Jordan Journal of Modern Languages & Literatures

Translation by Evidence: A Form-based Approach to the Translation of Sacred Texts

2024-09-05T12:10:47+03:00

This study suggests a form-based approach to the translation of sacred texts, particularly the Holy Qur'an. This approach is referred to as Translation by Evidence (TE). Drawing upon Sperber and Wilson's Relevance Theory (1986, 2002), TE suggests that any translation of the Holy Quran should be faithful to the source text (ST) in two ways: It should transfer all pieces of evidence that serve a particular function (1), and keep ST and TT receptors' processing efforts comparable (2). The study applied TE to the polar interrogatives in the translation of the Qur’an initiated with the particle [hal] (roughly translated as is or is there). The pieces of evidence in the Ayas were found to be suggestive of three speech acts, namely assertives, expressives and directives. The study argued that TE is a more adequate translation strategy as it producea a more faithful translation in terms of the cognitive effect of the translated Ayas processing effort by the TT receivers.

Reform, Fighting Corruption, and Countering Terrorism by the Jordanian media: A Corpus-Based Analysis of the Jordanian Local News Articles

2024-09-05T12:15:23+03:00

This study combines the quantitative tools of computational linguistics and the qualitative methods of critical discourse analysis to examine the terms reform, corruption, and terrorism in Jordanian media before, during, and after the Arab Spring. The study builds three sub-corpora representative of the three periods under investigation: the pre-uprising corpus consists of 2059 news items from 2005 to 2009; the during-uprising corpus includes 2957 news items from 2011 to 2012; and the post-uprising corpus has 2436 news items from 2016 to 2017. In data analysis, the study uses the tools provided by AntConc software program to uncover the sociopolitical factors and challenges associated with reform, fighting corruption, and countering terrorism in Jordan. The findings of the study reveal that local news stories about terrorism, corruption, and reform differ significantly in terms of frequency and content in the pre-, post-, and during-uprising periods. The study indicates that sociopolitical conditions influence news coverage of the topics reform, corruption, and terrorism and that news articles are the medium where social and political events are manifested.

Process-Genre Approach: Iranian EFL learners’ Argumentative Writing as an Example

2024-09-05T12:22:55+03:00

Comparing the effect of implementing process versus process-genre approach on Iranian EFL students’ argumentative writing was the primary aim of the study. Three discourse features were selected for analysis (i.e., organization pattern, coherence, and cohesion). In a quasi-experimental design, ninety-two EFL learners (from a subject pool of 117) were selected based on the BABEL test at upper-intermediate level in the age range of 18-36. The chosen participants were randomly allocated to an experimental group (N = 47) given process-genre approach instruction and a control group (N = 45) that was instructed utilizing the process approach. Then, two post-tests were taken: one right away and the other later. The results showed that the distinction between the two groups regarding three discourse features was statistically significant and the effects of process-genre approach retained in delayed post-test. The findings suggested that the integration of genre with writing processes can enhance Iranian EFL learners’ argumentative writing. The pedagogical implications of the study are also discussed.

Strategies of Reprimand in Spoken Jordanian Arabic: A Sociopragmatic Study

2024-09-05T12:29:42+03:00

This study presents an exploration of reprimand strategies in Spoken Jordanian Arabic (SJA). It also explores how gender influences the use of these strategies. The data were collected from 100 Jordanian native speakers of Arabic using a DCT. The mixed method analysis revealed that the participants employed bald on record, positive politeness strategies, negative politeness, off record, and not doing the face-threating act (FTA (strategies for expressing reprimand in SJA. It was found that the participants exhibited a preference for bald on record expressions to make reprimands. The results also showed that female participants employed various strategies when reprimanding in different situations compared to males who reprimanded directly irrespective of the domain of language use. In spite of the apparent inclination to go on record when reprimanding, the participants were found to be aware of the importance of employing positive and negative politeness strategies when performing this speech act.

Élaboration d’un Programme de Formation en FOS Destiné aux Policiers de Tourisme en Jordanie

2024-09-05T12:40:42+03:00

L’objectif de cette étude est d’élaborer un programme de formation en Français sur Objectif Spécifique (FOS) destiné aux Policiers du tourisme en Jordanie. Pour ce faire, nous avons procédé avec les cinq étapes de Jean-Marc Mangiante et Chantal Parpette (2004). Nous avons questionné notre public (les Policiers de tourisme) afin d’identifier et analyser leurs besoins langagiers. Ensuite, nous avons collecté les données et nous les avons analysées pour concevoir notre programme de formation en FOS. Ce programme se compose de 80 heures de formation et il contient des thèmes qui répondent aux besoins spécifiques de notre public.

L’Ironie Dialogique dans le Discours Journalistique : Une Multi-Fonctionnalité Pragmatique

2024-09-05T12:46:45+03:00

Cette étude se veut une analyse de l'ironie manifestée dans le discours journalistique jordanien sous deux angles: dialogique et pragmatique. Grâce à l'analyse d'un corpus composé de 10 chroniques publiées entre 2020 et 2022 par l'ironiste Ahmad Hassan Zou'bi, nous avons démontré que le discours ironique est un lieu dialogique par excellence, qui se présente comme un acte collectif, social et jamais actualisé sans la présence d'un tiers. Le caractère ironique des énoncés dialogiques se manifestent sous quatre formes essentielles: dialogisme interdiscursif; dialogisme intertextuel, dialogisme relationnel (ou interlocutif) et auto-dialogisme. Les résultats démontrent également que la dimension dialogique des énoncés ironiques est au service de leurs implications pragmatiques. Chaque forme dialogique est corrélée à une forme particulière d'ironie (hétéro ou auto-ironie) et est exploitée pour réaliser des fins pragmatiques précises.

Challenges of Rendering Chauvinism into Arabic: Implications for Dictionary Users and Translation Equivalence

2024-09-05T12:50:04+03:00

Bilingual dictionaries sometimes do not satisfy the needs of dictionary users because they offer partial equivalents or incomplete information. This status does not avail the users who seek to immediately retrieve the required information. The users presume that language entries in bilingual dictionaries are communicative equivalents that can be used to translate specific occurrences of the source language item. If the semantic and communicative translation does not hold between the SL and TL, the user will not be able to render the item in question successfully. This paper examines the target language equivalents for ‘chauvinism in English –Arabic dictionaries, namely the Oxford English-Arabic Dictionary (2014); Al-Mawrid, English- Arabic (2006); Al-Muɣni al-Kabiːr (1995); The Oxford Word Power (2006); The Dictionary, English-Arabic (2004), as a representative sample. These dictionaries do not catch the broad range of the concept that covers many sorts of claims and social attitudes in its native linguistic sources. To make up for this deficiency, the paper highlights the appropriate strategies that translators can use to render this concept communicatively into Arabic. The study is based on the communicative functional approach which assumes that dictionary meaning is insufficient to resolve potential ambiguities and that the contexts are necessary to unpack specific senses or connotations of the item. This deficiency has an impact on the translator’s choice of strategy to meet the target readers’ needs. Finally, strategies and suggestions for helping to achieve equivalence in bilingual dictionaries are discussed.

Sociopragmatic Variations: Addressing Practices of Pakistani English Speakers in Multilingual Academic Setting

2024-09-05T12:56:47+03:00

The study aims to identify the set of address forms used between Pakistani bi-/multilingual faculty members in university settings when speaking English. We highlight the impact of sociocultural and bi-/multilingual identity in English on the speakers' choices in formal and informal contexts. We have limited our data between teacher-teacher interactions through a questionnaire-survey of 90 participants. The data were analyzed through the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) v.20; a descriptive test was performed on the obtained data along with ethnographical observation. The result indicates the impact of the cultural and pragmatic variations in the use of address forms while interacting in English. Moreover, the multilingual situation influenced the addressing forms as observed when participants selected the native language's terms of address based on symmetrical and asymmetrical contexts. The faculty interactions showed differences in the styles of communication based on the interlocutor and the situation. These findings have large implications in sociolinguistics, sociopragmatic, academic discourse, and intercultural communication.

Flouting Grice’s Maxims in a Jordanian TV Talk Show

2024-09-05T13:03:51+03:00

This study investigates flouting Grice’s maxims in Sawt Al-Mamlakah, a Jordanian TV talk show. It aims at identifying the types, functions, and frequency of these flouted maxims. Using descriptive qualitative research, the data were analysed within Grice’s (1975) conversational maxims. The study findings reveal that all four maxims were flouted, with quantity being the most flouted, followed by relation, manner, and quality, respectively. Strategies for flouting included evading questions, providing lengthy or irrelevant responses, and sometimes creating a fun atmosphere. Communication breakdowns were not common though they were observed in a few instances. Flouting appeared context-dependent, serving various purposes like collaboration, elaboration, maintaining social relationships, politeness, image protection, expressing agreement or disagreement, satisfaction or dissatisfaction, refraining from sharing sensitive information, and emphasizing points. The study recommends further research on the same show over other periods of time and on maxim flouting in other Arab talk shows.

The Carnivalesque Grotesquerie in Richard Wright's Big Black Good Man

2024-09-05T13:21:22+03:00

This study proposes a Bakhtinian carnivalesque reading of Richard Wright’s story “Big Black Good Man.” In his investigation of the pre-historic epistemologies of the novelistic discourse, Mikhail Bakhtin mulls over the Rabelaisian grotesque delineations as being among the nascent manifestations of that discourse. The workings of the carnival dynamism in Wright’s piece is meant to question not only the genre frames, but also to playfully lay bare the violent hierarchies that characterize human expectations and ideational schemata. This “parodic” stylization on his part might amount to even being critical and self-critical burlesquing (caricaturing) that renders literature a discoursal spectacle of the space-racial imaginary. Wright’s story is replete with this carnivalesque tendency that dwells on meaning/power being negotiated and produced through the materiality and corporality of characterization and setting as well as plotting, making use of the geo-visual preconceptions and sensibilities. These sensibilities are here approached in the context of a carnivalesque-grotesque ecology.

The Gendered Politics of Postmodern Parody in Acker’s Great Expectations

2024-09-05T13:54:26+03:00

This paper critically explores the gendered politics of Kathy Acker’s use of postmodern parody in her novel Great Expectations (1982). By using the textual codes and paradigms of postmodern parody, as theorized by Linda Hutcheon, Acker seeks to initiate a parodic appropriation of the Dickensian text in order to interrogate the culturally privileged gender norms encoded in this male text. Acker’s parodic rewriting of Dickens’ Great Expectations (1862) is really one of textual appropriation as it seeks to re-write the male text from a totally different, notably gendered, perspective. The aim of such an appropriation is to create a textual space to negotiate issues of gender and female agency. Acker seeks to challenge culturally established canonical narratives of male dominance. She does this by creating feminist counter narratives that bring to the fore issues of gender identity and difference.

The Shakespearean Roadmap for the Implementation of Sustainable Development Goals

2024-09-05T14:03:38+03:00

Through an interdisciplinary lens of psychology, politics, environmentalism, economics and literary analysis, this paper explores intersections between the ethics embedded in William Shakespeare’s As You Like It (1599) and the food for thought on what is known since 2015 as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The paper scrutinizes Shakespeare’s criticism of unsustainable practices that thwart individual and collective prosperity as well as his advocacy of sustainability associated with the characters’ thoughts and behaviours. Analytical and comparative approaches are applied. The paper argues that the conducted analysis can raise the reader’s sustainable awareness and, consequently, accelerate his contribution to the implementation of the goals. The paper concludes that Shakespeare has managed to represent a roadmap for the implementation of the SDGs prior to the one proposed by the UN and that both roadmaps go beyond the fluctuating empathy gap between the wealthy and the impoverished to emphasize their partnership as pivotal for social welfare.

Frankenstein: A Literary Perspective on the Coronavirus Pandemic

2024-09-05T14:09:39+03:00

This paper examines how Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, building on Stanley Fish’s reader-response theoretical insights in “interpretive communities”, shapes the readers’ reception of the novel coronavirus pandemic. It argues that tagging the virus as the “Frankenstein virus” is informed by imaginative resemblances between the narratives of Victor Frankenstein’s scientific engagement and the coronavirus pandemic. Therefore, referencing Frankenstein nowadays underlines the terror that is haunting the public imagination upon the coronavirus outbreak and its mutations into more lethal variants. It also reveals how the novel makes its readers susceptible to promote the hypothesis on the coronavirus’s human engineering and manipulation. The paper also explains how Frankenstein manages the contagion embedded in Victor’s monster by ‘othering’ it, which helps the reader recognize the importance of the preventive measures, such as self-distancing and stay-at-home orders to downplay the spread of the virus and promote the psychological and physical wellbeing of the public.

The Franco-Algerian War: Narrating the Failure of the French Imperialist Project in Norman Lewis’s Darkness Visible (1960)

2024-09-05T14:22:30+03:00

This article examines the political attitude towards representing French colonialism to Algeria during the Franco-Algerian war (1954-1962) in Darkness Visible (1960) by the Welsh-British Norman Lewis. It probes how Lewis’s novel portrays French colonial project, which was intended to bring civilization to Algerians, as a failure through raising an anti- colonial thought. In the novel, the Mission does not only fail to achieve the goals of its agenda, but also fails in the sense that it exposes more negative consequences of exploitation, oppression, and cultural destruction of the colonized people. The paper also scrutinizes Lewis’s use of immediacy of the narrative and Manicheanism in characterization as literary device to critique French colonial practices against the natives; while, in parallel, Lewis highlights the aspect of nationalist mobilization to unearth the legitimacy of the Algerians fighting for liberty. Therefore, this article ventures thematically into Darkness Visible within anti- colonial discourse parameters.

Re-mapping the Postcolonial Heritage of Exile in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Admiring Silence

2024-09-05T14:26:30+03:00

Being exiled entails significant dichotomy as best communicated by Edward Said (2000) in his Reflections on Exile “[exile is] strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience” (173). This dichotomy between appealing and terrifying lies at the heart of Abdulrazak Gurnah’s narrative of exile and return entitled Admiring Silence (1996). The possibility of reconciling this dichotomy necessitates an examination of the current postcolonial condition and its impact on exile/return. Thus, the fundamental premise of this essay is to interrogate the current state of postcolonialism between narratives of resistance, “writing back”, anger, dichotomies, and narratives of defeat. This uncertain position generates two exilic conditions: an exile, which promises return and emancipation in opposition to a futile exile which generates no possibility of return. A reading of Admiring Silence reveals the current state of the postcolonial condition through questioning the significance of the protagonist’s journey between Zanzibar and England.

Literary Metaphor Comprehension in the Rational and Experiential Cognitive Styles of Human Thinking

2024-09-05T14:29:43+03:00

Prior research on the poetic metaphor interpretation has focused on describing metaphoric structure and identifying its principles by observing semantically mapped properties of a metaphor. Cognitive literary studies have highlighted an experimental approach to the metaphoric thinking. The experimental approach examines, among others, the empirical processes of metaphor interpretation and comprehension. For metaphor processing, emergent meanings are crucial. We already have many reports, findings and normative data on metaphor processing, but individual cognitive mechanisms and variations across people have received an insufficient attention. To address this issue, this empirical study examines the influence of rational (analytical) and experiential (intuitive) cognitive styles on the comprehension of a poetic literary metaphor. In our statistical analysis, we have used a fractional pooling of the participants. It highlights the non-identical metaphor processes in rational and experiential cognitive preferences. According to our findings, people with a preference for the experiential cognitive style produce relatively more emergent metaphorical meanings than people with a preference for the rational cognitive style. These findings contribute to the more complex knowledge of the metaphoric thinking consequences.