Paratextual (re)framing of media coverage of Christchurch Mosque Shootings: A translation-oriented study
Authors : Samadi, H., Obeidat, M. & Haider, A. S.
Abstract : This study investigates the role of translation in (re)framing different narratives of the Christchurch Mosque Shootings. It focuses on how translators utilized the paratextual elements to re-frame this terror attack and circulate the ideological attitudes of the media outlets they work for. The research data consist of eleven pairs of Arabic and English articles that were collected from five media outlets, namely, The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Middle East Online (MEO), Aljazeera, Al-Manar, and Sputnik. Adopting Baker’s model of narrative theory, this study showed that the selected media outlets utilized four paratextual framing devices, namely, titles, images with captions, headings (intertitles), and introductions. Adding new headings was the most commonly used device by the selected media outlets, whereas adding new introductions was the least used device. Examining readers’ comments on MEMRI’s posts on social media exhibited the impact of this incident’s re-framing in tarnishing the image of Islam and Muslims. This study is of vital significance to media workers and owners, translators, and researchers in political communication.
Keywords : Christchurch Attack; New Zealand; Framing Narratives; Ideology; Media Translation
رابط البحث
The psychological impact of COVID-19’s e-learning digital tools on Jordanian university students’ well-being
Authors : Al-Salman, S., Haider, A. S. & Saed, H. A
Abstract : Purpose This study aims to depict and probe into the building tension, stress and depression to which Jordanian university students have been vulnerable after the compulsory shift to online learning and their prolonged use of digital tools. Design/methodology/approach The researchers used a five-construct questionnaire, namely, use of digital tools in e-learning, sleeping habits, social interaction, psychological reactions and academic performance, to elicit the responses of university students in Jordan concerning the psychological impact of COVID-19’s e-learning digital tools on their well-being. In total, 775 university-level students representing Jordanian public and private universities were asked to fill in the questionnaire, and their responses were statistically analyzed. Findings The results showed that the prolonged use of digital tools, lack of face-to-face interaction and heavy load of assignments have led to anxiety, change of sleeping habit, distraction and a stress-building environment, perhaps resulting in depression. This was aggravated by COVID-19’s strict regulatory measures of social distancing, lockdowns, health threats and eroding family income. The prolonged and escalating social, psychological, loss of affection and worsening economic conditions have increased the number of psychological disorders and a drop in students’ academic performance. Practical implications This study is useful for educational leaders and policymakers, providing guidance and insights on how higher education institutions can support students’ mental health and psychological well-being, especially in times of crisis. Consequently, the higher education sector should be prepared to function more efficiently and effectively in future emergency situations. Originality/value While different studies have investigated the impact of COVID-19 on the education sector globally, little attention has been given to developing countries in the Middle East. By focusing on the Jordanian example, the present study will fill a gap in the research endeavors addressing the prolonged use of e-learning digital tools.
Keywords : E-learning; Mental health; Anxiety; Emotional well-being; Digital tools; COVID-19; Stress
رابط البحث
A quantitative analysis of the reactions of viewers with hearing impairment to the intralingual subtitling of Egyptian movies
Authors : Al-Abbas, L. S., Haider, A. S. & Saideen, B
Abstract : This study investigates how the viewers with hearing impairment reacted to the Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) subtitles added to some Vernacular Arabic movies during the COVID-19 stay-at-home period. A sample group of 106 deaf participants was asked to watch the MSA subtitled version of the Egyptian vernacular movie, Boushkash, and fill in an 18-item questionnaire of five constructs, namely, (1) movie watching habits, (2) technical aspects, (3) linguistic and paralinguistic information, (4) attitude, and (5) future actions and recommendations. The analysis showed that the intralingual subtitling of vernacular Arabic comedy movies was received positively by the participants. The technical specifications of the subtitles were satisfactory and adequate. The paralinguistic information was helpful as it offers a better understanding of the movie and creates a sense of reality in the movie's scenes. This indicates that intralingual subtitling is a step in the right direction that makes audiovisual materials accessible to people with hearing impairment and enhances their feeling of social inclusion. The study concludes that more governmental care in the Arab countries should be directed towards this minority group by urging national TV channels to add intralingual translation to their various programs.
Keywords : Accessibility; Subtitling; Hearing-impaired; Movies; SDH
رابط البحث
Jordanian University Instructors’ Practices and Perceptions of Online Testing in the COVID-19 Era
Authors : Haider, A. S., Hussein, R. F. & Saed, H. A.
Abstract : It is widely known that exceptional circumstances inevitably call for the use of matching procedures. As there has been a change in face-to-face teaching methods, there have also been parallel changes in student evaluation and assessment plans or strategies during the COVID-19 era. This study investigates how COVID-19 affected online testing in higher education institutions in Jordan. For this purpose, the researchers developed a five-construct Likert-type questionnaire with 20 items and distributed it to a sample of 426 university instructors. The constructs were the internet and technology, technical and logistic issues, types of questions, test design, and students’ awareness. The results showed that the Internet and technology are essential to guarantee the successful performance of online testing. The study also showed that this type of testing affected the test design and types of questions in a way to eliminate or at least reduce the spread of online cheating. The study recommends that higher education institutions provide instructors with on-the-job training, not only in e-learning techniques and procedures but also in preparing and conducting online exams.
Keywords : online testing, internet, question types, exam security, test design, cheating (education)
رابط البحث
Establishing a COVID-19 lemmatized word list for journalists and ESP learners
Authors : Saed, H. A., Hussein, R. F., Haider, A. S., Al-Salman, S. & Odeh, I. M.
Abstract : The aim of this research is two-fold; first, to explore the most frequent COVID-19 inspired words in medical news reporting contexts, and second, to classify them into different categories. This paper adopts a corpus-based approach to build a lemmatized academic word list (AWL) inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic. Factiva was used to retrieve the pandemic-related articles published in News Rx from January 1-October 31, 2020. A total number of 18,249,093-word corpus was compiled. The corpus linguistic software program Wordsmith (WS-6)(Scott, 2012) was used to generate a word list based on the complied corpus. Subsequent to compiling, lemmatizing, and analyzing the AWL, six categories were identified, namely, acronyms and abbreviation, diseases, COVID-19, biology, medicine, and scientific disciplines, all of which are of essential use for media workers, ESP learners of journalism, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and allied health sciences. Building such a discipline-specific glossary will be of special pedagogical value for health journalists, textbook writers and curriculum designers, instructors, and ESP learners in the health sciences field. One of the major contributions of this research is establishing lemmas of a large set of AWL. This set can be utilized by news media workers, health communication specialists, and ESP learners. Lemmatization will ensure rapid dissemination of the word list and its integration in the linguistic system through derivation and other word-formation processes.
Keywords : COVID-19; ESP; journalism; lemmatization; pedagogy
رابط البحث
A Corpus-assisted Translation Study of Strategies Used in Rendering Culture-bound Expressions in the Speeches of King Abdullah II
Authors : Al-Khalafat, L., & Haider, A. S.
Abstract : Translation is defined as transferring meaning and style from one language to another, taking the text producer's intended purpose and the audience culture into account. This paper uses a 256,000-word Arabic-English parallel corpus of the speeches of King Abdullah II of Jordan from 1999 to 2015 to examine how some culture-bound expressions were translated from Arabic into English. To do so, two software packages were used, namely Wordsmith 6 and SketchEngine. Comparing the size of the Arabic corpus with its English counterpart using the wordlist tool of WS6, the researchers found that the number of words (tokens) in the English translation is more than the Arabic source text. However, the results showed that the Arabic language has more unique words, which means that it has more lexical density than its English counterpart. The researchers carried out a keyword analysis and compared the Arabic corpus with the ArTenTen corpus to identify the words that King Abdullah II saliently used in his speeches. Most of the keywords were culture-bound and related to the Jordanian context, which might be challenging to render. Using the parallel concordance tool and comparing the Arabic text with its English translation showed that the translator/s mainly resorted to the strategies of deletion, addition, substitution, and transliteration. The researchers recommend that further studies be conducted using the same approach but on larger corpora of other genres, such as legal, religious, press, and scientific texts.
Keywords : Arabic, English, translation, parallel corpus, translation strategies
رابط البحث
Stereotyping Arab women in jokes circulated on social media during the coronavirus crisis
Authors : Haider, A. S., & Al-Abbas, L. S.
Abstract : Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in late 2019, fear and panic dominated the content of online news. Simultaneously, there was a prevalence of jokes and satire on the different social media sites. During the crisis, most Arab countries went through a nationwide lockdown for weeks that people found themselves trapped in their homes and resorted to social media to express their frustrations about the prevailing happenings. They began exchanging jokes and parodies on social media that indirectly reflected stereotypes about them. 1424 jokes were collected from Facebook and WhatsApp messages during a period of three months and were categorized based on the themes they covered. Gender-related jokes ranked the highest, and were predominantly targeting women. Hence, this study is an attempt to explore how Arab Women were stereotyped in Jokes circulated on social media during the Coronavirus crisis. The 508 gender-related jokes were analysed in light of the General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH). The analysis generated 4 main themes, namely 'marital relations' (33%), 'habits and attributes' (26%), 'beauty and makeup' (23%) and 'violence' (18%). Women were stereotyped as being ugly and less feminine without makeup, talkative, shopaholic, despising and annoying wives, and violent and harmful partners in their private sphere. The study concludes that such negative stereotypes might be unintentionally produced and reinforced through laughter-eliciting humor that circulates fast in the virtual world.
Keywords : Coronavirus; stereotype; GTVH; CDA; social media; women; jokes
رابط البحث
Jordanian university instructors' perspectives on emergency remote teaching during COVID-19: humanities vs sciences
Authors : Haider, A. S., & Al-Salman, S.
Abstract : Purpose The study aims to probe into university instructors' reactions to adopting the remote online learning model brought by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The study investigates the instructors' perspectives, in the humanities and science classes, on the effectiveness of the emergency remote teaching (ERT) compared to face-to-face teaching. Design/methodology/approach The data for the study were compiled from the responses of 127 instructors representing two private universities in middle and northern Jordan. The sample included 66 faculty members in the humanities and 61 in the sciences. The instructors' responses were elicited through a Likert-type questionnaire consisting of 20 items. Findings The present study's findings have shown that online instruction is becoming more common despite the presence of some major challenges facing instructors. The results showed that the e-learning system seems to better suit the humanities courses compared to the sciences courses. The findings also showed that faculty members in the humanities are more satisfied with the effectiveness of the assessment tools utilized in the online courses than their colleagues in the sciences. In addition, humanities e-courses seem to provide a more interactive learning environment than e-courses in the sciences. Practical implications More training for instructors on how to design online course syllabi to ensure effective delivery is needed. Instructors need to develop ways to encourage students to interact in virtual e-classes to the same level as the on-ground classes. Instructors also need to adopt the “blended learning” system as a transitional stage before switching completely to online learning. Originality/value Different studies have investigated how COVID-19 has impacted education. The current study brings to light the perspectives of the Jordanian teaching staff on transitioning to ERT during the COVID-19 crisis taking into account the differences between humanities and sciences classes.
Keywords : COVID-19, Emergency remote teaching, Reactions, Tutors, Humanities, Sciences Paper type Research paper
رابط البحث
The use of YouTube in developing the speaking skills of Jordanian EFL university students
Authors : Saed, H. A., Haider, A. S., Al-Salman, S. & Hussein, R. F
Abstract : This study examines the effectiveness of using YouTube videos in teaching the speaking skills among English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students in Jordan. The study sample comprised 80 students attending Oral Skills classes in the English Language and Literature Department at a private university in Jordan. The participants were equally divided into a control group and an experimental group of 40 students each. The experimental group was taught through the use of YouTube videos, while the control group was taught the speaking skills using the traditional approach. A pre-test and a post-test were administered to the two groups. Four TEFL experts were asked to rate the participants’ performance using the IELTS speaking band descriptors, which consist of four main categories: fluency & coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range & accuracy, and pronunciation. The findings showed that the performance of the two groups was improved. However, compared to the traditional group, the experimental group demonstrated a relatively better improvement. The results also showed significant progress in the speaking performance of the students subjected to the YouTube experiment. Of all the four constructs under investigation, pronunciation and fluency & coherence were the most noticeably advanced in the performance of the YouTube experimental group. The present study recommends that YouTube videos be embedded into the EFL classroom to improve students' speaking skills.
Keywords : YouTube; Speaking; EFL; ESL; Jordan Experimental group
رابط البحث
Media Coverage of Syrian Female Refugees in Jordan and Lebanon
Authors : Haider, A. S. & Olaimy, S. S. & Al-Abbas, L. S.
Abstract : Jordan and Lebanon are among the predominantly affected countries by the Syrian civil war that began after the outbreak of the Arab Spring in 2011. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Syrians, including women and children, moved to these two countries. As media plays an integral role in shaping societies and framing the world around us, this study explores the representation of Syrian female refugees in Jordan News Agency (Petra) and Lebanon National News Agency (NNA). It uses a 13-million-word corpus of Arabic news articles from 2012 to 2016. These 5 years represent the peak of the Syrian refugee crisis, and the media coverage of it was extensive and thorough. Adopting a corpus-assisted discourse approach to analyze the data yielded eight main categories that were recurrent in the news of the two agencies, namely, suffering, sexual exploitation, impact on the local female community, awareness-raising, making a living, support, vulnerability, and burden. The findings revealed that the focus in Petra news was mainly on empowering the Syrian female refugees, while NNA highlighted Syrian women’s suffering and efforts of alleviation. The study recommends that the governments of Jordan and Lebanon as well as international organizations provide more support and protection for vulnerable and disadvantaged refugee women. It also stresses the need for psychosocial support, counter-trafficking, protection, and women empowerment programs.
Keywords : refugees, media, Middle East, suffering, Jordan, Lebanon, women
رابط البحث
Courtroom Strong Remarks: A Case Study of the Impact Statements from Survivors and Victims’ Families of the Christchurch Mosque Attacks
Authors : Haider, A. S., Al-Salman, S. & Al-Abbas, L. S.
Abstract : Acts of violence arising from hatred, racism, and bigotry have no place in a world of civility. The brutal attacks on Muslim worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, leaving 51 dead and 49 injured, can never be justified. Through adopting Van Dijk's ideological square of 'Us. vs. Them' [3], the present study uncovers the impact statements of the attacks' survivors and victims' families, denouncing the severity of the event and expressing the shattering effects of the attacks on self, society, and humanity at large. Over a period of three days, about 90 people delivered their statements in the High Court in Christchurch. The data were compiled through YouTube videos and news articles that reported the testimonies. The findings showed that the overall discursive strategy used in the impact statements is that of positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation. Such presentations are realized by focusing on the positive aspects of the ingroup members represented by the attacks' survivors, victims' families, and people of New Zealand on the one hand, and the negative characteristics of the out-group members represented by the terrorist, on the other. As the paper sends a strong message for accepting 'otherness' and rejecting antagonism, it is of significance to readers and researchers in inter-faith dialogue, human rights, equality, freedom, and justice.
Keywords : Discourse · Victim impact statement · Christchurch attacks · New Zealand · Islam · Terrorism
رابط البحث
Using Modern Standard Arabic in subtitling Egyptian comedy movies for the deaf/ hard of hearing
Authors : Al-Abbas, L. S., & Haider, A. S.
Abstract : Audiovisual Translation (AVT) has gained widespread popularity due to various factors, including technology advancement and, more importantly, audience needs. In the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, Netflix added Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) subtitles to Egyptian Colloquial Arabic movies. This study investigates how the deaf and hard-of-hearing audience received this service in comedy movies. The script of the movie in the vernacular Egyptian was qualitatively compared to Netflix MSA subtitles. A sample group of 40 deaf and hard of hearing participants was asked to watch an Egyptian comedy movie with MSA subtitles and fill in a 12-item questionnaire of four constructs. Since SDH in the Arab World is still relatively new, the quantitative analysis confirmed the expected conclusion that intralingual subtitling of Arabic movies is a step in the right direction to make audiovisual materials accessible to the DHH and enhance their feeling of social inclusion. The qualitative analysis demonstrated the differences between the MSA subtitles and the vernacular Egyptian utterances regarding the information included, whether linguistic or paralinguistic. The qualitative results also showed that the MSA subtitles had additional information, such as speaker tags, sound effects, and other non-linguistic features that helped more than half of the participants gain better access to the different elements of the movie. The analysis also showed that rendering the dialectal expressions and intentional slips of the tongue into MSA seemed odd and less humorous in some cases. The study findings can be helpful for both translator training programs and industry, especially those interested in subtitling audiovisual materials for people with varying sensorial abilities. In the Arab World, the volume of SDH still lags. Therefore, Arab governments are recommended to impose regulations on TV channels to increase subtitling for this group of community in an attempt to be more just and inclusive.
Keywords : Audiovisual translation (AVT)accessibilitysubtitlingdeaf and hard of hearingModern Standard Arabic (MSA)intralingual translation
رابط البحث
A Corpus-Driven Study of Terms Used to Refer to Articles and Methods in Research Abstracts in the Fields of Economics, Education, English Literature, Nursing, and Political Science
Authors : Hussein, R. F., Haider, A. S. Al-Sayyed, S.W
Abstract : The present study attempts to identify the most frequent terms that are used in research abstracts relating to research articles designations, research methods, and research goals and quantify them in various disciplines, namely, economics, education, English literature, nursing, and political science to see whether there is a unique pattern characterizing terms peculiar to each of the five disciplines under investigation. It also explains why specific terms are overused/ underused by researchers. The current study follows a corpus-driven approach. For this purpose, we compiled a corpus of 2500 research abstracts from online refereed journals in the fields mentioned above. The corpus linguistic software program, AntConc (3.5.8), was used to analyze the collected data. The analysis revealed that some terms are more frequently used in some areas than others. For example, the term 'study' was the most common word to designate academic research. The most frequent term to refer to population and subject-related terms was 'sample/s,' while the least frequent was 'interviewee/s.' The words used to designate tools or instruments varied, with 'test' being the most frequent and 'checklist/s' the least. This study is of significant benefit for researchers in various disciplines. It acquaints them with terms used to designate articles in their respective fields, in addition to terms used most frequently to refer to sample- related terms and finally to words used for setting goals such as objectives, aims, and goals. This, in turn, can help researchers and graduate students embarking on writing their theses to opt for the most relevant terms peculiar to their disciplines. Unlike most studies that focused on developing academic word lists (AWL), this study set off with terms previously established and used in research bodies and research abstracts to unveil their popularity and the extent to which they are used in various discipline abstracts.
Keywords : research abstracts, terminologies, frequency, AntConc, academic disciplines, corpus
رابط البحث
The representation of Covid-19 and China in Reuters’ and Xinhua’s headlines
Authors : Al-Salman, S. & Haider, A. S.
Abstract : The scare caused by China’s sudden coronavirus outbreak turned out to be a global threat. The new virus cases and infections have been spreading fast both in China and abroad, prompting the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a global health emergency. By analysing a corpus of 16,980 English headlines of Reuters and Xinhua from January 8, 2020, to February 29, 2020, the present study seeks to examine the most frequently discussed topics in this context. It also investigates how China is represented in the headlines of the two news agencies. Informed by critical discourse analysis, the headlines were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. The representation of the virus in the news headlines of the two agencies reflected differences in the thematic focus. Reuters focused on the immediate and long-term repercussions, serious implications, and consequences of the current health crisis. Xinhua’s reporting, on the other hand, tended to play down the effects of the coronavirus spread on the Chinese economy and highlighted China’s readiness and ability to curb the spread of the disease. The study concludes that the local media’s reporting is geared towards enforcing the “Us vs. Them” dichotomy by highlighting the government’s efforts in fighting the epidemic.
Keywords : Headlines, critical discourse analysis, coronavirus, media agencies, Xinhua, Reuters, China
رابط البحث
COVID‐19 trending neologisms and word formation processes in English
Authors : Al-Salman, S. Haider, A. S.
Abstract : The surge of new words and phrases accompanying the sudden COVID-19 outbreak has created new lexical and sociolinguistic changes that have become part of our lives. The emergence of COVID-19’s coinages has remarkably increased to establish a trending base of global neologisms. The present study attempts to investigate the nature of the new English words and expressions that emerged in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. It also identifies the type of word-formation processes that contributed to the emergence of these neologisms in the English language. The researchers compiled a corpus of 208 COVID-19-inspired neologisms from different sources, including social networking websites, search engines, blogs, and news articles. The analysis revealed that word formation processes were so varied to cover all possible forms of derivation, including affixation, compounding, blending, clipping, acronyms, among others, along with dual word-formation processes, with compounding and blending being the most discrete. The findings showed that the flux of new terms demonstrates the creativity and vitality of the English language to respond to emerging situations in times of crisis. The study recommends that further research be carried out on the new terms that have been transferred to other languages as loanwords, loan-translations and loanblends.
Keywords : COVID-19, neologisms, language change, word-formation processes, English
رابط البحث
Jordanian University Students' Views on Emergency Online Learning during COVID-19
Authors : Al-Salman, S & Haider, A. S.
Abstract : The present study investigates the influence of digital technology, instructional and assessment quality, economic status and psychological state, and course type on Jordanian university students’ attitudes towards online learning during the COVID-19 emergency transition to online learning. A survey of 4,037 undergraduate students representing four Jordanian public and private universities revealed that personal challenges (such as economic and psychological stress) decreased students’ willingness to learn online in the future, while the quality of the online experience (including instructional and assessment quality) improved their attitudes towards learning online in the future. Students also believed that Arts & Humanities courses were better suited for online teaching/learning than Sciences courses, a difference that persisted after controlling for personal challenges and the quality of the online learning experience.
Keywords : COVID-19, higher education, online learning, Jordan, attitudes, university students
رابط البحث
Analysing headlines as a way of downsizing news corpora: Evidence from an Arabic–English comparable corpus of newspaper articles
Authors : Haider, A. S. & Hussein, R. F
Abstract : This study examines whether a qualitative analysis of news headlines produces complementary, convergent, or dissonant findings with a quantitative analysis of the full news story. Headlines are among the most important parts of a news story and its summary. This study investigates the construction of Qaddafi in the headlines of two newspapers before and during the 2011 Libyan civil war. This is based on a sub-corpus of headlines that was taken from a 6.5-million-word corpus of two newspapers; one published in English; The Guardian, and the other in Arabic; Asharq Al-Awsat from 2009 to 2011. The analysis of the headlines has produced complementary and convergent findings with the corpus analysis and suggests that the 2011 Libyan civil war represents a turning point on how Qaddafi is represented in the investigated newspapers. This study concludes that analysing headlines proves to be a good down-sampling option to reduce large news corpora to a workable amount of data.
Keywords :
رابط البحث
Dataset of Jordanian university students’ psychological health impacted by using e-learning tools during COVID-19
Authors : Haider, A. S. Al-Salman
Abstract : A dataset was compiled to examine the psychosomatic impact of COVID-19′s e-learning digital tools on Jordanian university students’ well-being. In response to the state of emergency imposed by COVID-19, Jordanian universities switched to the online learning model as an alternative to traditional face-to-face education. The researchers designed a questionnaire that consists of two main sections; the first section included demographic information including gender, level/year, age, and cumulative average (GPA). The second section comprised five main constructs: (1) use of digital tools (mobile phone, laptop, i-pad) before and after COVID-19, (2) sleeping habits before and after COVID-19, (3) social interaction, (4) psychological state, and (5) academic performance. The researchers contacted different instructors teaching compulsory courses at four public and private universities and asked them to distribute the electronic questionnaire. Using the snowball sampling method, the questionnaire was delivered to students studying at the selected universities, and a total of 775 responses were received. The data were analyzed according to Likert's five-point scale, where frequencies and percentages were calculated. The data will be useful for researchers interested in studying the relationship between the e-learning model and psychosomatic disorders. Policymakers can use the data to identify university students’ emotional and psychological needs and propose practical solutions for their educational well-being.
Keywords : Psychosomatic, COVID19, College students, Disorders, Stress, Tension, Emotional well-being, Jordan
رابط البحث
Teachers and Students Code-Switching: The Inevitable Evil in EFL Classrooms
Authors : Hussein, R. F., Saed, H. A. Haider, A. S
Abstract : Code-switching has been primarily investigated in a variety of sociocultural contexts, especially in foreign and second language settings. The majority of code-switching instances, whether in teacher-initiated activities or teacher-student interaction, seem to suggest that these interactions reflect a sophisticated language use and serve a variety of pedagogical purposes. This study aims to find out the main functions and roles of code-switching among EFL high school teachers and students in Jordan. For this purpose, classroom observation and a questionnaire were used as instruments. Two EFL teachers were regularly observed, and notes of their code-switching behaviour over four weeks were taken, examined, classified, and finally analysed. A questionnaire was used for 330 students from two secondary schools in Jordan. The students were asked to fill in a Likert-type questionnaire. From the classroom observation, the results showed that teachers code-switch for several reasons including affective function, giving instructions and directions, and linguistic incompetence. The questionnaire administered to students showed that students code-switch for non-linguistuc purposes such as maintaining rapport and interpersonal relationships as well as keeping the line of communication without interruption to avoid any sort of conflict or misunderstanding. This study concludes by recommending that teachers should improve students’ English language skills in non-linguistic domains such as the affective and interpersonal ones.
Keywords : Code-switching; English as a Foreign Language (EFL); Arabic-English; Roles and Functions; High-school
رابط البحث
COVID-19’S IMPACT ON THE HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM IN JORDAN: ADVANTAGES, CHALLENGES, AND SUGGESTIONS
Authors : Haider, A. S. & Al-Salman, S
Abstract : Purpose of the study: The present study surveys the reactions of university-level faculty members in Jordan towards their experience with COVID-19's emergency online learning model. It primarily investigates the advantages of switching to online learning, challenges faced, and suggestions for improving the teaching-learning process. Methodology: The study is based on empirical data compiled from the responses of 432 instructors in six Jordanian public and private universities. The data collection instrument consists of a structured open-ended questionnaire, which comprises three constructs: challenges, advantages, and suggestions for improvement. Similar responses were combined in thematic categories and were calculated to obtain frequencies and percentages. Main Findings: Concerning the advantages, e-learning enabled instructors to use new effective teaching tools and acquire new skills. The challenges were mainly related to technology and the Internet, assessment, interaction, and lack of clear vision and regulations by policymakers. Instructors suggested providing better technical support; blending online with traditional learning; offering more training, and improving the assessment tools and designing new ones. Applications of this study: This study is useful for educational leaders and policymakers providing guidance and insights on how higher education institutions have responded to this global health emergency, and how they managed to meet the evolving needs of students and staff. Consequently, the higher education sector should be prepared to operate more efficiently and effectively for any future emergencies. Novelty/Originality of this study: While different studies have investigated the impact of COVID-19 on the education sector globally, little attention has been given to developing countries in the Middle East. To this end, the present study focuses on how COVID-19 has been effective in reshaping and revolutionizing the higher education paradigm in Jordan through highlighting the advantages, challenges, and subsequent suggestions for improvement.
Keywords : COVID-19, Higher Education, E-learning, Jordan, Blended Learning, Instructors’ Feedback
رابط البحث
Google Autocomplete Search Algorithms and the Arabs' Perspectives on Gender: A Case Study of Google Egypt
Authors : Al-Abbas,L.S., Haider, A. S, Hussein, R. F
Abstract : Search engines have become an essential part of everyone's life, with Google being the most popular. Google Search provides the autocomplete feature for faster and easier search results, offering 10 top suggestions at a time, and these may influence how users view different social groups. Different scholars have explored online discourse to reveal stereotypes about certain groups. However, little or no attention has been paid to technological affordances to reveal broader gender biases and stereotypes in the Arab World. This study examines how Google autocomplete searches can reflect the Arabs' perspectives on gender. Google Egypt is selected since it is top-rated in the number of internet users. Google is queried by entering a combination of Arabic question wordsfollowed by the Arabic equivalents for men and women. One hundred and ninety questions were generated and categorized according to the qualities they referenced. The most common assumptions about men indicate that they are cheaters, liars, self-dominant, emotionally strong, and smarter than women. They are also stereotyped as being more likely to admire young women, prefer sons over daughters, and desire polygamy. Women, on the other hand, are stereotyped as plotting, materialistic, emotional, and sensitive. The study concludes that since such generalizations may entail exaggerations and are not evidently right all the time, one must be careful about adopting such stereotypes and making them part of each gender's views of the other. Bearing in mind the perpetuating function that technology may have of existing stereotypes and social norms, users and developers of Google alike must pay more attention to gender biases that algorithms may establish and disseminate.
Keywords : Arabic; Google's Autocomplete; Anonymity; Stereotypes; Gender; Online Discourse
رابط البحث
The representation of homosexuals in Arabic-language news outlets
Authors : Al-Abbas,L.S., & Haider, A. S,
Abstract : Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the most frequent countries and prevalent discourses in the context of homosexuality in the headlines of Arabic-language media outlets. Design/methodology/approach – This study combined both corpus linguistic (CL) quantitative and critical discourse analysis (CDA) qualitative approaches to analyse five thousand two hundred news headlines that were retrieved from the Factiva news database from 2010 to 2019. Findings – There were six main categories of subjects covered by the media in the context of homosexuality, namely crime, extremist groups, legislation, authority figures and scandals, culture and countries. The analysis showed that the countries whose laws criminalize homosexuals were more frequent than those seen to be supportive of homosexuals. The findings revealed that homosexuals are under-covered in the Arab media, and whenever they are present in the news reports, they are depicted negatively. Research limitations/implications – This study examined the representation of homosexuals in Arabic headlines from 2010 to 2019. Future researchers may investigate their construction in the body of the articles in different periods and languages. Practical implications – The present research has implications regarding the necessity of objectivity in covering news about minority groups without being influenced by the stock of ideas circulating in the culture where media outlets report. Social implications – The social implications include enhancing the principles and values of solidarity and respecting all groups in society. Originality/value – Although there is considerable literature on the representation of homosexuals in media outlets, the number of articles that investigated the same concept in the Arab region is relatively limited to the best knowledge of the researchers. Therefore, this study can add great significance to existing knowledge as it tackles a limitedly investigated topic in the Arab world.
Keywords : Homosexuals, News, Arabic language, Corpus linguistics, Discourse historical approach (DHA) Paper type Research paper
رابط البحث
Evaluating the Accuracy and Consistency in Rendering Qurʾanic Terms with Overlapping Meanings into English
Authors : Al-Abbas, L. S. & Haider, A. S.
Abstract : The Holy Qurʾan has many terms that exhibit a great similarity in meaning and may not be easily rendered into another language. The present study attempts to explore the accuracy of the lexical choices used to render the Arabic near-synonyms ʿfawa, ṣafaḥa, and ġafara into English in three Translations of the Holy Qurʾan; namely, Pickthall (1999), Ali (2001), and Al-Hilali and Khan (2018). The researchers carried out a componential analysis for the Arabic words under study and their English equivalents based on their explanation in different Arabic and English dictionaries and exegeses. The study also investigates whether the translators maintain consistency in translating these words when they occur within the same verse and elsewhere. The findings show that the translators tended to use different English equivalents to the three Arabic words especially when they occur within the same verse, and sometimes failed to reflect the slight differences between them in their translations that they use them interchangeably. With regard to consistency, the study found that the three translators used various English equivalents to refer to the same Arabic word, but Al-Hilali & Khan and Ali were more consistent than Pickthall.
Keywords : Qurʾan; translation; consistency; near synonymy; semantics
رابط البحث
The Impact of English Proficiency on University Students’ Use of One-word or Phrasal Verbs
Authors : Haider, A. S., Saed, H. A., Hussein, R. F Al-Abbas, L. S. Miqdadi, S
Abstract : Second language learners encounter some challenges and difficulties in learning and using English phrasal verbs. This study examines whether the subjects’ English proficiency levels influence their use of phrasal verbs. For this purpose, 480 male and female students enrolled in the departments of English Language and Translation at three Jordanian private universities were asked to translate 15 Arabic sentences into English. Using an English Proficiency Test, the subjects were categorised into three levels; advanced, upper-intermediate, and intermediate. The findings show the relatively high use of phrasal verbs when translating Arabic verbs into English among the advanced group (42%), followed by the upper intermediate (27.4%) and intermediate groups (21.9 %). The study concludes with the suggestion that more attention should be paid to idiomatic language use by second language learners to render their translations idiomatic and correct.
Keywords : College students, Arabic and English, One-word verbs, Phrasal verbs, Translation.
رابط البحث
The Computer and Internet Terms: A Gold Mine for English Dictionaries
Authors : Hussein, R. F. & Haider, A. S.
Abstract : This article investigates how the internet and computer-based terminology has enriched the English lexical stock through the use of different word formation processes. It also aims to find out the incorporation rate of online-related vocabulary in four dictionaries; namely Collins Online Dictionary, Cambridge Online English Dictionary, MerriamWebster’s Online Dictionary, and Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. The digital terms were extracted mainly from NetLingo categories: acronyms, online jargon, online business terms, online marketing, net hardware, net software, net technology, technical terms, and text messaging. To achieve the aims of the study, hundreds of online terms were analyzed and classified in terms of the different word formation processes such as derivation. The results show that both Greek and Latin and the internet have immensely enriched the English lexicon and that the incorporation of internet-related expressions varied considerably among the dictionaries.
Keywords : digital terms; word formation processes; borrowing, Greek and Latin; English dictionaries
رابط البحث
Overcoming Cultural Constraints in Translating English Series: A Case Study of Subtitling Family Guy into Arabic
Authors : Debbas, M. Haider, A. S.
Abstract : Subtitling and dubbing foreign animation in Arabic have been growing since TV screens reached Arab homes. This imposes stricter control and ethical supervision of the used language. This study examines the cultural constraints in subtitling the American animated sitcom Family Guy into Arabic. Family Guy addresses sensitive matters, such as sex, alcohol, religion, and politics, and so it is viewed with concern and caution in the Arab world. The researchers classified the cultural constraints in translation into three main categories: religious remarks, jokes & humour that revolve around proper nouns, and taboos. The analysis shows that the strategies used in translating religious remarks were scene deletion, words omission, and words omission with justifications. For jokes and humour, the translator opted for three strategies, namely, retain unchanged, retain unchanged with added guidance and retain unchanged with detailed explanation. Euphemistic expressions and word omission were the two strategies followed in translating taboos. The study concludes that the target audience has a vital role in determining the appropriate constraints on translation that go in line with their ideology and culture.
Keywords : Audio-visual Translation; English-Arabic; Ideology; Subtitling; Family Guy
رابط البحث
Using corpus linguistic techniques in (critical) discourse studies reduces but does not remove bias: Evidence from an Arabic corpus about refugees
Authors : Haider, A. S.
Abstract : Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) investigates the relationship between language, power, and society. Corpus linguistics (CL) is the study of language based on examples of real life language use. Over the last two decades, various scholars have combined some approaches and notions of CDA with the analytical framework of CL to examine the representation of several phenomena in relatively large texts. This study follows a corpus-assisted (critical) discourse analysis approach to investigate a 2.5-million-word corpus of Arabic news articles by Jordan’s News Agency (PETRA). It demonstrates how some researchers following this approach may make some decisions, at some stages of their analysis, which are likely to affect their findings. These potential decisions may include selecting what statistical measures to use, what threshold to consider, what terms from the frequency, cluster, and collocation results to further investigate, which concordance lines to include in their study, and some others. In this study, I argue that some of these decisions can be made to suit the researchers’ preconceived assumptions and pre-existing hypotheses. The study concludes that using corpus linguistic techniques to discursively analyze large data reduces but not completely removes researchers’ bias.
Keywords : Corpus Linguistics; Corpus-assisted Discourse Studies; Critical Discourse Analysis; methodological synergy
رابط البحث
Examining Arabic and English newspapers’ representation of the release of the only person convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing: A corpus-based critical discourse analysis
Authors : Haider, A. S.
Abstract : This study combines two methodological strands, namely, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Corpus Linguistics (CL) to identify some discursive practices relating to the representation of Megrahi, the only man convicted of involvement in the Lockerbie bombing in 1988. This is based on a 27-million word corpus of four newspapers; two published in English (The Guardian and The New York Times), and two in Arabic (Asharq Al-Awsat and Al-Khaleej) from 2009-2013. Van Dijk’s notions of manipulation and polarisation are employed to highlight some of the discursive strategies that the newspapers used to legitimize certain ideologies and delegitimize others. The analysis shows that the four newspapers appear to be different in their coverage of the event although the similarities in the Arabic newspapers were more than they are in their English counterparts. Such different perspectives may likely shape national and even global opinions on how to perceive certain ideologies.
Keywords : Corpus Linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis, Lockerbie bombing, newspapers, ideologies.
رابط البحث
Syrian-Lebanese Relations: A Corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis of Bashar Al-Assad’s Speeches and Interviews
Authors : Haider, A. S.
Abstract : This paper contributes to the recent body of work which combines Critical Discourse Analysis with the methodological framework of Corpus Linguistics to analyse Syria’s relations with other countries, in particular Lebanon, in the Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s speeches and interviews from July 2000 when Al-Assad came to power to December 2016. It shows how this combination of approaches can play an important role in demonstrating how Al-Assad makes use of language to affect the text receivers’ points of view. Following Wodak (2009) Discourse Historical Approach (DHA), the researcher divided the data, which is in Arabic, into two main corpora, based on the historical background of Syrian-Lebanese relations, covering the periods (i) 2000-2010, characterised by the presence of Syrian troops in Lebanon (2000-2004) and their subsequent withdrawal (2005-2010), and (ii) 2011-2016, characterised by the Syrian uprisings which have begun in 2011. The analysis reveals that Lebanon is portrayed as a subordinate state and that the Syrian regime intervenes in the Lebanese internal affairs, even though Al-Assad has frequently denied such a claim.
Keywords : Bashar Al-Assad, Corpus Linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis, Lebanon, Presidential Speeches, Syria, the Arab Spring.
رابط البحث
The Representation of Al-Megrahi’s Release in Arabic and English Newspapers in 2009 and 2010: A Corpus-assisted Discourse Study
Authors : Haider, A. S.
Abstract : This study combines two methodological strands, namely, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Corpus Linguistics (CL) to identify some discursive practices relating to the representation of Megrahi, the only man convicted of involvement in the Lockerbie bombing in 1988. This is based on a 3.5-million word corpus of four newspapers; two published in English (The Guardian and The New York Times), and two in Arabic (Asharq Al-Awsat and Al-Khaleej) in 2009 and 2010. Van Dijk’s notions of manipulation and polarisation are employed to highlight some of the discursive strategies that the newspapers used to legitimize certain ideologies and delegitimize others. The analysis shows that the four newspapers appear to be different in their coverage of the event although the similarities were more in the Arabic newspapers than they are in their English counterparts. Such different perspectives may likely shape national and even global opinions on how to perceive certain ideologies.
Keywords : Corpus Linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis, Lockerbie bombing, newspapers, ideologies.
رابط البحث
The Representation of Laji’een (Refugees) and Muhajireen (Migrants) in the Headlines of Jordan News Agency (PETRA)
Authors : Haider, A. S. Olaimy, S.
Abstract : This paper explores the representation of Laji’een (Refugees) and Muhajireen (Migrants) in Jordan News Agency (PETRA). It uses the headlines of a 2.5 million word corpus of Arabic news articles in a time span of 5 years from 2012 to 2016. Chronologically analyzing the headlines shows a change in the representation of and attitudes towards refugees and migrants over the investigated period. The analysis of the headlines shows that 2012 starts with providing the assistance to the refugees then at a later stage of 2012 and in 2013 and 2014, the language is shifted to calling for assistance to the country to contribute to solving the problem. In 2015, the language is changed to be more alerting about the scarce in funding. In 2016, the headlines have changed the focus to Europe due to the migration of the refugees. This motivates the National News Agency of Jordan to highlight the suffering of Europe because of the refugees despite having the capacity and resources to host the migrant refugees. The paper concludes that language in general, and the language of media in particular can change the attitudes of people and governments toward critical issues and phenomena like migration and asylum.
Keywords : News headlines Jordan News Agency (PETRA) Refugees Migrants Discourse analysis
رابط البحث
Using Corpus Linguistic Techniques in Critical Discourse Studies: Some Comments on the Combination
Authors : Haider, A. S.
Abstract : Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is relatively a new area developed in language study in which discourse is treated as a form of social practice. It investigates the relationship between language and power, and pays much attention to the crucial role that context plays in discourse. Corpus linguistics (CL) is the study of language based on examples of real life language use. Over the last two decades, different studies have combined some approaches of CDA with the analytical framework of CL to examine the representation of different phenomena in relatively large texts. This study demonstrates how the combination is used to uncover discourses, and how numbers cannot tell everything about language, and must be tied with qualitative analysis to provide functional interpretations of language patterns. It raises some questions about the extent the previous studies used the combination of CL and CDA, and whether the qualitative and quantitative types of analyses were distributed equally or not in those studies.
Keywords : Corpus Linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis, collocation, frequency keyword, methodological synergy
رابط البحث
Frequency Analysis as a Way of Uncovering News Foci: Evidence from the Guardian and the New York Times
Authors : Haider, A. S
Abstract : Institutions or people can express their political stances or attitudes toward a specific topic if they keep using some words rather than others repetitively and consistently. This study uses the corpus linguistic technique of frequency to examine the influence of the country where the newspaper is published on its agenda and coverage using a corpus of about 7 million words of news articles about Libya and Qaddafi in the Guardian (Britain) and the New York Times (the U.S.) from 2009 to 2013. The compiled corpus is divided into three time periods, namely: before, during, and after the 2011 Arab uprisings. The analysis shows that the two newspapers had different news foci/themes in the three investigated time periods, and that they are influenced by the stock of ideas circulating in the culture in which they are working. Both newspapers covered more news of events that draw the attention of the people of the countries where they are located and published. The paper concludes that there is a strong relationship between media and politics where media is a central arena for viewing the political events
Keywords : corpus linguistics, frequency analysis, the Guardian, the NYT
رابط البحث
A Corpus-assisted Critical Discourse Analysis of the Representation of Qaddafi in Media: Evidence from Asharq Al-Awsat and Al-Khaleej Newspapers
Authors : Haider, A. S
Abstract : This study combines two methodological strands, namely, Critical Discourse Analysis and Corpus Linguistics to identify the discursive practices relating to the construction of the former Libyan president, Qaddafi, before, during, and after the 2011 Libyan civil war. This is based on a new 19-million-word corpus of two newspapers published in Arabic, namely Asharq Al-Awsat (a pan-Arab newspaper located in London, and mainly published in Saudi Arabia), and Al-Khaleej (a newspaper located and mainly published in the UAE) from 2009 to 2013. The analysis shows that Qaddafi was represented positively in the pre-uprisings period (2009/2010). During the Libyan uprisings (2011), the newspapers represented him negatively highlighting his violence against his own people. In the post-uprisings era (2012/2013), the newspapers tended also to describe him negatively by referring to the terrorist activities he was involved in, and criticizing his policies and behaviours during his 42 years in power. These results are connected to the political and social contexts of the particular investigated period. This study concludes that there is a wide range of discursive construction for Qaddafi based on the agenda of the investigated newspapers and the countries where they are based
Keywords : Corpus Linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis, newspapers, The Arab spring, 2011 Libyan Civil war, Qaddafi.
رابط البحث
Conflicts as causes to change news foci: Frequency analysis for Asharq Al-Awsat and Al-Khaleej newspapers before and after the Arab Spring
Authors : Haider, A. S
Abstract : ABSTRACT: The Arab Media, both pan-Arab and national, have helped people in the Arab world to achieve a greater amount of freedom and liberty in the last two decades. This was observed in 2011, when the Arab region witnessed a series of revolutions and protests that not only affected the Middle East and North Africa, but also the whole world. This study uses a new 19.5-million word corpus of newspaper articles published between 2009 and 2013 to examine the main discussed themes in Asharq Al-Awsat (a pan-Arab newspaper) and AlKhaleej (a UAE national newspaper). Using the corpus linguistic technique of frequency, this study shows that the focus of the two newspapers in 2011, the year when most of the protests began and ended, was similar in spite of the differences in their agendas and policies. This study concludes that the occurrence of an event that affects most of the Arab countries has an impact on the type and style of Arab national newspaper coverage
Keywords : Corpus Linguistics, the Arabic language, the Arab Spring, frequency analysis, newspapers
رابط البحث