picture of why Saudi learners experience difficulty learning English vocabulary, the present study aims to contribute to the field of vocabulary acquisition by providing evidence pertinent to this matter. The paper will attempt to find answers to the following questions: 1. Do native Arab learners of English learn regularly inflected and derived forms more easily than irregularly inflected and derived forms? 2. Does word frequency influence learning regular or irregular words, or perhaps both? 2. Method 2.1 Participants The participants included in the study were 450 male students from two high schools in Saudi Arabia and in three high school levels, years 10, 11 and 12. They were low-level native Arabic learners of EFL. The data were collected in the second semester of the academic year 2012/2013. All the students who were available were tested. Their ages varied between 16 and 18 (M = 17, SD = 1.21), and the only known source of English they had was classroom input. The participants in this study had attended, on average, 576 EFL classroom hours in year 10, 704 in year 11, and 832 in year 12. 2.2 Material A receptive vocabulary recognition test devised by the researchers, comprising 100 real words and 20 pseudowords (non-words), was administered in this study. Fifty of the words were regularly inflected and had derived forms (21 inflected and 29 derived forms) and 50 were of an irregular form. Pseudowords were included in test to act as gatekeepers to guard against the possibility of the participants guessing. The test was in Yes-No format, where participants had to check the words they knew. This type of testing remains one of the better-known measures of receptive vocabulary knowledge and is considered reliable and valid (Pellicer-Sánchez & Schmitt, 2012). The lists of regular and irregular forms, however, were carefully selected based on certain criteria: (a) each pair of regular and irregular forms was very similar in terms of frequency, so frequency was not biased; (b) each pair of words was also tested for repetition across learners’ textbooks; (c) common inflectional and derivational endings were also observed for each pair. Correlation analysis was conducted to ensure that bias between the two groups of words was, as far as possible, eliminated. Table 1 shows the correlation statistics for word frequency and repetition across learners’ textbooks for both the regular and irregular lists of words. Table 1. Correlations between regular and irregular words in terms of frequency (BNC_list) and repetition (textbooks)

Word frequency regular

Word frequency irregular

Word repetition regular Word repetition irregular

Word frequency regular - 0.969** 0.365** 0.419**

Word frequency irregular - - 0.327* 0.433**

Word repetition regular - - - 0.906**

Word repetition irregular - - - -

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed); * correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

Note: Each category contains 50 words.

2.3 Procedures The receptive vocabulary test used in this study was administered to the participants by the researchers with assistance from volunteer teachers from the two schools where the data were collected. The test was given to the informants on the same morning at both schools. Before the administration of the test, participants were provided with clear oral instructions of the purpose of the task. They were also asked to write their age on the test sheet and details of extra exposure to the English language outside the classroom, if any. As the test was designed to be user-friendly, it only took participants around 20 minutes to complete it. 2.3 Test scoring system After collecting the data, all responses were marked manually and imported into the SPSS software package (version 20) for analysis. However, as the test also included pseudowords, to act as gatekeepers against guesswork by the participants, it was decided to exclude responses with more than 30% false alarms (items marked as known but which

IJALEL 4(4):192-199, 2015 195 are not real words). This threshold is not theoretically supported but we believed it to be a plausible figure. By applying this norm, however, the number of processed responses was reduced to 416 (34 were excluded). 3. Results 3.1 Knowledge of regular forms VS irregular forms The data analysis presented in Table 2 shows the paired sample statistics for the two types of words tested in the current study. As can be seen from the table, the mean scores for the 416 participants are almost equal, although slightly higher for the regular forms. This indicates that learners’ responses showed no preference for either type of word tested. However, the rate of learners’ responses to both regular and irregular forms was generally very low, about one fifth of the words presented to them. The number of words presented to the test-takers in each category was 50 but, on average, the respondents recognised approximately 10. The significance analysis (t-test) is presented for clarification in Table 3. Table 2. Paired samples statistics for regular and irregular word types

Word type M N SD SD.EM

Regular words - responses 10.56 416 8.04 0.39

Irregular words - responses 10.37 416 7.19 0.35

Note: N = number of participants; M = mean; SD = standard deviation; SD.EM = standard deviation error of mean.

Table 3. Paired sample test (t-scores) comparing the mean scores of regular and irregular forms

Paired differences

Regular and irregular words responses

M SD SD M.E† 95% CI

T df P LL UL

0.19 5.02 0.23 -0.29128 0.67590 0.782 415 0.435

Note: † = standard deviation of mean error; CI = confidence interval; LL = lower limit; UL = upper limit.

As revealed in Table 3, it appears, at least for the learners taking part in this study, that their knowledge of regular and irregular English forms was almost the same. The difference between the means is not significant: t (415) = 0.782, p < 0.435. This finding does not seem to coincide with our expectation that native Arabic learners might show better receptive knowledge of words which are regularly inflected and derived. Reasons why Arabic learners appear not to have used their skill in generating new forms of base words in L2 as they regularly do in their L1 will be provided in the discussion section. 3.2 Frequency effect on knowledge of regular and irregular word forms One of the current study questions was whether frequency had a significant impact on word type uptake. The following table (Table 4) thus reports data analysis corresponding to this question. Table 4. Pearson correlation between word frequency and regular and irregular word learning

Regular responses Irregular responses

Word frequency 0.060 0.334* N 50 50

* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). The figures presented in Table 4 show a positive significant correlation (r = 0.334) between the frequency of words and knowledge of irregular forms of English words. This moderate correlation suggests that in relation to words which are irregularly inflected or derived, high-frequency words are more likely to be known by L2 learners. On the other hand, frequency of words does not appear to have an effect on the retrieval and recognition of regular words. The analysis in the above table shows a very weak correlation (r = 0.060) between frequency and the recognition of regular English forms. This finding seems to support the line of research which suggests that word frequency can affect recognition of irregular word forms but not of regular forms. A discussion of the findings is presented in the following section. 4. Discussion The present study investigated the effect of processing regular and irregular word morphology on L2 vocabulary learning amongst low-level native Arabic learners of EFL in two public schools in Saudi Arabia. The study had the intention of establishing whether English word regularity could affect vocabulary uptake by native Arabic learners of

IJALEL 4(4):192-199, 2015 196 English. The main results can be summarised as follows. First, there was no significant uptake of vocabulary that is regularly inflected or derived compared with words which are irregularly inflected or derived. Second, the frequency effect worked in favour of words which are irregularly inflected and derived. The following sections provide a detailed discussion of the findings. 4.1 Processing of regular and irregular L2 words The results of this study provide insights for further understanding of the construction of an L2 mental lexicon. The results indicate that a highly regular application of rules in the generation of new words from roots in learners’ L1 might not apply in their L2 vocabulary acquisition. Semitic languages are highly inflected and derived, particularly Arabic (Abu-Rabia, 2002; Habash, 2010). This suggests that learners could master the regular rules needed for expanding their vocabulary in the early stages of L1 acquisition. The assumption made in this study is that learners might be more likely to utilise this feature of their L1 to recognise more easily words which are regularly inflected in English than words which are irregularly inflected. There are different possible interpretations for why learners in this study appeared not to fulfill this assumption. One possible explanation is that native Arab learners do not master the regular rules in English, so they cannot apply them to generate regular English forms. This lack of rule knowledge could be attributed to unfocused English morphology teaching at the earlier stages of English language learning. According to McBride-Chang et al. (2005), morphological awareness is to play a unique role in vocabulary acquisition and development with young learners. A second possible reason for the poor level of knowledge of regular forms compared with irregular forms by participants in this study is the variation in rule application in English. Learners may find that applying rules in English is not as straightforward as in their L1 and, as a result, this demotivates them in relation to learning the appropriate rules in English. In language processing research, Ullman (2000) suggests that regular base words are processed into the mental lexicon as separate entries and that rules, such as –ed, –ing, –s, are stored in different parts of the lexicon. In this case, when learners encounter an inflected word, they need to retrieve the base form and the appropriate morphological endings from different parts of the lexicon. This indicates that a learner must know not only the base form of a word, but also the rules to derive new words. For example, if a learner knows the word ‘talk’ but does not know that adding –ed to the word will form a past tense of the same word, he/she will not recognise the word ‘talked’. A third possible interpretation for the apparent lack of automatisation of L2 regular rules in the current study is likely to be the age of the participants. As English is introduced to learners in Saudi schools at the age of 12, this might delay the automatisation of regular English rules in word derivation. According to some scholars, i.e., Bialystok (1997), Butler and Hakuta (2004) and Ullman (2001a), if the age of L2 acquisition is beyond or near the critical period, the automatisation of L2 grammatical rules is claimed to be less successful. Nonetheless, there are other factors that might contribute to the lack of complete automatisation of regular L2 rules. These factors are proficiency, practice and exposure to an L2 (Clahsen & Felser, 2006), which are in fact unavailable for EFL learners in Saudi public schools. Overall, findings from the current study do not show that knowledge of regular forms is significantly greater than knowledge of irregular forms. The findings indicate almost a balanced recognition of both types. These findings do, however, appear to support the body of research that advocates that irregular forms are mapped onto separate entries in the mental lexicon and that representation of base regular forms are processed without the attachment of regular rules in their lexicons (e.g., Marslen-Wilson & Tyler, 1997; Pinker, 1999; Ullman, 2000, 2004). Interpretation of the findings suggests that L2 learners in this study tended to recall the irregular forms as full words and applied rules minimally in regular word recognition. In contrast with the expectation put forward in this study – that learners will score significantly less in response to irregularly tested words than to regular words – learners tended to score almost equally for both types of words. However, it is worth noting that the vocabulary presented to the test-takers in this study are high-frequency words. Therefore, this might be a factor enabling learners to recognise words which are irregular almost to the same degree as they did with regular ones. 4.2 Effect of the frequency of regular and irregular words on L2 vocabulary learning The second important finding of this study is that frequency has a significant impact on learning L2 irregularly inflected and derived vocabulary compared to regularly inflected and derived words. This finding accords with the results reported by Prado and Ullman (2009), who found that irregular form uptake is influenced by frequency. The finding from this study and that of Prado and Ullman (2009) support the idea that irregularly inflected and derived words are stored as full-formed entries, with frequency being an essential factor in their recognition, whereas regular forms are computed online. The frequency effect on the learnability of irregular English forms by native Arabic EFL learners is supported by the result illustrated in Figure 1. The scattergram suggests that learners are able to uptake more irregularly formed vocabulary than regularly formed words. It can be seen from the graph that some learners have knowledge of irregular words at the higher end around the diagonal. This could also confirm that learners might have difficulty applying English rules to developing knowledge of more regular words.

IJALEL 4(4):192-199, 2015 197

Responses to irregular words

40.0030.0020.0010.00.00

Res

pons

es to

regu

lar w

ords

50.00

40.00

30.00

20.00

10.00

.00

Figure 1. Scattergram showing responses to regular and irregular L2 words

The present findings suggest that learning the regular rules of an L2 are crucial for developing a larger L2 lexicon, and that knowledge of morphological rules in a learner’s L1 might not always apply to learning an L2. It should be noted here that the Arabic lexicon is differently structured from the English, which can, to an extent, justify the deficiency of applying knowledge of L1 rules to deriving L2 regular forms. Therefore, the burden of learning L2 rules and words with appropriate morphological attachment should be adopted in order to develop a larger L2 lexicon. 5. Conclusions This study described an attempt to investigate the effect of processing regular and irregular words by native Arab learners on EFL vocabulary acquisition. The idea was that Arabic learners might utilise the feature of implementing rules to generate a wide range of vocabulary in their L1 from the same root to learn regular English words significantly more effectively than irregular ones. The main interest in the current paper was in finding out:

• Do native Arab learners of English more easily learn regularly inflected and derived forms or irregularly inflected and derived forms?

• Does word frequency influence regular or irregular word learning, or both? In addition to an interest in finding answers experimentally to the addressed questions per se, another aim was to explore whether native Arab learners of English can transfer their knowledge of the regularity of rules they have already established in their L1 mental lexicon to learn words which have regular morphological endings in English. The first conclusion is that evaluating participants’ recognition in terms of word regularity has an obvious limitation. Despite the intuitive appeal of assuming that Arab EFL learners could utilise their skills in applying rules from their L1 to learning regular English words significantly more effectively than irregular ones, there seems to be little evidence to validate this assumption. One possible reason for this finding is that those who took part in this study are less proficient learners of English. Consequently, knowledge of a strong system of rules in their L1 appears not to support learning of L2 regular words. Thus, replicating this study with more proficient L2 learners might yield different results. The second conclusion is in relation to frequency effect on the type of L2 word regularity. It was found that frequency has a more significant effect on the retrieval of irregular words than regular ones. The finding from the current study appears to be in line with findings from previous research, such as that by Marslen-Wilson and Tyler (1997), Pinker (1999) and Ullman (2000, 2004). These previous studies suggest that irregular words are mapped onto separate entries in the mental lexicon and that their retrieval is based on their frequency of occurrence. Although the findings from this study do not show a clear effect of regular rule knowledge in L1 on developing knowledge of regular words in L2, future research to investigate this type of knowledge is worth conducting. If irregular words are stored separately in the L2 mental lexicon, as supported by many studies, then guessing base words from inflected and derived forms might hold greater difficulty for L2 learners than for regular forms.

IJALEL 4(4):192-199, 2015 198 References Abu–Rabia, S. (2002). Reading in a root-based-morphology language: The case of Arabic. Journal of Research in Reading, 25(3), 299-309. Al-Akloby, S. (2001). Teaching and learning English vocabulary in Saudi Arabian public schools: An exploratory study of some possible reasons behind students’ failure to learn English vocabulary. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, University of Essex, Essex. Al-Bogami, A. (1995). Teaching English vocabulary to EFL male students at intermediate and secondary public schools in Riyadh. Unpublished Master’s Thesis, King Saud University, Riyadh. Al-Hazemi, H. (1993). Low level EFL vocabulary tests for Arabic speakers. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, University of Wales, Swansea. Alegre, M., & Gordon, P. (1999). Rule-based versus associative processes in derivational morphology. Brain and Language, 68, 347-354. doi:10.1006/brln.1999.2066 Alsaif, A. (2011). Investigating vocabulary input and explaining vocabulary uptake among EFL learners in Saudi Arabia. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Swansea University, Swansea. Alsaif, A., & Milton, J. (2012). Vocabulary input from school textbooks as a potential contributor to the small vocabulary uptake gained by English as a foreign language learners in Saudi Arabia. The Language Learning Journal, 40(1), 21-33. doi:10.1080/09571736.2012.658221 Bar, K., & Dershowitz, N. (2012). Deriving paraphrases for highly inflected languages from comparable documents. Proceedings of the COLING, Mumbai, 185-200. Basnight-Brown, D. M., Chen, L., Hua, S., Kostić, A., & Feldman, L. B. (2007). Monolingual and bilingual recognition of regular and irregular English verbs: sensitivity to form similarity varies with first language experience. Journal of Memory and Language, 57(1), 65-80. doi:10.1016/j.jml.2007.03.001 Bialystok, E. (1997). The structure of age: in search of barriers to second language acquisition. Second Language Research, 13(2), 116-137. doi: 10.1191/026765897677670241 Butler, Y., & Hakuta, K. (2004). Bilingualism and second language acquisition. In T. Bathia & W. Ritchie (Eds.), The hanbook of bilingualism (pp. 114-144). Malden: Blackwell. Chomsky, N. (1957) Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton. Clahsen, H., & Felser, C. (2006). Grammatical processing in language learners. Applied Psycholinguistics, 27(01), 3-42. doi:10.1017/S0142716406060024 Grosjean, F. (1998). Studying bilinguals: Methodological and conceptual issues. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1(2), 131-149. Habash, N. Y. (2010). Introduction to Arabic natural language processing. Synthesis Lectures on Human Language Technologies, 3(1), 1-187. doi:10.2200/S00277ED1V01Y201008HLT010 Johnson, J. S., & Newport, E. L. (1989). Critical period effects in second language learning: The influence of maturational state on the acquisition of English as a second language. Cognitive Psychology, 21(1), 60-99. doi:10.1016/0010-0285(89)90003-0 Li, P. (2006). Modeling language acquisition and representation: connectionist networks. The Handbook of East Asian Psycholinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marslen-Wilson, W. D., & Tyler, L. K. (1997). Dissociating types of mental computation. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 387, 592-594. McBride–Chang, C., Wagner, R. K., Muse, A., Chow, B. W.-Y., & Shu, H. (2005). The role of morphological awareness in children's vocabulary acquisition in English. Applied Psycholinguistics, 26(03), 415-435. doi:10.1017/S014271640505023X McClelland, J., & Elman, J. (1986). The TRACE model of speech perception. Cognitive Psychology, 18(1), 1-86. Pellicer-Sánchez, A., & Schmitt, N. (2012). Scoring Yes–No vocabulary tests: Reaction time vs. nonword approaches. Language Testing, 0(0), 1-21. doi:10.1177/0265532212438053 Pinker, S. (1991). Rules of language. Science, 253, 530-536. Pinker, S. (1999). Words and rules: The ingredients of grammar. New York: Basic Books. Pliatsikas, C., & Marinis, T. (2013). Processing of regular and irregular past tense morphology in highly proficient second language learners of English: A self-paced reading study. Applied Psycholinguistics, 34(5), 943-970. doi:10.1017/S0142716412000082 Prado, E., & Ullman, M. (2009). Can imageability help us draw the line between storage and composition? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 35(4), 849-866. doi:10.1037/a0015286

IJALEL 4(4):192-199, 2015 199 Rueckl, J. G., Mikolinski, M., Raveh, M., Miner, C. S., & Mars, F. (1997). Morphological priming, fragment completion, and connectionist networks. Journal of Memory and Language, 36(3), 382-405. doi:10.1006/jmla.1996.2489 Rueckl, J. G., & Raveh, M. (1999). The influence of morphological regularities on the dynamics of a connectionist network. Brain and Language, 68, 110-117. doi:10.1006/brln.1999.2106 Rumelhart, D., & McClelland, J. (1986). On learning the past tense of English verbs: Implicit rules or parallel distributed processing. In J. McClelland & D. Rumelhart (Eds.), Parallel distributed processing: Explorations in the microstructure of cognition (pp. 216-271). Cambridge: MA: MIT Press. Seidenberg, M., & Elman, L. (1999). Networks are not hidden rules. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 3, 353-365. doi:10.1016/S1364-6613(99)01355-8 Ullman, M. T. (2000). A mental model of morphology: The psychological and neural basis of the computation of complex words. University of Maryland Working Papers in Linguistics, 10, 127-156. Ullman, M. T. (2001a). The declarative/procedural model of lexicon and grammar. Journal of Psycholinguist Research, 30(1), 37-69. doi:10.1023/A:1005204207369 Ullman, M. (2001b). A neurocognitive perspective on language: The declarative/procedural model. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2(10), 717-726. doi:10.1038/35094573 Ullman, M. T. (2004). Contributions of memory circuits to language: The declarative/procedural model. Cognition, 92(1-2), 231-270. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2003.10.008

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

Gender Differences in the Use of Intensifiers in Persian

Abbas Eslami Rasekh Faculty of Foreign Languages, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

Fateme Saeb (Corresponding author)

Faculty of Foreign Languages, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran E-mail address: f.saeb1384@gmail.com

Received: 13-12- 2014 Accepted: 17-02- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015 Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.200 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.200 Abstract Men and women use different linguistic forms though they might come from the same homogeneous speech community. This study is an attempt to investigate the differential usage of intensifiers in male and female speech in Persian. About four hours of naturally-occurring spontaneous conversations between male and female participants were recorded, transcribed and examined for the use of intensifiers. Frequency counts and the Chi-square test were used to analyze the data. The results indicated that women used intensifiers significantly more than men. The findings were seen to support the previous findings in this regard. They also furthered our understanding of gendered speech in Persian. Keywords: intensifiers, female speech, gender differences, Persian 1. Introduction “The male is not as the female.” (Holy Quran, Al-i-Imran, 36) God has created men and women as different humans. The two genders are different in many respects, physiologically, psychologically and socially, to name but a few. They have different ways of adapting themselves to the world. According to Conner (2000):“males and females deal with problems with similar goals but with diverse considerations.” Women tend to take account of multiple sources of information simultaneously and see elements as interconnected. Men are inclined to concentrate on one problem at a time. Women are able to recall memories of strong emotional components. In men, certain experiences which are related to competition or physical activities are more easily recalled (Conner, 2000). Men and women are also linguistically different. Gender differences in the use of linguistic forms exist in any speech community with varying degrees of intensity. Wardhaugh (2006) describes the Carib Indians as having two different languages for males and females. This situation is the result of a war in which Carib- speaking men massacred the local Arawak-speaking men and mated with their women. Their descendants now speak two languages as boys learn Carib from their fathers and girls learn Arawak from their mothers. A less extreme example is the working-class women in Newcastle who often pronounce the [ᴵᵑ] variant for the suffix ‘ing’, while men prefer to use [ᴵᴺ] variant (Meyerhoff, 2006). Researchers have long been interested in describing gender differences in language use (Parsons, 1913; Stopes, 1908; Turner, Dindia & Pearson, 1995). In the early 1970s, female language received more serious attention from the linguists, psychologists and sociologists. “Female register” was also coined to refer to the diversities rooted in gender differences in the phenomenon of language (Pan, 2011). Nowadays in any introductory book on sociolinguistics one can expect to find a chapter on language and gender as it is a subfield of sociolinguistics, which deals with gender differentiation evident, among others, in pronunciation (Hariri, 2012; Jiang, 2011; Pan, 2011), vocabulary and grammar (Dubois & Crouch, 1975; Nemati & Bayer, 2007). Regarding male and female differences in vocabulary, one appealing area of study has been the different use of intensifiers by men and women (Ghafar Samar & Alibakhshi, 2007; Jeon & Choe, 2009; Sharp, 2012; Subon, 2013; Turner et al., 1995; Xiao & Tao, 2007). Intensifiers are words such as very, so, really, totally, etc. which semantically function to strengthen or increase the force of what they modify. Male and female differences in some linguistic areas have been identified and the issue has been settled. However, research results in many areas are not yet conclusive and consistent, gender differences in the use of intensifiers being one of them. These differences have continued to be the subject of “much debate and little consensus” (Cassell & Traversky, 2005, p. 6). Hence, the need is felt to pursue research in this field in order to get conclusive results and to increase the body of current knowledge about gendered speech. Furthermore, to the best knowledge of the researcher, there have been very few studies concerning men and women’s use of intensifiers in Iran (Ghafar Samar & Alibakhshi, 2007; Nemati & Bayer, 2007). Research studies in this area have been mainly done about the English language and in western cultures and may not necessarily represent the gender differences in the use of Persian intensifiers in Iranian culture. In view of this, the purpose of this study was to identify points of difference in use of intensifiers in the speech of males and females in Iranian context. Lakoff‘s (1975) ideas regarding gender differences in the use of linguistic

Flourishing Creativity & Literacy

IJALEL 4(4):200-204, 2015 201 features are taken into account in conducting the study. Specifically, this study aims to answer the following research question: Is there a significant difference between males and females in the use of Persian intensifiers? 2. Literature Review Robin Lakoff (1975), a pioneer in language and gender, in her vastly cited book Language and woman’s place proposed that gender differences in communication are due to the different positions that men and women occupy in society. In Lakoff’s view, men speak in an assertive way because they enjoy the superior position in the social ranking. Women, on the other hand, speak in a more tentative and polite manner since the subordinate role is theirs. She claimed that the tentativeness and powerless nature of female language is demonstrated in heavy use of intensifying adverbs. Though long before Lakoff, some scholars (Stoffel, 1901; Jesperson, 1922; cited in Romero, 2012) had started attributing the use of intensifiers to female language, it was Lakoff (1975) who instigated the hot debate on gender differences in linguistic features. Since their publication, Lakoff’s (1975) views on women’s language have been the subject of much criticism. Dubois and Crouch (1975), for example, disapproved of her research method as being introspective, asystematic, uncontrolled, and unverifiable observation. They suggested that she had drawn conclusions based upon a notably skewed, non-random sample of participants. Likewise, Mizokami (2001:144) described Lakoff’s notions as “folklinguistic stereotypes”. Lakoff’s (1975) ideas have also been the target of criticism from feminists camp for suggesting that women’s talk is abnormal and that in order to be taken seriously, they must try to adjust their speech to the norm, that is, men’s way of speaking. However, Lakoff intended to draw attention to the male dominance in society instead of female deficiency. The theory has been since known as the Deficit approach as a result of this confusion (Mustonen, 2010). Criticism was not the only reaction to Lakoff’s views. Many researchers set out to investigate if she was right. While some of the findings of these research attempts confirmed Lakoff’s views (Sharp, 2012; Turner et al., 1995; Kuha, 2005; Mustonen, 2010), others have been inconsistent with them (Fahy, 2002; Nemati & Bayer, 2007; Xiao & Tao, 2007). The conflicting results have been due to a large part to the fact that different datasets were used and different intensifiers were studied. Bradac, Mulac, and Thompson (1995, cited in Kuha, 2005) studied the use of intensifiers in 58 male and 58 female students. Men’s average use was 0.8 intensifiers per 100 words, whereas women produced 1.1 intensifiers per 100 words on average. The difference was statistically significant. In this study, a number of intensifiers, such as "really" and "so", were more preferred by women rather than men. In another study, Turner et al. (1995) examined the assumption of gender differences in eleven verbal behaviors believed to discriminate females from males. The verbal behaviors under study included the use of intensifiers among other behaviors. In this study women were reported to have a greater use of justifiers, intensifiers, and agreement compared to men. Following the same line of research, Ghafar Samar and Alibakhshi (2007) explored gender-related differences in the use of linguistic strategies in natural communications in Persian. They analyzed male-male, male-female, and female-female communications with respect to the participants’ linguistic strategies (interruptions, intensifiers, amount of speech, topic raising). Their results revealed that there is a significant difference between males and females in the use of linguistic strategies in male-male and female-female communications, with females using more intensifiers. In a more recent study, Sharp (2012) investigated the use of intensifiers so and really by males and females in a television show. The results indicated that the female characters’ use of intensifiers was significantly more than the male characters. Her findings suggested that the intensifiers so and really are possibly a characteristic of female speech in modern television programming. In contrast to Lakoff‘s (1975) views and the aforementioned studies, Fahy (2002) investigated the difference between males’ and females’ use of linguistic qualifiers and intensifiers in a computer conference transcript. His study showed a tendency for women to use more qualifiers, conditional and parenthetic statements, while men’s contributions mainly had fewer qualifiers and more intensifiers. In another study, Nemati and Bayer (2007) explored the use of intensifiers, hedges and tag questions by men and women in English and Persian. To collect the appropriate data they studied 6 English and 8 Persian film-scripts. They used frequencies and Chi-squares to compare the data. The results showed no significant difference between the groups on the use of intensifiers, hedges and tag questions. Also, Xiao and Tao (2007) explored dissimilarities in the use of intensifiers respecting a number of sociolinguistic variables. They examined 33 intensifiers across discourse mode and register, gender, age, education level, and audience gender and age. The results showed no significant difference between male and female speakers in terms of their use of intensifiers. Interestingly however, women in their study used intensifiers significantly more frequently than men in writing. Obviously, their findings yielded mixed results for the views that associate intensifiers with the female language. Finally, it would be beneficial to mention the results of a meta-analysis of studies testing gender differences in tentative speech conducted in 2011. Leaper and Robnett (2011) selected a sample of 29 studies with a total sample of 3,502 participants. Results of the meta-analysis revealed a statistically significant but small effect size (d ¼ .23), suggesting that women were somewhat more likely than men to use tentative speech (expressions of uncertainty, tag questions,

IJALEL 4(4):200-204, 2015 202 hedges and intensifiers). In spite of that, they found a large overlap between women and men in their uses of tentative speech. “Many men used tentative speech with equal or even greater frequency than women. Furthermore, there was a small gender difference in some situations, whereas there was a negligible difference in other contexts. Our meta-analysis supports the view that women and men are more similar than different” (Leaper & Robnett, 2011, p.139). Overall, the research findings reviewed here are indicative of a persisting inconsistency in the results regarding the link between intensifier use and female language. This fact necessitates the pursuance of research in this area. Therefore, the present study sought to determine whether the use of intensifiers in Persian speakers might be determined by their gender. 3. Method 3.1 Participants Twenty-two people agreed that their voices be recorded and used as the data in this study. There were thirteen females and nine males. They were the available sample to the researchers. Their age ranged between 20 and 30 years and their level of education included high-school certificate to university student. The participants were all native speakers of Persian. 3.2 Data collection Procedures The transcript of 20 face-to-face conversations were examined for the use of Persian intensifiers. These conversation transcripts were obtained through the following techniques. Recording: People having a conversation were approached and were asked for their permission for their voices to be recorded. To assure the participants of the confidentiality of the gathered data, it was briefly explained to them that the recording was for some research purposes. Unstructured interviews: People were interviewed on various topics of interest. The objective was eliciting the natural flow of spontaneous speech on the part of the interviewees. The interviews were recorded and the participants’ permission for recording their voices were obtained beforehand. To ensure the utmost degree of naturalness and spontaneity, topics relevant to the activities in which the participants were engaged were chosen. For example, interview with students on the campus was about the term papers which were due for the current term. The above mentioned methods were chosen for the purpose of observing, studying and understanding the natural phenomenon to ensure for the credibility of the results. Some studies in this area have relied on film scripts (Nemati and Bayer, 2007; Sharp, 2012; Cholifah, Heriyanto & Citraresmana, 2013) or dialogues in novels (Funderburke, 2012; Ariffin, Husin & Musahar, 2004) for their data. Though dialogues in a film or novel can closely represent the linguistic behavior in natural contexts, it may not necessarily portray the intricacies inherent in spontaneous communication. Three hours and fifty minutes of speech were recorded which yielded 1200 utterances (600 female and 600 male) in total. Utterance was regarded as the unit of speech since there were numerous cases of incomplete sentences or clusters of sentences delivered without some pauses in between to mark their being separate sentences. Nemati and Bayer (2007) define ‘utterance’ as the “whole linguistic production of each person, in a conversation, in each turn, be it a single sound, a word, phrase, sentence, or even a series of sentences” (p.192). The use of the Farsi equivalents for the following words were counted as instances of intensifiers: very [keili], so [anghadr], so much [anghadr ziyad], completely [kamelan], totally [kollan], especially [khosusan], always [hamisheh], never [hargez], all [hame], only [faghat], precisely [daghighan], surely [motmaenan], certainly [hatman], at all [aslan], nothing [hich chiz] and really [vaghean]. Examples of sentences in which these intensifiers were used by male and female participants are extracted from the data and presented in table 1 below: Table 1. Examples of intensifier use from the gathered data Intensifier Sample sentence Very “Sadegh’s drawings are very nice.” So “The new flowers have made the campus so beautiful!” So much “You do so much online shopping, Samaneh!” Completely “It’s completely obvious that he has graduated from Auckland University.” Totally “Tablets have been totally changed into some sort of toy for children.” Specially “I like working for students, specially the BA students, they’re younger.” Always “He was always working on statistics and things like that.” Never “You’ll never do such a thing.” All “All this week I was busy with these meetings.” Only “The university students’ motivation is only obtaining a degree.” Precisely “He looks precisely like Rezazadeh.” Surely “Ph.D. students are surely more familiar with the university rules and regulations.” Certainly “If you say so, it’ll certainly work.” At all “They didn’t present it well. I didn’t like it at all.” Nothing “The problem is, their website has nothing special.” Really “The school condition is really dreadful.”

IJALEL 4(4):200-204, 2015 203 3.3 Data Analysis To analyze the data, frequency counts and Chi-square statistical procedures were used. Frequency counts were employed to show the frequency of intensifiers found in the utterances produced by males and females. Also, as the data were nominal, Chi-square test for independence was used to determine whether there is a significant difference between male and female speech regarding the use of intensifiers. 4. Results Table 2 shows the general results of the study indicating that the frequency of intensifiers in female speech was higher than the frequency in male speech. Table 2. Frequencies of intensifier use in male and female speech Number of intensifiers Number of utterances Percentage of intensifier use Female 135 600 22.5% Male 96 600 16.7% To find out whether the difference between males and females in their use of intensifiers is significant, a Chi-square test for independence was run. The results indicated a significant association between gender and the use of intensifiers, ᵪ2 (1, n=1200) = 6.11, p =.01, phi= -.07. This means that females in this study made significantly greater use of intensifiers in their speech. However, the phi coefficient yielded a small effect size (-.07). In line with the results of Sharp (2012), Turner et al. (1995), Kuha (2005), Mustonen (2010) and Ghafar Samar and Alibakhshi (2007), the results of this study confirmed Lakoff‘s (1975) views concerning women’s use of intensifiers. However, they were inconsistent with Fahy (2002), Nemati and Bayer (2007), and Xiao and Tao’s (2007) findings. 5. Discussion and Conclusion Any society prescribes different roles and positions for men and women. Different expectations, consequently, are made from each gender with respect to how they behave and how they talk. Lakoff (1975) holds that because women are often denied access to power in the society, they use different linguistic devices to assert and protect their social position, use of intensifiers being one of them. Women in this study were found to use intensifiers more than men. Keeping in mind their less powerful status in social interactions, women might resort to using intensifiers to give more emphasis to their talk, impress their interlocutors and enhance the likelihood of being accepted and confirmed. According to Wardhaugh (2006) “women are expected to use talk to a greater extent than men to serve the function of establishing and maintaining personal relationships. They are expected to talk about personal feelings and other socio-emotional matters relevant to interpersonal relationships to a greater extent than men . . . what is particularly important in female friendships is the sharing of intimate feelings through talk, whereas in male friendships the sharing of activities is more important” (p. 325). Getting the attention of their listeners through using more intensifiers might be a linguistic strategy for women to help establish and maintain personal relationships. Also, since women are more emotionally-oriented in their behavior and in their speech and do not try to hide their feelings and emotions, using intensifiers might be an attempt on their part to express their strong feelings and attitudes toward different topics. This might also show their greater sensitivity to linguistic forms. A word of caution might be in order here: the results of the present study might not be generalizable to other males and females in other speech communities and other cultures as the participants were a small group of men and women. Hence, replication studies with larger samples would be desirable to give more generalizable results. Despite this limitation, this study contributed to furthering our understanding of the variations in the use of intensifiers by men and women in Persian. As for the practical implications, the results might be applicable in educational contexts. Language teachers can benefit from the knowledge about gender differences in their students’ production of utterances. Results from studies like the present one may help them to see the variation as mere differences and not as a drawback for either of the two genders. Further, an understanding of gender differences in speech can help even the lay men and women to learn more about each other and have more effective and successful cross-gender communications.

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International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

Moodle-based Distance Language Learning Strategies: An Evaluation of Technology in Language Classroom

Majid Khabbaz Faculty of Border Sciences, Amin Police University, Tehran, Iran

E-mail: khabbaz_m@yahoo.com

Rasool Najjar (Corresponding author) Faculty of Border Sciences, Amin Police University, Tehran, Iran

E-mail: Najjar.Rassol@yahoo.com

Received: 16-12- 2014 Accepted: 18-02- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015 Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.205 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.205 Abstract English language teaching curriculum developers now turn to the heavy use of technology in classrooms. Computer technology, specifically, has brought about many changes in the strategies of language leaning. One of the new computer programs which has recently attracted the attention of language teachers is called Moodle. It is an open-source Course Management System (CMS) which delivers online courses as well as supplement traditional face-to-face language courses. Since there is little information about the feasibility of such a program, this study is an effort to examine it through its adaptability to Language Learning Strategies (LLSs). The data is gathered from 60 Moodle-based EAP users as a purposeful sample of the EAP population through a questionnaire. The participants were also observed and interviewed (6 participants). It was found out that there were no relationships between LLSs and language achievement at Moodle-based distance language learning contexts. The findings imply that learning language through Moodle-based teaching materials impede the process of being autonomous language learners, which is a prerequisite for language learning at distance contexts. Keywords: distance learning, language learning strategies, learner autonomy, Computer-Assisted Language Learning, English for Academic Purposes (EAP) 1. Introduction Technology-based learning is introduced as a kind of learning “delivered via any technology” (Anohina, 2005). Technology, therefore, is considered as a resource from which any tool can be selected for learning processes. Focused on this conceptual framework, educators select different, sometimes untried, technologies in order to facilitate the process of teaching and learning. The widespread use of technologies has even changed the understanding of what it means to teach and learn a language, and teaching roles, in response to these changes, are being altered and transformed (White, 2007). It has, therefore, brought different expressions into Second/Foreign Language Learning (ESL/EFL), such as distance language learning, online language learning, distributed language learning, virtual language learning, computer-assisted language learning, and web-based language learning (Anohina, 2005). Since the availability and simple structure of technologies were important, powerful packages known as Learning Management Systems (LMSs) were developed to enhance learning in a variety of environments (Melton, 2006). Due to high fees, however, many LMSs, such as WebCT and Blackboard, require a commercial support that language teachers cannot afford. To solve the problem, Moodle (Modular object-oriented dynamic/developmental learning environment) came out as an open source LMS. Due to both the ubiquity of the internet and increased availability of network bandwidth, this powerful package attracted the interest of many educators all over the world (Cole, 2005). Teachers who use Moodle have access to an array of powerful tools, including assignments, forums, journals, quizzes, surveys, chat rooms, and workshops (Cole, 2005). In spite of its widespread use, there are few reliability, quality, and feasibility signs for Moodle program when used for language teaching/learning. This study, therefore, is to answer the problem of whether or not Moodle-based language teaching is worth increasing language learning. 1.1 Review of Literature Many studies have proven the positive effect of distance teaching on language learning (Gascoigne, 2008; Holmberg, Shelley, & White, 2005; Hurd, 2008; Murphy, 2008; White, 2003a; White, 2007). It is the autonomy and independency of language learners which help them compensate for lack of face to face interaction existing in conventional language teaching environments (Sarani, Ghonsooly, & Najjar, 2013). White (1995, 2003b) introduced strategy use as a factor indicating the level of autonomy at distance contexts. Accordingly, distance language learners are more autonomous and self-regulated (Hurd, 2008; Hurd, Beaven, & Ortega, 2001). Oxford (2008) also established a direct relationship

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IJALEL 4(4):205-210, 2015 206 between independent learning (distance learning), learner autonomy, and learning strategies. According to Oxford, “The uses of learning strategies can both reflect and further promote learner autonomy” (p.41). Along with this theoretical framework, many studies resulted in using metacognitive strategies more than the other direct and indirect strategies at distance contexts. It implies that distance language learners use self-regulated strategies in order to enhance their autonomy and self-pacing learning (Ping, 2004; White, 1995, 2003a; Zahedi & Dorrimanesh, 2008). Zahedi and Dorrimanesh (2008), for example, focused on metacognitive Language Learning Strategies (LLSs) at distance contexts. They surprisingly found a relationship between distance learning strategies and English for Academic Purposes (EAP). It seems that EAP contexts increase the use of language learning strategies (Najjar, 2011). Although distance language learners use metacognitive language strategies, they adhere to affective strategies at the low level (Hurd, 2008; Najjar, 2011). While this finding needs to be supported by more evidence form similar studies, it shows that distance learners rely mostly on their cognition rather than affection. There have been some comparative studies which compare LLSs at distance contexts with conventional contexts. For example, Hanson and Wenno (2005) compared how differently compensatory strategies were used in both conventional and distance language learning strategies. Their study showed that the natural deficiencies of a distance course (such as lack of communication and print-based materials) have to be compensated for by effective sources. In addition to compensation strategies, Chan and Han (2005) examined writing strategies. They found that online students are more aware of strategy use in the way that there is a positive relationship between strategy use and writing awareness at distance contexts. Learners’ variables such as age and sex of distance language learners have also been explored in terms of the level of strategy use. In other words, some studies tried to examine whether male or female use LLSs differently (Bagheri, Yamini, and Riazi, 2009). According to these studies, it is almost possible to say that there are significant differences between males/females motivation strategies in the way that females used more motivation and learning strategies. In general, the implication of the review of related literature is that distance language learners use more metacognitive LLSs. There is also little evidence to support this finding for EAP distance learners (see, for example, Sarani, Ghonsooly, & Najjar, 2012). However, few studies exist to support the pedagogical value of LLSs at EAP distance learning contexts. It follows that the existing literature is not so reliable to imply that EAP learners are also more autonomous and that the use of LLSs contributes toward language learning. Moreover, little attention has been paid to the Moodle-based distance language learning contexts. Therefore, this paper is to explore whether DLLSs used by EAP learners at a Moodle-based distance contexts result in language success. It also aims to fill in the gap of lacking enough information on the realm of using metacognitive strategies by distance language learners, which can be an indicator of being more autonomous at distance contexts. 1.2 Research Questions A useful tool for evaluating language programs at distance contexts and technology-based contexts is the qualification of these programs in promoting learners autonomy (Hurd, 2008; Oxford, 2008; White, 1995, 2003b). White (2003a) believes that distance language learners are more self-ruled, self-regulated, and autonomous than their counterparts at face-to-face language learning contexts. To measure autonomy, Oxford (2008) proposed measuring learning strategies and added that “the use of learning strategies can both reflect and further promote learner autonomy” (p. 41). Whether Moodle, therefore, is an effective program in terms of its usability in language learning and teaching can be evaluated by its contribution to learner autonomy through measuring language learning strategies in general and metacognitive language learning strategies in particular. The review of literature showed that there were a few studies in the area of Moodle-based education programs and to the best of research knowledge there were no research on Moodle-based language learning/teaching activities. The objective of the current study is, therefore, to evaluate a Moodle-based distance language program through measuring language learning strategies. Then, it will be examined whether there is any relationship between Moodle-based language learning strategies and language learning achievements. To put it more simply, the study is to answer the following questions: (1) To what extent does Moodle-based language learning program help learners to be autonomous? (2) Is there any relationship between distance language learning strategies and language learning achievements? 2. Method 2.1 Subjects Among the university students as the target population, a nonprobability sample applied (Best & kahn, 2006) and 100 undergraduate students of Information and Technology (IT) were selected as a convenient sample. Then, 60 participants, 39 males and 21 females, volunteered to participate in the study and filled the questionnaire out. Of these, 6 persons were interviewed to share how this technology-based context could improve their independency from the teacher and class. The sample, therefore, was a large one (Best & kahn, 2006). All the participants were Farsi native speakers, 19 to 23 years of age. They had mostly passed the General English Language (GEL) course. As IT students, they were homogenous in terms of computer skills and experiences of e-learning. The teacher of the program actually guided the participants through chat rooms and emails.

IJALEL 4(4):205-210, 2015 207 2.2 Instrumentation The Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL), 7th edition was used to assess the frequency of EFL/ESL language learning strategies (Oxford, 1990). According to Oxford (1990, 1995 & 1996), this questionnaire is a “structured survey” instrument with acceptable reliability and high validity to assess language learning strategies and has been used more than 10 000 times by late 1995 (Oxford, 1996). Oxford and Burry-Stock (1995) and Oxford (1996) examined the reliability and validity of SILL in different cultural groups and found them as highly acceptable. According to Oxford (1990), SILL can be administered in the respondents' native language or a foreign or second language with minimum measurement error. SILL assesses 6 sides of the participants' language learning strategies, including memory strategies (part A), cognitive strategies (part B), compensation strategies (part C), metacognitive strategies (Part D), affective strategies (E), and social strategies (part F). Participants read every item and rated a five Likert-scale (5-point scale) choice for each strategy describe. The study also used a teacher-made achievement test to assess the participants' achievement. The achievement scores, therefore, were used as indicators to language learning and showed whether a participant fails or passes the course. These scores were also indicators to rank participants as high or low achievers. Finally, a semi-structured interview was conducted to evaluate how Moodle as a technology could enhance autonomy in language learning. Participants took part in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course managed through online materials. Comprehension texts were extracted from ‘Special English for the Students of Computer’ book written for students of IT. Participants downloaded different texts and tried to understand them with the facilities (pronunciations and online dictionaries) provided in the Moodle context. Speaking and listening were practiced through webcam assisted activities in the Moodle screen. Writing skill was practiced through synchronous (online activities such as chat rooms) and asynchronous activities. 2.3 Procedures At the beginning of the online course, necessary information was given to the students in a real classroom situation and they were asked to record their learning experiences by filling out 50 items in the questionnaire. They were also given the achievement test as a pretest. Subjects received a user and a password and started online learning. Online activities mostly were asynchronous materials. The participants, therefore, made out their plans in a more self-regulated manner than when they were involved in synchronous materials (White, 2003a). In other words, the course design enabled the participants to plan their ways of learning. Having studied for about 4 months (one week before the end of semester), subjects were called to attend a real classroom situation. Meanwhile, they filled out the questionnaire in a think-aloud manner. They were asked to select any item as soon as they chose them. It is important to point that the questionnaire was given to the students in its original form, i.e., in English. One week later, the teacher-made achievement test was administered to the students. The gained score was considered as the indicator of language success or fail. Based on these scores, the most and the least successful language learners (3-3) were interviewed. 2.4 Data Analysis Results from the questionnaire were analyzed based on the profile that proposed by Oxford (1990). According to Oxford, any item in the questionnaire got an interval scale score from 1 to 5 describing the extent of frequent use of that particular item, that is, the higher a student’s response, the more frequently the student uses that particular item. Each part of the questionnaire, therefore, provided a sum. All the sums for the different parts, then, were added up to give the total raw score divided by 50 (the number of items in SILL). This number indicated overall average (SILL mean score) which should be between the range of 1.0 to 5.0. The achievement test was also analyzed through calculating overall mean score of the participants. This mean score and the overall average were then compared through a paired-sample t-test used when the same sample is compared in terms of two different variables. This kind of t-test was used to determine whether the average difference (overall average and mean score) is statistically different from zero (Boyce, 2009). Since the t-test results didn’t provide evidences for the significance of the differences, Eta squared formula was used to estimate the effect size of the difference (Dörnyei, 2007; p.217). Finally, the potential interrelation between language success (achievement mean score) and language learning strategies was assessed through Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient, a method for comparing two sets of continuous scales data (Brown, 2005). The data gained through interview was also analyzed according to the content analysis. 2.5 Results and Discussions As seen below (Table 1), the mean score of the SILL or overall average is 2.7 (M=2.7, SD= .50) and achievement mean score is 14.62. According to Oxford (1990), this (i.e. 2.7) is a medium level of strategy use. Whether or not these two means are significant, it is necessary to show their t-test results. Table 1. Mean scores and SD of the SILL

test Mean SD N

SILL mean score 2.7 .50 60 Achievement mean score 14.62 2.57 60

Note: SILL (Strategy Inventory for Language Learning), SD (Standard deviation), N (Number)

IJALEL 4(4):205-210, 2015 208 Paired samples t-test (Table 2) showed that there was a statistical significant difference between achievements mean score and overall SILL mean score. In other words, the results indicated that there was a significant difference between scores for achievement test (M=14.62, SD= 2.57) and SILL mean score (M= 2.7, SD=50), t (59) = -36.22, p< .05 (Table 4.15). Effect size for this test established at .91 computed by eta squired. It showed that the magnitude of the difference in the means was large. Table 2. Paired Samples Test

However, Pearson product-moment correlation (table 3) showed that r = .163 (p<.05), which was a very low positive correlation and not a meaningful one in applied linguistics research.

Table 3. Correlations between SILL mean score and achievement test mean score

Strategy Usage achievement score

Strategy Usage Pearson Correlation 1 .163

Sig. (2-tailed) .214

N 60 60 achievement score Pearson Correlation .163 1

Sig. (2-tailed) .214 N 60 60

In general, Paired samples t-test showed that the differences between achievement mean score and average of overall strategy usage (SILL mean score) were significant and any variance can be a sign of difference. This difference was also valuable; that is, it was in effect important. So, it can be said that in this study the lower the achievement means score, the lower the use of strategies, and vice versa. While these variances were significant, correlation coefficient showed that there is a very low positive correlation between mean of achievement scores and mean of SILL, that is, it is not possible to say if we score high or low on one, we are likely to score high or low on the other. It is important to say that the lack of interrelationship between strategy use and achievement does not imply that the current technology-based context has no or little influence on achievement, but the implication is that it has probably little influence on learning strategies. This may be a reason for lack of success which needs further research. Therefore, to answer the research questions, it might be possible to say that the Moodle-based language learners showed no interrelating evidence between their language success and their language learning strategies. It is also important to consider that Moodle as a specific technology-based language context intensifies language learning strategies at the medium level. It means that Moodle is a technology-based rather than learner-based language program and, consequently, is an implausible program for promoting autonomy. The data from interview also indicated the same result. In other words, the most and the least successful language learners both believed that this particular technology-based language learning program had few opportunities for improving their autonomy and, hence, their language success. What the good language learners announced as causes of their being successful was their appealing to other learning sources, mostly got from the internet. Almost all the interviewees believed that this technology-based language learning program needed to be reviewed in terms of the ways it handled the assessment processes.

Student A: since there is a time constraint for exam and each item will disappear from the screen after 90 seconds, I feel distracted and can’t focus on the items.

As far as learning strategies are concerned, both groups of interviewees had difficulty in how to use note-taking and remember the words (memory strategies), how to use their findings, apply reading strategies such as skimming, scanning, and summarizing, and practice English on the screen (cognitive strategies), how to apply body language (compensation strategies), how to evaluate their progress (metacognitive strategies), how to manage their feelings such

Paired Differences t df Sig. (2-

tailed)

Mean SD Std. Error Mean

95% Confidence Interval of the

Difference

Lower Upper

Pair 1 Strategy Usage - achievement score

-11.88800 2.54236 .32822 -12.54476 -11.23124 -36.220 59 .000

IJALEL 4(4):205-210, 2015 209 as being afraid of assessment or being tense or nervous when working with computer technology (affective strategies), and finally how to ask their online questions (social strategies). In contrast to these problems, the technology-based language learners cited some benefits when learning a new language through this program. For example:

Student B: Reading and pronunciation strategies can be easily managed and I can apply word-for-word pronunciation techniques and strategies. Student C: I use word-for-word translation easily and I can use the dictionary more and more because there are online dictionaries. Student D: I can plan my time effectively. Whenever I feel enjoyment, I start studying. I have many reading opportunities and it is possible to set my goals and schedules. Student E: what I have been interested in was the materials and sources designed for further reading. I, myself, use the audio section including many related stories and news about the main ideas of the text.

It is also important to stress that language learners believe that technology-based language learning can be achieved only in a specific language courses. In other words, language learning in general requires a whole range of technologies, and Moodle or any potential program can only teach little bits of language skills.

Student F: I think it is hard to learn a language through this program, albeit for my special course [ESP] it is interesting.

On the whole, these extracts show that Moodle as a technology in language learning might have various influences on language learners’ attitudes toward the use of technology as a constructive tool in language learning. So, in conducting technology-based language learning, learners’ beliefs and attitudes including learning strategies can be considered as an important factor. 3. Conclusion and Implications According to the aims of this study, it can be possible to say that although Moodle as a technology might result in language success, there is no evidence to prove that this success has been exclusively related to the implications of the technology. On the other hand, this technology, which has been used to enhance the autonomous language learning, has provided the learners with different challenges which might in turn impede autonomy learning. One, for example, is the low level of strategy use among these kinds of technology-based language learners. As referred to by Oxford (1990) and White (2003a), among others, one indicator for autonomy, not met in this study, is the level of strategy use among language learners. The interview data emphasizes that in the use of technology in language learning it is of great importance to consider language learning strategies and the way these strategies might be integrated to the program. Although findings of the study could be limited to the current program, it is almost clear that in all technology-based language learning programs, language learning strategies in general and metacognitive strategies in particular should be integrated to the program. It seems, however, that Moodle-based language teaching as a technology imposes some limitations on the language learning strategies. Therefore, further study of language leaning strategies might be conducted in the area of technology-based language learning strategies in general and other specific technologies in particular. It is also suggested to conduct a study on technology-based language learning strategies to provide the literature with a new instrument or a checklist to evaluate learning strategies since Oxford’s instrument has been designed for conventional language learning contexts. The study concludes that English for academic courses requires technologies for academic purposes. Since EAP distance language learners use more metacognitive LLSs (Sarani, Ghonsooly, & Najjar, 2012), they require a kind of distance program which can smooth the way of using metacognitive abilities. EAP leaners have their own purposes and look for self-regulated strategies which are not seen among the capabilities of the Moodle-based contexts. It would be logical to design technologies with specific language teaching/learning purposes, rather than using a technology-based program in all contexts. For example, the findings of the current study imply that learning a language through Moodle-based teaching materials impedes the process of being autonomous language learners, which is a prerequisite for language learning at distance contexts. In general, the implication here is that current distance language learning program has little relationship with students’ achievements and has to be replaced or revised. The study also helps distance language teachers in how they can assess the profile of their learners in terms of using strategies. If the study is put in a wider context, it can be said that distance language teachers have to be trained in the area of distance language teaching and they have to pay more attention to the strategy awareness among their distance learners. References Anohina, A. (2005). Analysis of the terminology used in the field of virtual learning. Educational Technology & Society, 8(3), 91-102. Bagheri, M. S. & Yamini, M. & Riazi, A. (2009). Motivational and learning strategies of Iranian EFL learners exposed to an E-Learning program. The Journal of Teaching Language Skills (JTLS) of Shiraz University, 1(1), 1-35. Retrieved 16 June 2011, from www.sid.ir/en/VEWSSID/J_pdf/131120090101.pdf Best, J.W., & kahn, J.V. (2006). Research in education (10th ed.). US: Pearson Education Inc.

IJALEL 4(4):205-210, 2015 210 Boyce, A. (2009). The effectiveness of increasing language learning strategy awareness for students studying English as a second language. Unpublished master’s thesis, Auckland University of Technology. Brown, J.D. (2005). Testing in language programs: a Comprehensive guide to English language assessment. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Chan, S. H., & Han, A. L. (2005). What goes on when tertiary students are Engaged in an online academic writing course? GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies; 5(2),1-14. Cole, J. (2005). Using Moodle: Teaching with the Popular Open Source Course Management System. US: O'Reilly Media, Inc. Dörnyei, Z. (2007). Research methods in applied linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press. Gascoigne, C. (2008). Independent second language reading as an interdependent process. In S. Hurd & T.Lewis (Eds.), Language learning strategies in independent settings (pp. 67-73). UK: Cromwell Press Ltd. Hansson, p., & Wenno, D. (2005). Closing the distance: compensatory strategies in distance language education. In B. Holmberg, M. Shelly & C.White (Eds.), Distance Education and Languages: Evolution and Change (pp. 278-294). UK. Multilingual Matters Ltd. Holmberg, B., Shelley, M., & White, C. (2005). Distance education and languages: evolution and change. UK: Cromwell Press Ltd. Hurd, S. (2008). Affective factors and strategy use in a distance language context: a pilot study using think-aloud verbal protocols. Texas Papers in Foreign Language Education, 11(1), 133–158. Hurd, S., Beaven, T. & Ortega, A. (2001). Developing autonomy in a distance language learning context: issues and dilemmas for course writers. System, 29(3), 341–355. Melton, J. (2006).The LMS moodle: a usability evaluation. Language Issues: HCI, 1, 2-24. Murphy, L. (2008). Learning logs and strategy development for distance and other independent language learners. In S. Hurd & T.Lewis (Eds.), Language learning strategies in independent settings (pp. 199-217). UK: Cromwell Press Ltd. Najjar, R. (2011). Exploring learning strategies used by Iranian ESP distance language learners. Unpublished master’s thesis, Sistan & Baluchestan University, Zahedan, Iran. Oxford, R. (1990). Language learning strategies: What every teacher should know. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Oxford, R. L., & Burry-Stock, J. A. (1995). Assessing the use of language learning strategies worldwide with the ESL/EFL version of the strategy inventory for language learning. System, 23(1), 1-23. Oxford, R. (1996). Employing a questionnaire to assess the use of language learning strategies. Applied Language Learning, 7(1 & 2), 25-45. Oxford, R. (2008). Hero with a thousand faces: learner autonomy, learning strategies and learning tactics in independent language learning. In S. Hurd & T. Lewis (Eds.), Language Learning Strategies in Independent Settings (pp. 41-65). UK: Cromwell Press Ltd. Ping, W. (2004). Language learning strategies of distance learners. Distance Education in China. Retrieved 20 June 2001, from http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTOTAL JFJJ200601019.htm Sarani, A., Ghonsooly, B., & Najjar, R. (2012). Language learning strategies of EAP distance language learners: a study of Moodle-based distance language learning context. Germany: Lambert Academic Publishing. Sarani, A., Ghonsooly, B., & Najjar, R. (2013). Distance context and language learning strategies: a study of Moodle-based context among EFL learners in Iran. Interdisciplinary Journal of Linguistics, 6, 139-156. White, C. (1995). Autonomy and strategy use in distance foreign language learning: Research findings. System, 23(2), 207-221. White, C. (2003a). Language Learning in Distance Education.US: Cambridge University Press. White, C. (2003b). Independent language learning in distance education: current issues. Paper presented at the Independent learning conference, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia. Retrieved 12 June 2011, from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi= 10.1.1.124.4139 & re. White, C. (2007). Innovation and identity in distance language learning and teaching. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 1(1), 97-110. Zahedi, K., & Dorrimanesh, P. (2008). Metacognitive learning strategies and academic success of TEFL M.A. students in distance education. International Journal of Criminology and Sociological Theory, 1(2), 161-176.

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

Lacanian Trauma & Tuché in Paul Auster’s Man in the Dark

Mahsa Khazaei (Corresponding author) Islamic Azad University, Central Tehran Branch, Iran

E-mail: mahsa.khazaei@gmail.com

Farid Parvaneh Department of English Language and Literature, Islamic Azad University, Qom Branch, Iran

Received: 05-12- 2014 Accepted: 19-02- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015 Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.211 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.211 Abstract This paper seeks to examine Paul Auster’s Man in the Dark (2008) in the light of Jacques Lacan’s theory of fragmented subjectivity. This literary piece had already been introduced as a text prone to be read as a manifestation of conventional meaning of “trauma” for which narration had a therapeutic effect. A Lacanian reading for “trauma,” however, has not received decent attention by critics. By exploring Man in the Dark through Lacanian idea of fragmented subjectivity, this paper presents that the “trauma” for Brill is for no nostalgic return of the past. It also does not refer to one specific event which means that language helps it in no way to be subjugated. Rather, by scrutinizing Brill’s storytelling, the present paper portrays that his trauma ties in with Lacanian notion of “tuché” as the impossible encounter with the missed real, which by “automaton” or “repetition,” that is the network or return of signifiers, cannot be mastered. Therefore, this analysis inevitably leads to the insufficiency of the idea that storytelling (narration) of the self or in Lacanian terms “objet petit a” can ever fill the “ontological lack” or the cause of “desire.” Furthermore, by parallelizing these Lacanian key terms to the aforementioned literary piece, the present paper argues how the “automaton” of Brill’s fragmented subjectivity in this novella proves to be contributing to his encounter with the missed real. Keywords: Trauma, Ontological Lack, Desire, Signifier, Automaton, Repetition, Tuché 1. Introduction A search on the previous critiques of Auster’s Man in the Dark reveals that the way he has utilized language for Brill, the insomniac storyteller of the novella, has been read as a tool for exorcising the choking unbearable thoughts of war and its consequences on the minds of characters of the story. However, a Lacanian psychoanalytic penetration to the novella tends to portray that what has been skipped in most of the critiques is the remainder of all those aforementioned thoughts at bay and in suspense. Indeed, the present Lacanian reading suggests that the more Brill attempts to ignore them, the more he seems to be trapped in the “repetition” and narrative. Rather than condemning the conventional reading for trauma of Man in the Dark, the present paper aims to surpass the sheer belief in the therapeutic effect of narration in this novella. Besides, when the aforementioned novella is read with a vaster horizon of outlook that is by Lacanian psychoanalytic key terms, it transmits to the idea that Brill’s “repetition” embracing “objet petit a,” springs from his “desire,” which is the never fully realized factor for one’s survival in the humanly world. Moreover, the present article strives to illuminate that story telling makes a futile attempt towards fixing Brill’s “fragmented” and lacking being. In this regard, “tuché” and “automaton” are applied to dig better into the concept of traumatic subjectivity. 2. Automaton, Tuché, and Trauma 2.1 Automaton To grasp Lacan’s notion of automaton, one must have an understanding of “repetition.” As Fink mentions “repetition” is “the insistence of signs” involving “the impossible to think” or the “impossible to say” (Reading Seminar XI 225). For Lacan, “repetition” involves a kind of return, a return, which does not involve the return of the same thing, for as Fink interprets Lacan, there are no two identical things, but what makes two things seem identical is the signifier as they are taken to the symbolic order that is language (Reading Seminar XI 223). However, for Lacan, automaton’s function is independent of the conscious subject (Nusselder 93). Seeking into and also expanding Freud’s theory of “fort da” and naming it “here or there”/ “presence or absence,” Lacan believes that this symbolic repetition constitutes human beings as subjects and that subjects for survival need repetition. He emphasizes that “repetition demands the new” (Seminar XI 61). The absence of a fixed primary existence mirroring the child in the imaginary order produces an ever open gap for the subject. This absence turns to be an “ontological lack” (Ruti 484) and it brings about a centrifugal tracing (Seminar XI 62). Lacan also states that lack of separation from mother that is the object, brings a split in the subject, which causes “anxiety” (Evans 11). “Desire” is inseparable from “anxiety.” In Lacanian terms, this is the “anxiety” sustaining desire, while at the same time “desire” remedies “anxiety” (Evans 11). “Anxiety” ties in the concept of “lack,” since in Lacan’s view, “lack” generates “desire” and “anxiety” is found when “this lack is itself lacking; anxiety is the lack of a lack”

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IJALEL 4(4):211-215, 2015 212 (Evans 12). Therefore, it is deducible that “automaton” embraces “anxiety” as it revolves around a “lack” produced by “desire.” 2.2 Tuché For Lacan, “tuché” is an encounter with the missed real that disturbs the functioning of the pleasure principle (Nusselder 94). Lacanian real could only be known “by some set of arbitrary and accidental encounter that momentarily pulls human beings out of the psychic system that mediates their relation to the inner and outer world by means of signifiers” (Nusselder 94). In other words, human beings in their minds, externalized in novels, films, and personae can only draw idealized pictures of themselves at the level of the signifier; hence, this way the system of signifiers acts as a system of mediation between the inner and outer world (Nusselder 94). Lacanian notion of “tuché” signifies the signifier’s inability to account for appearances; therefore, in order not to tumble into illusions, appearances need to be related to the real (Nusselder 95). For Lacan, the ideal world is a disturbance, the encounter to which disturbs the illusion that drives human beings. The “tuché,” the encounter with the traumatic real, occurs as if it were by chance. Human beings make idealized picture of reality. However, the real breaks through the symbolic and it disrupts the idealized picture of reality that human beings make (Nusselder 94). This makes a tragicomic situation of human beings as representative beings, “which cannot be elevated into a utopian, pleasurable, and truthful final discovery of the real” (Nusselder 94). This very idea is rooted in Lacanian split subject: the virtual subject that is living in fiction and the real as its unassimilable rest or kernel; therefore, “fantasy interfaces these two orders” and “designs the world into a desirable reality” (Nusselder 94). On the other hand, it has been also argued by Mari Ruti in “The Fall of Fantasies: A Lacanian Reading of Lack” that since Lacan believes these narcissistic fantasies are misleadingly seductive and they alleviate subjects’ anxieties about the basis of their existence, the fall of these cherished fantasies empower them to attain subjective singularity (483). Fantasy is the ego’s unconscious or conscious attempt to fill or cover over the “lack,” which is to Lacan a pivotal subjectivity formation factor. Besides, this fantasy in Ruti’s words “shelters the subject from having to accept the realities of the psychic predicament” (484). Therefore, the more one breaks down fantasies as a bar to face the challenges of subjects’ existential situation, the more psychoanalytic approach of unraveling the concept of subjectivity it would be (Ruti 484) and closer one gets to encounter with the missed real. Furthermore, Lacan in elaborating on “tuché” compares the missed encounter with the real to the unconscious cause. He asserts that both have a lost cause and that the vanity of “repetition” becomes the cause of the miss and the loss (Seminar XI 128). 2.3 Trauma

“Tuché” is very much similar to Lacanian concept of trauma as he mentions “the function of the “tuché,” of the real as encounter in so far as it may be missed, in so far as it is essentially the missed encounter, first presented itself in the history of psychoanalysis in the form … of trauma” (Seminar XI 55). The concept of “trauma” is rooted in Freud’s ideas which date to 1890s. For Freud, childhood repressions get inscribed in memory and form the unconscious; the real events of early life form the disorders of the psychic life. What is to add about this theory of “trauma” is that, the past traumatic event through being consciously remembered by the subject could be interpreted and worked through. Indeed, Freud believes in the therapeutic and magic power of the words (Berthold 300). Quite contrary to Freud’s theory, Lacan delineates his own theory of “trauma.” For Lacan, trauma is the consequence of the “ontological lack.” Rather than being interested in traumatic life histories that could be childhood traumas or abusive personal memories or histories which could be mastered through language, Lacan takes special interest in the idea that the very ontological lack of human existence is traumatic (Ruti 485) and believes that as human beings are engulfed in language, they just through objet petit a endeavor to make a whole of themselves. To fill the void and the sense of lack, objects and figures of meaning which ironically strike both the feeling of alienation and ease, are fabricated by the subjects (Ruti 490). Nonetheless, they fail to master their fragmented beings. 3. Man in the Dark in the light of Jacques Lacan

Man in the Dark (2008), as one of the recent novellas of Paul Auster, represents an old man’s nocturnally mental journey through an unknown world of storytelling. Auster seems to be challenging the conventional concept of “trauma” in this novella by dramatizing Brill’s storytelling. He incorporates two main stories in this novella. Brill as the insomniac narrator of the aforementioned novella endeavors to find remedy for his wounded being. He thinks up stories at the level of the imaginary and the symbolic. Brill’s trauma seems not to be reducible to only a singular bitter experience of having lost his spouse or son in law. In this article’s reading for Brill’s trauma, the “repetition” in the novella sounds to be playing the signifier’s role for the encounter with the missed real. Indeed, the novella’s force of storytelling by giving a possibility to his silence to be heard seems to be addressing the narrator and bringing him up to a kind of revelation to his “fragmented subjectivity.” His story telling seems to be more enabling him to locate himself outside his present situation to see himself. Brill at the opening of the novella gives the reason for his every nightly story making as Titus’s death and the images of that death. These images seem to have been portrayed as a system of symbolic law for Brill to make him delve into his every night story:

I think about Titus’s death often, the horrifying story of that death, the images of that death, the pulverizing consequences of that death on my grieving granddaughter, but I don’t want to go there now, I can’t go there now, I have to push it as far away from me as possible. The night is still young, and as I lie here in bed looking up into the darkness, a darkness so black that the ceiling is invisible, I begin to remember the story I started last night. That’s what I do when sleep refuses to come. I lie in bed and tell myself stories. They might not add up to much, but as long as I’m inside them, they prevent me from thinking about the things I would prefer to forget. (Auster 1)

IJALEL 4(4):211-215, 2015 213 On the one hand, there seems to be something compulsive about Brill’s storytelling and that is the pure mechanical insistence of the unfolding of the chain of signifiers in his unconscious by which he sees himself governed by the pleasure principle. The images of Titus’s death trap Brill in a chain of signifiers and orient him to make every night stories. Assuming each story as a signifier, Brill floats in between signifiers. In other words, these images throw him in a hole of darkness in which seeking parts of himself he is moved from one to the other as he mentions in the above passage. He is indeed stuck in a hole, a hole of which there is no way out as he says “I am alone in the dark, turning the world around in my head as I struggle through another bout of insomnia, another white night in the great American wilderness” (Auster 1) or as he says “… I’m in the dark, engulfed by the endless, soothing dark” (Auster 16). Brill seems to have understood the nature of his predicament. He is engulfed in language. The only tool he has to extricate himself is his chance of exploration of language. He seems to be following Lacanian idea that language makes the perceived and known world (Lacan, Ecrits 344). Hence, he could be said to be consuming his story telling technique as an interaction means to “explore an inwardness that extends outwardly” (Brivic 2). His journey portrays that exploration works only through signifiers. This chain seems to be there as a lasso to extricate him from darkness, yet it appears to bring neither redemption nor “personal resolution,” since the choked memories are always already there with him although by storytelling he tries to forget them. Story telling for Brill brings the “object of desire” to the fore. Brick as Brill’s demand and a means to approach his past could be taken as representative of Brill’s “object of desire.” Feeling the need to approach his real life stories, he puts an end to his fantasy making and gets back to his real life story. On the other hand, the novella sounds to be commemorating darkness, since for Brill the world of darkness, “the endless soothing dark” (Auster 10) preferable to the bright world, can “keep the ghosts away” (Auster 10), yet in it he is “engulfed” in an infernal world of “repetition.” For instance, as Brill takes the book which was supposed to be read for Miriam, he remembers lots of memories of Miriam and Richard and why they married at an early age, etc and then he very quickly wants to go back to Brick’s story and he wonders why there is a compulsion to pick at unbearable thoughts and memories and make himself bleed again:

Why am I doing this? Why do I persist in traveling down these old, tired paths; why this compulsion to pick at old wounds and make myself bleed again? It would be impossible to exaggerate the contempt I sometimes feel for myself. I was supposed to be looking at Miriam’s manuscript, but here I am staring at a crack in the wall and dredging up remnants from the past, broken things that can never be repaired. Give me my story. That’s all I want now—my little story to keep the ghosts away. (Auster 10)

However, a deeper excavation into the aforementioned novella suggests that it is his “narrative existence” making his story telling as bespeaking a quest for somebody or something that he desires. What he experiences in his narrative is freedom for desire. He “desires metonymically through narrative” (Ko 47). His narrative is not for a nostalgic return. It rather serves as objet petit a bringing the relation to his desire and the experience of “lack” in his unconscious desire for an encounter with the real. His storytelling becomes the “rem(a)inder” of the Other (Ko 41). Neagu in “Between Fabulation and Silence: In Search of Paul Auster Effect” coins Brill’s storytelling as his “clinging” to storytelling. Thus, Brill’s “clinging” to the imaginary objet petit a does not lead to a mastered signified but to another signifier of the signifying chain and that is his life in reality. He experiences psychical realms in a nonlinear fashion and his story telling or narrative paves the way for such simultaneity of the three orders. He adores a line from Rose Hawthorne’s poetry quoted in Miriam’s manuscript: “The weird world rolls on” (Auster 16 and 44). This line is quoted seven times in this novella. It embraces the whole idea of the compulsory need of “repetition.” Brill takes this line as an emphasis on the futile attempt of resisting against the symbolic law of repetition. The “repetition” observed in this novella seems to be constituting Brill as a subject. His “repetition” moves him toward something new as he says:

Concentration can be a problem, however, and more often than not my mind eventually drifts away from the story I’m trying to tell to the things I don’t want to think about. There’s nothing to be done. I fail again and again, fail more often than I succeed, but that doesn’t mean I don’t give it my best effort. (Auster 1)

Although he fails on and on, he repeats on and on. His storytelling deals with “the return of the need.” In Lacanian terms that each subject demands something new in his/her activities, Brill seems to be demanding something new in his narrative. The fact that the return to the real is impossible creates a gap in his unconscious. This way, Sonia as a maternal existence for Brill, seems to have produced an ever-open gap in Brill’s subjectivity; she has produced an ever-open gap for him which according to Lacan brings a centrifugal tracing. She, indeed, remains the cause of a centrifugal tracing for him. If narrative functions as “fort da” (KO 48), then by his story telling, Brill sounds to be making a “fort da” which is aimed at what is not there, but qua represented. He makes “the representative of representation” (Lacan, Seminar XI 63) as he says that although he is making a story about Brick in order not to think about Sonia, Sonia is still there:

I am blathering on, letting my thought fly helter-skelter to keep Sonia at bay, but in spite of my efforts, she is still there, the ever-present absent one….(Auster 21)

This present-absence, which has given its way to storytelling in this novella, has become for Brill the cause of desire. His cause of desire is neither “existent” nor “non-existent.” It is a “psychical insufficiency” or absence in his condition (Ko 88). The cause of his desire is the never attainable wish of him. Indeed, unity with Sonia becomes the discourse

IJALEL 4(4):211-215, 2015 214 before which he is defined as a Lacanian subject; it, in other words, becomes the imposing lack and left over of the real realm. Brill’s anxiety arises when his story telling appears in the place of the object cause of his desire. His desire arises from “lack” and “anxiety” arises when this “lack” itself is lacking (Evans 12). His “anxiety” could be said is not for the absence of Sonia, but for her enveloping presence. It is the possibility of her absence which can save him from “anxiety,” while this omnipresent absence gives rise to his “anxiety.” It is his “anxiety” which brings about storytelling and consequently the narrative of this novella. Auster seems to be playing and repeating the “fort da” game with his plotting of the absence/presence of the Other in his character’s existence. It could be said that Brill takes delights in storytelling. However, in Lacanian terminology, “tuché” disturbs the functioning of the pleasure principle. Brill in his mind and at the level of the signifiers makes an idealized picture of himself as a story teller who has the world in his hand by his narrative. In his imaginary story of Brick in the other world, the reader learns that Brill has always had love for Virginia Blain, as he reveals it in a conversation with Katya:

What about girls? Do you remember the name of your first big love? Of course. You never forget a thing like that. Who was she? Virginia Blaine. (Auster 27)

Virginia’s existence has been also aimed through the story of Brick. Brill has always had a fantasy toward Virginia. Virginia in dream could equal Sonia in reality, both the never ever attainable ones. Virginia and Brick’s love is the ideal world in illusion. However, as the imaginary story reaches their consummation and it enters the realm of the Other that is the symbolic, Brill’s idealized picture is disrupted and this makes his situation a tragicomic one. The object cause of desire for Brill has indeed a paradoxical nature. Although Brill moves toward it, it is always missed. Brill can just encircle around it for his survival. His lost fantasy of self sufficiency via his language is endeavored to be built up again by another nightly story. His “desire” for the objet petit a, makes the narrative go and his narrative reproduces the “lack” constitutive of his desire. He desires narrative for his subjectivity. Put it other way, his narrative gives him the space to exist longer; this narrative in the form of “repetition” gives meaning to his life. In the very closing parts of the novella Brill mentions that: I see Sonia’s hands on the keyboard. She’s playing something by Haydn, but I can’t hear anything, the notes make

no sound, and then she swivels around on the stool and Miriam runs into her arms, a three-year-old Miriam, an image from the distant past, perhaps real, perhaps imagined, I can barely tell the difference anymore. The real and the imagined are one. Thoughts are real, even thoughts of unreal things. Invisible stars, invisible sky. (Auster 37) (Italics are for emphasis)

His story telling even transcends to the extent that he loses the border between the imaginary, which is the consequence of the non-present Sonia into his symbolic order, and the reality, where the line between the imagined and the real world vanishes and what remains, is only the thoughts of the unconscious. Although the ending of Brill’s life in his narrative is very much similar to his previous status before starting Brick’s story, he and his readers could become convinced that the desire towards “the new” is not meaningless and starting a new life of perhaps repetition of narrative is worth the trouble by his reciting “The weird world rolls on” three times on the very last page of the novella. Longing something new in each of his stories reveal that “repetition” moves toward something new, which could be the never attainable one. 4. Conclusion Having approached Man in the Dark with Lacanian psychoanalytic key terms that are “automaton,” “tuché,” “objet petit a,” “desire,” “lack,” and “trauma” one can come up with the following conclusions. Firstly, Man in the Dark could be read as an example of literature in which one’s “ontological lack” is a drastic element of “trauma.” This “existential lack” provokes “desire” and “anxiety”. Therefore, narrative springs. Presumably, the trauma Brill is grappling with is not mere events of war which via “repetition” could be mastered and worked through. Secondly, the present reading of Auster’s Man in the Dark proves that Brill’s storytelling cannot serve as a therapeutic technique, for if it did, at the end of the novella he would come to a final resolution or relief. He would also reveal that his all nightly stories need no longer to be told, for he managed to quench his “anxiety” and “desire.” However, he emphasizes that he is in the habit of telling stories as he says to Katya that’s what he does when he can’t sleep; he lies in bed in the dark and tells himself stories. He must have a dozen of them by now (Auster 35) and that he can even turn them into films. The readers are given just one story of his nightly stories. His stories could like the weird world roll on. Finally, Brill’s narrative seems to be a practice and a struggle for his “desire” for the non-lack. As his storytelling especially the phantasmagorical one of Brick may alleviate his “anxiety” about the basis of his existence, it should fall. In other words, since his fantasy could fill the lack that is the main factor for subjectivity formation, it needs to be broken in order that the subject in the story, Brill, encounters the challenges of his situation and the missed real. Thus, more than commemorating “objet petit a” in darkness, Brill seems to be engulfed by it. As long as he lives he has to “cling” to the world of narrative. His narrative acts as a metaphoric mirror for him. Assuming Brick as the virtual subject living in fiction and Brill as his inassimilable rest (Kernel), Man in the Dark could be regarded as a text dramatizing Lacanian traumatic fragmented subjectivity.

IJALEL 4(4):211-215, 2015 215 References Auster, P. (2008). Man in the Dark. New York: Henry Holt and Company. Berthold, D. (2009). Talking Cures: A Lacanian Reading of Hegel and Kierkegaard on Language and Madness.” PPP, 16(4), 299-311. Evans, D. (2006). An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis. London: Taylor and Francis, 2006. Ko, J. R. (2009).Reading for (the) Real: Between Jacques Lacan and Narrative Plot. Diss. The City University of New York, 2009. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. Jan 2013 <http://www.ProQuest.co.uk>. Lacan, J. (1966) Ecrits: The First Complete Edition in English. Trans. Bruce Fink. New York and Landon: Norton and Company. ---.(1964). The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book XI. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York and London: Norton and company. Neagu, A. (2013). “Between Fabulation and Silence: In Search of Paul Auster Effect.” Constructions of Identity (VI) : 239-49. American Studies Resources Center at LJMU. Web. 10 may 2014. http://americansc.org.uk. Nusselder, A. C. (2006). Interface Fantasy: A Lacanian Cyborg Ontology. Amsterdam: F&N Eigen Beheer. Feldstein, R. and Fink, B. Eds. (1995). Lacan’s Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Albany: State University of New York Press. Ruti, M. (2008).The Fall of Fantasies: A Lacanian Reading of Lack. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association,56(2), 483-508. Sage. December. 2012 http://apa.sagepub.com/contenet/56/2483.refs.html

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

Establishing the Thematic Structure and Investigating the most Prominent Theta Roles Used in Sindhi Language

Zahid Ali Veesar (Corresponding author) Faculty of Linguistics, University of Malaya, Malaysia

E-mail: zahiimahii85@gmail.com

Kais Amir Kadhim Faculty of Linguistics, University of Malaya, Malaysia

E-mail: kaisamir@um.edu.my

Sridevi Siriniwass Faculty of Linguistics, University of Malaya, Malaysia

E-mail: sridevi@um.edu.my

Received: 07-12- 2014 Accepted: 21-02- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015 Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.216 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.216 Abstract This study focuses on the thematic structure of the Sindhi verbs to find theta roles in the Sindhi language. The study tries to answer the research questions; “What are the thematic structures of Sindhi verbs?” and “What are the prominent theta roles in the Sindhi language?” It examines the argument/thematic structure of Sindhi verbs and also finds the theta roles assigned by the Sindhi verbs to their arguments along with the most prominent theta roles used in the Sindhi language. The data come from the two interviews taken from two young native Sindhi speakers, which consist of 2 hours conversation having 1,669 sentences in natural spoken version of the Sindhi language. Towards the end, it has been found that the Sindhi language has certain theta roles which are assigned by the verbs to their arguments in sentences. Each verb phrase in our data is thus examined and studied in detail in terms of Argument/Thematic structure in order to find theta roles in Sindhi language. Thus, in this regard, each verb phrase (in a sentence) has been examined with the help of Carnie’s theoretical framework (Thematic Relation and Theta Roles: 2006) in order to find the prominent theta roles in the Sindhi language. The data have been examined and analysed on the basis of the Carnie’s theoretical framework. The study finds that the Sindhi language has all (09) theta roles which have been proposed by Carnie (2006). It has been found that six prominent theta roles out of nine are used prominently in Sindhi. The six prominent theta roles in Sindhi language are: agent, theme, beneficiary, recipient, locative and goal. Keywords: Sindhi Language, Syntax, Semantics, Theta role/thematic relations, prominent theta roles 1. Introduction Theta-role (θ-role) is a bundle of thematic relations associated with a particular argument (Carnie, 2006). The verb phrase in the following example has three arguments and five thematic relations associated with them.

• Ali gave a gift to Peter. (Ali is an agent who is doing an action of giving a gift to Peter. It is also a source in the sentence; the context of the sentence shows that “a gift” goes from Ali to Peter. Thus, keeping this reason in mind, Ali is also a source in the above sentence. Theme of the sentence is “a gift” which undergoes an action of the sentence; it is being given to Peter. “Peter” is a person who receives a gift from Ali. Peter is therefore recipient of the gift in the sentence. Peter is also goal in the sentence; a gift comes from Ali to Peter. Peter is the termination or destination of the gift to reach. Thus, in this way the three arguments (Ali, a gift and Peter) have five theta roles in the above sentence). Carnie (2006) defines Theta- Criterion as that Lexical information. According to his Theta-Criterion Theory each argument is assigned one and only one theta-role and each theta-role is assigned to one and only one argument. Carnie says theta role is a semantic relation between the argument and the predicate (verb phrase). Through verb we can come to know what relations they have, and also how arguments are related to the predicate in the sentence. Radford (2009) defines that the theta-roles are used to describe the semantic roles played by arguments in the sentences. We can illustrate this definition in the following examples:

• [The police] arrested [him] (Agent) (Theme)

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IJALEL 4(4):216-230, 2015 217 In this example the argument “the police” has the role of an agent who is doing an action of arresting “him”. The second argument “him” has the role of theme which undergoes an action of being arrested by the police. In this way the arguments have an agent and a theme theta relation with each other in the sentence. Theta roles are the names of the participant roles associated with a predicate: the predicate may be a verb, an adjective, a preposition, or a noun. The participant is usually said to be an argument of the predicate. 1.1 Statement of the Problem There is no proper work on Syntax of the Sindhi language (Fahmida, 2011; Sazia, 2009). On one hand, Sindhi language is known as the oldest and one of major languages of India and Pakistan in general and Sindh province in particular. We can find number of books on general grammar, phonology and morphology of Sindhi language. However, its major part which is syntax (structure) has been ignored or left behind all this while. We can find lot of work on Sindhi grammar in general but less or no work on syntax in particular. Writers like Stack (1849), Trump (1872), Munshi (1892) and Qaleech (1916) have generally talked about morphology, phonology, grammar and parts of speech of the Sindhi language. None of them and their followers has discussed about syntax of Sindhi language; either it had been ignored or these are the modern terms in language and at that time these were not well known to those writers/linguists. However; it is still being ignored by the present day writers (Memon, 1987; Shazia, 2009; Fahmida, 2010; Rahman, 2010; Jokhio, 2012). The aim of this study is to analyse verb phrase in Sindhi language in terms of Argument structure, Theta roles and the prominent theta roles used in the Sindhi language. Thus, this study attempts to analyse theta roles and the most prominent theta roles used in Sindhi language. It aims to see the structure of arguments (Noun phrases: subjects, objects and other nouns) in the Sindhi sentence, and also to see the thematic structure which shows thematic relations of theta roles. 1.2 Related Literature about Sindhi Verbs Verb plays a crucial role in a sentence; they show an action of a sentence. Verbs show what the subject and object are doing in the sentence. Verbs are called body of sentence. Jokhio (2011) defines Sindhi verb that anything which tells or shows something, any action, state or condition of someone in the sentence that is called a verb. Jokhio (2012) divides the Sindhi verbs into two types; main verbs and to be or auxiliary verbs. Main verbs are further divided into regular and irregular verbs and auxiliary verbs, which are further divided into free auxiliaries and linking auxiliaries. However, Qaleech (2006) says the Sindhi verbs have been derived from imperative form. He says Sindhi imperatives are Sindhi nouns but they do the function of verb and hence many other verb forms are derived from the imperative that is why they are called base forms in the Sindhi language. He further says nominative, accusative and state cases of noun are also derived from the imperatives. Bheerumal (1985) defines irregular verbs are those whose objects do not come/link directly in the sentences. Arshad (1986) says that regular verbs are those verbs which are derived from infinitives by adding suffixes “yo= یو or yal= ُیل”. Sindhi verbs have been divided into intransitive verbs and transitive verbs, and these are further classified into sub parts (See Khoso, 2005; Rashidi, 2007; Chano, 2011; Dada, 2010; Jokhio 2012; Jokhio, 2013; Qaleech, 2006; Bheerumal, 1985 & Allana, 2010.) Jokhio (2012) says that Sindhi verbs need to be studied and carried out at M.Phil. or PhD level so that it could be studied in detail. 1.3 Related Studies on Argument Structure Luuk E. (2009) argues that that the predicate/argument structure of natural language is much more complex than that of first order predicate logic. He says language has fossils and according to Jackendoff (1999) language has five fossils; by language fossils he means to say language structural features. He finds that linguistic predicate/ argument structure has universal approach in natural language syntax. He says that linguistic arguments are universally marked by determiners, possessors and word order constraints, while linguistic predicates are universally marked by the tense, mood, aspect, voice and also word order constraints. Besides, Verhoeven E. (2014) studies thematic prominence and animacy asymmetries cross linguistically in four heterogeneous languages namely Greek, German, Chinese and Turkish. According to him and others (Jackendoff, 1987, Grimshaw, 1990; Dik, 1978; Lavin and Rappaport, 2005), agent theta roles are higher than others because of the animacy effects. Towards the end, he finds that the experiencer-first effects are observed in Greek and German but not in Turkish and Chinese. He concludes that animacy effects in arguments are not universally accepted; they differ from language to language. On the other hand, Harley H. (2012) studies external arguments (subjects) and the Mirror Principle. He asks two research questions: 1) what are arguments? 2) How are they suppressed? According to Mirror Principle (Baker, 1985), morphological derivations are syntactic derivations; meaning that morphology leads to syntax. He says applied arguments come structurally between external and internal arguments. These arguments are beneficiaries and always come with ditransitive verbs; can be seen in the Hiaki language. The causative verbs introduce external arguments in Hiaki, and applicative morphemes introduce internal arguments. According to Rude (1996), applied arguments are structurally lower than external arguments, and structurally higher than internal arguments in a sentence. (See also, Holmerg A. & Roberts I. 2012; Kratzer, 1996; Simpson A., Choudhury A. ; Meno M. 3013 & Marantz A., 2012). 1.4 Related studies on Hierarchy of theta roles Bierwisch M. (2006) studies the thematic roles and their universal, particular and idiosyncratic aspects. He says arguments are placed hierarchically in different languages. Theta roles are assigned according to the structure of expressions and theta roles can also be content based. His hierarchy of the theta roles is: Agent > Recipient >

IJALEL 4(4):216-230, 2015 218 Experiencer/Goal > Instrument > Patient/Theme > Place. William E. (1987), however, says that there are three species of theta role assignment namely internal theta role assignment, external theta role assignment and predication. External arguments are subjects, internal arguments are objects and predication is the action in the sentence. He introduces the concept of Implicit Arguments which are not assigned any theta roles in the sentence. (See also Willits J. A., D’Mello S. K., Duran N. D. & Olney A., 2007) Hovav M. R. (2004), on the other hand, studies the thematic hierarchies which he says is a ranking of a set of semantic roles. He says there are problems in the thematic hierarchies, because it is not universal; different writers give different hierarchies.

a. Agt > Th/Pat > G/S/L (Baker 1997) b. Agt > Exp > Th (Belletti & Rizzi 1988) c. Agt > Ben > Rec/Exp > Inst > Th/Pat > L (Bresnan & Kanerva 1988) d. Agt > Pat > Rec > Ben > Inst > L > Temp > (Dik 1978) e. Agt > Exp > Inst > Pat > G/S/L > Time (Fillmore 1971) f. Agt > Dat/Ben > Pat > L > Inst/Assoc >Mann (Givon 1984) g. Act > Pat/Ben > Th > G/S/L > Ben (Jackendoff 1990) h. Agt > Eff > Exp > L > Th > Pat (Van Valin 1990)

It can be seen that all of the above writers/linguists propose different hierarchy of the theta roles. The prominence of theta roles differs from language to language. According to Dowty (1991:572), semantic elements help realize the arguments and assign the theta roles to them accordingly. He rejects the Fillmore’s well-known subject selection paradigm. He concludes that each thematic hierarchy is worthy as it contributes to the knowledge regarding theta roles and their hierarchy/prominence. Like Panini’s sematic roles, Fillmore’s (1968) ‘deep cases’ are basis for thematic roles in modern linguistics. Regarding the hierarchy of roles, Fillmore (1968:33) says ‘If there is an A, it becomes the subject; otherwise if there is an ‘I’, it becomes the object; otherwise the subject is O. Jakendoff’s (1972) hierarchy is different from that of Fillmore: agent > beneficiary > recipient/experiencer > instrument > theme > location One argument can have more than one theta roles (Jackendoff, 1990:59). Agents are not arguments of verbs; they are external arguments (see Kratzer, 1996). Thematic relations relate situation to their participants; they show relation between participants and situations, and they are interface between syntax and semantics (Davis A. R. 2009). They are also called the relational notions which label arguments and predicates; they show relation between participants/arguments and events (Chierchia, 1984). Thematic hierarchy means prominence of the theta roles which ultimately leads to the syntactic prominence. There is no fixed hierarchy of thematic roles (see Fillmore, 1977; Jackendoff, 1987; Levin & Rappaport Hovav, 2005; Grimshaw, 1990; William, 1994; Dowty, 1991). Baker M. C. (1996) studies the thematic relations and the syntactic structure. He says there are external and internal arguments in an expression. English language takes Agents as subjects and Patients as objects; and subjects are higher than objects. English has some verbs which take only one argument, others take two arguments, and there are some verbs like ‘give’ which take three arguments. Baker gives the thematic hierarchy proposed by Larson (1988: 382): Agent > Theme > Goal > Obliques (manner, location, time, …) However, Baker suggests creating a new thematic hierarchy which has universal approach to all languages. Baker says Theme theta role is higher than Goal theta role, and thus he rejects the Grimshaw’s (1990) theory of thematic hierarchy where she places Theme lower than Goal. He concludes that thematic roles are semantic roles, while aspectual roles are completing events of the verbs. 1.5 Thematic Relation and Theta Roles One way of encoding selectional restrictions is through the use of what are called thematic relations. These are particular semantic terms that are used to describe the role that the argument plays with respect to the argument. This section describes some common thematic relations (this list is by no means exhaustive, and the particular definitions are not universally accepted). The initiator or doer of an action is called the agent. In the following sentences, Ryan and Michael are agents. Agents are most frequently subjects, but they can also appear in other position. Arguments that feel or perceive events are called experiencers. Experiencers can appear in a number of argument positions including subject and object: Entities that undergo actions, are moved, experienced or perceived are called themes. The entity towards which motion takes place is called a goal. Goals may involve abstract motion: There is a special kind of goal called recipient. Recipients only occur with verbs that denote a change of possession: The opposite of a goal is the source. This is the entity from which a motion takes place: The place where the action occurs is called the location:

IJALEL 4(4):216-230, 2015 219 The object with which an action is performed is called the instrument: Finally, the one for whose benefit an event took place is called the beneficiary: Notice that any given DP can have more than one thematic relation. In the following sentence, the DP Jason bears the thematic relations of agent and source (at the very least).

• Jason gave the books to Anna. There is not a one-to-one relationship between thematic relations and arguments. However, linguists have a special construct called a theta role (or θ role), that does map one-to-one with arguments. Theta roles are bundles of thematic relations that cluster on one argument. In (15) above, Jason gets two thematic relations (agent and source), but only one theta role (the one that contains the agent and source thematic relations). 2. Methodology This research work is a qualitative research (Creswell, 2004); it tries to explore the verbs and types of verbs in the Sindhi language. It will be explored to see the place/position, importance, function and relation of verb with other elements in the sentence. It will be seen how Sindhi verbs are formed and used in sentences. It has been attempted to see how Sindhi verbs assign theta-roles to their arguments. The processes and relations of Sindhi verbs will be explored with the help of Andrew Carnie’s theory of Theta-roles (2006:221). 2.1 Research Design The research design used in this research work is exploratory and descriptive (Creswell, 2004) and it uses qualitative method (Creswell, 2004). The natural Sindhi language (spoken/oral form) has been selected to study nature and function of the Sindhi verbs. This research design helped us study verbs, its types and the theta-roles assigned by the verbs to their arguments in Sindhi language. The argument structure of the Sindhi verbs has been established with the help of the Carnie’s theoretical framework and the research design. 2.2 Data Collection The research methodology comprises two parts; data collection and data analysis (Creswell, 2004). The current study analyses verb phrases in Sindhi language in terms of their argument structure, theta roles and particularly the most prominent theta roles used in Sindhi. The data for the study comes from the native Sindhi speakers who have Sindhi as their first language or mother tongue. The data have been collected through two informal interviews. Interviews have been taken from the two native Sindhi speakers. The researcher asked them questions informally regarding their different things in order to make them confident enough to speak more freely and frankly about their lives in a natural way. The questions were regarding their personal lives, education (from primary to university life), their current position and status, their family, their present life, previous life and future goals and intentions. The participants were given free atmosphere to speak freely in a natural way as if they were talking to each other without being noticed and recorded. There were two interviews and each interview was taken separately. The interview one comprised of (864) sentences in the (56) minutes and (49) seconds time. The second interview consisted (815) sentences in (45) minutes and (09) seconds time. 3. Data Analysis and Discussion The data have been analysed with the help of Carnie’s theoretical framework (Carnie, 2006), which is also used as analytical framework in the current study. It has been tried to explore the Sindhi verbs and its types and also to see their function, position and importance in the sentences. It has been attempted to see how Sindhi verbs assign different theta-roles (also called theta relations) to their arguments (NPs) in sentences. The argument structure of the Sindhi verbs has been established to see the theta-roles and the most prominent theta roles with Sindhi verbs. 3.1 Theta Roles/Thematic Relations in Sindhi 3.1.1 Agent The examples (01) to (02) establish the Argument Structure of the verb and analyse the Agent theta roles assigned by the verbs to their arguments. Example 01. تھ اسان ان کي واپس مین ین رڻ چاھیون ٿا

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M121 Sindhi in Arabic .تھ اسان ان کي واپس مین ین رڻ چاھیون ٿا

Sindhi in Roman Ta assan una khy wapas maintain karan tha chahyon.

Transliteration Ta=that; assan=we; una=it; khy=have; wapas=back; maintain; karan=to do; tha=agreement; chahyon=want.

Translation We want to maintain it back.

Syntactic Analysis

(Subject: اسان=assan=we, Object: اُن کي=una khy=it, Verb Phrase: مین ین رڻ چاھیون ٿا=maintain karan chahyon tha=want to maintain, Adverbial Phrase: تھ = ta = that, Adjective: واپس = wapis= back)

IJALEL 4(4):216-230, 2015 220 Example 02. ُاسیسمین ندو ھوس جي آء

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M192 Sindhi in Arabic ُاسیسمین ندو ھوس. جي آء Sindhi in Roman Ji aaon assessment kando hos. Transliteration Ji=yes; aaon=I; assessment; kando=do; hos=was. Translation Yes, I used to do assessment. Syntactic Analysis

(Subject: ُآء=aaon=I, Object: اسیسمین=assessment, Verb Phrase: ندو ھوس =kando hos=used to do)

The verb phrase in the above sentence is “مین ین رڻ چاھیون ٿا=maintain karan chahyon tha=want to maintain”. There are two arguments in the sentence (01) “ اسان=assan=we” and “اُن کي =una khy = it”. The argument “ اسان=assan=we” is the subject of the sentence which is a first person plural pronoun and has a masculine gender. It is used at the place of a proper noun (persons or people) and it has capability to do action in the sentence. We can therefore say that it is subject or agentof the sentence which performs an action of maintaining something or doing something in the sentence, and it has an agentive thematic relation in the sentence. The other argument of the sentence “اُن کي=una khy=it” is the object of the sentence. This is the argument which undergoes the action (of maintaining) of the sentence. It does not do an action but undergoes an action of the sentence. Thus, we can say that it is the theme of the sentence and has the theme theta role in the sentence. The verb phrase “ندو ھوس =kando hos=used to do” in the sentence (02) has two arguments to discuss about. It is a transitive verb which takes two arguments to pass action from one argument “ aaon=I” (subject) to the other= آءُ assessment” (object). This is the argument which performs an action of doing assessment in the sentence. We=اسیسمین “can therefore say that this argument is subject or agent of the sentence. On the other hand, the second argument of the sentence “ اسیسمین=assessment” is the one which undergoes an action (of being done) of the sentence. The context shows that subject of the sentence “I” is doing an “assessment” of something in the sentence. We can therefore say that it is the object or the theme of the sentence with theme theta relation in the sentence (02). 3.1.2. Experiencer Theta Role Experiencer or perceiver of the event is called an experiencer (Carnie, 2006). It is the one who experiences something in the sentence.

Example 03. ھان کي خواب آیوھ و تو

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M159 Sindhi in Arabic .ھ و توھان کي خواب آیو Sindhi in Roman Hikro tahan khy khuwab ayo. Transliteration Hikro=one; tahan=you; khy=have; khuwab=dream;

ayo=came. Translation You saw a dream. Syntactic Analysis

(Subject: توھان کي=tawhan khy=you, Object: ,aayo=came=آیو :khuwab= dream, Verb Phrase=خوابAdjective Phrase: ھ و=hikro=one)

Example 04. ۽ توھان جي ِھي ذندگي جي ِء ِھن ذندگيء ِجي جاکوڙ ٻڌي مونکي ڏاڍي خوشي ٿي.

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N546 Sindhi in Arabic .۽ توھان جي ِھي ذندگي جي ِء ِھن ذندگيء ِجي جاکوڙ ٻڌي مونکي ڏاڍي خوشي ٿي Sindhi in Roman Ain tahan ji he zindgi ji ain hin zindgi ji jakhor budhi mokhy

dadhi khushi thee. Transliteration Ain=and; tahan=you; ji=of; hee=this; zindgi=life; ji=of; ain=and;

hin=this; zindgi=life; ji=of; jakhor=struggle; budhi=heard; mokhy=I; dadhi=very; khushi=happiness; thee=agreement.

Translation I felt very happy after hearing your life and your life’s struggle. Or Having heard your life and your life’s struggle I felt happiness.

Syntactic Analysis

(Subject: مونکي=monkhy=I, Object complement: خوشي =khushi =happiness, Verb Phrase: ٿي=thee=felt, Adverbial Phrase: ِء توھان جي ِھي ذندگي جي ِء ِھن :dadhi=very, Having Clause= ڏاڍي Ain tahan ji he zindgi ji ain hin zindgi ji=ذندگيء ِجي جاکوڙ ٻڌيjakhor budhi=having heard your life and your life’s struggle)

IJALEL 4(4):216-230, 2015 221 The verb phrase “آیو=aayo=came” of the sentence (03) has two arguments. The arguments are “توھان=tawhan=you” and khuwab=dream”. The first argument is second person singular and it has capability to do an action in the=خواب“sentence. The second person singular pronoun either does an action (agent) in the sentence or sometimes gets benefit (beneficiary) in the sentence. It is usually used either as a subject (Agent) which performs an action or as an indirect object which gets benefit in the sentence. None of the case is here; it neither does an action nor gets benefit in the sentence, but it experiences something which we cannot see (he sees a dream). In this case thus, it can be said that it is experiencer in the sentence (03), which experiences something, and it has the experiencer theta role in the sentence. The second argument “خواب=khuwab=dream” is the object or the theme of the sentence, and it has the theme theta role in the sentence. We have two arguments (noun phrases) and a complement phrase with the verb “ٿي=thee=felt” of the sentence (04). The arguments/noun phrases are: “مونکي=monkhy=I/me” and “خوشي=khushi=happiness”. The first noun phrase does not do an action in the sentence but it just feels or experiences an action (of feeling) in the sentence; it feels ‘happiness’ in the sentence. We can therefore say that the argument “مونکي=monkhy=I/me” is the experiencer of the sentence, and it has an experiencer theta relation in the sentence. The second argument “خوشي=khushi=happiness” is an abstract noun which cannot be seen or touched but just felt. It is object of the sentence and it has an accusative case, because it is used as an object of the sentence. Thus, it can be said that this argument is theme or object of the sentence. 3.1.3 Theme Theta Role Carnie (2006) defines theme as the entity that undergoes actions, are moved, experienced or perceived by someone or something.

Example 05. ن توھان جي ٻولي ر ارڊ ندسما

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N11 Sindhi in Arabic ن توھان جي ٻولي ر ارڊ ندس.ما

Sindhi in Roman Maan tahan ji boli record kandus.

Transliteration Maan=I; tahan=you; ji=of; boli=language; record; kandus=do will.

Translation I will record your language.

Syntactic Analysis

(Subject: مان=maan=I, Object: توھان جي ٻولي=tahan ji boli=your language, Verb: ر ارڊ ندس=record kandus=will record)

Example 06. اُنھي شيِء کي ِھي فالو ندس ءٌ تھ آ

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M830 Sindhi in Arabic ھي شيِء کي ِھي فالو ندساُن ءٌ تھ آ

Sindhi in Roman Ta aaon unhe shae khy he follow kandus.

Transliteration Ta=that; aaon=I; unhe=that; shae=thing; khy=have; hee=also; follow; kandus=will do.

Translation I will follow only that thing.

Syntactic Analysis

(Subject: ءُ آ = aaon=I, Object: ِاُنھي شيء=unhe shae=that thing, Verb Phrase: فالو ندس=follow kandus=will follow, Conjunction: تھ=ta=that, Adverbial Phrase: کي ِھي=khy hee=also/too)

The verb phrase “ر ارڊ ندس=record kandus=will record” of the sentence (05) has two arguments to discuss about. The first argument “مان=maan=I” is the subject or agent of the sentence which performs an action of recording somebody’s language in future, and it has nominative case in the sentence. The other argument “ ولي توھان جي ٻ =tahan ji boli=your language” is an object of the sentence which undergoes an action of the sentence in the future. This is the argument that undergoes an action of the sentence (will be recorded by the subject) in the future. This is the argument that is focus or theme of the sentence and it has an accusative case in the sentence, because it is used as an object of the sentence. Therefore; we can say that this argument is the theme of the sentence and has theme theta role in the sentence. The verb phrase “فالو ندس =follow kandus=will follow” of the sentence (06) has two arguments to discuss “ ُآء = aaon=I” and “ ِاُنھي شيء=unhe shae=that thing”. The argument “ ُآء = aaon=I” is the subject or the agent of the sentence with nominative case, and it has an agent theta relation in the sentence. On the other hand, the other argument “ اُنھي unhe shae=that thing” is an NP used as an object of the sentence, as it has capability of undergoing an action of=شيءِ something/ somebody rather than doing any action. A thing cannot do any action on its own, but it can undergo an

IJALEL 4(4):216-230, 2015 222 action of the sentence. The context of the sentence shows that it is the object or theme of the sentence and it has an accusative case. This is the argument which is focus or theme of the sentence, and it has theme thematic relation. 3.1.4 Goal Theta Role/Relation Carnie (2006) defines goal as the entity towards which motion takes place in the sentence. Goals may also involve abstract motion.

Example 07. .اُنھيء کان پوِء وري ھلیا وینداھون آفیس ۾

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M55 Sindhi in Arabic .اُنھيء کان پوِء وري ھلیا وینداھون آفیس ۾

Sindhi in Roman Unhe khan poi wari halya wenda hon office mei.

Transliteration Unhe=that; khan=from; poi=then; wari=then; halya=go; wenda=will go; hyon=are; aafice=office; mei=in.

Translation Then (we) go back to the office. Or After that (we) get back in the office.

Syntactic Analysis

(Subject: zero subject, Object: zero object, Verb Phrase: ھلیایندا ھونو =halya wenda hon=go, Adverbial Phrase: اُنھيء کان

unhe kahn poi wari=then/ after that, Prepositional=پوِء وريPhrase: آفیس ۾ =affice mei=in office)

Example 08. تھ اُتي اچي ویندا آھیون گھر پنھنجي

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N107 Sindhi in Arabic .تھ اُتي اچي ویندا آھیون گھر پنھنجي Sindhi in Roman Ta uty achi wenda aahyon ghar pahinje. Transliteration Ta=that; uty=there; achi=come; wenda=will go; aahyon=are;

ghar=home; pahinje=our/own. Translation Then (we) come (back) there our home. Syntactic Analysis

(Subject: hidden subject, Object: zero object, Verb Phrase: اچي ویندا آھیون=achi wenda aahyon=come, Adverbial Phrase: تھ اُتي=ta uty= then, گھر پنھنجي=ghar pahinje=our home)

The verb phrase “ھلیا ویندا ھون=halya wenda hon=go” in the sentence (07) has only one argument to discuss about. Its argument is in the prepositional phrase “آفیس ۾=affice mei=in office”. The word “آفیس=aaffice=office” shows the destination point of the action of the subject. It shows that the action of “going/getting back” ends at the common noun “office”. We can thus say that this argument is goal having goal theta role in the sentence. It also shows the place or location of the subject in the sentence. The verb phrase “ اچي ویندا آھیون=achi wenda aahyon=come/ come back/ arrive” in the sentence (08) has only one argument. The argument is the noun phrase “گھِر پنھنجي=ghar pahinje=our home”. The common noun ghar=home” shows the destination of the action of “coming” of the subject (we). The subject is hidden in the=گھرِ “surface structure of the sentence; however, deep structure of the sentence shows that it has a subject which first person plural pronoun “we”, which can be identified through verbal inflections. The subject (we) comes from somewhere (may be office) to the home. Thus, it can be said that the common noun “ ِگھر=ghar=home” is goal having goal theta role in the sentence. It also shows the location or place of the subject in the sentence. 3.1.5 Recipient Theta Role Carnie (2006) defines recipient as a special kind of goal that involves a change of possession in the sentence.

Example 09. ایمیل ئي ٿن مونکي

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N525 Sindhi in Arabic .ایمیل ئي ٿن مونکي Sindhi in Roman Email kai thun monkhy. Transliteration Email; kai=did; thun=they/them; monkhy=I. Translation They sent me an email. Syntactic Analysis

(Subject: (they) hidden subject, Object: ایمیل=email=email, Object complement: مونکي=monkhy=me, Verb Phrase: (kai than=did/sent = ئي ٿن

IJALEL 4(4):216-230, 2015 223 Example 10. .ھُتي مونکي ای میشن ھُنن ِڏني چوٿین الس ۾

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M331 Sindhi in Arabic .ھُتي مونکي ای میشن ھُنن ِڏني چوٿین الس ۾

Sindhi in Roman Huty mokhy admission hunan dini chothei class mei.

Transliteration Huty=there; mokhy=I/me; admission; hunan=they/them; dini=gave; chothei=fourth; class; mei=in.

Translation They gave me admission there in fourth class.

Syntactic Analysis

(Subject: ھُنن=hunan=they, Object: ای میشن=admission, Object complement: مونکي=monkhy=me, Verb Phrase: يھُت :dini=gave, Adverbial Phrase=ِڏني =huty=there, Prepositional Phrase: چوٿین الس ۾=chothein class mei= in fourth class)

The verb phrase “ ئي ٿن =kai than=did” in the sentence (09) takes two arguments to discuss about. The first argument .email” is a common noun which can be any email. It is a direct object with an accusative case in the sentence=ایمیل “Hence; we can say that the argument “ ایمیل=email” is the internal argument or direct object or the theme of the sentence. The second argument “مونکي=monkhy=me” is indirect object having a dative case, because it shows possession of something (an email). It does not do action in the sentence too, but it is the one which receives the argument “ ایمیل=email” in the sentence. Therefore; it can be said that the argument “مونکي=monkhy=me” is the receiver of “ ایمیل=email”, and it has recipient theta role in the sentence. The verb phrase “ِڏني=dini=gave” in the sentence (10) takes three arguments with itself. The arguments are: monkhy=me”. The first argument is subject or agent of the=مونکي“ admission” and=ای میشن“ ,”hunan=they=ھُنن“sentence and it has an agent theta role. The second argument “ای میشن=admission” is the internal argument or the direct object having an accusative case or the theme of the sentence, because it is with verbal group, and it has the theme theta role. The third argument is “مونکي=monkhy=me”, it is an indirect object having dative case. However, it neither does an action nor undergoes an action of the sentence, but this is the argument which receives an admission in the sentence. It can be therefore said that the argument “مونکي=monkhy=me” is the recipient of the sentence and it has recipient thematic relation. 3.1.6 Source Theta Role Source theta role as the opposite of goal; the entity from which movement occurs or something happens in a sentence, is called a source theta role (Carnie, 2006).

Example 11. تھ ج ھن مان مدرسي کان جھھ ائیم جي الِء مو ل تي آیُس ڳوٺ آیُس مو ل تي

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N765 Sindhi in Arabic ن جھھ ائیم جي الِء مو ل تي آیُس ڳوٺ آیُس تھ ج ھن مان مدرسي کا مو ل تي.

Sindhi in Roman Ta jadahin maan maderse khan kujh time je lai mokal ty ahyus ghoth aayus mokal ty.

Transliteration Ta=that; jadahin=when; maan=I; maderse=school; khan=from; kujh=some; time; je= of; lai=for; mokal=leave; ty=on; ahyus=came; ghoth=village; aayus=came; mokal=leave; ty= on.

Translation That when I came to village from the madersah for some time on vacation.

Syntactic Analysis

(Subject: مان=maan=I, Object complement: ڳوٺ= goth=Village, Verb Phrase: آیُس=aayus=came, Adverbial Phrase: تھ ج ھن=ta jadahin=that when, Prepositional Phrase: مدرسي کان=maderse khan=from Madersah, جھھ ائیم mokal ty=on=مو ل تي ,kujh time lai=for some time=جي الءِ vacation)

IJALEL 4(4):216-230, 2015 224 Example 12. م س جي گھر مان ِصرف ھُن کي پ و ل ي ِء ماني معنا جیِ ي ھُن جون ضرورت ُجون شیون آھن اُھي ملندیون آھن

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N656 Sindhi in Arabic م س جي گھر مان ِصرف ھُن کي پ و ل ي ِء ماني معنا جی ِي ھُن جونھن اُھي ملندیون آھن. ضرورت ُجون شیون آ

Sindhi in Roman Murs je ghar maan srif hun khy kapro lati ain maani mana jeke hun jon zaroorat jon shayon hin uhy milandion hin.

Transliteration Murs=husband; je=of; ghar=house; maan=from; srif=only; hun=her; khy=have; kapro=cloth; lati=cloth; ain=and; maani=bread; mana=means; jeke=that; hun=her; jon=of; zaroorat=need; jon=of; shayon=things; hin=are; uhy=those; milandion=will meet; hin=are.

Translation She gets only clothing and food from her husband’s house means she gets only those (things) of her needs.

Syntactic Analysis

(Subject: zero subject, Object complement: ھُن کي=hun khy=she, Object: پ و ل ي ِء ماني =kapro lati ain maani= clothing and food, جی ِي ھُن جون ضرورت ُجون شیون آھن=jeke hun jon zaroorat jon shayoon aahin= those things of her need, اُھي = uhy= those, Verb Phrase: ملندیون آھن=milandion aahin= get/ have, Prepositional Phrase: م س جي گھر ,murs je ghar maan=from her husband’s house=مانAdverbial Phrase: ِصرف=srif=only)

The verb phrase “آیُس=aayus=came” of the sentence (11) has two noun phrases and three prepositional phrases. The noun phrases are: “مان=maan=I” and “ ڳوٺ=goth=Village”. The first noun phrase “مان=maan=I” is the subject or the agent having a nominative case in the sentence, and it has an agent theta role in the sentence. The second argument goth=Village” is the goal of the sentence, and it has the goal theta role in the sentence. This argument also shows=ڳوٺ “the place or location of the subject (the village where subject is coming to). The common noun ”maderse khan=from religious school=مدرسي کان“ maderse=religious school” in the first prepositional phrase=مدرسي“shows the “source” of action of the sentence, thus it has an ablative case in the sentence, because it shows source in the sentence. Therefore; we can say that this common noun is source of the action, and it has source theta role in the sentence. The verb phrase “ملندیون آھن=milandion aahin=get” in the sentence (12) has four arguments and a complement phrase to discuss about. The first noun phrase “ھن کي=hun khy=she” is an object complement/indirect object having a dative case. This is the argument which takes benefit in the sentence; thus, we can say that this argument is beneficiary of the sentence. The second argument “پ و ل ي ِء ماني =kapro lati ain maani=clothing and food” is the theme of the sentence, and it has the theme thematic relation in the sentence. The noun phrase “ م س جي گھر= murs je ghar=husband’s house” prepositional phrase shows source of the things that she gets. Therefore; it can be said that the noun phrase “ م س جي گھر=murs je ghar=husband’s house” is the source of getting food and clothing in the sentence, and it has the source theta role. 3.1.7 Locative Theta Role Carnie (2006) defines locative to be the place where action occurs.

Example 13. ِھتي آُء یونیورس ي مالیا ۾ پي ایڇ ڊي ري رھیو آھیان

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M16 Sindhi in Arabic .ِھتي آُء یونیورس ي مالیا ۾ پي ایڇ ڊي ري رھیو آھیان

Sindhi in Roman Hity aaon University Malaya mei PhD kary rahyo aahiyan.

Transliteration Hity=here; aaon=I; University; Malaya; mei=in; PhD; kary=do; rahyo=agreement (ing form); aahiyan=am.

Translation I am doing PhD here in University Malay.

Syntactic Analysis

(Subject: ُآء =aaon=I, Object: پي ایڇ ڊي=PhD, Verb Phrase: kary rahyo ahyan=am doing, Prepositional= ري رھیو اھیانPhrase: یونیورس ي مالیا ۾=University Malaya mei=in University Malaya, Adverbial Phrase: ِھتي=hity=here)

IJALEL 4(4):216-230, 2015 225 Example 14. جي فرس یئر ۾ مون ای میشن ورتي گورمین بوائز ڊگري الیج ُعمر وٽ۾.

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M460 Sindhi in Arabic گري الیج ُعمر وٽ۾.جي فرس یئر ۾ مون ای میشن ورتي گورمین بوائز ڊ Sindhi in Roman Ji, first year mei moon admission warti Government Boys Degree

College Umar Kot mei. Transliteration Ji=yes; first; year; mei=in; moon=I; admission; warti=took;

government; boys; degree; college; Umar Kot; mei= in. Translation Yes, I got admission in first year in Government Boys Degree College

Umar Kot. Syntactic Analysis

(Subject: مون=moon=I, Object complement: ای میشن=admission, Verb Phrase: ورتي=warti=got, Prepositional Phrase: فرس یئر ۾= first year mei = in first year, گورمین بوائز ڊگري الیج ُعمر وٽ۾ = government boys degree college Umar Kot in= in Government Boys Degree College Umar Kot, Adverbial Phrase: ِجي=ji=yes)

The verb phrase in the sentence (13) has two noun phrases, a prepositional and an adverbial phrase. The first argument ”PhD=پي ایڇ ڊي“ aaon=I” is agent of the sentence with an agent thematic relation (theta role). The second argument =آءُ “is a proper noun, a name of a higher degree. It is object or theme of the sentence, and it has theme theta role in the sentence. The prepositional phrase “یونیورس ي مالیا ۾=University Malaya mei=in University Malaya” shows the place where the argument “ یونیورس ي “ aaon= I” is doing PhD. The proper noun in the above prepositional phrase is = آءُ University Malaya”. It is also a name of the institution, the place as well as the location. Therefore; it can be said=مالیاthat it is locative of the sentence and it has locative theta role. The verb phrase in the sentence (14) is “ورتي=warti=got”. It has two noun phrases, two prepositional phrases. The first argument “مون=moon=I” is the subject having nominative case (because it performs action in the sentence) or the agent of the sentence. The second argument is “ای میشن=admission” the theme of the sentence and it has theme theta role in the sentence. The proper noun “گورمین بوائز ڊگري الیج ُعمر وٽ=government boys degree college Umar Kot=Government Boys Degree College Umar Kot” shows the place or location of the action (where admission was got). Therefore; it can be said that this argument is locative of the sentence, and it has locative thematic relation. 3.1.8 Instrument Theta Role Carnie (2006) gives a brief definition of instrument as the entity with which action occurs or with which subject does an action in the sentence. Example 15. اُن جو اسان کي جواب ڏیو ایمیل جي ذریعي

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N530 Sindhi in Arabic .اُن جو اسان کي جواب ڏیو ایمیل جي ذریعي Sindhi in Roman Una jo assan khy jawab dio email je zarie. Transliteration Una=that; jo=of; assan=we; khy=have; jawab=answer; dio=give;

email; je=of; zarie= through. Translation Give us its reply through an email. Syntactic Analysis

(Subject: zero subject, Object: اُن جو جواب=una jo jawab=its answer/reply, Object complement: اسان کي=assan khy=us, Verb Phrase: ڏیو=dio=give, Prepositional Phrase: ایمیل جي ذریعي= email je zarie=through an email)

Example 16. بائی تي ویندا ھا سین بابا سان گ ِسڌو اس ول

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M371 Sindhi in Arabic ن بابا سان گ ِسڌو اس ول.بائی تي ویندا ھا سی Sindhi in Roman Bike ty wenda haa sein baba saan gad sidho iskool. Transliteration Bike; ty=on; wenda=will go; haa=were; sein=agreement;

baba=father; saan=with; gad=together; sidho=direct; iskool=school.

Translation (We) used to go direct to the school on the bike with father. Syntactic Analysis

(Subject: zero subject, Object complement: weend ahaa=ویندا ھا سین :iskool=school, Verb phrase=اس ولsein=used to go, Prepositional Phrase: بائی تي=bike ty=on the bike, بابا سان=baba saan=with father, Adverbial Phrase: گ= gad= together, Adjective Phrase: ِسڌو=sidho=direct)

IJALEL 4(4):216-230, 2015 226 The verb phrase “ڏیو=dio=give” of the sentence (15) has four arguments (two noun phrases and one prepositional phrase) to talk about. The first argument “اُن جو جواب=una jo jawab=its answer/reply” is the direct object or the theme of the sentence, and it has the theme theta role. The second argument “اسان کي=assan khy=us” is the goal of the sentence, because it tells the destination of answer to go (from the second person to first). The common noun “ایمیل=email” does not any action in the sentence except to be used as an instrument to do an action of “giving” the answer/reply to the argument “اسان کي=assan khy=us”. Therefore; we can say that the common noun “ لایمی =email” is used as an instrument to do action of replying, and it has the instrument theta role. The verb phrase “ویندا ھا سین=weend ahaa sein=used to go” in the sentence (16) has one noun phrase and two prepositional phrases. The first noun phrase or the argument “اس ول=iskool=school” is the goal of the sentence, and it has the GOAL theta role. The common noun “ بائی=bike=bike” in the prepositional phrase “بائی تي=bike ty=on the bike” shows that it is an instrument of the sentence. It neither does an action nor undergoes an action of the sentence. It is used just as a means to go to school. We can therefore say that it is instrument having instrument theta role in the sentence. 3.1.9 Beneficiary The entity for whom the action occurs in the sentence. (Carnie, 2006)

Example 17. ان رویو اسان جو سنڌي ٻولي جي باري ۾ آھي۽

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N9 Sindhi in Arabic .۽ ان رویو اسان جو سنڌي ٻولي جي باري ۾ آھي

Sindhi in Roman Ain interview assan jo Sindhi boli je bary mei aahy.

Transliteration Ain=and; interview; assan=we; jo=of; Sindhi; boli=language; je=of; bary=about; mei=in; aahy=is.

Translation And our interview is about Sindhi Langauge.

Syntactic Analysis

(Subject: zero, Object Complement: ان رویو اسان جو= interview assan jo=our interview, Prepositional Phrase: Sindhi boli je bary mei= about Sindhi =سنڌي ٻولي جي باري ۾language)

Example 18. تھ اتي ھُو مونکي گ وٺي ویو

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N383 Sindhi in Arabic .تھ اتي ھُو مونکي گ وٺي ویو

Sindhi in Roman Ta uty hoo monkhy gad wathee wayo.

Transliteration Ta=that; uty=there; hoo=he; monkhy=I/me; gad=together; wathee=take; wayo=went.

Translation That he took me there together with himself.

Syntactic Analysis

(Subject: ھُو=hoo=he, Object complement: wathee=وٺي ویو :monkhy=me, Verb Phrase=مونکيwayo=took, Conjunction: تھ=ta=that, Adverbial Phrase: (gad=together=گ ,uty=there=اتي

The verb phrase of the sentence (17) is “آھي= aahy=have/has”, and it has two arguments to discuss about. The first argument is a noun phrase: “ان رویو اسان جو= interview assan jo=our interview”. It is used at the place of subject, but it is not subject of the sentence, because it does not perform any function; in fact it is something which is talked about in the sentence. Thus, we can say it is theme of the sentence with theme thematic relation. The second argument is the proper noun “سنڌي ٻولي = Sindhi boli=Sindhi language”. It is neither subject which does an action nor object which undergoes an action of the sentence, but it is the noun phrase (argument) which takes benefit from the sentence. This argument takes benefit of being interviewed; meaning that someone interviews someone about the Sindhi language; Sindhi language takes benefit without doing anything in the sentence. We can therefore say that it is beneficiary of the sentence (17), and it has a beneficiary theta role. The verb phrase “وٺي ویو=wathee wayo=took” in the sentence (18) has two arguments to discuss about. Its arguments are: “ھُو=hoo=he” and “مونکي=monkhy=me”. The argument “ھُو=hoo=he” is agent of the sentence which is performing an action of taking someone to somewhere in the sentence, and it has an agent theta role. The second argument monkhy=me” is an indirect object of the sentence which is used at the place of object. This argument neither=مونکي“performs an action nor undergoes an action of the subject. However, this is the argument which takes benefit from the

IJALEL 4(4):216-230, 2015 227 action of the agent of the sentence. We can therefore say that this argument is the beneficiary of the sentence and it has beneficiary theta role. 3.2 Prominent Theta-roles in the Sindhi language There is no fixed or permanent hierarchy of the theta roles (Dowty, 1991). Linguists are just trying their best to study theta roles according to their languages and their perspectives. However, they agree that Agent theta role is structurally and thematically higher (prominent and frequent in use) than other theta roles. In this chapter, it is therefore analysed to see the most prominent theta roles used in the Sindhi language. Our data show that there are six prominent theta roles in Sindhi language, which are discussed below. 3.2.1 Agent Theta Role

Example 19. تھ اُن جي ري معنا مان ِھتي جوب ندو آھیان

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N176 Sindhi in Arabic .تھ اُن جي ري معنا مان ِھتي جوب ندو آھیان

Sindhi in Roman Ta una je kary mana maan hity job kando ahyan.

Transliteration Ta=that; una=that; je=of; kary=do; mana=means; maan=I; hity=here; job; kando=will; ahyan=am.

Translation That is why I do job here.

Syntactic Analysis

(Subject: مان=maan=I, Object: جوب=job=job, Verb Phrase: ندو آھیان =kando aahiyan=do, Adverbial Phrase: ,ta una je kary mana = that is why = تھ اُن جي ري معنا (hity=here=ِھتي

The verb phrase of the sentence (19) is “ندو آھیان =kando aahiyan=do”. The verb “ندو آھیان =kando aahiyan=do” is a transitive verb in the Sindhi language, and it requires a subject and object to give complete meaning of the sentence. It shows that who is doing what in the sentence. It is an action verb which requires an agent to do something in the sentence. It shows that someone does a job somewhere; meaning that an agent/a subject does a job that is why speaker uses this verb to show agent theta role prominently used in the sentence. The argument “مان=maan=I” is subject or an agent of the sentence that performs action of doing a job. The context of the sentence shows that there can be three reasons behind using Agent theta role prominently. Firstly, the verb phrase “ یان ندو آھ =kando aahiyan=do” is a transitive verb which needs minimum two arguments (subject and object) to give complete meaning of the sentence. Thus, in this way, verb phrase of the sentence (19) makes speaker use subject/agent prominently to show action in the sentence. Secondly, this verb is an action verb which requires an agent to do action that is why speaker uses Agent prominently. Thirdly, it is the context of the sentence which makes speaker use Agent prominently to show action of the sentence. Thus, it can be said that it is context of the sentence which pushes the speaker to use agent theta role prominently in the sentence. 3.2.2 Theme Theta Role

Example 20. اسان کي بابا اس ول مو لیندو ھو

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231 Sindhi in Arabic .اسان کي بابا اس ول مو لیندو ھو

Sindhi in Roman Assan khy baba iskool mokleendo ho.

Transliteration Assan=we; khy=have; baba=father; iskool=school; mokleendo=will send; ho=was.

Translation Father would send us to school. Or Father used to send us to school.

Syntactic Analysis

(Subject: بابا=baba=father, Object Complement: اسان mokleendo=مو لیندو ھو :Assan khy=us, Verb Phrase=کيho=would send, Prepositional Phrase: اس ول=iskool=to school)

The verb phrase of the sentence (20) is “ دو ھومو لین =mokleendo ho=would send/used to send”. The morpheme mokleendo=will send” is a transitive verb which requires a subject and object to give complete meaning of a=مو لیندو“sentence. It is an action verb which needs an agent to do action in the sentence. The speaker is compelled (because of the context) to use Agent and Theme theta roles prominently in order to show the action of sending something from someone to someone else. However, in this sentence, the speaker focuses on the Theme in order to show the thing that undergoes the action of the sentence. The context of the verb phrase (being transitive verb and an action verb) makes

IJALEL 4(4):216-230, 2015 228 the speaker use subject/agent and object/theme prominently. The speaker is trying to show that his father would not send them; where ‘father’ is the agent/subject of the sentence and ‘us’ is theme of the sentence. Therefore; it can be said that it is context of the sentence which makes the speaker to use a verb which uses prominently the theme theta role in the sentence. 3.2.3 Recipient Theta Role

Example 21. تقریبن ُصبح تائین مونکي اُنھن جو میسیج اِچي ویو موبائیل تي

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N495 Sindhi in Arabic .تقریبن ُصبح تائین مونکي اُنھن جو میسیج اِچي ویو موبائیل تي

Sindhi in Roman Taqreeban subho taien monkhy unhan jo message achi wayo mobile ty.

Transliteration Taqreeban=amost; subho=morning; taien=till; monkhy=I/me; unhan=them; jo=of; message; achi=come; wayo=went; mobile; ty=on.

Translation I got their message on my mobile by in the morning. Or I received their message on mobile very soon.

Syntactic Analysis

(Subject: مونکي=monkhy=I, Object: اُنھن جو میسیج=unhan jo message=their message, Verb Phrase: اِچي ویو=achi wayo=received/got, Prepositional Phrase: موبائیل تي=mobile ty=on mobile, Adverbial Phrase: تقریبن=taqreeban=almost, (subho taien=till morning=ُصبح تائین

The verb phrase of the sentence (21) is “اِچي ویو=achi wayo=received/got”. This verb phrase has been used as a transitive verb which requires minimum two arguments (subject and object) to show complete action of the sentence. The verb shows action of coming something to someone; it shows something (a message/ an sms) comes to someone from someone else that is why the verb needs a person (a recipient) who receives the message in the sentence, which makes speaker to use the recipient theta role prominently. The context of the sentence shows that the speaker tries to show that someone sent him a message on his mobile phone number. It shows that they (subject/agent) sent a message (object/theme) to him (recipient); where ‘they’ is an agent; ‘a message’ is a theme and ‘him’ is a recipient of the message. It is context of the situation which makes the speaker use such verb which shows recipient theta role prominently in the sentence. 3.2.4 Locative Theta Role

Example 22. .۽ اسان رھُون پیا پَنتائي ِھلپارڪ ۾

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106 Sindhi in Arabic .۽ اسان رھُون پیا پَنتائي ِھلپارڪ ۾

Sindhi in Roman Ain assan rahon paya pantai hillpark mei.

Transliteration Ain=and; assan=we; rahon=living; paya=are; pantai hillpark; mei=in.

Translation and we are living in Pantai Hill park.

Syntactic Analysis

(Subject: اسان=assan=we, Object: zero object, Verb Phrase: رھُون پیا=rahon paya=are living, Prepositional Phrase: پَنتائي ِھلپارڪ ۾=pantai hillpark mei=in Pantai Hill park, Conjunction: ۽=ain=and)

The verb phrase of the sentence (22) is “رھون پیا=rahoon paya=are living”. This verb “رھون پیا=rahoon paya=are living” is an intransitive verb whose action does not pass from subject to the object rather it remains only to the subject of the sentence. It is an action verb which requires an agent to do action in the sentence. The verb shows action of living somewhere by someone; it shows someone (the speaker) is living somewhere called Pantai hillpark that is why speaker uses a verb that needs an argument (an area) to be shown as location of living in the sentence. It is the context of the sentence which makes the speaker to prominently use the locative theta role in order to show location of living in the sentence. Therefore; it can be said that it is context of the sentence which makes the speaker to use a verb which shows prominently the locative theta role in the sentence.

IJALEL 4(4):216-230, 2015 229 3.2.5 Beneficiary Theta Role

Example 23. پوِء ھَُن جی و آھي سو مونکي پاڻ سان َگُ کنیو

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N381 Sindhi in Arabic .پوِء ھَُن جی و آھي سو مونکي پاڻ سان َگُ کنیو

Sindhi in Roman Poi hun jeko aahy so monkhy pan saan gad kanyo.

Transliteration Poi=then; hun=him; jeko=that; aahy=is; so=that; monkhy=me; pan=himself; saan=with; gad=together; kanyo=took.

Translation Then he took me together with himself.

Syntactic Analysis

(Subject: َھُن=hun=he, Object Complement: ,kanyo=took=کنیو :monkhy=me, Verb Phrase=مونکيAdverbial Phrase: ِپوء=poi=then/after that, جی و آھي سو=jeko aahy so= that, ُ پاڻ سان َگ =pan saan gad=together with himself)

The verb phrase of the sentence (23) is “کنیو=kanyo=took”. It is a transitive verb (Rashidi, 2007) which needs two arguments subject and object to show complete action in the sentence. It is an action verb which requires an agent to do action in the sentence. The verb shows some action of an Agent; it shows someone is taking someone else to some place that is why the verb needs two persons (an Agent and a beneficiary) to show action of the sentence, which makes speaker to use Beneficiary theta roles prominently. It is context of the situation which makes the speaker use such verb which shows beneficiary theta role prominently in the sentence. The context of the sentence shows that the argument having beneficiary theta role (me) has been used prominently in order to show the beneficiary of the sentence. 3.2.6 Goal Theta Role

Example 24. ي سو گھو ي ھلیا ویاسیناُن وقت اسان جی و آھ S. NO/ coding

Sentence Description

Sentence

N298 Sindhi in Arabic .اُن وقت اسان جی و آھي سو گھو ي ھلیا ویاسین

Sindhi in Roman Una waqt assan jeko aahy so Ghotki halya wayasein.

Transliteration Una=that; waqt=time; assan=we; jeko=that; aahy=is; so=that Ghotki; halya=went; wayasein=went/gone.

Translation We went to Ghotki at that time.

Syntactic Analysis

(Subject: اسان=assan=we, Object complement: halya=ھلیا ویاسین :Ghotiki, Verb Phrase=گھو يwayasein=went, Adverbial Phrase: اُن وقت=una waqt=at that time, جی و آھي سو=jeko aahy so=that is that)

The verb phrase of the sentence (24) is “ھلیا ویاسین=halya wayasein=went”. The verb shows action of going somewhere by someone; it shows someone (the speaker) is going somewhere called Ghotki which makes speaker to use a verb that needs an argument (a place: Ghotki) to be shown as destination or goal of action in the sentence. Thus, speaker does not have any option but to use an argument prominently which shows goal of action in the sentence. This verb is an intransitive verb in Sindhi language, and it does not require an object or a theme to be used at the object position in the sentence. However, such verb does need an argument which shows goal of action in the sentence. The speaker is trying to show that he along with his friend went to Ghotiki; where ‘we/they’ is the agent/subject of the sentence and ‘Ghotiki’ is goal of the sentence. Therefore; it can be said that it is context of the sentence which pushes the speaker to use a verb which uses prominently goal theta role in the sentence. 4. Conclusion The number of theta roles differs from language to language; every language has certain number of theta roles and thematic relations assigned to their arguments in sentences. This study tried to analyse and investigate the prominent theta roles with the help of the theoretical framework proposed by Carnie (2006). It has been found from the data that the Sindhi language has all the theta roles which are proposed by Carnie (2006). The data (1,649 sentences) in this research study show that the Sindhi language has all (09) theta roles (what Carnie has proposed) and some strange cases. Carnie’s nine proposed theta roles are: agent, experiencer, theme, goal, recipient, locative, source, instrument and beneficiary. Out of these nine, six theta roles have been found prominent in the Sindhi language. The six prominent theta roles assigned by the verbs to their arguments are: agent, theme, beneficiary, recipient, locative and goal. Sindhi language is one of the languages which are known as agreement language languages (Chomsky, 1995). The verbs of the

IJALEL 4(4):216-230, 2015 230 Sindhi language are mostly action verbs which need an agent to do an action in sentences. An agent needs mostly a theme to undergo its action in a sentence. The Sindhi verbs have beneficiaries which benefit from the action of the agent and theme in a sentence. The Sindhi verbs also have recipient which re recipients of something in a sentence. According to the study of Hovav M. R. (2004), the hierarchy of the prominent theta roles in the Sindhi language is: Agent > theme > beneficiary > recipient > locative > goal. However; this is not the final one; broader study is to be carried out to find exact hierarchy of the theta roles in Sindhi. 4.1 Contribution The primary aim of this study is to apply the theta role theory on the Sindhi language verbs using the framework proposed by Carnie (2006). This study has successfully applied the theory on the verbs of Sindhi language. As we know from the literature, in Sindhi, thematic roles have not yet been analysed and investigated using the theory applied to the current study. Thus, this study serves as a preliminary in the area; it gives way for conducting similar research on the area in future. The same research can be replicated in the syntax of other languages in the world. This research work can be used as base to conduct research in syntax especially in theta roles and prominent theta roles in any languages. References Adwani, B. (1985). .وڏو سنڌي ویا رڻ: Jamshoro.: Institute of Sindhalogy, Jamshoro, Sindh. Allana, G. A. (2010). . سنڌی ا سنڌي گرامر. Karachi.: Sindhica Academy, Karachi, Pakistan. Arshad, A. (1986). فیق گرامر Hala.: International Academy, Hala, Sindh, Pakistan.al.,. Baker, M. C. (1996). Thematic Roles and Syntactic Structure. Liliane Haegeman (ed). Iin Elements of Grammar, 73-137. Be, M. Q. (2006). سنڌي ویا رڻ Hyderabad: Qaleech, M. (2006). سنڌي ویا رڻ (J. Sindhi Adabi Board Ed.). Hyderabad.: Sindhi Adabi Board, Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan. Bierwisch, M. (2006). Thematic Roles- Universal, Particular, and Ideosyncratic Aspects. Ina Bornknessel, Matthias Schlesewsky, Bernard Comrie, Angela D. Friederici (Eds. Semantic Role Universals and Argument Linking, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 89-126. Carnie, A. (2006). A general Introduction (Second ed.). USA.: Blackwell Publishers Ltd. Chano, M. I. (2011). آسان سنڌي گرامر Mehrabpur, Sindh, Pakistan.: M. Sindhi Sahat Ghar, Sindh, Pakistan. Ed. Devis, A. R. (2009). Thematic Roles. online 1 (202) 449-1315. Dowty, D. (1991). Thematic Proto-Roles and Argument Selection. Language, 67(3), 547-619. Ezeizabarrena, M. J. (2012). The (in)consistent ergative marking in early Basque: L 1 vs child L 2. Lingua(122), 303-317. Grimshaw, J. (1990). Argument Structure: Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. Hackl, M. (2013). The Synax-semantics interface. Lingua(130), 66-87. Harley, H. (2013). External Arguments and the Mirror Principle: On the distinctness of Voice and v. Lingua(125), 34-57. Holmberg, A. R., I. (2013). The syntax-morphology relation. Lingua(130), 111-131. Jokhio, A. H. (2011). ویا رڻ جي اھم ُجزفعل جو مختصر اڀیاس. . Sindhi Boli Tahqeeqi Journal, Sindhi Language Authority, Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan. , 2, 78-100., 78-100. Jokhio, A. H. (2012). جزم جي ُدرست استعمال جو مسعلو. Sindhi Boli Tahqeeqi Journal, Sindhi Language Authority, Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan, 68-90. Jokhio, A. H. (2013a). .فعل الزمي ۽ فعل متعدي جو مختصر اڀیاس. Sindhi Boli Tahqeeqi Journal, Sindhi Language Authority, Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan., 41 75ڏ . Jokhio, A. H. (2013b). وضاحت در وضاحت. Sindhi Boli Tahqeeqi Journal, Sindhi Language Authority, Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan., 160-162. Lehman, C. (2005). Participant roles, thematic roles and syntactic relations. Paper presented at the SKY Conference on 'Syntactic Functions-Focus on the Periphery', Helsinki, 14-15. 11. 2003. Luuk, E. (2009). The Noun/Verb and Predicate/Argument Structure. Lingua, 119, 1707-1727. Marantz, A. (2013). Verbal argument structure: Evidents and participants. Lingua(130), 152-168. Radford, A. (2009). Introduction to English Sentence Structure.: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rappaport, M. H. L., B. (2004). Deconstructing Thematic Hierarchies. Architectures, Rules, and Prferences: Afrestschrift for Joan Bresnan (pp. 451-468): Stanford, CA: CSIL Publications. Rashidi, M. (2007). سوجھرو Kandyaro: Roshini Publication Kandyaro, Sindh, Pakistan. Sindhi, D. (2010). سنڌی ا سنڌي گرامر. Karachi: Sindhica Academy, Karachi, Sindh, Pakisan. Swart, P. d. e. a. (2008). Animacy. argument structure, and argument encoding. Lingua(118), 131-140. Verhoeven, E. (2014). Thematic Prominence and animacy asymmeteries. Evidence from a cross-linguistic production study. Lingua, 143, 129-161. Wechsler, S. (2005). Thematic Structure The Encyclopedic of language and Linguistics (Second ed.): Elsevier. Williams, E. (1987). NP Trace in Theat Theory. Linguistics and Philosophy. Topics in Syntax and Semantics: NP, Non-A Binding, 10(4), 433-447. Willits, J. A. e. a. (2007). Distributional Statistics and Thematic Role Relationship. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 29th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

The Concept of Love in Dostoyevsky's White Nights

Mohammad Yousefvand (Corresponding author) Department of English language and literature, Razi University, Iran

E-mail: mmyousefvand@gmail.com

Hamid Tatari Department of English language and literature, University of Lorestan, Iran

Received: 15-12- 2014 Accepted: 24-02- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015 Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.231 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.231 Abstract Love is a phenomenon we are involved with in our life. The concept of love has been immensely discussed and challenged by philosophers and psychologists all throughout the history because of its salient and effective role in our individual and social lives. Self-love and altruistic love, two main types of love, have been repeatedly reflected in psychologists' works; self-love refers to a kind of love which is based on psychological egoism; on the other hand, altruistic love is conceived of as a sort of love which is principally based on selflessness, caring, respect, and sacrifice. “White Nights” is a short story by Fyodor Dostoyevsky which seemingly has an altruistic view toward love; it sounds that Dostoyevsky has made a purposeful attempt to praise such altruistic love in the story. Thus, it has been tried to delve into the concept of love manifested in White Nights. This paper is divided into two parts; in the first part, a theoretical framework entailing definitions of love and its types is depicted; in the second part, an account of how love is emerged in the story will be explained. At last, this paper substantiates that altruistic love is represented and admired in this story and is preferred to the other types of love. Keywords: The Concept of Love, Family Resemblance, Types of Love, Triangular Theory of Love, Self-love, Altruistic Love 1. Introduction Analytical philosophers, especially philosophers of language, believe that each word used in our language must be distinctively defined. Determining the meaning of a word is prior to discussing about it. The concepts are divided into concrete concepts and abstract ones. Concrete concepts are those which are touchable; that is, they can be touched and defined by showing and referring; this kind of definition is called as the “referential definition”.1 But for instance, the concept of love ―that is what we are primarily concerned with in this paper― is an abstract concept; that is to say, it is a word unattached to anything real, sensible or tangible; this definition called as the “conceptual definition”. Defining abstract concepts is more complex than the concrete ones, since we are not dealing with something touchable and it cannot be shown, so defining them requires more complicated methods as well. One of the best methods for defining such concepts is using Wittgenstein2's family resemblance theory. In order to explain this theory, Wittgenstein employs the notion of Language Games. In simple terms, this theory helps us to define an abstract concept based on its common features that are seen in the real life.3 In this paper, this method will be used to define love. In throughout history, the concept of love is debated by many thinkers. These thinkers have been mainly the philosophers. From the Greek time, the great philosophers such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle have argued about the definition, meaning and nature of love. The philosophical discussion concerning love begins with questions regarding its nature. In his famous book Symposium, Plato (1998) discusses about love in a dialogic form, concluding that the best form of love is the platonic love (love without sexual attraction) and it is more valued and qualified than the others. These arguments continued since the beginning of twentieth century. By the development of empirical sciences such as biology, psychology and sociology at the beginning of twentieth century, the arguments about love have opened its way into these fields. A psychologist studies psychological causes and effects of love and a Biologist concerns with the biological and physiological aspects of love. Empirical approach's attempts to work on this phenomenon have made the views much broader and deeper. When everyone thinks about love, such important questions can be raised in his/her mind:

1. What is the definition of love? What is the meaning of love? 2. What is/are the origin/origins of love? 3. What are the forms/kinds/branches of love?

1. For further reading, see: Frege, Gottlob. Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege. ed. Peter Geach and Max Black (Oxford: Blackwell, 1952), pp. 56-78. 2. Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) - An Austrian philosopher who is known for having inspired two of the century's principal philosophical movements, logical positivism and ordinary language philosophy. 3. For further reading, see: Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations, tr. G.E.M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell, 1963

Flourishing Creativity & Literacy

IJALEL 4(4):231-237, 2015 232 4. Which form is superior to the others? Which one is more sublime? 5. What is the relationship between love and the other existential phenomena such as faith, loneliness, hope,

silence and pain? Accordingly, reading the story of "White Nights" readers' minds:

1. Which form of love has been notable for Dostoyevsky? 2. With which existential problems the characters are involved and how the characters confront with them? What is

the role of love in this situation? 3. Are we are dealing with a giving love or receiving one in this story? 4. Does this love make the characters active or passive? 5. Is this love welcomed to the characters or not? 6. Does this love cure characters psychologically or not?

In the first part, this article will try to give logical answers to these questions in the philosophical and psychological views, and then in the second part, these answers will be applied to and extracted from the White Nights. First, this paper deals with a theoretical framework, and then a practical criticism will be represented based on it. 2. Part Ι: The Concept of Love 2.1 Definition of Love From ancient to present time, various definitions have been offered for love. Philosophical investigation of love includes the tasks of distinguishing between various kinds of personal love, asking if and how love is or can be justified, and inquiring about the value of love is. Although some thinkers believed that abstract concepts cannot be defined in general and love in particular, some philosophers believe that love is definable and its conceptual clarification is of crucial importance. Everyone has a conceptual image of love; generally speaking, many people understand love as an intense feeling of affection and care toward another person; some people may construe it as a deep or abiding liking for somebody/something. Although these definitions are not wrong, they are not comprehensive and precise; thus we must present a definition encompassing all possible forms and aspects of love. First, it is better to take a look at one of the most famous psychological theories about love, and then an exact definition will be provided. 2.1.1 Robert Sternberg's viewpoint toward love One of the most famous theories that clarify love is Robert Sternberg's triangular theory of love. According to Sternberg (2007, p 332), “the three components of love are an intimacy component, a passion component, and a decision/commitment component”.

1. Intimacy – which encompasses feelings of attachment, closeness, bond, and connectedness 2. Passion – which encompasses drives connected to both limerence and sexual attraction 3. Commitment – which encompasses the decision to remain with another, and in the long term, plans made with

that other. (Sternberg, 1986, pp. 119-135) This theory can be shown in a triangular figure like below:

Figure 1. Robert Sternberg's Triangular Theory of Love

Romantic Love Passion + Intimacy

Companionate Love Intimacy + Commitment

Fatuous Love Passion + Commitment cccommitment

Liking Intimacy

Infatuation Passion

Empty Love Commitment

Consummate Love Intimacy + Passion + Commitment

IJALEL 4(4):231-237, 2015 233 Intimacy is a form in which two people share confidences and various details of their personal lives, and is usually emerged in friendships and romantic love affairs. The most common form of love is sexual attraction and passion. Passionate love well crystallized and portrayed in infatuation as well as romantic love. The last one is commitment; the expectation that the relationship is permanent. All forms of love are viewed as varying combinations of these three components. Non-love does not include any of these components. Liking only includes intimacy. Infatuated love only includes passion. Empty love only includes commitment. However, romantic love includes both intimacy and passion. Companionate love includes intimacy and commitment. Fatuous love includes passion and commitment. Lastly, consummate love entails all three components. (ibid, pp. 119-135) 2.1.2 Love definition based on Wittgenstein's Family Resemblance4 Table 1. Various Theories of Love accompanying their Salient Features

A new definition must be represented because the definitions which are stated in long history are not all-inclusive; it means they don't include all possible forms of love. As mentioned, according to family resemblance, for defining of a concept, the common features of all forms of that concept must be determined, and then these features construct a pattern which is our definition. Suppose we have a concept called A. The possible forms of A are A1, A2, and A3. The features of A1 are b,c,x,y,z and the features of A2 are c,d,k,y,r,z and the features of A3 are c,d,t,h,z,s, so the common features of A1, A2, and A3 are c and z. these two features construct a pattern, so A can be defined as something that has two features: c and z. We also apply this method to concept of love. Thus, in order to establish a comprehensive definition, the common features of all forms of love must be determined. To do so, all definitions, theories and types of love (these types will be explained in next section) helping us in this work must be taken into account. It is worthy to point out that types that are similar to what we have listed here have not been mentioned. All available types and definitions are summarized in Table 1 so as to extract the commonalities more precisely.

Therefore, the conclusion can be drawn that live is “a strong feeling of affection toward sb/sth that arouses emotional attraction [in some types of love is appeared as sexual attraction and in the others as care], and causes such feelings as intimacy, passion, and desire”.

2.2 Types of Love

There are three main classifications of love that each one divides love into some types: general classification, Greek classification, and psychological-existential classification. Further, in the general classification, love is divided into two types: impersonal and interpersonal. Ancient Greek classified love into four types: eros, agape, philia, and storge. In the psychological-existential classification, love is classified as self-love and altruism. Each of the above-mentioned categories and their sub-classification will be elaborated upon in the following.

2.2.1 General category of Love

2.2.1.1 Impersonal Love

Impersonal love refers to “love an object, principle, or goal” to which they are deeply committed and greatly value. For example, compassionate outreach and volunteer workers' "love" of their cause may sometimes be born not of interpersonal love but impersonal love, altruism, and strong spiritual or political convictions (Fromm, 1956). In impersonal love, beloved is non-human. In this love, if sexual passion is involved, then this feeling is called paraphilia. (American Psychiatric Association, 2000, pp. 566-76)

4. The theory applied here for defining love is the Wittgenstein's family resemblance theory. It also can be used for defining any other abstract concepts. Wittgenstein proposed this theory for the first time in his Philosophical Investigation.

Definition, Theory or Type Features

Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 8th edition

a strong feeling of deep affection for sb/sth, sexual attraction, passion, adore, and desire

Robert Sternberg's theory intimacy, commitment, and passion

Erich Fromm's theory affection, commitment, altruism, and care

Agapetic love affection, pure, ideal love not physical one, care, and sacrifice

Erotic love affection, passion, physical and sensual desire

Self-love affection, intimacy, sexual attraction, and passion

Altruism affection, intimacy, care, commitment, and sacrifice

IJALEL 4(4):231-237, 2015 234 2.2.1.2 Interpersonal Love Interpersonal love refers to “love between human beings”. It is a more potent sentiment than a simple liking for another. Unrequited love refers to those feelings of love that are not reciprocated. Interpersonal love is most closely associated with interpersonal relationships (Fromm, 1956). In this type of love, both lover and beloved are human beings. 2.2.2 Greek Types of Love 2.2.2.1 Eros Eros is a passionate love; intimate love or romantic love, with sensual/sexual desire and longing. It has also been translated as "love of the body". Nygren (1953) describes eros as the "love of desire" or acquisitive love and therefore as egocentric, Soble (1990) similarly describes eros as "selfish". In Freudian psychology, “Eros is strictly the sexual component of our life” (Freud, 1925, pp. 163-74), not to be confused with libido which Freud referred to as our life force, the will to live. Although eros is initially felt for a person, with contemplation it becomes an appreciation of the beauty within that person, or even becomes appreciation of beauty itself. "Erotic love" has its roots in this type. 2.2.2.2 Agape Agape generally refers to a pure and ideal type of love, rather than the physical attraction suggested by eros. It has also been translated as "love of the soul". It refers to the paternal love of God for man and of man for God but is extended to include a brotherly love for all humanity. In the New Testament, it refers to the covenant love of God for humans, as well as the human reciprocal love for God. It is also known as "agapetic love". 2.2.2.3 Philia Philia refers to a dispassionate virtuous love; it is a concept addressed and developed by Aristotle5. It originally meant a kind of affectionate regard or friendly feeling toward not just one's friends but also possibly toward family members, business partners, and one's country at large (Liddell et al., 1940; Cooper, 1977). In fact, it includes loyalty to friends, family, and community, and requires virtue, equality, and familiarity. Philia is translated as "brotherly love". 2.2.2.4 Storge Storge is a natural affection, like that felt by parents for offspring. It is also known as "motherly love", it means the mother-child relationship. “Motherly love is unconditional affirmation of the child's life and his needs. In contrast to brotherly love and erotic love which are love between equals, the relationship of mother and child is by its very nature one of inequality, where one needs all the help, and the other gives it”. (Fromm, 1956) 2.3 Psychological-Existential Classification of Love 2.3.1 Self-Love For clarifying these two types of love, it's better to explain them in a logical form. Suppose your beloved is "x", so in self-love: You love "x", but you want "x", you want to achieve him/her. In this love, in fact, you love "x", but you think and focus on yourself not "x". It should not be intermingle with narcissism; in narcissism, a person loves oneself, but in self-love, a person loves "x" for oneself. The central concept in this love is psychological egoism. “Loving oneself is different from being arrogant, conceited or egocentric. Loving own self means caring about oneself, taking responsibility for oneself, respecting oneself, and knowing oneself.” (Fromm, 1956) 2.3.2 Altruism In altruism or selflessness, you love "x", but you concern to his/her happiness and success. Altruism consists of sacrificing something for someone other than the self (e.g. sacrificing time, energy or possessions) with no expectation of any compensation or benefits. 3. PART ΙΙ: Love in White Nights 3.1 Synopsis "White Nights6" is a short story by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, originally published in 1848, early in the writer's career. Like many of Dostoyevsky's stories, "White Nights" is told in first person by a nameless narrator; the narrator is living in Saint Petersburg and suffers from loneliness. He gets to know and falls in love with a young woman named Nastenka, but the love remains unrequited as the woman misses her lover with whom she is finally reunited. 3.2 Plot summary7 The story is divided into six sections; first Night, second night, Nastenka's Story, third night, fourth night, morning. In the first night, the narrator describes his experience walking in the streets of St. Petersburg. He lives alone in a small apartment in Saint Petersburg with only his older, non-social maid Matryona to keep him company. He tells the story of his relationship with a young girl called Nastenka. He first sees her standing against a railing while crying. The main 5. For further reading, see: Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, dual text, with translation by H. Rackham. Harvard University Press, 1934 6. This work takes its title from the long twilight periods that, during the warm months of the year, last nearly until midnight in northern lands, including some parts of Russia. 7. The plot of the story is taken from this website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Nights_short_story

IJALEL 4(4):231-237, 2015 235 character feels timid and begins shaking while she holds his arm. The girl is as lonely as the narrator. In the second night, Nastenka introduces herself to him and the two become friends by relating to each other. The main character defines himself as a dreamer. The third part is where Nastenka relates her life story to the narrator. She lived with her strict grandmother who gave her a largely sheltered upbringing. Her grandmother's pension being too small, they rent out their house to gain income. When their early lodger died, he was replaced by a younger man closer to Nastenka's age much to her grandmother's distaste. The young man begins a silent courtship with Nastenka. Upon the night that the young lodger is about to leave Petersburg for Moscow, Nastenka escapes her grandmother and urges him to marry her. He refuses immediate marriage, stating that he does not have money to support them but he assures her that he would return for her exactly a year later. Nastenka finishes her story at the end of this, noting that a year has gone and he hasn't sent her a single letter. In the third night, the narrator gradually realizes that despite his assurance that their friendship would remain platonic, he has inevitably fallen in love with her, but he hides away his feelings for her. In the fourth night, Nastenka states that maybe their relationship might become romantic some day, but she obviously wants his friendship in her life. The narrator becomes hopeful at this prospect when during their walk, they pass by a young man who stops and calls after them. He turns out to be Nastenka's lover into whose arms she jumps and leaves the narrator alone. In the morning, the final section is a brief afterword that relates a letter which Nastenka sends him apologizing for hurting him and insisting that she would always be thankful for his companionship. She also mentions that she would be married within a week and hoped that he would come. The narrator breaks into tears upon reading the letter. The narrator, however, refuses to despair at the end of the story. 4. Love in the story In Fyodor Dostoevsky's short story "White Nights", his unnamed protagonist is a sensitive, poetic resident of the much modernized St. Petersburg of the mid-nineteenth century. He defines himself as a "dreamer". He is drowned in his imagination. One night he was passing in the way to his house, when an unexpected adventure happened to him, he saw his beloved, Nastenka, for the first time; it was the first night of their acquaintance. In the first night, Nastenka wants the boy to give her a promise: “I am ready for friendship; here’s my hand... but you mustn’t fall in love with me, I beg you!” and the boy accepts. In the second night, they get closer to each other by telling their stories but the relationship remains as friendship yet, not more; the boy begins to tell his story by speaking about his perpetual dreams, and then Nastenka recounts what has happened to her. She tells him that she lives with her grandmother, and reveals the fact the she has a beloved who has promised to marry her, but last year he has told her that he has to go to Moscow and he had gone away, and she has received no news from him up to now; nevertheless, she has waited for him in this long period. The narrator gradually realizes that he has a deep emotional feeling toward Nastenka; he feels that he has fallen in love with her but it seems an unrequited love in his view. In the fourth night, the narrator reveals his feeling and confesses his love, but Nastenka wants him to be her friend not more. In this time, a young man appears to them and approaches Nastenka. The narrator turns out that he is Nastenka's beloved. Both Nastenka and her beloved leave the narrator alone and disappear in the darkness. In the morning, Natenka sends the narrator a letter apologizing him and tells him that she wants to marry. But at the end, the narrator doesn't become hopeless and sad, so he drafts a letter to Nastenka and thanks her so much. In the following, a more precise analysis of love in the story based on Sternberg's theory of love and its types is presented. 4.1 Analysis of love based on Sternberg's Triangular theory of love The theory of love in Sternberg's view explained in the first part, now we want to apply this theory to the story. In this theory love has three phases; intimacy, passion, and commitment. These three phases form seven different kinds of love experiences. Combinations of intimacy, passion, commitment shape seven different kinds of love that can be listed in a table like below:

Table 2. Combinations of Intimacy, Passion, and Commitment

In the first night, the two characters become familiar with each other and in the second night, they recount their story for each other. In these two nights, intimacy is formed between them; it means they are in the first phase of love "liking/friendship". In the third night, the narrator is attracted to Nastanka more and more, and he enters into the second phase of love based on passion, but Nastenka remains in the first phase. In fourth night, the narrator gets in a deep emotional feeling and reveals it. In this night, he is in the second part yet, and Nastenka remains in the first phase yet. In the morning, they become separate from each other and commitment that is the third phase of love is not formed

Intimacy Passion Commitment Nonlove Liking/friendship x Infatuated love x Empty love X Romantic love x x Companionate love x x Fatuous love x x Consummate love x x x

IJALEL 4(4):231-237, 2015 236 between them, so the narrator that is dealing with intimacy and passion, experiences romantic love, he is bonded both intimately and passionately without sustaining commitment, and Nastenka remains in the intimacy and only experiences liking/friendship without emotional attachment and commitment, she feels closeness, bondedness, and warmth toward the narrator, without feelings of intense passion or commitment. 4.2 Analysis of love based on types of love 4.2.1 Analysis of love based on the first classification of types of love Impersonal and Interpersonal: It is obvious that two characters are dealing with interpersonal love not impersonal one, because two characters love each other and both of them are human beings. It may be said that the narrator loves his dreams at the beginning of the story and the dream is non-human element, but although the dream is non-human element but he doesn’t love his dreams, he is involved with them and is tired of them and wants to escape from them. These dreams bother him. He finds Nastenka and falls in love with her because Nastenka makes him get rid of these disturbing dreams. 4.2.2 Analysis of love based on the second classification of types of love Nastenka's love toward the narrator is limited only to friendship, so it can be said that her love is philia; it means her love is motivated by practical reasons, one or both of the parties benefit from the relationship. At first, the narrator also is involved with this type of love but as his love grows and gets deeper, it changes from philia to agape; it means the narrator's love is developed from friendship and togetherness to spiritual attraction. 4.2.3 Analysis of love based on the third classification of types of love At the end of the story, the narrator only wants to take care of Nastenka; it means he deals with an altruistic love not a self-love. He wants Nastenka for her being; he does not think to possess her. Self-love is based on egoism but altruistic love is based on selflessness, so the narrator is devoted to Nastenka altruistically not egoistically. Nastenka's love is altruistic too, but altruism that is based on selflessness, care, responsibility, and sacrifice is so stronger in the narrator than Nastenka. The last statements of the story prove this idea very well. In this excerpt, when narrator is sad for his separation from his beloved and becomes aware of his beloved's marriage, instead of getting angry and becoming sad and hopeless, he notes a letter that shows his altruistic attitude toward his beloved, he says: “But to imagine that I should bear you a grudge, Nastenka! That I should cast a dark cloud over your serene, untroubled happiness; that by my bitter reproaches I should cause distress to your heart, should poison it with secret remorse and should force it to throb with anguish at the moment of bliss; that I should crush a single one of those tender blossoms which you have twined in your dark tresses when you go with him to the altar… Oh never, never! May your sky be clear, may your sweet smile be bright and untroubled, and may you be blessed for that moment of blissful happiness which you gave to another, lonely and grateful heart! My God, a whole moment of happiness! Is that too little for the whole of a man’s life? (Dostoevsky, 1918, p. 49)” 5. Conclusion In this story, the authors have a specific attitude toward love that we prefer to call it an “existential love”. Dostoyevsky's White Nights represents a form of love that is based on sacrifice not selfishness, altruism not egoism, and being not having8. The narrator's love is a progressive love, but Nastenka's love is a fixed one. The characters' love toward each other can be shown like this:

The narrator's love toward Nastenka:

Nastenka's love toward the narrator:

The author admires the narrator's love because it is based on intimacy, pure love, care, giving, altruism, selflessness, and sacrifice; in this love mental health and moral virtues and spiritual progress are achieved for the lover.

8. Fromm has a similar argument in his famous book having or being. He believes that in order to have a moral society, individuals must behave focusing on being not having. He says that being leads the person to selflessness, but having leads the person to selfishness.

Fixed

Progressive

Friendship/Intimacy

Altruism/Selflessness

Friendship/Liking/Intimacy

IJALEL 4(4):231-237, 2015 237 References American Psychiatric Association (June 2000). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV (Text Revision). Arlington, VA, USA: American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc. Cooper, J. M. (1977). Aristotle on the Forms of Friendship. Review of Metaphysics, 30: pp. 619-48. Dostoevsky, Fyodor. (1918). White Nights and Other Stories, tr. Constance Garnett. New York: THE Macmillan Company. Freud, S. (1925). The Resistances to Psycho-Analysis in The Collected Papers of Sigmund Freud, tr. James Strachey. Vol. 5. London: The Hogart Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis. Fromm, E. (1956). The Art of Loving. New York: Harper & Row. Nygren, A. (1953). Agape and Eros. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press. Plato. (1998). The Symposium, trans. by Robin Waterfield. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Soble, A. (1990). The Structure of Love. Yale University Press. Sternberg, R. J. (1986). A triangular theory of love. Psychological Review, 93. ______. ( 2007). Triangulating Love in Oord, T. J. The Altruism Reader: Selections from Writings on Love, Religion, and Science. West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Foundation. Wittgenstein, L. (1963). Philosophical Investigations, trans. By G.E.M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell.

Web Sites

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Nights_short_story

2. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/662884/agape

3. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/love/

4. http://www.iep.utm.edu/love/

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

On The Importance of A Socio-Culturally Designed Teaching Model in an EFL Writing Classroom

Mahdiyeh Abdollahzadeh Department of English Language Teaching, Maragheh branch, Islamic Azad University, Maragheh, Iran

Sorayya Behroozizad (Corresponding author)

Department of English Language Teaching, Maragheh branch, Islamic Azad University, Maragheh, Iran E-mail: Sorayyabehroozi@yahoo.com

Received: 17-12- 2014 Accepted: 25-02- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015 Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.238 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.238 Abstract Writing is a means of articulating ideas, arousing feelings, persuading and convincing other people, but the procedure of writing has become arduous and labyrinthine for Iranian EFL learners. The educational system in Iran is structure-based and it ignores the communicative role of writing, so students' performance in writing wouldn’t be desirable. To tackle the mentioned problem, the present paper develops a scaffolding environment to maximize students writing dexterities through the application of various scaffolding means coined by Tharp and Gallimore (1988) during the stages of Seow's process model. The purpose was to determine the procedure of teacher guidance in a process- oriented situation and trace the scaffolding means which had a pre-eminent role in enhancing students' writing proficiency by observing the class and conducting an interview. To this end, 15 female students within the age range of 15-18 studying in Be’sat Language Institute in Salmas, Iran participated in this study. The results elucidated that students could benefit from the established situation in different ways during the accomplishment of their writing tasks. At the end, the study provided some pedagogical implications for teachers in terms of teaching writing. Keywords: Socio-cultural theory, scaffolding, scaffolding behaviors, process writing 1. Introduction In the era of globalization and technology, English is noticed as the dominant language of communication. Therefore, to assist the new generation grapple with the vast changes and challenges of this age, learning English as the international language has become crucial. Since living in the age of information and communication leads people to share their findings or discoveries with other people all over the world, it can illuminate the fact that the ability to communicate thought and concepts effectively in the 21st century is relied on written communication. Writing is encoding of a message of some kind that is, we translate our thoughts and feelings into language. With this in mind "We are able to discover and articulate ideas in ways only writing makes possible" (White and Arndt, 1991, p. 1). Raimes (1983) puts in words, writing assists students to learn. "As writers struggle with what to put down next or how to put it down on paper, they often discover something new to write or a new way of expressing their ideas" (Raimes, 1983,p.3).Furthermore, writing is the most popular means by which the teachers evaluate students' knowledge. As such Paulston and Bruder (1979) assert "writing tends to increase retention and makes possible a source for later reference. Very importantly, it provides a student with physical evidence of his achievement and it becomes a source whereby he can measure his improvement" (p. 204). However, writing as a powerful mode of communication is lament to acquire. In the EFL context, it is acknowledged as a cumbersome skill in which some researchers argue that becoming a writer is an abstruse and ongoing process because it needs a certain levels of linguistic knowledge, writing conversations, vocabulary and grammar (Yavuz- Erkan & Saban, 2011). Nonetheless, for teaching writing a number of approaches have been emerged. For example, in the 1950s and early 1960s, the primary focus of language teaching was speech, and the function of writing was seen as a sub skill for developing speech through mastery of language forms (Raimes, 1983, p. 6). The controlled- to- free approach laid stress on accuracy of writing over fluency, and students were required to implement writing as a means to practice sentence patterns and vocabulary (p.14). On the other hand, in the free- writing approach quantity and fluency were focused rather than quality and accuracy. It is based on the principle that if once ideas are there, the organization follows (Raimes, 1983). Similarly, in the paragraph- pattern approach, the importance of organization at extra sentential levels was highlighted. Students were asked to read and analyze a model, and then wrote another piece of writing that its organization was similar to the original one. This approach in the view of Bae (2011) considered writing as basically a matter of arranging sentences and paragraphs into particular patterns. In all in the traditional approaches, grammar, syntax, and mechanics are mostly stressed over context, process, audience, and purpose of writing. It can be perceived that following the mentioned approaches can't meet today's class requirement. To make students be egger to learn and increase their ability, we should change our attitudes and apply new perspectives and approaches in teaching process. For this purpose based on Bae's (2011) view, for increasing students' composition skills the process approach would be a central means which became prominent in English-

Flourishing Creativity & Literacy

IJALEL 4(4):238-247, 2015 239 speaking composition classrooms during the 1980s. This approach entered the classroom as the ‘process movement’: a concentration on personal writing, student creativity, and fluency (Zamel 1982, cited in Reid, 2001). In comparison with product approaches, in the process writing the stages of writing a text are focused rather than the final product (Leki, 1991). How the learners write well rather than what they have written is zoomed. In other words, it is to discover what writers do when they write through traversing stages. Based on Nunan's statement, followers of process writing believe that there will never be the perfect text, but through producing, reflecting on, discussing and reworking successive drafts of a text, one can get closer to perfection (Nunan, 1999). The earlier writers such as Hayes and Flower considered the process of writing to be mainly cognitive one, but more recently there has been a tendency to consider a more sociocultural orientation (Barnard & Campbell 2005). The interaction among discourse community members in creating meanings is focused. This approach is based on the assumption that "language is socially constituted" (Gere, 1987, p. 87). In the cooperative learning, individuals are engaged in social practice to produce an appropriate text through the supervision of the peer or the teacher (Adams, 2006, cited in Kolade, 2012). The process writing has constituted from different stages and there have been different views about the number stages and named them with a different label. To achieve the purpose of the present study, Seow's process model will be implemented. He suggested that producing a text involves four recursive procedures as figure 1 demonstrates. In fact, "many good writers employ a recursive, non- liner approach- writing of a draft may be interrupted by more planning, and revision may lead to reformulation, with a great deal of recycling to earlier stages" (Krashen, 1984, p.17).

Figure 1. The Writing Process (Seow, 2002, p. 315)

For Seow (2002), the writing process is a private activity in which the aim is to assist students to write freely and arrive at a product of good quality. Current EFL research investigates writing mainly from the perspective of applied linguistics and uses the work of cognitive psychologists and linguists or the work of sociolinguists (Grabe & Kaplan, 1996, pp. 238-243). Those who draw on the work of sociolinguists focus on the external supports and supervision in helping students to identify, internalize and self- regulate writing strategies. Weigle points to Hayes: "Writing is also a social because it is a social artifact and is carried out in a social setting. What we write, how we write and who we write to is shaped by social convention and…… social interaction" (2002, p.19). For Vygotsky as one of the sociocognitivists, social environment and cooperative learning are focused. Vygotsky believed that learning first occurs at the social or inter individual level, he emphasized the role of social interactions as being crucial to cognitive development ( Kearsely, 2002). In Vygotsky theory interaction between a novice and an expert is highlighted which is a direction for developing to a higher level of competency. In all, both individual and social factors have a paramount role. As Hughes (2001, p.17) claims, children learn best "when they have the guidance, learning environment, intellectual and emotional support created by an adult or mentor figure". The capable people are able to model learning, questioning and thinking and thus assist children to develop their learning skills. In the context of this study, the teacher as a facilitator and mediator offers guidance and supervision in assisting students to engage in the process of composing. Multifarious principles, as a sequence, under cover of sociocultural perspective are evolved and among which scaffolding comes under the close scrutiny of the current research. In fact, the concept of scaffolding (Bruner, 1978) is based on the work of Vygotsky (1978), who proposed that with an adult's assistance, children could accomplish tasks that they ordinarily couldn’t perform independently. Wood, et.al (1976) defined it as an "adult controlling those elements of the task that are essentially beyond the learner's capacity, thus permitting him to concentrate upon and complete only those elements that are within his range of competence". It is what a teacher- the scaffolder- does when working with a learner to solve a problem, perform a task, achieve a goal or acquire a skill which would be beyond his or her unassisted efforts (Hogan & Pressley, 1997; and Larkin, 2002).In Larkin's idea, "Using scaffolded instruction optimizes student learning by providing a supportive environment while facilitating student independence". Similarly, Feuerstein (2000) elaborates that " Within mediated learning experience a supportive person intervenes the process of receiving the stimulus and producing the response with the purpose of supporting learner's thinking process with how s/he approaches the problem at hand" (Birjandi & Jazebi, 2014, p. 155). The learners' current skills and knowledge can be extended to a higher level of competence in a scaffolded learning situation. This is possible through interaction. Clearly, this interaction occurs between a novice (in the case of this study, an EFL learner) and an expert (teacher) in a social context. Under the various supports and regulation of the teacher, the students can perform the tasks appropriately

IJALEL 4(4):238-247, 2015 240 and independently. Among the supporting forms, six means of assisting performance of Tharp and Gallimore (1988) which include hint, feeding back, instructing, questioning, explaining, and modeling that supports the learning activities of the students will construct the framework of this research. The detailed explanation of these means is presented in appendix A. 1.1 Purpose According to Ansari (1997), students' expectation and orientation in Iran is set more towards product- based approach and little attention has been given to teach and practice writing in class (D. Zeng, 2005). In language institutions of Iran, oral skills received more attention than written skills and writing as a productive skill has been viewed less important. Because of poor status of EFL writing in Iran due to the implementation of traditional methods and the strategies, the current study attempts to apply scaffolding means of Tharp and Gallimore (1988) within the four stages of Seow's model of process writing to improve students' writing ability, and in students' perception which means plays an important role in improving their writing abilities. Based on the mentioned purpose, the study is guided by the following research questions: RQ1: In what ways the application of scaffolding means in a process- oriented situation affect students writing dexterities? RQ2: Which means has a remarkable role in maximizing students' writing ability? 2. Methodology 2.1 Sample and Setting This research aims to determine the procedure of teacher's application of scaffolding means in a process- oriented situation to improve the students' writing performance. Moreover, investigating the student' attitudes and perceptions towards the new way of writing instruction is another focus of this study, and in students' views which scaffolding technique plays a central role in improving their writing performance. For this purpose, the participants for the study were 15 homogeneous female students with intermediate level of proficiency in which they studied English as a foreign language in Be’sat language institute in Salmas, Iran. The students' age ranged from 15 - 18. The participants were required to constitute different groups of three students because peer learning paved the way for giving comments and suggestions, and to make corrections. The research was conducted in half of the regular class time (45 min). The class took a 15- session course, two days a week. 2.2 Instruments In order to scrutinize subtle answers to the research questions, observation and group interview were implemented. The class was observed during writing instruction twice a week by the researcher to investigate how the teacher gave students supports in any number of ways in each phase of the process writing. The technique of descriptive field note was used for collecting data through observation. During the observation of the class, the researcher concentrated on the most central parts involving: the teacher's actions and activities in each stage of process writing (focusing on the teacher's application of scaffolding techniques), and the interaction between the teacher and students and among the students in intra and inter groups. Group interview was implemented in which ideas, experience, and comments of every subject in the interview was stimulated when listening to others verbalize their experiences. Six students were chosen based on purposive sampling strategy; the students who had better performance in English in general and in writing in particular were selected. A semi- structured interview format was used with comprising 6 open- ended questions. The interview was conducted in students' native language, in Turkish, in which their voices were recorded by cell- phone to give the interviewees the best chance to explain their perceptions and feelings about their writing. To consider ethical issues, students' pseudonyms were used in the transcription of data collected from interview. 2.3 Materials The material used in this study was "Refining Composition Skills" by Smalley, Ruetten and Kozyrev (2002). The instructed parts of textbook deal with the process writing, the format of paragraph and essay writing, and different types of paragraphs and essays in which the students were required to write cause and effect essays. There was no importance to select which essay the students should write because the purpose was to evaluate the effectiveness of scaffolding means performed in the process oriented class. 2.4 Procedure At the initial phase before requiring students to write the selected topics, they were familiarized with the format of an essay. They learned how to write a cause- and- effect essay included the introduction part in which they must have expressed their ideas as the thesis statement, developmental paragraphs to support points that developed the thesis, and in the last part they learned how to draw a conclusion. In writing the composition, students were writing through traversing the main phases of writing process including 1) planning, 2) drafting, 3) revising, and 4) editing, and there were both peer and teacher scaffolding. The teacher formed five groups of three participants. It is necessary to mention that because of time limitation, it wasn’t possible for the teacher to perform 4 stages in one session. Thus the stages were divided based on students' performance into three sessions that is, planning and drafting in one session, and revising and editing in one session (for each), then two sessions when their abilities were improved in writing; i.e. four stages were conducted in two sessions.

IJALEL 4(4):238-247, 2015 241 In the last session of treatment, group interview was done by the researcher in limited time conducted in students' native language to provide a more secure atmosphere where they could express themselves with no barriers. The students' voices were recorded during the interview and then the recorded data was transcribed, translated into English, and analyzed. 2.5 Data Analysis The data collected from observation field notes were analyzed using content analysis based on fixed framework of Tharp and Gallimore (1988) and Seow's process models. For analyzing the data from interview, thematic analysis was used which the process of detecting and discovering theme was emerged during analyzing the data which weren’t anticipated before. The procedure of extracting themes was based on Braun and Clarke (2006) approach who determined a six phase approach to thematic analysis which is demonstrated in the below table. Table 1. Phases of thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006, cited in Behroozizad, et. al (2012)

Phase Description of the process 1.Familiarizing yourself with your data: Transcribing data reading and re- reading the data,

noting down initial ideas about teacher's role. 2.Generating initial codes: Coding interesting features of the data in a systematic

fashion across the entire data set, collating data relevant to each code.

3.Searching for themes: Collating codes into potential themes, gathering all data relevant to each potential theme.

4.Reviewing themes: Checking if the themes work in relation to the coded extracts (Level 1) and the entire data set (Level 2), generating a thematic 'map' of the analysis.

5.Defining and naming themes: Ongoing analysis to refine the specifics of each theme, and the overall story the analysis tells, generating clear definitions and names for each theme.

6.Producing the report: The final opportunity for analysis. Selection of vivid, compelling extract examples, final analysis of selected extracts, relating back of the analysis to the research question and literature, producing a scholarly report of the analysis.

3. Results and Discussions This research aimed to investigate how students were guided in each step of process writing by the teacher's application of scaffolding techniques, and to determine which technique of the teacher had a central role in students writing development. The research questions addressed in the study were: RQ1: How does the integration of scaffolding means and process writing affect students' writing ability? RQ2: Which means has a remarkable role in maximizing students' writing ability? During the treatment phase of the study, the students were exposed to process writing through applying scaffolding means in order to improve EFL learners' writing ability. The following table depictures the frequency and distribution of the teacher's application of means during each stage of process writing identified through observation field notes. The results of qualitative data will be illuminated based on the researcher's observation field notes in which how the teacher guided the students by utilizing different scaffolding behaviors in every phase. Table 2.Total frequency of scaffolding means in the writing tasks Feedback Hint Instructing Explaining Modeling Questioning

Planning 73 35 2 19 3 35 Drafting 30 44 8 6 4 9 Revising 89 25 1 19 13 22 Editing 77 70 28 14 19 18 Total 269 174 39 58 39 84

The students' perceptions about their writing and their views towards the provided supervision were based on the data from interview. The obtained findings from the interview transcription are in line with observation field notes. The

IJALEL 4(4):238-247, 2015 242 following section demonstrates the students' reports on the benefit they got from the provided scaffolding and how the teacher guided them during writing task step by step by utilizing various helps. The detailed elucidation of the teacher's scaffolding in each phase is presented in appendix B. 3.1 Feedback Based on the results of observation field notes and students' interview transcripts, feedback had a remarkable role in maximizing students' writing proficiency and used in a higher level (F=269). The teacher's provided positive words whether orally or written in every stage particularly his written comments resulted in positive effects in increasing students' positive feeling about their improvement, self- confidence, and motivation. This is manifested in the following excerpts taken from most of the participants' interview transcripts.

The teacher written feedback in the revision stage was very effective to me. It helped me to rewrite and reassess my composition in a better form in which I tried not to repeat these mistakes remarked by the teacher again in the following topics (Zahra). The teacher's given feedback gave me a lot of confidence because feedback either positive or negative helped write better when I received a positive feedback from the teacher, it helped my mind be more active. I attempted to think a lot about new things and new topics (subtopics) then after several times, I gained an important feature like self- assurance (Saba). In planning stage, when I shared my ideas to the class, my teacher affirmed them by giving positive feedback such as great, very good which made me so happy because my ideas were related to the topic. It gave me motivation, interest, and engagement (Sanaz).

Besides the positive aspects, one of the interviewees had negative aspects. For example, Leila said that "Although the teacher's written feedback was a kind of acknowledgement which noticed to what extent I had succeeded but sometimes made me tired and confused". 3.2 Hint As the result of Table 2 indicated, hint ranked second by the total frequency of 174 as the mostly used means after feedback. However, in comparison to feedback, it was used considerably in drafting stage. The obtained data from interview transcriptions demonstrated positive perceptions towards the teacher's usage of hints during the process writing. Most of the students stated that their level of vocabulary knowledge has been increased. As Zahra said:

The teacher's given hints about vocabulary in drafting stage were helpful because I could learn more vocabularies and through them I could convey meanings to the reader.

Hint was profitable for Sanaz again as presented in the following extract from the interview. Giving hints in editing stage was very influential. In this stage my writing shouldn’t have any mistakes in punctuation, spelling correct form of vocabulary and so on. However, the teachers' points to some errors which I had made helped me to correct them and learn more from my errors in order to not to make them again. (Sanaz)

3.3 Instructing Instructing was used by the teacher in scaffolding students' writing ability less than other means. It ranked at the bottom of six scaffolding means (see table 2). Instructing helped some students learn more as they could gain knowledge of how to write an essay with constructing grammatical sentences. For example, Maryam and Zahra said respectively that:

Instructing was so helpful in helping me to write the first draft. It assisted me to have a general view of how to write a composition (Maryam). I learnt to make grammatical sentences and I tried to follow them in writing the other topics (Zahra).

3.4 Explanation Based on the result of Table 2, after feedback, hint, and questioning, explanation was used a lot during process writing. For most of the subjects, the use of explanation was effective in understanding the assigned task. They were provided enough knowledge to perform the task on their own. The supports of the teacher were clear and easy to perceive when students' native language was specially used as shown in the interview data below.

The teacher's explanation in every stage assisted me to write the topic. I learnt that in every phase what I should do. Before our teacher's guidance, I couldn’t know any things about how to write an essay (Maryam). I learned to plan before writing my essay. Through the explanation of the teacher I learned that gathering information about a topic and organizing them as a list were necessary for writing the first draft (Leila).

3.5 Modeling The findings of Table 2 revealed that modeling like instructing which has the same frequency of 39 was used less than other means. Modeling as a useful support assisted students to understand better and to correct their errors based on the teacher's providing models in the form of giving examples. The following are extracts from the interview.

In planning stage, the teacher's explanation provided me with some background knowledge about how to generate ideas for my essay but through our teacher's demonstrating one sample of it, I could understand how to do brainstorming (Saba). Modeling in editing stage was useful because I could correct some sentences which weren’t grammatically correct through our teacher's given examples (Leila).

IJALEL 4(4):238-247, 2015 243 3.6 Questioning Table 2 demonstrates that questioning as one of the teacher's usage of supporting forms ranked third after feedback and hint as the mostly used means. The teacher's application of questioning in planning stage as observable in the results of observation field notes pawed the way for most of the students to express their ideas freely and to think creatively. As Samira said:

The teacher questioning about the topic directed me to think more ideas about the topic which helped me organize the subtopics in my mind

The majority of the students reacted positively to the teacher's application of various supports during the stages of process writing, and also to the pedagogical work with process- based writing. The teacher's various helps assisted students to improve their writing performance. They could have self- confidence and write with low stress. This was observable from some of the students' views taken from interview transcriptions.

The teacher's supports and helps guided me to write with low stress and high confidence. Now, I know that how to write and what to write (Sanaz). Writing an essay with the teacher's guidance in every stage was very effective than writing it myself because this way I made less mistakes in writing (Samira).

One of the interviewees said that with interaction and communication in groups, she could use the help of capable peers to improve some of the errors in her essay. As she said:

I learned how to work in groups and share my opinions and ideas with my peers. I learned how important others' help is to improve my essay. I could write my essay well with the assistance of my friends (Saba).

As it was mentioned earlier, guiding students in every stage by implementing various strategies by the teacher were depicted in appendix B. However, following figure is the representation of the means emerged from the analysis of interview transcriptions which weren’t anticipated by the researcher before. It was said before that for analyzing the data from interview, thematic analysis was used in which it was not wed to any pre-existing theoretical frameworks. In the below figure, every theme was classified in groups according to their means applied.

Figure 2. the Emerged Themes of Interview Transcription

Based on the Figure 2, the teacher's provided feedback was useful for most of the students because the given feedback orally or written led them to determine the points of strength and weakness in their writing, and the teacher's provided feedback was valuable for students in maximizing motivation, interest, activating their background knowledge to think creatively but alongside of its positive effects, it had negative effect for one of the students who made her tired and confusion. The students' level of knowledge was increased through the teacher's given hints. In revising and editing, the teacher's cues helped them make their composition readable and clearer. Through the teacher's instruction, students learned the procedure of writing in every phase. Also they were able to make grammatical sentences through the teacher's application of this means. Clear explanation gave students to understand appropriately and receive enough knowledge to accomplish the task in every phase. The provided examples also assisted them to correct their errors based on the teacher's supplied modeling.

IJALEL 4(4):238-247, 2015 244 Finally the last means namely, questioning, helped students activate their minds and think more about the topic in order to share their ideas to the class. In all, the collected data from interview revealed that the most useful type of the teacher's application means was feedback and used to a highest level. As the results of Table 2 depictured, among the six scaffolding means, feedback had the highest frequency of 269 as the mostly used means while modeling and instructing ranked at the bottom of six scaffolding means. Furthermore the result of figure 3 is in line with the findings of table 2 which demonstrates, all of the means during the writing tasks were applied but the rate and amount of their implementation was differeded. Among the scaffolding means, feedback ranked first which was used in a high level in comparison with the other means. By the way, one contributing finding which was not predicted by the researcher and wasn’t considered as part of this research objective is related to the extent of scaffolding which the figure 3 demonstrates the decresing the level and amout of scaffolding over time. The application of these means in writing the first task were higher than writing the fourth task wich evidenced that the teacher provided students with the optimal amount of supports to complete the task, and then progressievly minimized the rate of supports untill the students became able to perform the task with a little guidance of their teacher. It was the process of loweing supports and increasing students' individuality in writing.

Figure 3. The Emerged Themes of Interview Transcription

The findings of the current study were compatible with the study of Yantraprakorn, Darasawang and Wiriyakarun (2013) which revealed that all of the students' attitudes were positive about the provided scaffolding. However, in their research, the results showed that explanation was the most useful type of scaffolding which helped students understand language, the content, and the assigned task which was contrast with the results of the current study because among the means, feedback had been used to a great extent and in students' view, it had a pre-eminent role in boosting their positive feelings about their development in every phase and acknowledged their strength and weakness points of their writing. The result is consistent with the socio- cultural theory which claims that learning is created through socio interaction which occurs first on interpersonal level and later is internalized within the learner at intrapersonal level (Vygotsky, 1978). The obtained findings affirms the claims of Laksmi (2006) that students become more self- reliant in expressing their ideas when scaffolding is implemented in the process- based teaching. In the context of this study, since the process of learning to write was grounded in the sociocultural theory of Vygotsky (1978) in which interaction and communication among the learners were highlighted, students' performance were admirable because of having self- assurance feeling and lacking stress in writing the assigned topics. According to Benson (2004), the role of the teacher is to provide assistance or supports to students with tasks that are just beyond the students' current ability. When the students' mastery of the task is developed gradually, the teacher removes the gradual supports. It is observable from the results of figure 3 in which the amount of teacher's scaffolding is decreased. In the first session of writing, the students were highly dependent on the guidance of their teacher because scaffolding means were used in a high level. However, in the last sessions when they were required to write the last topic the rate and the level of supports were decreased. They were writing individually with a little supervision of the teacher. The finding, affirmed the claim of Van de pol, Volman & Beishuizen (2010) who believed that "The responsibility for learning is transferred when a student takes increasing learner control" (p.275). The results of this study confirmed the mentioned findings that application of teacher's scaffolding forms in a process- oriented setting assisted students progressed themselves and became independent learners, and when the students gathered knowledge and increased their skills on their own, the amount of teacher's support dismantled and they were able to complete the task without supervision and assistance of him. The findings also affirmed Nunan's idea that the process approach encourages collaborative group work between learners as a way of increasing motivation and developing positive attitudes towards writing (Nunan, 1991). In the

IJALEL 4(4):238-247, 2015 245 supportive learning environment, students can be motivated and take more responsibility to learning and become more independent learners. 4. Conclusion Writing as a productive skill has a little value in comparison with other skills and majority of the students' performance in writing is not desirable which resulted in inability to communicate their thoughts and feelings as a written form. Thus, the research was an attempt to improve students' writing ability by applying a new perspective, approach and activities in the teaching process. The researchers were interested to apply Vygotsky's (1978) sociocultural theory and his notion of scaffolding in the realm of teaching writing. Results of this study revealed that the teacher utilized different types of scaffolding strategies during process writing and that these strategies were considered as supports. The teacher's use of these means resulted in students' development in writing. The results highlighted that students benefited from the contribution of others. They were as an active participant involved in the process of instruction. The findings from the observation field notes and the students' interview transcripts indicated that the frequency of feedback was higher than other means. It ranked as the mostly used means by the teacher. The teacher presented himself as helpful and facilitator offering support and guidance. With Gaining supports and feedback, they had enough time to think, write, reassess, and produce the final written work with step- by step supervision in every stage. According to Sadler (1983) if feedback focuses on "growth rather than grading", it can encourage and advance students learning. In short, in students' perceptions all of the means were effective in improving their writing ability and led them to know how to write at every stage. Thus, a key element of the scaffolding provided by the teacher would be feedback which created interest, self- reliance, and "literacy resources to participate in target communities" (Hyland and Hyland, 2006, p. 83). The findings of this study justified implications for teachers to have a clear view of their role in the classroom and to assist students to find their way to a more interesting and meaningful learning. The results also help the curriculum developers by helping English language teachers to adapt a new technique in their classes in order to improve their students' writing abilities and achievement, as well as to highlight the socially situated learning which interaction and communication between the teacher and students are focused. References Ansari, A. (1997). The Effect of Summary Reaction Writing on Iranian EFL Learning Recall and Retention of General Scientific texts. Unpublished M.A. Thesis, Teacher Training University- Tehran. Bae, J. (2011). Teaching process writing for intermediate/advanced learners in South Korea (MA Thesis, University of Wisconsin-River Falls). Retrieved from http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1793/52570 . Barnard, R., & Campbell, L. (2005). Sociocultural theory and the teaching of process writing: The scaffolding of learning in a university context. Retrieved from http://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/10289/433/1/content.pdf Behroozizad, S., Nambiar, R., & Amir, Z. (2012). The Relationship Between Language Learning Strategies & Teacher's Mediating Role. 3L: The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies. 18 (2), 35-48. Benson, C. (2004). The importance of mother tongue- based schooling for educational quality. Stockholm University. Birjandi, P., & Jazebi, S. (2014). A comparative analysis of teachers' scaffolding practices. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 2(3), 154-164. Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77-101. http://dx.doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp0630a Bruner, J. (1978). The role of dialogue in language acquisition. In A. Sinclair, R. J. Jarvella & W. Levelt (Eds.), The child's concept of language. New York: Springer- Verlag. Feuerstein, R. S. (2000). Mediated learning experience, instrumental enrichment and the learning propensity assessment device. In Interdisciplinary counsel on development and learning disorders, ICDL clinical practice guidelines: Redefining the standards of care for infants, children, and families with special needs (pp. 557-578). MD: The Interdisciplinary Council on Development and Gere, A. R. (1987). Writing Groups: History Theory, and Implications. Carbondale: IL Southern lllinois University Press. Grabe, W., & Kaplan, R. B. (1996). Theory and Practice of writing, Longman: London and New York. Hogan, K., & Pressley, M. (1997). Scaffolding Student Learning: Instructional Approaches & Issues. Brookline Books, Inc.: Cambridge, M. A. Hughes, A. (2001). "The Teaching of Language to Young Learners: Linking Understanding and Principles with Practice" in Faber, P., Gewehr, W., Raya, M. J., and Peck, A. J. (Eds.), Effective Foreign Language Teaching at the Primary Level: Focus on the Teacher, Peter Lang, 17-24 Hyland, F., & Hyland, K. (2006). Feedback on Second Language Students' Writing. Lang. Tech., 39, 83-101. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kearsley, G. (2002). Social Development Theory. Retrieved October 29, 2002, Retrieved from http://tip.psychology.org/vygotsky.html.

IJALEL 4(4):238-247, 2015 246 Kolade, T. (2012). The influence of process approach on English as second language students’ performances in essay writing. English Language Teaching, 5(3), 16-29. Krashen, S. D. (1984). Writing: Research, theory and applications. Oxford: Pergamon Institute of English. Laksmi, E. D. (2006). Scaffolding Students Writing in EFL Class: Implementing process approach. TEFLIN Journal, 17 (2), 155-174. Larkin, M. (2002). Using scaffolding to optimize learning. Retrieved June 25, 2005 from ERIC Database (474301). Leki, I. (1991). Teaching second language writing: where we seem to be. English Teaching Forum, April: 8-11. Nunan, D. (1999). Second language teaching and learning. Boston: Heincle & Heincle publishers Paulston, CB., & Bruder, NM. (1979). Teaching English as a Second Language: Techniques and Procedures. Cambridge: Winthrop Publishers Press. Rivers, W. M. 1981. Teaching Foreign Language Skills. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Raimes, A. (1983). Techniques in Teaching Writing. New York: Oxford UP. Raimes, A. (1991). Out of the woods: Emerging traditions in the teaching of writing. TESOL Quarterly, 25 (3), 30-407. Reid, J. M. (2001). The Cambridge guide to teaching English to speakers of other languages. In R. Cater & D. Nunan (Ed.), Writing (p. 23-33). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sadler, D. (1983). Evaluation and Improvement of Academic Learning. Journal of Higher Education, 54 (1), 60-79. Seow, A. (2002). The writing process and process writing. In J. C. Richards, & W. A. Renandya (Eds.). Methodology in language teaching: an anthology of current practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smalley, R., Ruetten, M., & Kozyrev, J. R. (2002). Refining Composition Skills: Rhetoric and Grammar. Heinle and Heinle Publiphers: Boston. Tharp, R. G., & Gallimore, R. (1988). Rousing Minds to Life: Teaching, Learning and Schooling in the Social Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Van de Pol, J., Volman, M., & Beishuizen, J. (2010). Scaffolding in teacher-student interaction: A decade of research. Educational Psychology Review, 22, 271-297. doi:10.1007/s10648-010-9127-6 Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Weigle, S. C. (2002). Assessing Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. White, R., & Arndt, V. (1991). Process Writing, Longman UK. Wood, D., Bruner, J. S., & Ross, G. (1976). The role of tutoring in problem- solving. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 17, 89-100. Yantraprakorn, P., Darasawang, P., & Wiriyakarun, P. (2013). Enhancing self-efficacy through scaffolding. Sözelbildiri, Third International Conference on Foreign Language Learning and Teaching. Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand. Zamel, V. (1982). Writing: The process of discovering meaning. TESOL Quarterly, 16 (2), 195-209. Zeng, D. (2005). The process- oriented approach to ESL/EFL writing instruction and research. Teaching English in China, 28(5), 66-77.

Appendix A: Intervention strategies of scaffolding means adapted from Van de Pol, Volman & Beishuizen

Description Means -Direct evaluation of the behavior/work of the student

1. Feedback

-The teacher gives a hint with respect to subject-matter - The teacher deliberately does not supply the entire solution or detailed instructions

2. Hints

- The teacher provides information so that student knows that to do or how to do it - Request for a specific action (e.g., a rhetorical question can serve as instruction)

3. Instructing

- Provision of information on why (e.g., why is a certain task approached in a particular manner)

4. Explaining

- The teacher demonstrates behavior (verbal ornon-verbal) for imitation - Modeling is about the process and not the product

5. Modeling

- Prompting of student to think - Request for a specific reaction

6. Questioning (assisting)

IJALEL 4(4):238-247, 2015 247 Appendix B: A Sample Content analysis of Observation Field note

1) generating ideas through brainstorming techniques Planning

Instructing

1) changing the provided list to writing the first draft 2)instructing grammatical structure to help students to make an accurate sentence

Drafting 1) training the rhetorical aspects of writing Revising 1) instruction about grammatical structure 2) instruction about making a Wh question 3) instruction about when to use a comma

Editing

1) providing the equivalence of vocabularies in English 2)suggesting some ideas related to the topic

Planning

Hint

1)giving cues about three parts of essay Suggested vocabularies to complete sentences2)

Drafting

1) giving suggestion about vocabularies to make sentence meaningful 2) giving cues about restatement of thesis statement in the conclusion part 3)giving cues about providing examples, reasons to support the thesis statement

Revising

1)subject- verb agreement 2)punctuation

Editing

1) presenting one sample of brainstorming a topic

Planning

Modeling 1) showing one sample of drafting topic

Drafting

1) giving sample how to give background knowledge Revising 1) giving examples for every instructed structure Editing 1) activating students' background knowledge to verbalize their ideas 2) demanding students to brainstorm their ideas as a list

Planning

Questioning

1) giving a request to change the list to writing the first draft 2) check the students' understanding

Drafting

1)underlying the vague sentences and asking them to clarify their intention to the reader

Revising

1) asking students to explain this stage 2) requiring students to edit their papers

Editing

1) creating understanding about brainstorming a topic 2)giving explanation after students' given ideas( showing the corroboration of their comments)

Planning

Explaining 1)providing detailed expression about the fluency of writing not accuracy 2) reviewing the objective of the preceding session

Drafting

1) more explanation about rhetorical features of writing 2) giving more clarification about how to supports the thesis statement

Revising

1) ) more explanation about linguistic features of writing Editing 1)affirmation of students' performance in brainstorming a topic 2) confirmation of students' responses about related ideas to the main topic 3) reformulation of all of a learners' erroneous utterances without changing its original meaning

Planning

Feedback

1)giving positive oral feedback to the reaction of students in writing Drafting

2) providing hand written commentaries feedback in the form of questioning, suggestion 3) providing positive feedback to the affirmation of students' performance

Revising

1)giving positive feedback for the corrective of sentence structure 2)writing the correct dictation of the words when were not found in general English dictionary

Editing

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

A Socio-Linguistic Investigation into the Etymology of American State Names

Abdel-Rahman H. Abu-Melhim (Corresponding author) Department of English Language and Literature, Irbid University College, Al-Balqa’ Applied University, Irbid, Jordan

E-mail: abumelhim@hotmail.com

Nedal A. Bani-Hani Department of English Language and Literature, Irbid University College, Al-Balqa’ Applied University, Irbid, Jordan

Mahmoud A. Al-Sobh

Department of English Language and Literature, Ajloun National University, Ajloun, Jordan

Received: 19-12- 2014 Accepted: 26-02- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015 Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.248 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.248 Abstract The aim of this article is to determine the semantic and etymological roots of the fifty names of the American states. It examines the etymology of these names and seeks to explain the sociolinguistic aspects that contributed to their development. Moreover, it unearths the origins of the original inhabitants of these states, respectively, taking into account the fundamental roles that language and culture played in the naming process. This research article is therefore qualitative and descriptive in essence and depends greatly on consultation with etymological authorities. For example, it referred to official information available on the websites of the respective states in order to access important details related to the development of the naming process. Collected data were analyzed and collected primarily within the framework of past and present mainstream theories of etymology. In addition, this study was undertaken with a view towards providing the most logical and reasonable explanations for states' names. It concluded that all fifty states have acquired their names from a diverse assortment of languages. For example, twenty-four of the states come from languages indigenous to the Americas and one comes from Hawaiian. Eight states' names are derived from Algonquian languages; seven states' names are derived from Siouan languages; three states' names are derived from Iroquoian languages; one state derives its name from a Uto-Aztecan language and five states derive their names from other languages indigenous to the Americas. Twenty-two of the other states derive their names from languages of Europe; seven states derive their names from Latin; five states derive their names from English; five states derive their names from Spanish and four states derive their names from French. The origins of the names of six states are contested: Rhode Island, Oregon, Maine, Idaho, Hawaii and Arizona. Eleven states are named after individuals. For example, seven states are named after queens and kings. These include North and South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia, Georgia, Louisiana and Maryland. Interestingly, only one state was named after a president - Washington. Keywords: American state names, etymology, sociolinguistics, historio-linguistics, name coinage 1. Introduction 1.1 Definition of Etymology The term etymology refers to word history, origins and the historical formation of word meanings. A word's etymology, therefore, refers to a specific word origin. Moreover, etymology involves accounting for the chronological development of words or aspects of words while tracing their shared usage between diverse languages over time. In other words, etymology involves the study of historio-linguistic development as made manifest in particular words. The term etymology itself originates in the Greek term etumos, which stands for true or real. Ology refers to the science or study of a particular subject; for example, as found in the subjects zoology or astrology. This brief description describes, therefore, the etymology of the term etymology, pointing to its broad definition as signifying the study of the roots of words in light of their historio-linguistic evolution. Another example is provided in the following: in Ancient Greek, the term hippos refers to 'horse' and potamus refers to 'river'; the term hippopotamus, therefore, signifies a 'river horse'. Other elements of words originating from Ancient Greek include tele, micro, phone and scope; tele means 'long distance'; micro means 'small'; phone means 'speak' and scope means 'look'. Here we see the origins of the terms telescope, microscope, microphone and telephone (Liddell & Scott, 1940). The fact that not all English terms derive from Ancient Greek, however, is what makes the study of the origins of English words intriguing. Those who study the origins of words rely on examinations of languages' historical writings as well as original texts. More specifically, they attempt to decipher and approximate the exact times in which certain words were made available and put to use. When etymologists lack readily available information on language history, they employ the method of comparative-linguistics to fill in whatever gaps there might be with regard to the respective language construction. Then, by examining similar languages through this method, etymologists can discover similarities between the language at hand and its vocabulary.

Flourishing Creativity & Literacy

IJALEL 4(4):248-255, 2015 249 This method is that by which word origins are traced to their original sources - for example, the Indo-European source. Regardless of the fact that philology gave rise to the etymological tradition, much of the research that is done today is related to language-families such as Austronesian and Uralic that fail to bring with them earlier documentation . 1.2 Word Origin Types Theories of etymology assert that the origins of words come from only a few outlets - those being 'compounding' and 'derivation', borrowing 'loanwords' from others, 'symbolism' and 'onomatopoeia'. Time plays an important role in this process given that although word origins are often readily known at first, over time they become less known due to changes in their semantics (Bauer, 1983). For example, as a result of semantic changes over time, the word 'sit' in English has its root in the word 'set' in English, 'set' here serving as the causative formation of 'sit'. A less clear example is the fact that the English word 'bless' is a causative formation of the English word 'blood'. In fact, 'bless' originally meant to mark or cover with blood. 1.3 History While modern conceptions of the evolution of languages and the relationships thereof began quite recently - in the eighteenth century to be exact - the search for the origins of words dates back much further. Throughout time, original etymological understandings had in fact adapted to modern demands. There is no doubt that any study of the etymology of words and origins of names should take in consideration different phenomena including contact between languages and borrowing from one language into another. These issues are also very interrelated and interconnected with social and cultural factors relevant to people who belong to certain speech communities. All of these issues together are extremely important for the study of etymology in terms of American state names. Therefore, this particular study cannot ignore the salient historical and socio-linguistic role played by language contact in relation to culture and society. The social and linguistic history of the United States of America becomes so important in order for us to understand how the American states got their names. Different historians and socio-linguistic scholars dealt with this particular issue during the past several centuries of American history. Such scholars include (Mithun, 1999 & Campbell, 1997), for example. These two scholars were among the most popular and authoritative to conduct thorough investigations into the etymological history of languages in North America. Their research in this particular area was considered as a primary source of information for purposes of this study. 2. Purpose This research article aims at examining the development and etymology of the names of the American states. Moreover, it emphasizes their sociolinguistic development at the backdrop of the etymological and semantic features of the names and in light of how the names came into being. 3. Methodology This research article is qualitative and descriptive in that it relies heavily on a theoretical examination of the American states' names origins. The authors of this article seek to rely heavily on prominent etymological theories. In addition, the information made available on each state's official website will be looked at in order to provide informative specifics in relation to each respective state. Data collected will then be analyzed, classified and compiled in accordance with such methods. More specifically, all states names will be listed alphabetically and the most accurate data will be made available under each name. Emphasis will be given to the linguistic origins of each name in order to delineate potential commonalities. 4. Limitations This research article is limited to examining the semantic and etymological roots of the names of the American states. It examines these factors solely within the framework of the sociolinguistic process that defined the respective states names. In addition, it clarifies who the original settlers of each of the fifty states are in order to delineate their cultural and linguistic role in relation to each of the states' names. 5. Discussion The following is a discussion of the etymology of the names of the American states based on all of the best available sociolinguistic data. Such data was collected from etymological theorists and official sources and documents such as dictionaries of etymologies (Douglas, 2014), historio-linguistic sources (Pulju, 1991 & Campbell, 2004), encyclopedias (Frawley, 2004 & Crystal, 1997) and the official websites of the respective states. As Robert Louis Stevenson rightfully asserts, "There is no part of the world, where nomenclature is so rich, poetical, humorous and picturesque as in the United States of America" (Mencken, 1921). 5.1 Alabama Alabama's state name origin has been much contested among etymologists. Its original inhabitants were a southern Native American tribe who had lived in what is now the central part of Alabama. A river in the state had first been named 'Alabama' then the state itself was named after the river. Early British, French and Spanish observers spelled the state's name differently from the onset; for example, it had been spelled in all of the following manners at one point: Allibamou, Alabamu, Alibamon, Alibamou, Alibama, Alebamon, Albama and Alabama. The state name originally occurred in three chronicles of de Soto's 1540 expedition; de la Vega had written the state name as 'Alibamo', the Knight of Elvas had written the state name as Alibamu and Ranjel had written the state name as Limamau in accordance with common practice of Native American languages at the time. As chronicled by these observers, however, the state name originally referred to a Chickasaw subdivision rather than the state of Alabama as it is today.

IJALEL 4(4):248-255, 2015 250 Although it is widely believed that 'Alabama' originated in the works of Meek, the fact of the matter is that its use can be traced back to an 1842 issue of the Republican. Wright traced the name Alabama to origins referring to forest clearers, with alba indicating vegetative mass that was large and amo indicating a gathering or collecting of such vegetative mass. 5.2 Alaska The name 'Alaska' originates from the word alaxsxaq, which is Yupik and refers to the land mass that sits in front of the sea. Russia, having been the first people from Europe to travel to Alaska, originally spelled the state's name 'Alysaka'. Obviously, when the Russians sold Alaska to the United States of America, the name underwent only a small change (Ransom, 1940). 5.3 Arizona Arizona was originally called so by the Spanish who rooted the word in the Basque term arizonac, which stood for 'oak'. It is interesting that the Spanish used a Basque word to refer to the state because at the time it was part of Mexico at the time. Nonetheless, the name is probably of Native American origins - perhaps of Pima origin more specifically - referring to a land with little water. 5.4 Arkansas French travelers of the seventeenth century came into contact with indigenous folks of the Mississippi delta that referred to each other as the Ugakhpa or people from downstream. The French, on the other hand, decided to spell this name as Quapaw, which would eventually become the official spelling of the name of Dhegilan Siouan origin. Interestingly, those that accompanied the French travellers called the Quapaw Akansa which mean people of the wind. Pike, in 1811, would later change the name to Arkansaw. Some, however, later chose to adopt the French spelling with the addition of an 's' at the end. This gave the name a similarity to that of 'Kansas'. It was not until the state's GA later decided to pronounce the name arkensaw with a silent 's' while spelling the state name 'Arkansas'. 5.5 California The state name 'California' originated in de Montalvo's usage in 1510 referring to an island west of the Indies populated by dark women. More specifically, it gets its origins from the roots forn and cali meaning 'hot oven'. Missionaries from Spain also referred to the area as such. 5.6 Colorado Colorado, having been decided upon by Congress in 1861, means 'colorful' or 'colored' in Spanish. 5.7 Connecticut The Native American tribe the 'Mohicans' named the main river in Connecticut; the state itself was then named after the river. In the Mohicans' native language, the word refers to the area next to the river. 5.8 Delaware The Delaware Bay and the Delaware River played a key role in naming the state. They were both named after West. Even the Native American tribes in the state were named by English colonizers. The tribe was originally the 'Lenape' tribe. 5.9 Florida The state name 'Florida' originates in a Spanish reference to the season of Easter, which means 'flower feast'. 5.10 Georgia The state name 'Georgia' was named after George II of England. Its original settlers were from prison in London who had owed great amounts of debts. As a result of approval for their settlement, the settlers named the colony after the king after travelling up the Savannah River. 5.11 Hawaii Though there is a lack of evidence with regard to the origins of the state name 'Hawaii', some researchers claim that it was named after its original discoverer. Other researchers claim that it refers to the biggest island. Cook even called Hawaii the Sandwich Islands at one point. Nonetheless, the state name of 'Hawaii' is much contested. 5.12 Idaho The state name Idaho originated from the Kiowa-Apache term idaahe which meant 'enemy. This was the name that the Kiowa tribe gave the Comanche tribe after they met with them in Colorado and their resulted a territory dispute which shortly turned into a battle thereafter. It was first used to refer to Idaho as a state (as opposed to its previous usage referring to Idaho Springs) in 1863. 5.13 Illinois French travellers originally named the state river Illinois. The state itself was subsequently named Illinois after the river. The river was named originally after the Illiniwek tribal peoples. 5.14 Indiana Originally formed out of the Northwest Territory in 1800, this state name means the area of the Indians. It was named by Congress and in 1816 officially became part of the Union. 5.15 Iowa Originally a Dakota Sioux term referring to the Iowa tribe (the indigenous inhabitants of the land) and meaning those who are sleepy, the state name was given to the territory that is now Iowa in 1879. Interestingly, the tribe Iowa reverts to a traditional story of a time in which strong winds covered their faces with ash, lending them the name gray-head.

IJALEL 4(4):248-255, 2015 251 5.16 Kansas Like some previously-mentioned states, this state itself was named after a river that was named Kansas before it. In fact, the river was called Kaw after the indigenous peoples of the land. This same tribe had been previously referred to as the Kanza - hence, the name Kansas. 5.17 Kentucky Similarly, the state name Kentucky itself was named after the state's main river, the Kentucky River. Though the river's name origin is debated, some trace it to Iroquoian roots referring to a meadow, an Algonquian term referring to the bottom of a river and a Shawnee term meaning the head of a river. It is most widely believed, however, to be rooted in the Iroquoian word kentahteh which means the next day. 5.18 Louisiana Louisiana was named after King Louis XIV. Though it took its name in 1682, its original settlement was founded by a Canadian named d'Iberville in Fort Maurepas. Fort Maurepas is near modern-day Biloxi. 5.19 Maine Maine is perhaps the most disputed state name. Its origins are practically unknown. All that is known about it is that after much debate, King Charles demanded that the state be called 'Mayne' and nothing else. 20. Maryland After passing away in 1632, George Calvert's wish for a new charter for Maryland was granted to his son Caecilius. The state name 'Maryland' was named after Maria, Charles I's Queen Consort. 5.21 Massachusetts Referring to the Great Blue Hills near Milton, Massachusetts, this state name referred to the indigenous Massachusett tribe. Some argue, however, that the Great Blue Hills was originally called Arrowhead Hill. 5.22 Michigan Meaning big or great lake, this state was named after its main lake, similar to other states. 5.23 Minnesota Minne is derived from 'mni' meaning water and sota meaning murky. The Dakota tribe, when sharing this name with the colonists, explained the name by dropping sand into water in order to show murky water. The colonists, in turn, dropped, then at the beginning of mni and added 'i' so as to make it easier to pronounce in English. Other state locations have mni origins at the beginning of them as well. For example, Minnetrista, Minneapolis and Minnehaha. 5.24 Mississippi Like many other states, Mississippi is named after its main state river. Its river is its westernmost border. The Ojibwa term Messipi is the main root origin of what would later become the state name. 5.25 Missouri Similarly, the state name Missouri was taken after the state river itself. The river was named after a Sioux tribe who went by the name of the Missouris. They had inhabited the lands closest to the river. The term Missouri also means big canoe (McCafferty, 2004). 5.26 Montana This state name originally was derived from the term for 'mountain' in Spanish, although its original application and use has been heavily debated. Nonetheless, it took on its official name in 1864. It is the forty-first state. 5.27 Nebraska The state name 'Nebraska' originally came into being through an explorer's contact with the Missouri-Oto tribe who lived along the Platte River. The explorer, Fremont, understood from the tribe that the river meant 'flat river'. Fremont argued that the name of the state should be Nebraska. This decision was approved in 1844. 5.28 Nevada This state name was originally derived from the Spanish term meaning 'snow-filled'. It became formalized in 1861 when President Buchanan formed the territory. In 1864, it became the thirty-sixth state under President Lincoln. 5.29 New Hampshire Named after John Mason in 1629, this area refers to Hampshire, an English area where Mason had grown up as a young boy. 5.30 New Jersey This state was named after Jersey, an English Channel island. Carteret, the territory's founder, was born in Jersey was its governor for many years. 5.31 New Mexico Established in 1850 after the US beat Mexico in the 1846-1848 War, the state was originally owned by New Spain, which was what Mexico was called before it became independent from Spain. 5.32 New York New York was established out of a land grant from Charles II, his brother. The Duke of York sent for its capture in 1664 after receiving the land grant. 5.33 North Carolina The term 'Carolina' is derived from the name Charles. Indeed, Charles I, before being executed in 1649, established, among other places, North Carolina's colony.

IJALEL 4(4):248-255, 2015 252 34. North Dakota Before 1880, South and North Dakota were one land mass. Regardless, however, the area was named after the Dakota tribe. 5.35 Ohio The state name 'Ohio' is widely debated, with some claiming that it refers to a river that is beautiful. It is widely held, however, that the state name originated from Iroquoian and means the large one. 5.36 Oklahoma Wright, Choctaw Nation chief until 1870, gave the state of Oklahoma its name. Oklahoma is derived from 'huma', which means red, and 'person', which means ukla. Oklahoma therefore refers to 'red persons'. 5.37 Oregon This state name's first usage can be traced back to 1778, when Carver borrowed it from Rogers' petition to Great Britain in 1775. It is unknown how Carver acquired knowledge of Rogers' use of the word. However, he could have possibly heard it from his many encounters with the Mohegan tribe. 5.38 Pennsylvania Like New York and New Jersey, Pennsylvania originated out of a land grant given to William Penn by Charles II for a large debt that had been owed to Penn's father. This occurred in 1681 (Donehoo, 1998). 5.39 Rhode Island This state name's first usage dates back to 1524, when da Verrazzano, an Italian traveler, compared the Narragansett Bay to the Mediterranean Island of Rhodes. Knowledge of the state name was printed and given to settlers before they arrived in Rhode Island. 5.40 South Carolina South Carolina shares the exact same history as North Carolina with regard to its name. The term 'Carolina' is derived from the name Charles. Indeed, Charles I, before being executed in 1649, established, among other places, North Carolina's colony. 5.41 South Dakota Before 1880, South and North Dakota were one land mass. Regardless, however, the area was named after the Dakota tribe. 5.42. Tennessee Travelling from South Caroling, Pardo, a Spanish traveler came across the indigenous village of Tanasqui. Tennessee was named after this village. Unlike most other state names, the word 'Tennessee' has no specific meaning but is simply the name of a tribe. 5.43 Texas The state name Texas has its root in teysha, which means 'friend, hello' in the language of Caddoan Indians. Teysha, moreover, was used for greetings among tribes in Oklahoma, Louisiana and Texas (William, 1961). 5.44 Utah The state name 'Utah' comes from Navajo origins and refers to those people that live on the mountains. Interestingly, when tribes who lived on the mountains came into contact with Europeans, they were referred to as 'Utes'. 5.45 Vermont The state name 'Vermont' was officially adopted in 1777. The name was originally proposed by Young, a statesman of Pennsylvania who argued that the constitution of Pennsylvania would be the best model for Vermont. 5.46 Virginia Queen Elizabeth I named the whole Raleigh expedition along the North American coast 'Virginia'. It later applied to the area from Maine to South Carolina. 5.47 Washington Named after Washington (and being the only state to be named after a US president), the State of Washington was named as a territory in 1853. It officially became a state, however, in 1889. 5.48 West Virginia Queen Elizabeth I named the whole Raleigh expedition along the North American coast 'Virginia'. It later applied to the area from Maine to South Carolina. Instead of joining the Confederacy, what is presently referred to as West Virginia resulted for secession from the State of Virginia. 5.49 Wisconsin Originally from Algonquian, the word 'Wisconsin' comes from Miskous and Mescousing, which mean red rock. Knowledge of this word was originally acquired from the Kickapoo tribe. A different but related Algonguian tribe, the Mesquakie referred to themselves as the people of the red earth. This fact could also have played a key role in the etymology of the name (McCafferty, 2003). 5.50 Wyoming This state name's first usage was derived from the land of the Lenapes and was first used to name the Wyoming Valley. The state itself later took on its name. Its first official use was in 1865. Though its name was in line with other names to be chosen for the state, Wyoming had already gained popularity, so it was chosen as the state's name. The following table (table 1) below provides a brief summary of the etymological information outlined above:

IJALEL 4(4):248-255, 2015 253 Table 1. Origin of American state names.

State name Date of first

original language

Year of first original

language Language of origin Word of origin

Alabama April 19 1742 Choctaw albah amo

Alaska December 2 1897 Aleut via Russian alaxsxaq via

Аляска

Arizona February 1 1883

Basque aritz ona

O'odham via Spanish ali ṣona-g via Arizonac

Spanish zonas áridas Arkansas

July 20 1796 Kansa, via Illinois and French akaansa

California May 22 1850 Spanish Unknown

Colorado 1743 Spanish colorado

Connecticut April 15 1675 Eastern Algonquian quinnitukqut

Delaware January 31 1680 French via English de la Warr

Florida December 28 1819 Spanish (pascua) florida

Georgia October 3 1674 Latin via English

(ultimately from Greek) Georgos

Hawaii December 29 1879 Hawaiian Hawaii

Idaho June 6 1864 English I-dah-hoe

Plains Apache Ídaahę́ Illinois

March 24 1793 Algonquian via French ilenweewa

Indiana December 2 1794 Latin (ultimately from

Proto-Indo-Iranian)

Iowa August 31 1818 Dakota via French ayúxba/ayuxwe

via Aiouez Kansas

May 12 1832 Kansa via French kką:ze via Cansez

Kentucky April 28 1728 Iroquoian

Louisiana July 18 1787 French (ultimately from

Frankish) Louisiane

Maine October 13 1729 English main

French English

Maryland January 18 1691 English (ultimately from

Hebrew) Miryam

Massachusetts June 4 1665 Algonquian

Michigan October 28 1811 Ojibwe via French mishigami

Minnesota April 21 1821 Dakota mnisota

Mississippi March 9 1800 Ojibwe via French misi-ziibi

Missouri September 7 1805 Illinois mihsoori

Montana November 1 1860 Spanish montaña

Nebraska June 22 1847 Chiwere ñįbraske

Nevada February 9 1845 Spanish

IJALEL 4(4):248-255, 2015 254 New Hampshire

August 27 1692 English

New Jersey April 2 1669 French (ultimately from

Old Norse)

New Mexico November 1 1859 Nahuatl via Spanish Mēxihco via

Nuevo México New York

October 15 1680 English

North Carolina June 30 1686 Latin via English

(ultimately from Frankish) Carolus via Carolana

North Dakota November 2 1867 Sioux dakhóta

Ohio April 19 1785 Seneca via French ohi:yo’

Oklahoma September 5 1842 Choctaw okla + homa

Oregon July 20 1860 Connecticut Pidgin

Algonquian wauregan

Pennsylvania March 8 1650 Welsh and Latin Penn + silvania

Rhode Island February 3 1680 Dutch roodt eylandt

South Carolina November 12 1687 Latin via English

(ultimately from Frankish) Carolus via Carolana

South Dakota November 2 1867 Sioux dakhóta

Tennessee May 24 1747 Cherokee tanasi

Texas June 30 1827 Caddo via Spanish táysha via Tejas

Utah December 20 1877 Western Apache via

Spanish yúdah via yuta

Vermont September 27 1721 French vert + mont

Virginia March 21 1652 Latin

Washington February 22 1872 English

West Virginia September 1 1831 Latin

Wisconsin February 5 1822 Miami via French Wishkonsing

Wyoming August 14 1877 Munsee Delaware xwé:wamənk

6. Conclusions As a reminder, it is definitely worth mentioning here that the purpose of this paper is to investigate the etymological origin of American state names. In addition to the reasons behind the names given to the states and how each state received its name, the present study sheds light on the various ethnic groups to which the original settlers of these states belong taking in consideration their different linguistic background. Furthermore, it explains the process through which each state reviewed its name and how such names came to being over time. In sum, the study takes in consideration a number of socio-linguistic and cultural factors that collectively had a great impact on the naming process eventually giving each American state its name as we know it today. Based on the discussion above, and after consulting various authoritative references dealing with the historical development of the etymology of American state names, the following conclusions were reached:

1. All fifty states have acquired their names from a diverse assortment of languages (Bright, 2004). This is an inevitable fact due to the phenomenon of language contact and the fact that different settlers brought with them different native languages and particular social and regional dialects (Crowley, 1992). For example, the names of twenty-four of the states come from languages indigenous to the Americas and one name comes from Hawaiian.

2. Eight states' names are derived from Algonquian languages (Mahr, 1959). 3. Seven states' names are derived from Siouan languages. 4. Three states' names are derived from Iroquoian languages. 5. One state derives its name from a Uto-Aztecan language.

IJALEL 4(4):248-255, 2015 255 6. Five states derive their names from other languages indigenous to the Americas. 7. Twenty-two of the other states derive their names from languages of Europe. Seven states derive their names

from Latin; five states derive their names from English; five states derive their names from Spanish and five states derive their names from French (Hodge, 1911).

8. The origins of the names of six states are contested: Rhode Island, Oregon, Maine, Idaho, Hawaii and Arizona. 9. Eleven states are named after individuals. For example, seven states are named after queens and kings. These

include North and South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia, Georgia, Louisiana and Maryland. 10. Interestingly, only one state was named after a president – Washington (Guyton, 2009).

In conclusion, it is fair to say that the etymological origin of American state names is as varied linguistically as it is socially and culturally. Most of the states' names went through a long process of coinage and no state received its name and kept it without going through a process of change and development. The original languages of the settlers of American states had the most impact on the naming process coupled with other cultural and social factors including the occasional desire of some settlers to commemorate their original place from which they migrated to America. In addition, there as a clear desire of certain settlers to commemorate some kings and queens of their original laces from which they migrated to America. This was mostly true in the case of European immigrants. This also became evident if we take a careful look a place names within such states. It becomes clear that a large number of places is named after original English and European towns that existed and still do exist in their original countries. Finally, it would be safe to claim that regardless of any controversy surrounding the etymological history of American state names, the names of all fifty states have long become household names familiar to not only people who live in the United States of America, but also to the vast majority of people who live throughout the world even without ever paying much attention to or thinking about the etymological history of such states or the true reasons that exist behind the names. 6.1 Suggestions for Further Research As a clear outcome of this study into the etymology of American state names, it would be of great interest and linguistic research value to conduct similar etymological studies investigating the historical and socio-linguistic origin of American place names including town and county names. It would also be interested to find out the reasons for such names and their linguistic origins comparing and contrasting the findings of such studies to the findings of this study. This would no doubt shed light on the history of the United States of America and relate the socio-linguistic findings to the political history of the country and how that history developed and changed over time. References Bauer, L. (1983). English word-formation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139165846. Bright, W. (2004). Native American place names of the United States. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press. Campbell, L. (2004). Historical linguistics: An introduction. Boston, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. Campbell, L. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of native America. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Crowley, T. (1992). An introduction to historical linguistics. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Crystal, D. (1997). The Cambridge encyclopedia of language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Donehoo, G. P.(1998). A History of the Indian villages and place names in Pennsylvania. Harrisburg, PA: Telegraph Press. Douglas, H. (2014). Etymology. Online Etymology Dictionary. Frawley, W. (2004). International encyclopedia of linguistics. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. DOI:10.1093/acref/9780195139778.001.0001. Guyton, K. (2009). U.S. state names: The stories of how our states were named. Nederland, Colorado: Mountain Storm Press. Hodge, F. W. (1911). Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. DOI:10.2307/197770. Liddell, H. G. & Scott, R. (1940). A Greek-English lexicon. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press. Mahr, A. C. (1959). Practical reasons for Algonkian Indian stream and place names. Ohio Journal of Science, 59(6), 365–375. McCafferty, M. (2004). Correction: Etymology of Missouri. American Speech, 79(1), 1-32. DOI:10.1215/00031283-79-1-32. McCafferty, M. (2003). On Wisconsin: The derivation and referent of an old puzzle in American place names. Onoma, 38, 39-56. Mencken, H. L. (1921). The American language: An inquiry into the development of English in the United States. New York City, New York: A. A. Knopf Publishing House. Mithun, M. (1999). Languages of native North America. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Pulju, T. (1991). A short history of American linguistics. Historiographia Linguistica, 18(1), 221-246. Ransom, J. E. (1940). Derivation of the word ‘Alaska’. American Anthropologist, 42(3), 550–551. DOI:10.1525/aa.1940.42.3.02a00340. William, W. N. (1961). The Indians of Texas. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

Disjoint Reference in Modern Standard Arabic

Islam M. Al-Momani Department of English Language and Literature, Princess Alia University College

Al-Balqa’ Applied University, Amman, Jordan E-mail: almomani_islam@yahoo.com

Received: 20-12- 2014 Accepted: 26-02- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015 Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.256 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.256 Abstract The paper aims at providing an explanation of pronominals in Modern Standard Arabic (hereafter MSA) by assuming that the relation between pronouns and available binders is constrained by the same syntactic condition, i.e., a pronoun cannot be coindexed with a c-commanding NP within its local domain. It also aims at providing a unified account of two types of pronominals in MSA, referential and bound pronouns. These two types of pronouns have different values for their binders; where a referential pronoun requires a name to be coindexed with; a bound pronoun requires a distinct subject, i.e., a quantifier as its binder. The paper adopts Principle B of the theory of binding to account for these pronouns by examining how this principle can express the content of disjoint reference for pronouns embedded in Ss, NPs and PPs in MSA and to see whether the phenomenon of disjoint reference in Arabic supports principle (B). Keywords: Arabic, principle (B), pronominals, reflexives, coindexation, local domain, government 1. Introduction The theory of binding has been the focus of a wide array of an extensive scholarly literature since the emergence of Generative Syntax. Within this approach, binding constraints on coreference are usually defined in syntactic terms and considerable efforts in the last three decades have been directed at attempting to define the constraints on corefernce within and across sentences. This theory makes another prediction by claiming that anaphors and pronominal are in complementary distribution, for instance, in English, reciprocals and reflexives fall into the category of anaphors; whereas, personal pronouns fall into the category of pronominals. It assumes that anaphors and pronominals must be in complementary distribution since anaphors must be locally A-bound (principle A), whereas pronominals must be locally A-free (principle B). In order to explain that reflexives and pronouns in English must be in complementary distribution, consider the following examples:

1. a. John i blamed himself i /him *i b. John i thinks that Bill blamed himself *i / him i.

The grammatical property which has been modeled syntactically based on the structural position of the pronoun’s (reflexive or non-reflexive) referent holds in relation to the pronoun itself. Thus, the binding theory concerns itself with “co-indexation relation” (the relation of bearing the same index between any two nominal expressions occupying argument positions in a sentence), and seeks to express the constraints on this relation. The binding theory plays a crucial role in syntactic theory; its constraints are designed to predict that the referential domains of reflexives and pronouns are nonoverlapping, i.e., are in complementary distribution. In English, for instance, the pronoun him and the reflexive himself, as shown in (1) above, are nearly in complementary distribution, i.e., their referential domains are nearly completely nonoverlapping. This observation plays a central role to formulate structural conditions that form the base of current theories of ‘binding’ (for an overview, see Chomsky 1981, 1986, 1995, Lasnik 1989, Safir 2004). However, the following sentence raises a question: are reflexives and pronominals in English in complementary distribution?

2. John i stung the rope around himself i /him i

Here, the reflexive pronoun himself and the personal pronoun him in (2) are members of different classes of NPs that the binding theory does not handle (this will be the center point when we discuss binding and PPs). The majority of the literature of anaphora (the three basic principles of the theory of binding) argues that the term ‘anaphor’ as opposed to ‘pronominal’ is an assumption that the lexical item is in some way referentially dependent on an antecedent; whereas, a pronominal is not. In the syntactic literature, the identity of dependency is based on a structural, syntactic relationship. According to Safir (2004:185), a form is pronominal if “it consists only of a bundle of grammatical features with no idiosyncratic lexical or semantic content…”; anaphors on the other hand completely lack inherent semantic content.

Flourishing Creativity & Literacy

IJALEL 4(4):256-267, 2015 257 The distribution of anaphora has been the central issue in the syntactic literature as done by Chomsky (1981, 1986, 1995), Chomsky and Lasnik (1993), Pollard and Sag (1994), Reinhart and Reuland (1993), and Safir (2004) while discussing English anaphora. Anaphoric distribution, in the different versions of the standard binding theory, is based on some type of some command relationship as the C-command within Chomskyan syntax (this paper adopts this condition while analyzing pronominals in Arabic) or the O-command in Head Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) of Pollard and Sag (1994). The basic idea in HPSG is that NPs of different sorts obey different hierarchical conditions on their interpretation according to their position on the SUBCAT(egorization) list of a given predicate. This hierarchical condition is stated in terms of local O(bliqueness)-command:

3. Let Y and Z be synsem objects with distinct LOCAL values, Y referential. Then Y locally o-commands Z just in case Y is less oblique than Z. (Pollard and Sag 1994: 253)

The definition in(3) states that one synsem object Y locally o-commands another Z just in case they are both on the same SUBCAT list and Y is less oblique than Z. Based on their definition of local o-command, Pollard and Sag’s definition of local o- binding is as the following:

4. Y (locally) o-binds Z just in case Y and Z are coindexed and Y (locally) o-commands Z. If Z is not (locally) o-bound, then it is said to be (locally) o-free.

(Pollard and Sag 1994:254) 2. Objectives and Methodology The theory of binding has claimed to formulate and systematize fundamental principles which characterize and constrain the relations of anaphors and pronouns to possible antecedents. Arabic has a complicated system of pronominal usage, with numerous pronominal variants and pronominally used forms that are determined by the social roles and the role-relationships of speech participants, which in turn are governed by social and cultural factors such as the context of discourse, formality, age and sex. Thus, the main objective of this study, therefore, is to evaluate critically Principle B of the binding theory with pronominal constructions possible mainly in Arabic. In order to pursuing the objectives of this paper to a consistent end, the researcher follows a complex system of methodology. The historical-descriptive approach has been applied to get hold of a historical background and record a descriptive analysis of the theory of binding and its development in the generative linguistic domain of anaphora. The comparative approach has, also, been used to analyze Arabic pronouns and compare them to those in English to present the functional similarities between pronouns in both languages. Finally, the researcher follows the analytical approach to analyze all the MSA data. The data used here are an amalgamation of genuine sentences uttered by native speakers of Arabic. Authentic grammar books are also used as sources; furthermore, a few Arab grammarians and professors of Arabic language are referred to for their consultation and testing the validity of the data. 3. Hypothesis The paper is designed to analyze “pronominals in Arabic” in the light of Principle B of the Binding Theory (BT). In order to weigh up the explanatory and satisfactoriness of this principle, this paper aims at checking whether “pronominals in MSA” are satisfying Principle B of BT or not, i.e., can they be explained and accounted properly under this existing theory or cannot? The following symbols are used to represent certain Arabic sounds that don’t match IPA symbols. /T/ voiceless alveo-dental emphatic stop /ḍ/ voiced alveo-dental emphatic stop /ṣ/ voiceless alveolar emphatic fricative /ћ/ voiceless pharyngeal fricative /c/ voiced pharyngeal fricative /q/ voiceless uvular stop /ġ/ voiced velar fricative /x/ voiceless velar fricative 4. Discussion 4.1 General Over-viewing of Chomsky’s Theory of Binding The theory of binding first presented by Chomsky (1981) based on Reinhart’s (1976) C-Command analysis. The theory of binding, according to Chomsky (1981), is composed of three principles: Principle A deals with pure anaphors like the reflexive pronoun ‘himself’ as in (1a). Principle B deals with pronominals like the personal pronoun ‘him’ as in (1b). Principle C deals with R-expressions like full noun phrases or proper names. Chomsky defines principles A and B in

IJALEL 4(4):256-267, 2015 258 terms of two notions: C-Command and Governing Category (see (13) and (12a and b) below). C-command is a notion of syntactic prominence that corresponds to the structural relation that holds between an operator and a variable in logic; whereas, governing category is a notion of locality which corresponds to the minimal domain containing a predicate and all its arguments, including the subject. Principle A states that an anaphor must be coreferential with a c-commanding noun phrase in its governing category; while, principle B states that a pronominal must not be coreferential with any c-commanding noun phrase in its governing category. Chomsky (1981) argues that nominal expressions are classified into four types based on the two valued features [anaphoric] and [pronominal]. The theory of binding organizes the four categories as follows:

5. Types of NPs [+ anaphoric, - pronominal] anaphors. [- anaphoric, + pronominal] pronominals.

[- anaphoric, - pronominal] R-expressions. [+ anaphoric, + pronominal] PRO.

These four types of NPs are exemplified as in the following sentences:

6. a. Anaphor: Bill saw himself in the mirror. b. Pronominal: Bill saw him. c. R-expression: Bill saw John. d. PRO: John wants [PRO to leave].

(6a, b, and c) exemplify three types of overt nominals; whereas, (6d) exemplifies the binding of a hypothesized null anaphor PRO. The distribution and analysis of the first three types of NPs are handled by the Binding theory, while the relation of PRO (the unexpressed subject of non-finite clauses) to its antecedent falls under the theory of Control. Consider (7) and (8) where the former illustrates obligatory control and the latter optional control:

7. The teacher asked his studenti [PROi to leave the classroom] 8. Johni thinks that [PROi/j to win the game] is not easy.

In (7), the unexpressed subject of the non-finite clause is his student, while in (8), the null subject can correspond either to John or anybody else. The range of anaphoric relations among nominal phrases in sentences is regulated by the principles of the theory of binding. That is, for each type of overt nominal expressions, a binding requirement specifies the domain within which a nominal can or cannot have an antecedent. In a somewhat simplified description of the standard formulation of this theory (Chomsky 1981, 1986; Chomsky and Lasnik 1993), it consists of the following principles:

9. Binding theory (BT): Principle A: An anaphor must be bound in a local domain. Principle B: A pronominal must be free in a local domain. Principle C: An R-expression is free.

Anaphors and pronominals can be referentially dependent on another NP, namely, their antecedents. An anaphor picks its reference from the subject NP “antecedent” within the same sentence In sentence (10), for instance, the subject NP John on which the reflexive pronoun himself is dependent for its interpretation is the antecedent. We indicate that the anaphor and its antecedent have the same referent by means of coindexation.

10. John i shot himself i

The interpretation of pronouns, which is the main concern of this paper, differs from that of reflexives. The pronoun him in sentence (11) must refer to an entity different from the subject NP John, while the reflexive pronoun in the same position in sentence (10) must refer to an entity denoted by John. Whereas the reflexive must be bound, the pronoun must be free.

11. *John i shot him i.

(The asterisk in sentence (11) refers to the ungrammaticality of the particular coindexation).

IJALEL 4(4):256-267, 2015 259 Since the theory of binding is developed within the theory of government, it makes use of the fundamental notions: “govern” and “governing category” in order to decide the local domain of pronominals and reflexives. The tow notions are characterized by Chomsky as in (12a and b).

12. a. α govern β iff: i. α = X

ii. α c-commands β iii. β is not protected by a maximal projection.

(Chomsky1981:163) b. α is the governing category for β iff α is the minimal category containing β a

governor of β, where α = NP or S. (Chomsky 1981:188)

In (12a), α (= X) represents a lexical category, i.e., N, V, A, or P. Maximal projections are: CP, IP, VP, AP, NP, and PP. The word “protected” in condition (iii) of (12a) is understood in the following way: β is protected by a maximal projection if the latter includes β but not α. In the general case “government” is the relation between a lexical head and its complement. So, the heads verbal, nominal, prepositional, and adjectival constructions govern the elements they are subcategorized for. Moreover, INFL or (AGR in INFL) governs the subject of a tensed clause. The subject of an embedded infinitival construction is governed by the complementizer “for” in the comp. position, or by a matrix verb which has the property of inducing S(ubject) deletion in its complement, if either of these is present, if neither is present the subject of an embedded infinitive is ungoverned. Moreover, the notion of C (constituent) Command hereafter: C- Command Condition established by Reinhart (1976, 81, 83) plays a crucial role in Chomsky’s theory of binding. She states her definition as follows:

13. “Node A c-commands node B if neither A nor B dominates the other and the first branching node which dominates A dominates B.”

(Reinhart (1976: 32))

So, X is considered to be bound by Y if X is c-commanded by Y and co-indexed with it. But X is considered to be free if it’s not co-indexed with Y as shown in (10) and (11) above. Additionally, an interpretive procedure is needed to interpret coindexed NPs as coreferential and noncoindexed NPs as non-coreferential (see Chomsky and Lasnik 1993; Chomsky 1995). To unify the indexing procedure and the interpretive procedure, Chomsky and Lasnik (1993) restate the binding principles as interpretive procedures, dispensing with the indexing procedure. Their formulation is as in (14).

14. Interpretive binding theory: Condition A: If α is an anaphor, interpret it as coreferential with a c-commanding phrase in D. Condition B: If α is a pronoun, interpret it as disjoint from every c-commanding phrase in D. Condition C: If α is an R-expression, interpret it as disjoint from every c-commanding phrase.

This version is as version (9) requires the concept of local domain. The difference between the interpretive version in (14) and the standard version in (9) is that under the latter, binding principles are conditions on representations; whereas, under the former, the binding principles are interpretive procedures that assign certain interpretive relations among phrases and are, by nature, derivational.( this paper adopts the definition in (9). Another assumption has to do with the way the BT applies to chains formed by Movement and Copy (Chomsky 1995). This is a version of the Chain Uniformity Condition (CUC) (see Chomsky 1995, Brass 1986, and Freiden and Vergnaud 2001). A question that arises at this point: At what point of syntactic derivation do the principles of BT apply? Under Principles and Parameters, the BT is satisfied at a single level of representation, i.e., the level of S-structure (Chomsky 1981, Brass 1986, among others). Under minimalist assumptions, the levels of D-structure and S-structure are eliminated, therefore, analyses relying on these levels are not viable. Thus, under Chomsky’s minimalist program, BT is claimed to apply at LF exclusively (see Chomsky 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, and 1995). 4.2 Disjoint Reference in Arabic 4.2.1 Pronouns in Verbal Object Positions Like English, in Arabic, the overt pronoun system contains lexical anaphors and pronominals that can be distinguished from each other precisely in the way that they may select their antecedents. Chomsky (1995) assumes that an anaphor (reflexive pronouns) must have a c-commanding antecedent within its governing category, which is handled by

IJALEL 4(4):256-267, 2015 260 principle A of the theory of binding, pronominals (non-reflexive pronouns), on the other hand, can be classified as referential pronouns which are handled by principle B of the same theory. In a verbal object position, Arabic reflexive and non-reflexive pronouns exhibit complementary distribution. Thus, in the following sentences, where the reflexive pronoun nafs (self) can be bound by an antecedent in its governing category, i.e., ‘IP’, the pronoun hu must be free in that governing category.

15. a. Zaid-uni ?intaqada nafsahui Zaid-nom criticized himself ‘Zaid criticized himself.’

b.*Zaid-uni ?intaqada-hui

Zaid-nom criticized-him ‘Zaid criticized him.’

The data in (15) exhibit complementarity that refers to the fact that in direct object position in Arabic, the reflexive pronoun nahsahu, himself can only be interpreted as having the same semantic value as its clause-mate antecedent, Zaidun; whereas, the non-reflexive pronoun hu, him can only be interpreted as finding its reference outside the sentence; the antecedent of hu can never be the subject NP Zaidun. Once a pronoun is separated from its antecedent by a clause boundary, the sentence becomes grammatical as in (16).

16. IP[Zaid-uni yactaqidu CP[?anna IP[Hind-an tuћibu-hui]]]

IP[Zaid-nom thinks CP[that IP[Hind-acc loves-him]]] ‘Zaid thinks that Hind loves him.’

However, a reflexive pronoun in the same position of the pronoun in (16) will lead to the ungrammaticality of the sentence as in (17).

17. * IP[Zaid-uni yactaqidu CP[?anna IP[Hind-an tuћibu nafsahui]]]

IP[Zaid-nom thinks CP[that IP[Hind-acc loves himself]]] ‘Zaid thinks that Hind loves himself.’

Based on the aforementioned examples, I claim that among the imaginable anaphoric relations in the direct object position in Arabic, some are necessary, some are possible, and still others are prohibited, depending on the nature of NPs involved and the syntactic configurations in which they occur. Consider the following examples:

18. Zaid-uni ḍaraba nafsahui Zaid-nom hit himself ‘Zaid hit himself.’

19. Zaid-uni qala ?anna Hind-an ḍarabat-hui Zaid-nom said that Hind-acc hit-him ‘Zaid said that Hind hit him.’

20. *Zaid-uni ḍaraba-hui Zaid-nom hit-him ‘Zaid hit him.

In (18), the reflexive pronoun nafsahu (himself) allows only the reading in which ‘nafsahu’ must refer to Zaidun. hu in (19) can be referentially dependent upon Zaidun. In contrast, (20), has no reading in which the pronoun ‘hu’ refers to Zaidun. Hence, the syntactic properties for reflexive binding in MSA are handled by the binding Principle A. In contrast with anaphoric expressions, pronominals impose no positive binding requirement on their antecedent, but instead, a negative one, which requires that a pronominal does not have an antecedent that is too adjacent to it. Note that in (15a) where coreference is a must between the reflexive pronoun nafsahu and the subject NP Zaidun within the governing category (IP), there is a clause boundary between the pronoun hu and its antecedent in (16). The complementary distribution between anaphors and pronominals is argued to be based on structural properties of the sentence and the position in which the pronoun whether reflexive or non-reflexive occurs. These basic structural principles that guide the appearance of reflexive and non-reflexive pronouns are argued by Safir (2004:9) as in (21).

IJALEL 4(4):256-267, 2015 261 21. a. Principle A: An anaphor (reflexive pronoun) must be bound in Domain D (some locally defined

domain). b. Principle B: A pronoun (non-reflexive pronoun) must be free in Domain D (some locally defined domain).

Safir (2004:9) defines binding as follows: 22. Binding: X binds Y if X c-commands Y and X and Y are coindexed. If X is not bound it is free.

The structural notion of c-command is defined also by Safir (2004:9) as follows:

23. C-command: X c-commands Y if the first branching node dominating X also dominates Y. In order to illustrate these principles, consider the following tree diagram in (24) that represents the examples in (15):

24. TP

NP I’ Zaiduni

I VP

V’

NP ti

V NP

?intaqada nafsahui/huj /j*

Chomsky (1995:102), while describing binding relations in examples as in (15), states “Under the hypothesis that subjects are base-generated internal to VP, the VP will be the GC (Governing Category, the ‘local domain’), with the trace of the subject (which has itself moved to the [Spec, IP]) serving as the binder”. Accordingly, The VP in the representation above is the minimal domain because it is the first branching node that dominates the NP, t and also dominates the NP object node containing nafsahu or hu. The [Spec, IP] which is the NP, containing the trace, t, c-commands the object NP position. In this case, if the reflexive pronoun nafsahu is coindexed with the trace, t of Zaidun, the trace binds the reflexive pronoun; whereas, if the non-reflexive pronoun hu is coindexed with the trace of Zaidun, then the trace binds the non-reflexive pronoun. This leads to the ungrammaticality of the sentence because it violates Principle B which states that non-reflexive pronouns must be free in the local domain (VP). The only grammatical use of the non-reflexive pronoun as in (15b) is to be coindexed with an antecedent outside the VP or in the discourse. Therefore, Principle B of the binding theory in Chomsky (1995) argues that a pronominal is free in its governing category (local domain). This predicts the position in a sentence in which a pronoun must be disjoint in reference from a c-commanding NP in its governing category. Now, let us consider the behavior of pronouns in “Ss” in MSA containing only a single clause and witness how principle B works in Arabic. The following sentence illustrates cores of disjoint reference.

25. * Zaid- uni ra?a-hui Zaid-nom saw-him Zaid saw him. In (25), hu, (him) cannot be locally bound and thus cannot be coindexed with the subject of the sentence Zaidun in its governing category. Thus, a restriction which characterizes the interpretation of pronominals in Arabic is captured by Principle B of the theory of binding. This principle accounts for the impossibility of the pronoun hu in sentence (25), for instance, to be coindexed with a c-commanding NP in its governing category. 4.2.2 Pronouns in NP Positions In the examples presented thus far, the VP has served as the relevant domain for binding, i.e. Domain D. Thus, Principle B of the theory of binding gives correct results at the level of IP, “S”. It also gives correct results at the level of “NP” which is considered according to the theory of binding as another local domain. Consider the examples in (26) where “him” is interpreted as proximate to John.

IJALEL 4(4):256-267, 2015 262 26. a. Johni saw [NP my picture of himi]

b.*I saw [NP John’si picture of himi] c. Johni thought I saw [NP a picture of himi]

Principle B makes correct predictions about (a), (b), and (c) of (26). Sentences (26a and c) are grammatical because the pronoun him is free in its local domain, the NP. Sentence (26b) is ungrammatical because the pronoun is bound and coindexed with John in the local domain violating principle B. The same is true of their Arabic equivalents as in (27).

27. a. Zaid-uni ra?a [NP ṣuwar-i la-hui] Zaid-nom saw [NP pictures-my of-him] ‘Zaid saw my pictures of him.’

b. *Omar-un ra?a [NP ṣuwara Zaid-ini la-hui] Hind-nom saw [NP pictures Zaid-gen of-him] ‘Hind saw Zaid’s pictures of him.’

c. Zaid-uni ?ictqadaa ?ann-ani ra?itu [NP ṣuwar-an la-hui] Zaid-nom thought that-I saw [NP pictures-acc of-him] ‘Zaid thought that I saw pictures of him

Chomsky (1995) analyzes other examples in which the local domain for condition A and B is the NP as shown in (28).

28. John likes [NP Bill’si stories about himselfi/him*i] In (28), the local domain of the reflexive pronoun himself and the non-reflexive pronoun him is the NP Bill’s stories about himself/him. The reflexive pronoun cannot refer to an antecedent outside the NP because Bill inside the NP is a potential; whereas, the non-reflexive pronoun is free within the NP and refers to an antecedent outside the NP. In Arabic, the local domain for condition A and B can also be the NP as proposed in Chomsky’s analysis (1995). Consider the following example:

29. Zaidun yuћibu [NP qiṣaṣa Mohammad-ini can-hu*i /nafsihii] Zaid-nom likes [NP stories Mohammad-gen about-him/himself] ‘Zaid likes Ali’s stories about him/himself.’

In (29), the local domain of the reflexive pronoun nafsihi and the non-reflexive pronoun hu is the NP qiṣaṣa Mohammadini can-hu*i /nafsihii. The reflexive pronoun must be bound and coindexed by Mohammadin inside the local domain, NP; whereas, the non-reflexive pronoun cannot refer to an antecedent inside the NP because it must be free in that local domain. It could refer either to Zaidun the subject NP of the sentence or to an antecedent in the discourse. However, in some cases a reflexive pronoun resides within an NP of similar syntactic structure with no local binder as in (30).

30. Zaiduni yuћibu [NP smaaca qiṣaṣṣin can-hui/ nafsihii] Zaid-nom likes [NP hearing stories about-him/himself]

‘Zaid likes hearing stories about him/himself.’ In (30), the non-reflexive pronoun hu is free within its local domain, the NP, whereas, the reflexive pronoun nafsihi cannot find its antecedent in the NP as in (30), but must find it in the in the specifier of the VP as exactly the case in English as in (31).

31. Johni likes [NP stories about himselfi] The example in (31) shows that the definition of the binding domain must be flexible enough to allow for varying structures to serve as a relevant domain. Chomsky (1995:102) reduces the notion ‘Governing Category’ (local domain) to that of ‘Complex Functional Complex’ (CFC) so as to incorporate this distinction and generalize the local domain from NP to VP by arguing that a CFC is “a projection containing all grammatical functions compatible with its head”. The rule for finding the appropriate domain for binding according to him is as follows:

IJALEL 4(4):256-267, 2015 263 32. The Governing Category (the local domain) for α is the minimal CFC that contains α and a governor

of α and in which α’s binding condition could, in principle, be satisfied. (Chomsky 1995:102)

Therefore, for instance, a CFC for a verb includes all of its arguments (including the subject); a CFC for a noun is the head noun and all its arguments. Note that the absence of a potential binder plays an important role for Principle B of the theory of binding. In other words, there must be no potential binder for a pronominal within CFC in order for the CFC to be the governing category (local domain) for a pronominal. In (28), the CFC is the NP, Bill’s stories about himself/him in which the non-reflexive pronoun must be free satisfying Principle B. Since the determiner position is filled with Bill, Bill serves as a binder for the reflexive pronoun himself. In (31), the NP lacks the filled D position; the NP alone does not include a governor and thus, the CFC must be the VP, the domain in which John, the binder, binds the reflexive pronoun. It has been argued by different linguists as mentioned earlier in this paper that Principles A and B predict complementary distribution of anaphors and pronominals as shown in (33) and (34).

33. a. [CFC2 Johnj said [that[CFC1 Maryi loves herselfi/j*.]] b. [CFC2 Johnj said [that[CFC1 Maryi loves himi*/j.]]

34. a. [CFC2 Johni said[that[CFC1 himselfi*is intelligent.]]

b. [CFC2 Johni said[that[CFC1 hei is intelligent.]] However, counter examples of this generalization may appear as illustrated in (35).

35. a. [CFC2 The meni like [CFC1 each other’si cars.] b. [CFC2 The meni like [CFC1 theiri cars.]

Apparently, the anaphor each other in (35a) and the pronominal their in (35b) are not in complementary distribution. According to the theory of binding of Chomsky (1995), the governing category of the anaphor each other in (35a) is CFC2, which is the minimal CFC containing a potential binder ‘the men’. On the other hand, the governing category for the pronominal their in (35b) is CFC1, since CFC1 is the minimal CFC where the binding Principle could be satisfied. Thus, the pronominal ‘their’ is free in CFC1. Now, we will consider the occurrence of possessive pronouns in the specific position of NPs. In English, this position does not present a problem for Principle B of the binding theory. Consider (36).

36. John is reading [NP his book]. The CFC for the pronoun his is the NP and hence, Principle B correctly predicts that this pronoun is free within it. However, the possessive pronoun can be co-indexed with the subject NP John outside its governing category. Now, let us consider the behavior of possessive pronouns in Arabic sentences in accordance with Principle B by examining the following sentences:

37. Zaid- un qara?a [NP kitab- a-hu] Zaid-nom read [NP book-acc-his] ‘Zaid read his book.’

38. Hind- un qara?a- t [NP kitab-a-ha] Hind-nom read FM [NP book-acc-her] ‘Hind read her book.’

39. Zaid-un ?caTa hind-an [NP kitab-a-ha] Zaid-nom gave Hind-acc [NP book-acc-her] ‘Zaid gave Hind her book.’

Sentences (37) and (38) present a similarity to the English sentence (36). In (37) and (38), the pronouns hu and ha are co-indexed with the subject NPs Zaidun and Hindun. Since Zaidun and Hindun c-command hu and ha outside their governing category, (NP), and coindexation between them is possible. However, in (39) though the pronoun ha cannot be co-indexed with the subject NP Zaidun as in (37) and (38), the pronoun can be co-indexed only with the indirect object NP Hindun. Principle (B) gives correct results for (37), (38), and (39). The crucial difference between (37) and (38) in one hand and (39) on the other hand seems to be that in

IJALEL 4(4):256-267, 2015 264 the former, the antecedent of the pronouns is the subject, while in the latter, the antecedent of the pronoun is the indirect object. Thus, pronouns in Arabic are not bound by a c-commanding antecedent within their local domain that contains a pronoun and a governor of that pronoun. 4.2.3 Pronouns in Prepositional Phrases Now, let us consider the behavior of pronouns in prepositional phrases in Arabic and see how principle B of the theory of binding works in Arabic. Consider the following sentence where Principle B correctly predicts that the pronoun hi is free in its local domain:

40. *?carraft-u Zaid-ani calai-hii introduced(I) Zaid-acc to-him ‘I introduced Zaid to him.’

The pronoun hi, (him) in the oblique phrase cannot be bound by the direct object in its governing category since it violates Principle B. The same principle also predicts the interpretation of resumptive pronouns in Arabic. Consider the following example in which the pronoun hu cannot be referentially dependent upon Zaidun.

41. r-rajul-ui ?allathi ?cata Zaid-un la-hui l-kitab-a haḍara the-man who gave Zaid-nom for-him the-book came ‘The man who Zaid gave the book to him came.’

In (41), the resumptive pronoun ?allathi, (who) cannot refer the subject NP, Zaidun because the pronoun hu would be bound within its governing category. Thus, the resumptive pronoun is coindexed with the head NP r-rajulu which is outside the governing category of the pronoun hu. However, the standard binding theory does not always give a correct prediction about the distribution of pronominals in prepositional phrases in Arabic. Consider the following sentences:

42. *Zaid-uni ?acta l-kitaba la-hui Zaid-nom gave the-book to-him ‘Zaid gave the book to him.’

43. a. Zaiduni waḍaca l-kitaba bijanibi-hii Zaid-nom put the-book next to-him ‘Zaid put the book next to him.’

b. Zaiduni ?iltafata ћawla-hui Zaid-un looked around-him ‘Zaid looked around him.’ c. Zaiduni baћatha can l-mafatiћi xalfa-hui Zaid-nom looked for the-keys behind-him ‘Zaid looked for the keys behind him.’ d. Zaiduni ?ajlasa Hind-an bi-janib-hii

Zaid-nom made sit Hind-acc next to-him ‘Zaid made Hind sit next to him.’

e. Zaidun dafaca l-binta bacidan can-hu Zaid-nom pushed the-girl away from-him ‘Zaid pushed the girl away from him.’ f. - Zaid-un ?axada Hind-an ?ila bait-i-ha.

Zaid Nom took Hind-acc to home-gen-her ‘Zaid took Hind to her home.’

In sentences (42 and 43), we can assume that the subject NP Zaidun is base-generated in the VP. Thus, the spec. of the VP in each sentence is Zaidun. Zaidun in sentence (42) does not binds the pronoun hu, and thus, free in its local domain, the IP with no violation of Principle B. However, in the examples in (43), Zaidun binds the pronoun in PP If the VP is considered the local domain for binding. According to Principle B, the pronoun must be free within its local domain, thus the examples in (43) should be ungrammatical with the reading that the pronoun and the subject NP are coreferent. Thus, there is a violation of Principle B.

IJALEL 4(4):256-267, 2015 265 The failure of the standard binding theory to handle such examples leads us to adopt Tenny’s analysis (2003:1). She assumes that the pronoun in prepositional phrases is a “short distance” pronoun. Accordingly, the examples in (43) suggest that the local domain for binding when the short distance pronoun resides in a PP should not be the VP, but rather a more restricted local domain such as the PP itself. In fact, this analysis is proposed in works done by Hestvik (1991), Reinhart and Reuland (1993), Safir (2004), and Büring (2005). According to them, if the PP forms its own domain, the short distance pronoun as in (43) would not be bound within the local domain and hence, all the examples in (43) would not be in violation of Principle B. According to Hestvik’s analysis, the PP is considered as a Complete Functional Complex (CFC) that serves as a local domain. The PP is considered as the minimal domain which includes the pronoun and its governor as seen in the examples in (43). However, the minimal domain which includes the pronoun, its governor and a subject is the IP. Based on this analysis, the pronoun hi, (him) in sentence (43a), for instance, is coindexed with the subject NP of the IP, but it is not necessarily bound by it, i.e., they share the same referent, but their semantic value are filled independently. Thus, the pronoun based on this characterization of the CFC, may be free even if it is coindexed with the subject of the sentence with no violation of Principle B. Thus, the pronoun hi in (43a) is free of a local binder in the PP, but it is not free in the IP because the PP is adjoined within it and hence, the pronoun is licensed. 4.2.4 Referential and Bound Pronouns This section sheds light upon two types of pronominals in Arabic, referential pronouns that can be coindexed with a name and bound pronouns that can be coindexed with quantifiers. Of course both types of pronouns are coindexed with an antecedent outside their governing categories. Consider sentences (44) and (45) illustrating referential and bound pronouns respectively.

44. yactaqidu Zaid-uni ?anna l-mucallim-a yuћibbu-hui kathiran thinks Zaid-nom that the-teacher-acc loves-him much ‘Zaid thinks that the teacher loves him very much.

45. Kulluwaћid-ini yactaqidu ?anna l-mucallim-a yuћibbu-hui kathiran everyone-gen thinks that the-teacher-acc loves-him much ‘Everyone thinks that the teacher loves him very much.’

Like referential pronouns, bound pronouns have to obey Principle B. Thus, the following sentences are unacceptable with the pronoun ‘hu’ coindexed with the quantifiers kulluwaћidin, (everyone) in (46) and man, (who) in (47) within their governing categories, violating Principle B of the theory of binding.

46. *kulluwaћid-ini yuћibbu-hui

everyone-gen loves-him ‘Everyone loves him.’

47. *mani yuћibbu-hui? who loves-him ‘Who loves him?’

The derivations that involve movement of a quantificational phrase (including wh-element) over a coindexed pronominal have long been an area of inquiry. May (1977) argues that Quantificational Phrases (QPs) such as everyone, someone, and wh-elements, etc. should move in LF (logical form) via Quantifier Raising (QR) to a position consistent with their scope. Consider sentence (48) with its semantic representation in (49).

48. Bill loves everyone. 49. For every X, X a person, Bill likes X.

After the application of (QR), sentence (50) below is produced as the LF representation associated with (48) and (49).

50. [IP Everyonei [IP Bill likes ti]] In (50), the quantifier ‘everyone’ adjoins to IP (=S), leaving a trace, t in its base position. The scope of everyone, i.e., the original sentence can be defined as its ‘c-command domain.’ Accordingly, the trace, t is coindexed with everyone, and since movement took place, this coindexation can be considered as the relation between the quantifier and the variable that it binds. Chomsky (1982) proposes that if a sentence, at the level of LF, contains a quantifier, this quantifier must have a scope and that scope must include a variable. This would demand the raising of the quantifiers kulluwaћidin in (46) and man in (47) as shown by illustrating their LF representations in (51) and (52) respectively.

IJALEL 4(4):256-267, 2015 266 51. *[ IP2 kulluwaћidini [IP1 ti yuћibbu-hui]] 52. *[ CP mani [IP ti yuћibbu-hui?]]

Sentences (51) and (52) are ungrammatical because the pronoun hu is not only A-bound by the trace in the subject position but also A’-bound by the moved quantifiers. The ungrammaticality of these sentences can be accounted for if we assume that Principle B holds at LF. In (51) and (52), the pronoun hu is bound by a variable, namely, the trace in its governing category; therefore, coreferential interpretation is not permitted. Referential pronouns and bound pronouns can occur in embedded clauses as shown in (53), (54), and (55) respectively.

53. Zaid-uni qala ?anna-hui laa yuћibbu Hind-an Zaid-non said that-he NEG love Hind-acc

‘Zaid said that he does not love Hind.’ 54. kulluwaћid-ini qala ?anna-hui laa yuћibbu Hind-an

everyone-gen said that-he NEG love Hind-acc ‘Everyone said that he does not love Hind.’

55. mani qala ?anna-hui laa yuћibbu Hind-an who said that-he NEG love Hind-acc ‘Who said that he does not love Hind.’

The LF representations of (54), and (55) are as in (56), and (57):

56. [IP kulluwaћidini [IP2 ti qala [IP1 ?anna-hui laa yuћibbu Hindan]]] 57. [CP mani [IP2 ti qala [IP1 ?anna-hui laa yuћibbu Hindan]]]

It has generally been assumed that every quantificational phrase must undergo either overt or covert movement to an operator position to bind its trace at the LF level (cf. Postal 1971, Wasow 1972, May 1977, Koopman and Spotiche 1982, Chomsky 1986 and 1992, among others). In sentence (53), the local domain, i.e., the governing category for the pronoun hu is the embedded clause, which contains the pronoun and its governor. Thus, (53) is grammatical because the pronoun is free in that domain. The LF representations in (56), and (57) show that the pronoun hu in (54), and (55) is A’- bound by the quantifiers kulluwaћidin and man and A-bound by the variable, i.e., the trace in a higher clause, which is outside its local domain, i.e., the innermost clause. This bound pronoun is free in its governing category and thus, (54), and (55) are grammatical sentences. In (56), the quantifier is assumed to move covertly, yielding its LF representation, whereas in (57), the quantificational phrase man undergoes overt movement. The aforementioned examples discussed so far show that referential as well as bound pronouns can occur in either the subject or object position of embedded clauses. Our analysis of referential and bound pronouns crucially relies on the notion of c-command. This analysis is called a structural analysis. Consider the following configurations where the trace of a quantificational phrase precedes and c-commands the coindexed pronoun:

58. mani faqada mafatiћa-hui who lost keys-his ‘Who lost his keys.’

59. kulluwaћid-ini yactaqidu ?anna-hui fa?izun everyone-gen thinks that-he winner ‘Everyone thinks that he is the winner.’

The LF representations of (58) and (59) are as in (60) and (61).

60. [CP whoi [IP t lost keys-hisi]] 61. [IP kulluwaћidini [IP t yactaqidu ?anna-hui fa?izun]]

In both: (60) and (61), the trace of a quantificational phrase c-commands the coindexed pronominal. Thus, as assumed by Chomsky (1986a), Lasnik and Stowell (1991) and many others that either overtly or covertly raised wh-phrases as in (57) and (60) appear in [Spec, CP], whereas, LF raised quantifiers taking clausal scope are adjoined to IP. A pronoun in the subject position of a more deeply embedded clause can be referentially dependent upon a quantified antecedent in the matrix subject position. Consider sentence (62) and its LF representation in (63).

IJALEL 4(4):256-267, 2015 267 62. kulluwaћid-ini yactaqidu ?anna-ka qulta ?anna-hui yajibu ?an yuġadir

everyone-gen thinks that-(you) said that- he must to leave ‘Everyone thinks that you said that he must leave.’

63. [IP kulluwaћidini [IP1 ti yactaqidu [IP2 ?anna-ka qulta [IP3 ?anna-hui yajibu ?an yuġadir]]]] These facts suggest that both referential pronouns and bound pronouns are subject to Principle B of the theory of binding. 5. Conclusion The paper has discussed pronominals in MSA in accordance with Principle B of the theory of binding. Pronominals in Arabic crucially rely on the structural notion of the ‘c-command’ and are all subject to Principle B, i.e., free in their local domain, but differ in their binding domain. The standard binding theory gives correct prediction about the distribution of pronominals in IPs and NPs, but fails to always give a correct prediction about the distribution of pronominals in prepositional phrases in Arabic. This failure leads us to adopt Tenny’s analysis (2003), where she assumes that the pronoun in prepositional phrases is a “short distance” pronoun. Accordingly, the local domain for binding when the short distance pronoun resides in a PP should not be the VP, but rather a more restricted local domain such as the PP itself. For a bound pronoun, the binding domain must contain a distinct subject (a quantifier) to be coindexed with; whereas, a referential pronoun could be coindexed with a name in its binding domain. Reference Brass, A. (1986). Chain and Anaphoric Dependency. Ph.D dissertation, MIT. Büring, D. (2005). Binding Theory. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511802669 Chomsky, N. (1977). On Wh-Movement. Formal Syntax, eds. By P.W. Culicover, T. Wasow and A. Akmajian. New York: Academic Press, pp. 71-132. Chomsky, N. (1981). Lectures on Government and Binding. Dordrecht: Foris. Chomsky, N. (1982). Some Concepts and Consequences of the Theory of Government and Binding. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press. Chomsky, N. (1986a). Knowledge of Language: Its Nature, Origin and Use. New York: Praeger. Chomsky, N. (1986b). Barriers. Cambridge, MA.: The MIT Press. Chomsky, N. (1989). Some Notes on Economy and Derivation and Representation. MIT Working papers in Linguistics 10, 43-74. Chomsky, N. (1992). A Minimalist Program for Linguistic Theory. MIT Occasional Papers in Linguistics 1 Chomsky, N. (1993). A Minimalist Program for Linguistic Theory. In The View from Building 20, eds. K. Hale and S. J. Keyser, 1–49. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Chomsky, N (1994). Bare Phrase Structure. MIT Occasional Papers in Linguistics, volume 5. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. Chomsky, N. (1995). The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Chomsky, N. and Lasnik, H. (1993). The Theory of Principles and Parameters. Syntax: An International Handbook of Contemporary Research. J. Jacobs, A. Von Stechow, W. Sternefeld and T. Vennemann. Berlin, Walter de Gruyter. Freiden, R. and Vergnaud, J. R. (2001). Exquisite Connections: Some Remarks on the Evolution of Linguistic Theory. Lingua, 111, 639-665. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0024-3841(01)00045-6 Hestvik, A. (1991). Subjectless Binding Domains. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 9 (3): 455-496. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00135355 Hestvik, A. (1992). LF Movement of Pronouns and Antisubject Orientation. Linguistic Inquiry 23: 557-594 Koopman, H. and Sportiche, D. (1982). Variables and the Bijection Principle. The Linguistic Review 2, 139-160. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/tlir.1982.2.2.139 Lasnik, H. (1989). On the Necessity of Binding Conditions. In H. Lasnik, ed., Essays on Anaphora, Kluwer, Dordrecht. pp. 149-167. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2542-7_9 Lasnik, H. and Stowell, T. (1991). Weakest Crossover. Linguistic Inquiry 22, 687-720. May, R. (1977). The Grammar of Quantification. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Pollard, C. and Sag, I. (1994).Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Postal, P.M. (1971). Cross-Over Phenomena. Holt, Reinhart and Winston, New York. Reinhart, T. (1976). The Syntactic Domain of Anaphora. MIT, Ph.D dissertation. Reinhart, T. (1983). Anaphora and Semantic Interpretation. Beckenham: Croom Helm Ltd. Reinhart, T. and Reuland, E. (1993). Reflexivity. Linguistic Inquiry 24, 657-720. Safir, K. (2004). The Syntax of Anaphora. New York: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195166132.001.0001 Tenny, C. (2003). Short Distance Pronouns, Argument Structure, and the Grammar of Sentence. Manuscript, Carnegie Mellon University. Wasow, T. (1972). Anaphoric Relations in English. Ph.D dissertation, MIT.

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 4; July 2015

Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

History Rewritten in a Postmodern Novel: Opposed Views on History in Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion

Hatice Eşberk Department of English Language and Literature, Erciyes University, 38039, Kayseri, Turkey

E-mail: hemre@erciyes.edu.tr

Received: 19-12- 2014 Accepted: 26-02- 2015 Advance Access Published: February 2015 Published: 01-07- 2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.268 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.268 Abstract The relationship and interaction between literature and history has long been analyzed and discussed throughout the history of literature. In twentieth century literature this relationship has shown itself within the works of historiographic metafiction. In this kind of writing, previously held notions about language, truth, history and literature are subverted. With the rise of postmodern theories, such as poststructuralism, these concepts are thought of carrying no more definite, full and total meaning and reference. Winterson’s The Passion is one of the best examples of historiographic metafictions that underline the polyphonic structure lying beneath systems of meaning. In The Passion Winterson’s handling of the subject is surrounded by her use of multiple narratives, parody and fantasy. Thus, this paper aims at presenting how these ingredients of historiographic metafiction display themselves in Winterson’s The Passion. Keywords: historiographic metafiction, Winterson, postmodern idea of history 1. Introduction Postmodern theory suggests a different view of history from that of the nineteenth century. According to this kind of consideration of history, the relationship between history and fiction is a blurring one. What lies beneath this change can be taken as the changed view of language. By the poststructuralists’ arguments that result in the split between the signifier and the signified, language becomes no longer carrying a full and total meaning. When it is applied to the field of history and when Lyotard’s idea of legitimization of truth is considered, it is seen that what is taken to be as ‘historical truth’ is subverted by this new turn. Lyotard defines that his questioning of legitimatization lies under his quest in the question of the status of knowledge (qtd. in Bennington and Massumi, 1984, p.6). Thus, availability of objective truth free from any subjective argument is questioned. This new tendency has shown itself in postmodern literary works which results in the creation of historiographic metafiction. The Passion by Jeanette Winterson is one of the best examples of historiographic metafictions which reflect the relationship between fiction and history in an original way. In The Passion Winterson’s handling of the subject is surrounded by her use of multiple narratives, parody and fantasy. Thus, this paper aims at presenting how these ingredients of historiographic metafiction display themselves in Winterson’s The Passion. 2. Historiographic Metafiction and Its Premises The rise of the postmodern historiographic metafiction has its roots in the changing view of both the concept of history and the concept of writing (fiction). As Hutcheon claims both history and fiction are discourses that constitute systems of “signification by which we make sense of the past. In other words, the meaning and shape are not in the events, but in the systems which make those past ‘events’ into present historical ‘facts’” (1988, p. 89). Thus, history and fiction are seen as systems of constructions which reflect subjective point of view. What is also emphasized in Hutcheon’s analysis is that in postmodern era the meaning underlying ‘the historical’ and ‘the fictional’ has gained another dimension. According to this perspective meaning, in general, is constructed within an already existent system. Therefore, a sceptical view of these concepts arises and the idea that “...there can be no single, essentialized, transcendent concept of ‘genuine historicity’” is widely accepted. (Hutcheon, 1988, p. 89). This kind of understanding of history is the result of the belief that is quoted by Hutcheon from Kermode: “we can, indeed, no longer assume that we have the capacity to make value-free statements about history” (qtd. in Hutcheon, 1988, p. 90). Thus, in addition to the constructed nature of history, the subjectivity in its interpretation is emphasized. The reason of this new perception of history is summarized by Huctheon’s quote as follows:

The new history we are beginning to see these days has little in common with the old-and for an interesting historical reason: its practitioners were nurtured in the theoretical climate of the 1970s, a time during which the individual literary work came to lose its organic unity; when literature as an organized body of knowledge abandoned the boundaries that had hitherto enclosed it, to an extent even abandoned its claim to knowledge; and when history began to seem discontinuous, sometimes in fact no more than just another fiction. It is no wonder that the scholarship we now pursue cannot take form or speak the language of the older literary history (1988, p.91).

Flourishing Creativity & Literacy

IJALEL 4(4):268-272, 2015 269 Therefore, the close relationship between history and fiction is emphasized and even it is claimed that history is nothing different from fiction. The refusal of postmodern theory of the absolute knowledge and truth inevitably gives way to the disconnectedness and the fictitiousness of history. By means of combining these ideas in its premise “[h]istoriographic metafiction refutes the natural or common-sense methods of distinguishing between historical fact and fiction. It refuses the view that history has a truth claim” (Hutcheon, 1988, p. 93). The critic adds that “both history and fiction are discourses; human constructs, signifying systems, and both derive their major claim to truth from that identity” (1988, p.93). As a result, the quality of historiographic metafiction finds its way in its rejection of absolute knowledge and truth about history and fiction. With this belief, this kind of writing claims and puts emphasis on the subjective attitude of both terms. The seperation of history and fiction is also rejected and the combination of them is seen as the right handling of these concepts. They are both considered as discourses surrounded by a subjective systematic construction. Hutcheon summarizes the starting point and progress of this kind of writing as follows:

In the nineteenth century literature and history were considered branches of the same tree of learning, a tree which sought to interpret experience, for the purpose of guiding an elevating man. Then came the seperation that resulted in the distinct disciplines of literary and studies today...it is this very seperation of the literary and historical that is now being challenged in postmodern theory and art, and recent critical readings of both history and fiction have focused more on what the two modes of writing share than on how they differ. They have both been seen to derive their force more from verisimilitude than from any objective truth; they are both identified as linguistic constructs, highly conventionalized in their narrative forms, and not at all transparent either in terms of language or structure...deploying the texts of the past within their own complex textuality (1988, p. 105).

Therefore, historiographic metafiction has an understanding of history and fiction as a combination. This combination has its own standpoints such as the complex linguistic construction of the historical and the fictional, the subjective nature of this construct and the relative approach to truth and knowledge. Hence the history is re-constructed and re-written in historiographic metafiction. As Hutcheon states, “[p]ostmodern fiction suggests that to re-write or to re-present the past in fiction and in history is, in both cases, to open it up to the present, to prevent it from being conclusive (1988, p. 106). 3. The Passion as Historiographic Metafiction In this novel, Winterson relies on a historical period for the infrastructure of her work, the Napoleonic period. However, this reliance does not have an aim to provide a sequential listing of the historical events of that time. Unlike of this, the writer aims to re-construct that historical period in order to display the questionable objectivity of the history. “Her fiction frequently calls into question assumptions about narratorial identity, fictional artifice, and objective reality” (qtd. in Grice&Woods, 1998, p. 1). In order to present the history as a subjective construct she uses multiple narratives, Henri’s and Vilanelle’s, in the novel.

The Passion contains many realities. In one sense…it is Winterson’s epic...The novel uses the memories of its characters to bring the past to life, turning The Passion into a strict (and free) piece of historical fiction. Winterson emphasizes therefore, the inconsistencies of these memories to show that rational, sequential, event-driven history is at root just as illogical in its granting primacy to certain features of the past as are contemporary rereadings of history (Pressler, 1997, p. 13).

As it is emphasized here, to utilize the memories of characters in revealing historical events is an attempt to underline the subjectivity beneath history. Moreover, the use of parody on religious and social constructs and the fantastic nature of the novel reinforce the writer’s aim in creating such a novel which reflects the implications of historiographic metafiction. The beginning of the novel narrated by Henri, which is “[i]t was Napoleon who had such a passion for chicken that he kept chiefs working around the clock” (Winterson, 1997, p.1), foreshadows what kind of understanding of history is going to be presented in the novel. It begins neither with a particular historical event nor with biographical information about Napoleon. The passion of Napoleon is given first, thus, the emphasis on the subjectivity of history is at work at the beginning. The first narrator, Henri, goes on to tell that period by means of underlying the feelings and emotions. He tells how Napoleon likes the horses and how the soldiers feel excessive devotion to Napoleon. Moreover, Henri’s definiton of that period shows the nature of his telling on history. He says,

Nowadays people talk about the things he did as to they made sense. As to even his most disastrous mistakes were only the result of bad luck or hubris. It was a mess. Words like devastation, rape, slaughter, carnage, starvation are lock and key words to keep the pain at bay. Words about war that are easy on the eye. I’m telling you stories. Trust me (Winterson, 1997, p.5).

In this statement Henri underlines that the expected words about the war would be ‘devastation, rape, slaughter, carnage, starvation’. However, he makes emphasis on the questionability of such kind of reflection of history in his

IJALEL 4(4):268-272, 2015 270 words by stating that he is telling us stories and he must be trusted. Therefore, Winterson expresses the idea that the fictionality in history is the one and only way of considering it by Henri’s words. Moreover, although Henri serves in Napoleon’s army he does not tell about the historical events in detail. Instead of this, he describes Napoleon’s passion for chickens, how it is like to kill the chickens for him and how he is treated by the leader and the cook. As Pressler declares,

Even though Winterson’s character Henri serves in Napoleon’s army for eight years, he provides us with precious little in the way of typical historical detail. Instead he discusses at great length Napoleon’s passion for chicken. Henri describes twice in the novel how the cook keeps the parsley for garnishing the poultry in a dead man’s helmet. These artifacts from the past are important to Henri and establish the importance therefore seemingly irrelevant detail in recreating the past in its entirety: its feel, its textures, its tastes, its smells (1997, p.16).

These things about the past are much more important than the events themselves for Henri. When he decides to write a diary, he emphasizes this idea by telling that “I don’t care about the facts Domino, I care about how I feel. How I feel will change, I want to remember that” (Winterson, 1997, p.29). After he reads his diary he confesses that his devotion for Napoleon’s words is not a definite one. He says, “I only later realized how bizarre most of [Napoleon’s aphorisms] were” (Winterson, 1997, p.30). Thus, his writing makes his idea change in time. As Hutcheon states about that feature of the postmodern novel, “history and fiction are themselves historical terms and their definitions and interrelations are historically determined and vary with time” (1988, p.105). Therefore, Henri’s diary stands in contrast with the reflections of a traditional historian. He states “I invented Bonaparte as much as he invented himself” (Winterson, 1997, p. 158). In this statement the validity of historical view that fiction and history are seperable is problematized and the combination of these concepts is underscored. In presenting such a view Winterson underlines that she subverts and re-constitutes history in the novel. Moreover, she tries to make the reader to pay attention to the subjectivity of history. It is Henri’s construction of the past; subjective which is full of emotions rather than the recounting of historical events. As Hutcheon states “historiographic metafictions privilige multiple points of view... This is not a transcending of history, but a problematized inscribing of subjectivity into history” (Winterson, 1997, p.117). As for Vilanelle, she is herself a subversion of the traditional belief system. She works in a casino, she wears like a boy and she likes gambling. She is like the city in which she lives in, Venice. Like the fluidity of the city, Vilanelle’s life is on the slippery ground. She lives for her passion. Her passion for gambling is the result of her playful nature. She says, “I dressed as a boy because that’s what the visitors like to see. It was part of the game” (Winterson, 1997, p.54). Unlike Henri’s devotion to Bonaparte, Vilanelle constructs different history from him. This difference is obvious in her statement that “It was August. Bonaparte’s birthday and a hot night. We were due for celebration ball in the Piazza San Marcoi though what we Venetians had to celebrate was not clear” (Winterson, 1997, p.54). Moreover, Vilanelle puts more emphasis on the present, unlike of Henri, she says, “all time is eternally present and so all time is ours” (Winterson, 1997, p.62). Thus, Winterson provides the quality of the historiographic metafiction in her novel by presenting two different points of view about the same historical period. In addition to what is written in history books about the Napoleonic era, the two fictional characters’, Vilanelle’s and Henri’s, view on the same period are presented. Henri reconstructs the historical events in his journal. Vilanelle, by providing different perspective from that of Henri’s, reconstructs the already reconstructed history. Henri views the past differently, Vilanelle sees it differently. As Bengston suggests, “Vilanelle and Henri narrate very differently: Vilanelle is poetry (hence her name) and in a sense Henri’s muse; Henri the writer who grapples with the natures of passion and obsession as illustrated in his progress from an immature worship of Napoleon to an adult, selfless love for Vilanelle” (1999, p.24). They both construct their own pasts in their narratives. Winterson reconstructs history in this way in the novel. According to Arostegui,

The Passion reveals a polyphonic narrative structure that merges two apparently opposed narrative modes, the historical and the fantastic. Henri, a narrator and author of a war journal that he rewrites into his memoirs, illegitimizes history as a grand narrative and shows instead that history, like the past, is always subject to manipulation. Henri’s historical discourse propounds the collapse of the holding values of patriarchy and provides the necessary space for the development of Vilanelle’s alternative discourse. Vilanelle […] exposes the fairy tale as an ideologically laden literary genre based on sexual categories and patriarchal structures (2000, p.17).

Henri’s and Vilanelle’s views of history and of the historical events signify their own qualities as characters. Although Henri has a critical view of the events of the past, his narration has the impacts of what he has been taught before. He thinks “soldiering is a fine life for a boy” (Winterson, 1997, p. 8), he is grateful to his mother and the priest for their efforts, “[t]hanks to my mother’s efforts and the rusty scholarliness of our priest I learned to read in my own language, Latin and English and I learned arithmetic, the rudiments of first aid” (Winterson, 1997, p.12). However, as he goes on to write about the past events, he also reveals the paradoxes between what he has been taught before and what he feels. He says, “[t]hey say the dead don't talk. Silent as the grave they say. It's not true. The dead are talking all the time. On

IJALEL 4(4):268-272, 2015 271 this rock, when the wind is up, I can hear them. I can hear Bonaparte; he didn't last long on his rock” (Winterson, 1997, p. 133). On the other hand Vilanelle’s narration is much more critical and fantastic as much as it is critical. She notes,

Our ancestors. Our belonging. The future is foretold from the past and the future is only possible because of the past. Without past and future, the present is partial. All time is eternally present and so all time is ours. There is no sense in forgetting and every sense in dreaming. Thus the present is made rich. Thus the present is made whole. On the lagoon this morning, with the past at my elbow, rowing beside me, I see the future glittering on the water. I catch sight of myself in the water and see in the distortions of my face what I might become. If I find her, how will my future be? I will find her (Winterson, 1997, p. 62)

What she narrates about the effects of war reflects her dream-like interpretations of the past.

Watching my comrades die was not the worst thing about that war, it was watching them live. I had heard stories abot the human body and the human mind, the conditions it can adapt to, the ways it chooses to survive…When there’s no food it [the body of human] turns cannibal and devours its fat, then its muscle then its bones. I’ve seen soldiers, mad with hunger and cold, chop off their own arms and cook themhow long could you go on chopping? Both arms. Both legs. Ears. Slices from the trunk. You could chop yourself down to the very end and leave the heart to beat in its ransacked palace” (Winterson, 1997, p. 82).

In addition to this multiple narrations, Winterson uses fantastic images such as Vilanelle’s webbed feet, walking on the water, Vilanelle’s stolen heart and Patrick’s telescopic eye, in order to reconstruct the perception of history. Thus, fantastic elements are used to emphasize the fictionality and self-referentiality of the text. Since the story reflects a particular historical period, the uses of fantastic elements reinforce the questionability of the existence of the absolute truth and knowledge about the historical facts. As Waugh reflects, “[t]he essence of the fantastic...is that it ‘hesitates’ both understanding and definition of the ‘reality’ outside the fiction. All metafictional texts question precisely this ‘existence of an irreducible opposition between real and unreal’” (1984, p.109). Thus, Winterson’s text, as one of the best examples of the metafictional texts, underlines the relationship between history and fiction by utilizing the premise of the ‘fantastic’ which points to the hesitation in the concept of reality. As Burns states, for Winterson “fantasy...is the source of belief and often the bread of survival” (1996, p.286). Moreover, the critic emphasizes “Winterson’s fantasy is not simple escapism...it can help subalterns form a positive identity in the face of negative of constricitve social stereotypes” (1996, p.289). Therefore, the function of fantasy to ‘hesitate’, to subvert and deconstruct well fits with the nature of historiographic metafiction. In The Passion the use of fantasy with such an aim leads the reader to re-consider the ‘reality and reliability’ of history. The last quality which makes the novel labelled as historiographic metafiction can be taken as its use of parody. As stated above, the nature of historiographic metafiction requires subversion, reconstruction and deconstruction. Thus, the integration of the parody becomes inevitable in such a novel. As Hutcheon states “historiographic metafictions use parody” (1988, p.129). First of all Vilanelle’s character can be taken as a parody of an understanding of socially accepted women role in society. She is a free, boy-like and passionate woman and these qualities are far from commonly accepted women role. Therefore, Vilanelle’s such portrayal can be taken as a parody of social norms concerning women. Moreover, Henri’s taking Vilanelle’s heart can be taken as a parody of chivalric romances. In chivalric romances it is expected that the hero (Henri) will have the passion of his lover as a reward. However, this is not available for Henri, unlike of this, he becomes mad and is left rewardless. 4. Conclusion In The Passion, Winterson questions the conventional understanding of history and fiction. As a postmodern novel The Passion challenges the assumptions of not only historiography but also the novel form, thus, the novel is the reflection of historiographic metafiction. Rather than providing the historical events, unnecessary (as commonly thought) details are presented by means of the first narrator to emphasize the subjectivity. Moreover, Henri’s diary is the metafictional aspect in the novel which helps him to change his views on past. This is another feature of historiographic metafiction which is to combine fiction and history. The function of the second narrator, Vilanelle, is much more to do with the use of fantasy and parody in the novel. She is supernatural, passionate and free. Therefore, the novel is one of the best examples of historiographic metafiction combining different elements in it. As Palmer states Winterson enjoys, “putting new wine in old bottles-especially if the pressure of the new wine makes the old bottles explode” (qtd. in Dowson&Earnshaw 199). In the light of these, it would be true to claim that the novel reinforces the questioning and subverting the position of knowledge in general. What is claimed to be true knowledge carried by both a creation of literature (novel) and a creation of history is made upside down. This investigation of Winterson is a reflection of Lyotard’s claim that, “[p]ostmodern knowledge is not simply a tool of the authorities: it refines our sensitivity to differences and reinforces our ability to tolerate the incommensurable” (Lyotard, 1984, p.xxv).

IJALEL 4(4):268-272, 2015 272 References Aróstegui, Maria Del Mar A. (2000). History as Discourse in Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion: The Politics of Alterity. Journal of English Studies, 2, 7-18. Bengston, Helena et al. (Eds). (1999). Sponsored by Demons: The Art of Jeanette Winterson. Denmark: Scholars’ P. Burns, Christy L. (1996). Fantastic Language: Jeanette Winterson’s Recovery of the Postmodern World. Contemporary Literature, 37(2), 287-306. Dowson, Jane and Steven Earnshaw. (Eds). (1995). Postmodern Subjects/Postmodern Texts. Amsterdam: Rodopi B.V. Grice, Helena and Tim Woods. (Eds.). (1998). I’m telling you stories’: Jeanette Winterson and the Politics of Reading. Amsterdam: Rodopi B.V. Hutcheon, Linda. (1988). A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. London: Cambridge UP. Lyotard, J. F. (1984). The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Bennington, G. and Brian Massumi (trans.) Manchester: Manchester UP. Palmer, Paulina. (1995). Postmodern Trends in Contemporary Fiction. in Postmodern Subjects/Postmodern Texts. eds. Dowson and Earnshaw..Amsterdam: Rodopi B.V. Pressler, Christopher. (1997). So Far So Linear: Responses to the Work of Jeanette Winterson. Nottingham: Paupers’ P. Waugh, Patricia. (1984). Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. London: Methuen. Winterson, J. (1997). The Passion. New York: Grove P.