Jordan Journal of Modern Languages & Literatures

La Langue du Pouvoir et le Pouvoir de la Langue : Analyse Critique du Discours d’Investiture du Président Américain Joseph Biden

2025-02-27T13:20:22+03:00

L'objectif de la présente étude est d'examiner le discours d’investiture de Joseph Biden, l’actuel président des États-Unis d’Amérique, prononcé le 20 janvier 2021. Selon le modèle d’analyse critique du discours proposé par Teun A. van Dijk, nous explorons le rôle de la langue dans la (re)production du pouvoir de l’instance politique dans un contexte de graves crises et de divisions politiques profondes. Grâce à l’étude des trois niveaux macrostructurel (thématique), superstructurel (schématique) et microstructurel (local) du discours, nous avons trouvé que les choix du sujet principal, des sous-thèmes, du lexique, des stratégies énonciatives et pragmatiques, opérés judicieusement afin de répondre aux attentes de l’auditoire, réussissent également à refléter la vision, l’agenda et les positionnements politiques de Biden dictés par ses principes idéologiques. Dans le processus d’instauration de son pouvoir, la tâche du nouveau chef américain était en somme de construire un consensus majoritaire auprès d’un public hétérogène et politiquement polarisé.

Mots-clés : Analyse critique, Macrostructure, Superstructure, Microstructure, Idéologie, Pouvoir.

Les cinq points forts de l'article:

1- Modèle d'Analyse Critique du Discours (ACD), proposé par Teun A. van Dijk, pour examiner le discours d'investiture du président américain Joe Biden.

2- La langue comme vecteur de pouvoir.

3- L’unité comme thème central du discours face aux défis communs du pays.

4- Stratégies lexicales et pragmatiques mises en oeuvre dans le discours.

5- Idéologies Implicites ou sous-jacentes

Intext Codes or Posttext Comments? Which One Is More Influential in Improving the Intermediate and Advanced EFL Learners' Written Grammatical Accuracy?

2025-02-27T13:26:12+03:00

Many teachers provide learners with different types of feedback to help language learners write more accurately. In the present research, the author examined the effect of intext coded and uncoded feedback on written grammatical accuracy of Iranian advanced and intermediate learners. The researcher selected three classes of advanced and three intermediate classes of EFL Iranian students. After homogenizing students, the researcher randomly selected one intermediate and one advanced class as control groups and the other four classes as experimental. The experimental groups received posttext and intext coded feedback whereas the control one received uncoded feedback. The results indicated that all feedback types were effective in the posttest. However, posttext and intext feedback were more effective than uncoded feedback. Since feedback provides learners with an opportunity to revise their essays, one can consider its role as an effective one in learning and teaching English. The results also indicated that the advanced language learners outperformed the intermediate ones.

Keywords: Coded feedback, Feedback, Grammatical accuracy, Posttext feedback, Uncoded feedback, Writing.

Impoliteness Strategies in Facebook Comments on Ministry of Health’s Declarations and Posts on Covid-19

2025-02-27T13:33:11+03:00

The present study aims to investigate the impoliteness strategies employed by Facebookers commenting on declarations of the Jordanian Minister of Health about Covid-19. It also aims to examine the socio-cultural considerations behind the use of impoliteness strategies. To this end, the researchers adopted Culpeper’s model (2011) of impoliteness as a theoretical framework. The data of the current study were collected from the official Facebook page of the Ministry of Health. The data included 400 comments (14253 tokens). The findings revealed that Facebookers used seven of Culpeper’s 2011 conventionalized impoliteness strategies, namely insults, challenging or unpalatable questions and/or presuppositions, pointed criticism, dismissals, silencers, negative expressions/bad wishes, and condescension. Moreover, the findings showed that the most frequent impoliteness strategy used by Facebookers was challenging or unpalatable questions. In addition, the study revealed that due to some sociocultural and political considerations, certain impoliteness strategies such as enforcing messages and threats were not employed.

Keywords: Impoliteness; Media Discourse; COVID-19, Culpeper Impoliteness Model.

The Interpretation of Unfamiliar Formulaic Expressions: A Study on Native-like Speakers of English

2025-02-27T13:39:37+03:00

This study investigates how native-like Saudi speakers of English as a foreign language (EFL) interpret unfamiliar formulaic English expressions and the strategies they use to interpret these expressions. It specifically examines which strategies the Saudi subjects share with native English speakers and explores the potential differences in strategies employed by male and female individuals. Participants included 50 Saudi EFL native like speakers and 20 native English speakers, who were given an English idiom test. This research embraces the cognitive linguistic theory behind processing and interpreting unfamiliar formulaic expressions. Findings were analyzed by examining the frequency and percentages of the strategies used by the participants to understand the meaning of the expression. They indicated that Saudi EFL speakers used the context of the phrase, analogies, and their knowledge of English lexis and phonology to parse unfamiliar formulaic English expressions, and that they looked to the context of the phrase most often. The study also found that native English speakers used the same strategies, but with different number of occurrences, and that women used more strategies than men. Findings will help better understand the interpretation of unfamiliar expressions.

Keywords: Formulaic expressions, Interpretation strategies, EFL, Linguistics, Language proficiency.

Langage Figuré en Traduction : L’Impact des Figures de Style dans le Roman “La Porte Du Soleil” d’Elias Khoury

2025-02-27T13:45:27+03:00

L’enjeu de cet article est d’étudier la transposition des figures de style entre deux systèmes linguistiques et culturels différents, en l’occurrence l’arabe et le français. Cette étude attire particulièrement l’attention sur la difficulté de conserver un style propre à l’auteur source et de rendre les images figuratives en tenant compte de plusieurs paramètres, à savoir sémantiques, structurels, morphologiques, phonétiques, identitaires et culturels. Il s’agit ainsi d’une double tâche impliquant d’abord le décodage et l’interprétation des signes ambigus de l’expression, ensuite la recherche ou la recréation d’un figement jouant à un niveau comparable. Notre corpus porte sur un roman littéraire : باب الشمس (Porte du soleil) d’Elias Khoury et sa traduction en français par Rania Samara. L’intérêt particulier de cette étude consiste à analyser le degré de correspondance des effets de style source et cible dans les deux textes en étudiant les multiples approches adoptées par la traductrice pour ce faire.

Mots-clés : Figures de style, Traduction, Langage figuré, Système culturel.

Highlights:

Challenges in Translating Figures of Speech – The study examines the complexities of preserving figurative language when translating between Arabic and French, considering linguistic and cultural differences.
Multidimensional Translation Approach – The research highlights the importance of semantic, structural, morphological, phonetic, identity, and cultural factors in maintaining the original style and imagery.
Decoding and Recreation – The study emphasizes the dual process of interpreting ambiguous expressions in the source text and recreating equivalent stylistic effects in the target language.
Case Study on Gate of the Sun – The research focuses on Elias Khoury’s novel Gate of the Sun and its French translation by Rania Samara, providing a concrete literary analysis.
Evaluation of Stylistic Correspondence – The study investigates the translator’s strategies to maintain stylistic equivalence, analyzing the effectiveness of different approaches.

The Translation of Medical and Health-Related Idioms by University Students from English into Arabic: Challenges and Strategies

2025-02-27T14:04:32+03:00

This study aims to investigate the challenges faced by undergraduate English language and literature majors when translating colloquial idioms and the strategies they employ to overcome these difficulties. Every so often, the literature documents two main and significant obstacles. Since languages differ in how they express meaning through the use of idioms, frozen and fixed formulations, and other linguistic strategies, there is firstly a lack of equivalence in the target language. Finding equivalents in the target language is therefore quite difficult. Translation may also be difficult because there are idioms that have the same structure in two languages but different meanings (Baker, 1992). The researchers examined the various approaches university students took when translating medical and health-related idioms from English into Arabic to answer the question of which strategies are most commonly used.. Ten distinct medical and health idioms were provided to forty-one Al- Balqa' Applied University (BAU) students to translate, all in context. Baker's model was applied to the data analysis. The results revealed that partial equivalence strategy was used the most by students in the study. They also show that students are familiar with colloquial Arabic idioms and that they understand the English idioms

Keywords: Translation assessment, Medical idioms, Translation strategies, English – Arabic translation, Translation pedagogy.

Highlights

An investigation of the major challenges undergraduate translation students face
An exploration of the strategies that undergraduate translation students use to overcome challenges
How undergraduate translation students engage translational theoretical background in their translation practice
An illustration of how translation assessment highlights areas for improvement
Most undergraduate translation students in the study used partial equivalence as a strategy

The Issue of Cross-Border Infiltration to Petra by the Young Israelis during the 1950s as Reflected in Modern Hebrew Prose

2025-02-27T14:13:36+03:00

During the first decade following the establishment of “Israel”, Petra (‘The Red Rock’) was perceived in the Israeli consciousness as the most remote, daring, and dangerous place that could be reached. Armed with this perception, fifteen Israeli young men and women crossed the Jordanian border with Petra as their desired destination, but only three returned alive. In its first section, this article outlines the birth and formation of the ‘Red Rock’ myth among the Palmach generation and its adaption by the next generation. The second part is devoted to examining the reasons that prompted those Israelis to undergo the hike to Petra, and how modern Hebrew Literature reflected the episode of hiking to Petra, starting from the first decade following the establishment of “Israel” until the 1990s. The researchers appended their study with a conclusion comprised of the most important results that have been reached.

Keywords: Hikes, Petra, Palmach, Modern Hebrew Prose, Red Rock.

Highlights

During that decade, thousands of young Israelis dreamed to coming to Petra, but only fifteen of them crossed the Jordanian border with Petra as their desired destination, but only three of them returned alive.
This study examines the reasons that prompted those Israelis to undergo the hike to Petra. In addition to how Modern Hebrew Literature reflected the episode of hiking to Petra, starting from the first decade following the establishment of the “state of Israel” until the 1990s.
This study reviews this phenomenon, tries also to shed a light on some questions concerning it, such as: the main reasons that led Israeli youth hike to Petra in 1950s, as well as how did the writers in Modern Hebrew Literature deal with this issue in their literary works?
Seeing Petra, during Israel’s first decade, was the ultimate dream of the young Israelis. During that period, Petra was a magical-mythical destination, and hiking to it is perceived as reflecting the love of the land and the original connection to the area.

The Dysfunctional Mother-Daughter Relationship in Rabih Alameddine’s I, the Divine

2025-02-27T14:18:28+03:00

The study grapples with the dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship in Rabih Alameddine’s I, the Divine (2002). It, equally, shows how the different cultural backgrounds and differences between the Lebanese father and the American mother affect the daughter’s personality development. It deals with other associated themes as rape scene and the Lebanese Civil War that influence the mother-daughter relationship. In other words, the study delves into Sarah’s life cycle and inner worlds to show how feelings of betrayal, abandonment and low self-esteem are the main symptoms of her shattered self. The study reveals how Sarah reconstructs herself during adulthood via different mediums. To shed light on the unnatural mother-daughter dyads, the study employs various psychoanalytic studies including Erik Erikson’s theories on child’s development.

Keywords: Rabih Alameddine, I, the Divine, Mother-Daughter Dyads, Psychology and Identity Formation.

Third World National Allegory in Sadeq Chubak’s Tangsir

2025-02-27T14:22:43+03:00

There is a common consensus among critics that Sadeq Chubak shirked quotidian life in his oeuvre and wrote “apolitical” works that portrayed an absurd world populated by outcasts, addicts, criminals, beggars, and the like. Rejecting this line of argument, this paper draws on Fredric Jameson’s triangular model of examining literary texts to analyse Tangsir, the Iranian novelist’s debut novel, as a national allegory. Accordingly, it will be first proposed that Tangsir (1963) imaginatively resolves the problem of domestic/foreign exploitation by allowing the protagonist to aggressively wipe out the oppressor. Second, it stages the concept of justice and represents two widespread approaches of the society of its time to it, and, by extension, addresses the national problem of Iran’s then exploitation by the West. Third, it exemplifies the synchronous development of several modes of production in Iran by inscribing the elements of romance and modernist fiction into an apparently realistic novel.

Keywords: Sadeq Chubak, Tangsir, national allegory, symbolic act, generic discontinuity.

Dialogic Failure of Displaced Lifeworld: An Analysis of Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

2025-02-24T12:22:06+03:00

This article investigates the encroachment of the economic and administrative systems in the immigrant lifeworld in Exit West by Mohsin Hamid. Habermas’s concept of lifeworld colonization has been customized by taking into account panoptic surveillance as an accomplice of financial and political pressures which cause strains in interpersonal communication. The accumulative effect of systematic pressure and surveillance on the verbal and nonverbal interpersonal interaction of the characters under surveillance is studied through a dialogic lens to answer the following questions: How is the dialogic nature of personal relations in the novel Exit West jeopardized by the continuous process of migration? How does the status of being migrant make the lifeworld vulnerable to a systemic watch of the host communities? How does displacement intensify interpersonal conflicts? The article employs dialogic textual reading to study the play of system-backed ideologies and the alleged role of the given dominant narrative at the level of interpersonal communication.

Keywords: Immigrants, Lifeworld, Double-Voicing, Surveillance.

Highlights:

Lifeworld Colonization
Role of Panoptic Surveillance
Erosion of Interpersonal Communication
Displacement Intensifying Conflict
Locating Power Imbalance through Double-Voiced Reading

Political Satire in Paul Torday’s Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

2025-03-02T10:20:22+03:00

Contemporary English fiction has increasingly delved into political themes and the intricacies of British ruling elites, partly driven by the decline of the British Empire after World War II. This decline provided fertile ground for writers and critics to explore political issues. Fiction, uniquely positioned to delve into the inner circles of decision-making, scrutinizes the motivations of politicians in ways that non-fiction cannot. Paul Torday’s Salmon Fishing in the Yemen exemplifies this type of politically tinged fiction. This research paper aims to uncover British political hegemony through a literary lens, re-examining the political satire within Torday’s novel. Torday effectively portrays the political dilemma faced by the British people. The paper critically analyzes political satire, capturing the scope of Torday’s narrative on British political life during that specific period. Drawing on oriental-occidental literary perspectives, the study sheds light on this important work.

Keywords: Political novel, Paul Torday, Spin, Satire, Yemen, Imperialism.

Highlights:

Scrutinizing how Torday employs the genre of political satire to criticize the British political mechanism in the early twenty-first century
Exploring Torday’s Salmon Fishing in the Yemen as a poignant exploration and critique of the tragic consequences of British involvement in the Middle East
Examining Torday’s depiction of the political themes and the intricacies of the British ruling elite in this novel
uncovering the British political hegemony through a literary lens by re-examining the political satire within Torday’s novel.
Shedding light on how Salmon Fishing in the Yemen serves as a reflection of British politics from within, highlighting how British politicians maneuver the game of politics through new, subtler forms of colonialism and hegemony

Re-Mapping Identity and Memory in Ghada Karmi's Return: A Palestinian Memoir and Edward Said's Out of Place: A Memoir

2025-03-02T10:27:31+03:00

Building on the theoretical ideas of Paul Ricoeur, Walter Benjamen and Pierre Nora, this article examines the anticolonial aspect of Edward Said’s and Ghada karmi’s memoirs, which includes Palestinian voices that articulate the crisis of memory and touch on the significance of memory in the narration of history. It demonstrates that the personal memories of Karmi and Said function as the main component of their incoherent and transient national experience, as well as the potential for resistant acts against the erasure and denial of Palestinian history. These memories, therefore, contribute to the formation of the Palestinian collective narrative as well as maintaining the historical continuity of Palestinians that is obscured by their permanent dislocation. It shows that the act of narration in these memoirs is an act of remembering images from the past through looking inside memory’s archives “because this image is an impression left by events, an impression that remains in the mind” (Ricoeur 1984, 10). Both authors seem to write the official history of Palestinians that underlies their struggle for legitimizing their existence in historical Palestine before the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948. They write it in the form of a historical document that needs to be archived and remembered. This article further demonstrates that both memoirists recall moments and flashes of the past to respond to a state of emergency and a collective crisis that demands memory to be remembered, and necessitates the articulation of memorial sites as historical archives.

Keywords: Memory, Archive, Identity, History, Nation.

Wuhan ou la Naissance de la Covid 19 (2022) de Mohammed Becha: Un Document sur cette Pandémie et une Histoire d’amour

2025-03-02T11:10:47+03:00

L’étude présente vise à souligner la double valeur du roman de Mohammed Becha, Wuhan ou la naissance de la Covid 19, en tant que document sérieux sur la pandémie du Covid-19, par sa référence aux informations scientifiques et histoire d’amour marquée à chaque pas par le poids lourd de cette pandémie. Elle souligne par conséquent l’interdépendance du réel et de l’imaginaire et le rôle de cet imaginaire dans l’animation du tableau réel d’une pandémie qui a actuellement un peu reculé mais qui perdure encore. Nous avons ainsi répondu aux questions suivantes : quelle est la valeur documentaire de ce roman sur la pandémie de Covid 19 ? Quelle est la part de l’imaginaire littéraire dans ce même roman qui, en réécrivant l’histoire documentée de cette pandémie, a narré en réalité une histoire d’amour placée sous le signe même de cette pandémie ?

Mots-clés : Covid-19, Pandémie, Imaginaire littéraire, Becha, Littérature francophone.

Highlights:

1. L’importance du roman dans la documentation des événements.
2. Le rôle de la littérature pour se tenir au courant de l’actualité.
3. Des points lumineux dans l’obscurité des catastrophes.
4. Malgré les calamités, nous ne cessons pas d’aimer.
5. Les tragédies et les catastrophes nous motivent à être créatifs.

Research into Translation and Training in Arabic Academic Institutions

2025-03-02T11:34:20+03:00

Translation in the Arab World: The Abbasid Golden Age

2025-03-02T11:52:30+03:00

The Routledge Course in Arabic Business Translation Arabic-English-Arabic

2025-03-02T11:58:45+03:00