International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation
The International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation (ISSN: 2617-0299) is a double-blind peer-reviewed, monthly, open-access journal published by Al-Kindi Center for Research and Development. It publishes high-quality articles across the breadth of linguistics, literature and translation research. With its uniquely broad coverage, all articles are free to access across the globe, allowing authors to share their research and maximise its impact. The journal is led by expert international editorial board members who take an objective approach to peer review, ensuring each research paper is reviewed and evaluated on its own scholarly merits and research integrity. Publishing your work in the International Journal of Linguistics, Literature, and Translation means you will receive prompt and reliable publishing and a global platform for your research to reach its full potential. The journal is published in both online and print versions.
Al-Kindi Center for Research and Development
Syllable Lightening in the Perfective of Moroccan Arabic Hollow Verbs
The paper provides a prosodic analysis of syllable lightening in the perfective of Moroccan Arabic (MA) hollow verbs. Previous works on MA verb inflectional morphology are limited in the sense that they failed to integrate the issue of syllable lightening in the perfective aspect. Drawing on secondary data from MA grammar works, we demonstrate that heavy syllables are lightened due to the prosodic constraints RHYTHMIC CONTOUR (RH-CONT) and *ΣH which militate against Heavy Light (HL) and Heavy (H) feet. This finding lends support to the role of foot patterns in the analysis of syllable de-weighting and enhances our understanding of the phonology of MA hollow verbs.
Perfective, Lightening, Hollow Verbs, OT, Moroccan Arabic
Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
When Words Fail: A PRISMA-Guided Systematic Review of the Effects of Speaking Anxiety on Language Performance and Communicative Confidence
Speaking anxiety is the fear and worry surrounding the act of speaking. Despite its widespread prevalence, there has been very little research into its effects across different populations, needs, and contexts. This paper presents a systematic literature review of studies on the effects of speaking anxiety among learners and educators, conducted in accordance with the PRISMA 2020 guidelines. To structure the literature review, the authors introduced parameters that the selected studies had to meet. A total of twenty-two studies were screened for inclusion and respected the parameters set out in the current study. The twelve studies, 11 of which were conducted in the Philippines, serve to confirm a large-scale relation between speaking anxiety and poor oral performance, memory retrieval, and physiological calmness, while in one instance the influence of speaking anxiety on written performance differs from debilitating to facilitative. The usual fears include apprehension about negative evaluation and lack of preparation. Numerous strategies serve as means of mitigating speaking anxiety, including familiarization with the audience, self-calming techniques, structured practice, and exposure therapy with the help of virtual reality technology.
speaking anxiety, public speaking anxiety, foreign language anxiety, communicative confidence, systematic literature review, PRISMA
The Unwitnessable: External and Embodied Foreclosures of Testimony in Anna Burns' Milkman and Eimear McBride's A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing
This study examines Anna Burns’ Milkman (2018) and Eimear McBride’s A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing (2014), through a combined reading of the primary philosophical frameworks of Emmanuel Levinas’ (1969,1985) ethics of the face, and Giorgio Agamben’s (1998, 1999, 2005) concept of bare life, with Dominick LaCapra’s (2001) theory of trauma to distinction between the signs of foreclosed witnessing and their critical expression. It argues that both novels depict what can be theorized as the unwitnessable: a condition that emerges when political and gender-based violence becomes extreme enough to disrupt the possibility of ethical witnessing. Each novel presents the unwitnessable differently. In Burns’ it is created by social regulations and ideological adherence reinforced through community surveillance, and in McBride’s it results from psychological fragmentation. This comparison shows that the unwitnessable is not only a narrative strategy but also a condition where some individuals’ experiences cannot be expressed, understood, or witnessed. Through close analysis of the narrative strategies, this paper demonstrates that both authors not only present the impossibility of testimony but reproduce it, forcing the reader to be part of the ethical failure. Hence, this study proposes the unwitnessable as a critical category for the analysis of literary works involving political and gender-based violence in which testimony is rendered impossible, offered here as a working hypothesis to be tested against a wider corpus rather than as a fully generalized claim.
Anna Burns, bare life, Eimear McBride, Emmanuel Levinas, Giorgio Agamben, witnessing
The role of emojis in emotional language communication: emotional valence and cognitive-affective processing in digital discourse
This paper examines the role of emojis in contemporary emotional language communication, placing them within digital discourse as meaningful semiotic resources that shape both emotional expression and interpretation. Building on current research in emoji studies, the paper synthesizes existing findings on their semantic and affective functions in computer-mediated communication. It further introduces the theoretical construct of emotional valence, outlining its relevance for understanding how affect is encoded, perceived and interpreted in linguistic contexts. Finally, the paper engages with frameworks of emotional language comprehension, highlighting how multimodal emotional cues, particularly emojis interact with textual information to influence cognitive and affective processing during language understanding. By integrating perspectives from pragmatics, psycholinguistics and digital communication studies, the paper argues that emojis function not merely as paralinguistic elaboration but as integral components of emotional meaning construction in online interaction.
Emojis, emotional valence, digital communication, language comprehension, cognitive-affective processing
Translating Theme Choices in Tourism Promotion Texts
This study investigates how the Theme–Rheme system is translated from Indonesian into English with Halliday’s Perspective and the shifting of Theme in the Target Text (TT) in tourism information. The theme of the information should be delivered adequately to persuade and convince readers about the tourism destination being promoted. This study used descriptive qualitative methods to determine the categories of the Theme and its translation. The finding shows that the types of Theme are mostly Topical Theme, either Unmarked or Marked. Theme shifting also occurs from Theme structure into Rheme structure. Besides, the shift affects different readers' perceptions of the destination being promoted in the texts, which is indicated by different fronted Theme. This is due to the change of starting point of information in the Source Text (ST) and in the Target Text (TT). Therefore, translating Theme in tourism promotion could result in a shift of main information.
Influence of Translation Strategies Multiplicity on Translation Teaching
This article explores how the variety of terms and concepts in translation strategies influences teaching and learning translation. Using both foundational and modern frameworks, such as those by Vinay and Darbelnet, Nida, Newmark, Catford, Baker, and Venuti, it discusses how inconsistent use of terms—whether in their classification like "method," "procedure," "strategy," and "technique" or in their typologies like "word-for-word vs. sense-for-sense," "literal vs. free," "formal equivalence vs. dynamic equivalence," "semantic vs. communicative," or "foreignization vs. domestication"—affects curriculum design, classroom instruction, student understanding, and assessment methods. While this reflects the richness of Translation Studies, it also presents significant teaching challenges. Through case studies, hypothetical examples, and critical analysis, the article argues that strategic pluralism, when guided by clear pedagogical goals, can be transformed from a liability into an asset. Recommendations include fostering Meta-Strategic awareness, aligning teaching materials, and implementing integrated teaching practices to enhance student skills and theoretical understanding. The article concludes that embracing, rather than eliminating, this multiplicity—through informed and reflective teaching—is essential for advancing translator training in an increasingly global and interdisciplinary academic environment.
Translation strategies, Multiplicity, Translation, Teaching, Learning, Pedagogy
Bengali Pidgin Arabic in Multilingual Contexts: A Linguistic and Translation-Based Analysis
This study considers Bengali pidgin Arabic as a way of communication mainly among Arabic-speaking people and South Asian migrants. Most studies on pidgin languages focus on known types. Not much attention is given to new pidgin forms that develop as people move and interact daily. The study examines 50 samples of people using Bengali Pidgin Arabic. These samples help find similarities in how words are formed, sentences are built, and words are chosen. It also explores how people shorten things and still get their point across. The study finds that Bengali Pidgin Arabic has its way of working. It uses words, shorter sentences, and a limited vocabulary that is still useful. When people use this pidgin, they rely heavily on context, guessing what the other person means. From a translation perspective, this pidgin helps people communicate more easily. Getting the message across is more important than being perfect. Translators do what people do when they use language. They simplify meaning, choose words, and shorten phrases. Bengali Pidgin Arabic is a good example of the use of translation in conversation and of how language changes to connect people from different backgrounds. The study of Bengali Pidgin Arabic shows how it helps people communicate and understand one another in a mixed social environment.
Bengali Pidgin Arabic, contact linguistics, sociolinguistics, translation studies, multilingual communication, migrant discourse
Copyright (c) 2026 Elrashid Abdel Gadir https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
“More Bad News”: Gossip, Scandalization, and Deception in Algerian Online Foreign-Affairs Hard News
This article examines gossip, scandalization, and deception in Algerian online foreign-affairs hard news. Conceptualized within Critical Discourse Studies (CDS), it addresses a gap in existing research: while foreign-policy media discourse has been studied through framing, propaganda, and ideology, far less attention has been paid to how gossip migrates into the hard-news genre of foreign-affairs reporting. Grounded in a three-year longitudinal investigation forming part of a broader doctoral thesis on disinformation discourse in Algerian online news, the study argues that routine hard-news practices in two major Algerian online outlets — Algeria Press Service (APS) and Radio Algérienne — produce systematically biased, gossip-laden accounts of international events, falling short of media-ethics standards of accuracy, balance, and source fidelity. Drawing on an integrated framework of Critical Discourse Studies, Critical Linguistics, Systemic Functional Linguistics, and the concept of gossip, and applying Richardson’s (2007) model of newspaper discourse analysis at micro-, meso-, and macro-analytical levels, the study analyses three representative articles covering two foreign-affairs dossiers: the Iran–Israel–United States military confrontation (two APS articles) and Morocco–Israel bilateral relations (one Radio Algérienne article). A forensic-linguistic verification procedure compares the outlets’ quotations against independent institutional records — including UN statements, IAEA reports, and U.S. governmental communiqués — to establish where sources are recontextualized or distorted, and to construct the historical archive that enables a Foucauldian genealogical engagement with Algerian foreign-affairs discourse. The analysis demonstrates that evaluative language is systematically mobilized to transform diplomatic events into moralized narratives of betrayal, conspiracy, and aggression. In the APS articles, gossip surfaces through negative naming, the scandal frame, and a forensically documented quotation-integrity violation in which an ideologically loaded expression is interpolated into António Guterres’s UN statement — words absent from the original source text. In the Radio Algérienne article, gossip is realized through transitivity and nominalization: action processes activate the Moroccan state as an agent of “repression” and “betrayal,” while nominalized forms condense political choices into morally marked categories. In the Iran–Israel–United States case, gossip converges with the discourse-historical construction of an enemy image (Feindbild), in which a complex geopolitical configuration is personified into a single, blameworthy actor organized around a Manichean division between the innocent and the guilty. At the macro level, the study argues that these practices are organized by an institutional order of discourse — a Foucauldian dispositif discursif — that governs who may speak, what may be said, and which meanings are privileged as legitimate. This order exhibits deep political parallelism between government and media. The study further identifies an internal contradiction within this order of discourse on the Moroccan Sahara issue, where two presidential statements — one adopting a cautious, UN-deferential register, the other dismissing the Moroccan autonomy plan as a French-born myth (kharafa) — reveal a hegemonic instability that, read through Fairclough’s (1992) theory of discourse change, signals the potential for future discursive realignment under structural diplomatic pressure, including UN Security Council Resolution 2797 (2025). Theoretically, the study makes three contributions. First, it extends gossip as an analytical concept beyond celebrity and tabloid culture into the hard-news genre of foreign-affairs reporting, operationalizing it through three co-occurring criteria: absent-third-party orientation, reputational-moral evaluation, and community-building. Second, it provides forensic-linguistic evidence that deceptive source recontextualization constitutes a structural feature of the Algerian government–media nexus, not an isolated journalistic lapse. Third, it applies Fairclough’s (1992) social theory of discourse change to project the conditions under which an ideologically overdetermined order of discourse may undergo hegemonic realignment. The article concludes that Algerian foreign-affairs coverage functions as “bad news” in a double sense: it reports crisis while simultaneously enacting bad professional practices — gossip, scandalization, and deceptive source recontextualization — that fall short of media-ethics standards and distinguish reporting from propaganda.
Forensic Linguistics — Gossip — Scandalization — Deception — Enemy image (Feindbild) — Political parallelism — Order of discourse — Discourse change — Algerian online hard news — Critical Discourse Studies — Critical Linguistics — Systemic Functional Linguistics — Ideolinguistics
The attitudes of Translation experts towards Literary Translation in Postcolonial Contexts: Suggesting the PTP Model
This study seeks to explore translation experts’ attitudes towards the translation of Culture-Specific Items (henceforth CSIs), idioms, metaphors, and translation of the paratexts within Postcolonial contexts. This study opted for a mixed-method approach, combining quantitative study and qualitative study. As for the quantitative study, data are collected through the instrument of questionnaire; whereas the qualitative study utilized interviews as an instrument for data collection. This study is premised upon a theoretical framework that comprises Pierre Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice, Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory, and Even-Zohar Itamar’s Polysystem Theory. Findings of the quantitative study and qualitative study are exploited by the authors to suggest a new model: The Postcolonial Translation for Prose Model (henceforth The PTP Model). It functions as a roadmap for the translation of Postcolonial novels, whose purpose is to preserve the specificities of Postcolonial cultures and promote intercultural dialogue.
Literary translation, experts’ attitudes, culture-specific items, foreignization, domestication
Cross-Linguistic Influence in Third-Language Phonological Acquisition: A Systematic Mapping Review of Empirical Research, 2010-2026
Research on third-language (L3) phonological acquisition has grown considerably, but the evidence remains dispersed across language combinations, phonological domains, methods, and theoretical traditions. This systematic mapping review synthesizes a verified corpus of 47 empirical studies published between 2010 and 2026 and distinguishes them from 16 Arab-world and Moroccan publications retained for regional contextualization. The corpus was assembled through focused bibliographic searching, publisher and DOI verification, and backward and forward citation chaining from major reviews of L3 transfer and phonology. Studies were coded for publication period, geographical context, language constellation, phonological domain, method, theoretical orientation, and proposed source of cross-linguistic influence. The mapping shows that research is strongly concentrated in European contexts and in production-oriented studies of consonants, stops, and voice onset time, whereas vowels, stress, prosody, perception-based designs, and longitudinal work remain comparatively limited. Only two core studies directly represented North-African or Arabic-speaking multilingual contexts, and none focused specifically on Moroccan or Amazigh-speaking L3 learners. The evidence does not support a single universal source of transfer; rather, L1, L2, heritage-language, proficiency-based, and property-specific effects are foregrounded across different studies. No confirmed core study explicitly applied Optimality Theory, although OT appears in regional pronunciation research. The review argues for more geographically diverse, theoretically explicit, perception-production, longitudinal, and vowel-focused L3 phonology research, with Moroccan multilingualism offering a particularly valuable testing ground for future work.
third-language acquisition; phonological transfer; cross-linguistic influence; multilingualism; speech perception; speech production; systematic mapping review
Writing Essays About Literature: Hindrances in the Writing Strategies of English Majors
Writing is a daunting task for English language learners; writing a literary essay a nightmare: it requires not only writing proficiency but also literary content knowledge. Since the introduction of integrating Literature into English teaching and learning, many studies have examined its merits and drawbacks. However, an underresearched area in this field remains: students’ literary writing. Educators and lecturers often borrow the criteria of Academic Writing to evaluate students’ literary essays because they assume it is among the academic essay types. Simple as it may sound, writing a literary essay is more complicated. This study, therefore, was conducted to investigate students’ hindrances in the writing strategies of English majors, who, to some extent, are required to take at least one literary course as a prerequisite in their program. The research employed the qualitative paradigm with two research tools, students’ literary essays and interviews, to explore the issue. Findings reveal challenges experienced by the students from the preparation steps for the literary essay to the writing process. Implications and recommendations are then proposed to help lecturers better facilitate their students in writing this interesting essay. A research limitation is that the study only provides a checklist to evaluate writing, not rubrics.
literary essay, writing about Literature, literary writing strategies, writing evaluation, teaching English through Literature
Sayaka Murata’s Earthlings: A Psychoanalytical Reading
Sayaka Murata is a Japanese author whose works are often considered shocking and controversial. She challenges the notion of normality through characters that are considered peculiar in the context of modern society, yet through them, conventional beliefs are deemed absurd. Sayaka’s worldwide fame peaked with Takemori’s English translation of her novel Earthlings in 2021, which was originally published in 2018 as Chikyū Seijin. However, not enough research has been done to unravel its depths. This paper aims to explore the complexities of the human psyche and the interplay of personal and collective consciousness. Through the main protagonist, Natsuki, the conflict between the Conscious and the unconscious mind is demonstrated, which results in outbursts of the repressed unconscious. This paper highlights the function of cannibalism in Earthlings, and it argues that the theme of cannibalism signifies the outburst of the unconscious and its triumph over the conscious mind. Cannibalism is a significant theme in Murata’s Earthlings and has evoked various reactions and different interpretations from readers around the world. It has roots in human history, and over the years was utilized to serve different purposes in the literary field. Although the novel is recognized, it has been scarcely addressed in academic studies, therefore, this paper will bridge this gap.
Sayaka Murata, Earthlings, Carl Jung, Cannibalism, Unconsciousness, Shadow, Persona, Consciousness, Psychoanalysis, Japanese Literature
Specialized Academic Writing: Syntactic Complexity Rhetorical Functions in EFL Applied Linguistics Research Article Abstracts
The form-function relationship in academic writing has been evidenced to serve the communicative goals sought in scholarly research writing. Syntactically complex structures are linguistic devices that have been shown to realize different rhetorical functions in this genre, and syntactic complexity development has been demonstrated to follow pre-established stages and to reflect a nominal style at advanced levels. This study examines the extent to which Moroccan applied linguistics researchers use syntactically complex structures to accomplish communicative functions within a research article abstract. A corpus of 60 applied linguistics research article abstracts published between 2020 and 2025 was compiled, and the abstracts were annotated following the five rhetorical functions in Swales’s Moves framework. The syntactic complexity features used to achieve each of these functions were identified and situated within Biber et al.’s syntactic complexity developmental stages. The data analysis yielded results indicating a uniform overreliance on attribute adjectives and nouns as noun pre-modifiers and prepositional phrases as noun post-modifiers (lower syntactic complexity developmental stage features) to accomplish rhetorical functions across all the abstract moves. Higher syntactic complexity stages features—nonfinite relative clauses and apposition—and nominalization, a central feature of scholarly research writing, were found to be underused. These findings call for the necessity of raising awareness of the form-function relationship in academic writing and the effectiveness of the strategic variable use of linguistic features to achieve communicative purposes in scholarly research writing characterized by a compressed style and the packing of information within sentences. This study provides an opportunity to advance the understanding of academic writing instruction and development in EFL contexts and offers insights into how to facilitate integration into disciplinary scholarly research writing communities of practice.
Syntactic complexity; research article abstract moves; rhetorical functions; academic writing development; scholarly research writing; form-function in academic writing
Supervisory Practices through the Lens of In-Service English Teachers in the Region of Fez-Meknes in Morocco
Educational supervision has historically been of the utmost importance. It has been widely regarded as vital, particularly in enhancing instruction. Nonetheless, previous research has reported dissatisfaction among teachers and supervisors with supervision outcomes, raising questions about the effectiveness of supervisory practices. Investigating this issue, therefore, was the primary intent of this quantitative study. Data were collected from 55 in-service high school English teachers in the public sector in the region of Fez-Meknes, Morocco, using a questionnaire as the research instrument. The data were analysed statistically using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. The results of the study demonstrate that supervisors adopt a formative supervisory approach. Nevertheless, various deficiencies in their practices are identified, especially the lack of a comprehensive supervisory cycle and a slightly higher tendency towards summative evaluation. Accordingly, it is recommended that the existing approach be enhanced by establishing a comprehensive supervisory cycle and strengthening formative-oriented evaluation practices.
Educational supervision, formative supervision, supervisory practices, supervisory cycle, teacher evaluation
Ecological Discourse Analysis of TED Talks on Environmental Protection from the Perspective of Transitivity
Ecological Discourse Analysis is one of the main research approaches in Ecolinguistics, which focuses on the role of language in the ecosystem. Its purpose is to raise people’s ecological awareness, enhance their sense of ecological responsibility, and take action to save the ecological crisis. Given this, this study employs the transitivity system as the theoretical framework, guided by the ecosophy of “diversity and harmony, interactive coexistence”. It employs the UAM Corpus Tool 3.0 software to conduct a transitivity analysis of six TED talks on environmental protection, revealing the ecological ideas contained in their discourse.
TED talks; environmental protection; transitivity system; ecosophy
Copyright (c) 2026 Yunxi Hu https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
From Marginalization to Visibility: Discursive Constructions of Saudi Women in Local Sport News
This study examines how Saudi women are discursively constructed in local sports news and explores how their engagement in sport is represented within the country’s broader sociopolitical transformation. Adopting a corpus-assisted discourse analytical approach, the study analyses a specialised corpus of Saudi Gazette online news articles published between 2020 and 2024. Corpus linguistic tools are used to identify dominant thematic patterns, social actors, and social actions, which are subsequently interpreted through Theo van Leeuwen’s socio-semantic framework. The findings reveal that Saudi women are increasingly constructed as visible and active participants across multiple sport domains, particularly in global competitions such as football and the Olympics. Material processes associated with participation, achievement, and institutional development dominate the discourse, positioning women as contributors to a rapidly expanding sporting landscape, although leadership and decision-making roles remain largely linked to institutional actors. By analysing Saudi women’s representations in local media discourse, this study contributes to scholarship on Muslim women and sport by offering an internally grounded account that challenges dominant external portrayals of Muslim women as passive and marginalised. The findings demonstrate how sport discourse participates in constructing a progressive narrative of Saudi women’s empowerment aligned with the national reform agenda of Saudi Vision 2030.
Copyright (c) 2026 Zainah Alshahrani https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
A Study of Communication Predicament in Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall”
Employing Bakhtin’s Dialogism and Levinas’s philosophy of the Other, this thesis analyzes Robert Frost’s renowned poem “Mending Wall” through the lens of dialogue of consensus. While “Mending Wall” has been traditionally interpreted as a criticism of conservatism, this study moves beyond the subjective perspective of the speaker in the poem, providing a nuanced reading that transcends simplistic binary moral oppositions. The thesis reexamines the communication predicament between the speaker and his neighbor by expounding on “process of communication,” “reason of predicament,” and “consensus as implication” in a progressive manner. Through this exploration, the thesis uncovers the poet’s underlying intention of creating this predicament. The thesis primarily focuses on examining the transformation of communication, analyzing the unreliability of single narrative and unequal projection onto the Other, and underscoring the significance of consensus in facilitating effective communication. It argues that consensus should not be viewed as mechanized uniformity, but rather as a convergent process that allows for a multiplicity of perspectives.
Copyright (c) 2026 Qiyun Chang https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Clothes of the Dead: Materializing Loss in Anne Enright’s The Gathering
This paper explores the interconnected themes of dress, death, and identity in Anne Enright’s The Gathering (2008). It is an attempt to examine how clothing functions as a powerful symbolic medium through which Enright’s characters express their cultural belonging. Through Veronica Hegarty’s narration of her brother Liam’s death and burial, the study investigates the significance of dressing the dead as both a personal and cultural practice. Drawing on theoretical perspectives from Sigmund Freud (2003), Elisabeth Bronfen (1992), Peter Brooks (1992), Clare Gittings (1984), and Nina Glick Schiller (1995), the paper argues that clothing goes beyond its mere function as a material covering of the body to an equivocal sign that communicates meaning after death. Particular attention is given to the various garments associated with Liam’s dead body, including his fluorescent jacket, worn-out Wellington boots, paisley pyjamas, and formal suit. These items reveal the conflictual analogy between individuality and social convention, private memory and public ritual, as well as homeland and diaspora. By connecting funeral dress to issues of migration, displacement, and Irish identity, the paper highlights the role of mourning practices in resisting cultural erasure and maintaining a sense of belonging across geographical boundaries. As possible findings, the study contends that Enright transforms the act of dressing the dead into a meaningful ritual through which identity is reconstructed and preserved. In The Gathering, clothing becomes a metaphorical language that negotiates the boundaries between life and death, presence and absence, and memory and forgetting. Thus, this paper opens new horizons to understand the slippery nature of death via the acts of dressing and undressing the dead.
Dress, Death, Identity, Mourning, Memory, Diaspora
Copyright (c) 2026 Mohamed Amesnaou https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Identity, Linguistic Exile, and Silence in Leïla Sebbar’s Je ne parle pas la langue de mon père and l’arabe comme un chant secret
This article examines identity, linguistic exile and silence in Leïla Sebbar’s autobiographical narratives Je ne parle pas la langue de mon père (2003) and L’arabe comme un chant secret (2010) (2nd edition), exploring how Sebbar reclaims the silenced memories of displacement and cultural fragmentation experienced by Franco-Algerian identity. Drawing on postcolonial memory and cultural studies frameworks and autobiographical diaries, the analysis engages in close textual readings of the novels. Through narrative strategies that foreground linguistic and cultural hybridity, they articulate the complex negotiations of identity faced by individuals caught between colonial histories and postcolonial realities. The analysis highlights how Sebbar’s works challenge monolithic conceptions of belonging by emphasising exile as both a rupture and a site of creative memory reclamation, thereby contributing to broader discourses on diaspora, memory, and identity formation in contemporary Francophone literature.
Copyright (c) 2026 Djamel Eddine Ghiat https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Saudi High School EFL Teachers’ Attitudes Toward Implementing the Flipped Classroom Model in Jeddah City
This study investigated the professional attitudes and contextual challenges regarding the implementation of the Flipped Classroom Model (FCM) among Saudi secondary school EFL teachers in Jeddah. Aligned with Saudi Vision 2030, the research utilized a descriptive survey design to examine the gap between technological integration policies and classroom realities. Data were collected from 32 EFL instructors via a structured questionnaire. Findings reveal a significant paradox: while teachers hold positive theoretical attitudes toward the FCM and recognize its potential to enhance student autonomy, actual instructional adoption remains low. Statistical analysis identified three primary barriers: inadequate technological infrastructure, a lack of specialized professional training in active learning, and classroom management anxieties. Furthermore, student resistance—specifically regarding pre-class preparation- hampers sustainable implementation. The study concludes that top-down digital resource provision is insufficient without concurrent, localized professional development and targeted administrative support. It recommends that the Ministry of Education transition toward contextualized pedagogical training that equips teachers with specific behavioral management strategies, thereby bridging the gap between national strategy and frontline practice.
Flipped Classroom Model, Saudi EFL Context, Teacher Attitudes
Copyright (c) 2026 Najla Alsheikh https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
A comparative interpersonal analysis of identity construction in Chinese and American leaders’ political speeches
Although political discourse has been extensively examined from various perspectives, comparative studies of identity construction in political speeches by leaders from different countries remain relatively limited. Drawing on Halliday’s interpersonal metafunction within Systemic Functional Grammar, this study investigates how Chinese and American leaders construct political identities through interpersonal resources in the mood and modality systems. The analysis is based on the English version of China’s Government Work Report (GWR) and the United States’ State of the Union Address (SUA), aiming to identify similarities and differences in identity construction and to explore the underlying motivations behind these discursive choices. The findings reveal that declarative clauses are the most frequently employed mood resource in both GWR and SUA, followed by imperative and interrogative clauses. In terms of personal pronoun use, the Chinese leader shows a clear preference for the first-person plural pronouns we and us, whereas the American leader more frequently employs the first-person singular pronouns I and me, as well as the second-person pronoun you. Regarding modality, GWR predominantly adopts median-value modal operators, while SUA favors high-value modal operators. Moreover, SUA demonstrates greater diversity in both clause types and modal operators than GWR. These linguistic choices contribute to the construction of distinct political identities. In GWR, the Chinese leader is represented as a determined executor, authoritative guide, and responsible statesman who emphasizes collective wisdom and shared efforts in serving the people and the nation. In contrast, SUA portrays the American leader as a strategic politician, persuasive speaker, and inspiring guide who highlights personal charisma and capacity to achieve his political ideals and engage diverse stakeholders. The differences in identity construction can be largely attributed to the distinct political systems and ideological orientations of the two countries.
Copyright (c) 2026 Lehan Li https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
A Systematic Literature Review of Moroccan Arabic Darija and American English code-switcing among University Students
The Moroccan sociolinguistic landscape represents a strategic intersection where Modern Standard Arabic and Moroccan Darija engage in complex linguistic hierarchies. Data highlights the dominance of Darija in daily interactions at 87.9% creating a Standard in the Shadows paradox. This environment serves as a critical backdrop for American university students who navigate these hierarchies during study abroad programs. Education of the linguistic tension reveals a dichotomy between the symbolic role of Modern Standard Arabic in identity and practical utility of Moroccan Darija. Such established complexity necessitates a systematic evaluation of literature concerning foreign learners. This systematic review addresses a significant research gap by evaluating synthesized evidence regarding American university students. While researches secondary education this review researches the unique sociolinguistic pressures on the American higher education cohort following the PRISMA 2020 framework and an initial bibliography of 81 documents. Synthesis indicates that code-switching facilitates clarity reflecting the 62% teacher usage rate yet potentially diminishes formal proficiency. The review researches the association between code-switching and 5 key variables including identity research outcomes and intercultural communication effectiveness plus language acquisition progress and sociocultural attitudes as well as formal language proficiency. Code-switching acts as a bridge for comprehension but simultaneously challenges formal proficiency levels which suffered a 65% negative impact in related contexts. Practical implications advocate for Arabic English bilingual classroom pedagogy and longitudinal research. Current evidence remains limited by reliance on convenience sampling and urban contexts. Policy reforms like the Strategic Vision 2015-2030 should foster balanced proficiency in multilingual contexts.
Code-switching, Moroccan Darija, American university students, Study abroad, PRISMA 2020, Identity research
Copyright (c) 2026 NOUR-EDDINE FIKRI, Belqassem Laghfiri, Jamaa Ouchouid https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Corpus Tools in Translation Pedagogy: Instructors' Knowledge, Barriers, Practices, Effectiveness and Enablers in Saudi Universities
The integration of technology in translation pedagogy continues to evolve, yet the utilization of corpus tools remains limited, particularly among translation instructors in Saudi universities. This quantitative study explores the knowledge, barriers, practices, effectiveness, and enablers of corpus tool implementation in translation teaching. Through a comprehensive questionnaire administered to 30 translation instructors across Saudi universities, the research examined five key constructs: knowledge, barriers, practices, effectiveness, and enablers of corpus tool usage. Employing the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge TPACK framework proposed by Mishra and Koehler (2006), the study assessed instructors’ technological, pedagogical, and content competencies. Findings indicated that instructors possess basic but limited knowledge of corpus tools, which affects their confidence in applying them pedagogically. Several significant barriers emerged, including insufficient training, technical difficulties, and a lack of institutional support. Correspondingly, actual classroom practices involving corpus tools were modest. Nevertheless, instructors reflected positive attitudes regarding the effectiveness of corpus tools and demonstrated high motivation and favorable enabling conditions for future adoption, contingent upon adequate support. The study highlights the need for enhanced professional development, improved institutional infrastructure, and curriculum refinement to support the meaningful integration of corpus tools in translation pedagogy.
corpus tools; translation pedagogy; TPACK framework; translator training; Saudi universities; corpus activities
Copyright (c) 2026 Salma Alhamad, Albatul Althunayyan, Nafla Alotaishan, Talal Alghizzi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
English-Arabic Language Dynamics: A Systematic Self-Review of English Hegemony in Educational and Sociolinguistic Landscapes
This study conducted a systematic self-review of 30 studies published by the author between 2004 and 2025 on Arabic–English language dynamics. The studies were categorized into six thematic clusters: English visibility in public spaces; linguistic intersections; lexical hybridization and word formation; linguistic hegemony, preference, and language attitudes; the effect of social media on Arabic; institutional preference and policies; and parental preference and home dynamics. This SR provides the first comprehensive, domain integrated synthesis of how English influences Arabic across public, institutional, digital, linguistic, and home environments. Findings of the review revealed that English dominance in Arabic speaking societies emerges through interconnected sociolinguistic mechanisms. English exerts a multi layered, cross domain influence on Arabic that is simultaneously structural, sociolinguistic, institutional, digital, and familial. It functions as a pervasive linguistic force that reshapes public visibility, lexical formation, language preferences, digital practices, educational policies, and home language choices. The six clusters collectively reveal that English dominance is reinforced through mutually supporting mechanisms as public prestige, institutional endorsement, digital immersion, and parental preference, creating a linguistic ecosystem in which Arabic experiences varying degrees of pressure, adaptation, and displacement. The corpus demonstrates that Arabic responds through hybridization, borrowing, morphological innovation, and selective maintenance, yet these adaptive processes coexist with signs of erosion in domains such as children’s early language use, social media communication, and higher education. Overall, the English–Arabic interaction is neither uniform nor unidirectional; it is a dynamic, evolving relationship shaped by power, technology, globalization, and local sociocultural choices. Arabic is undergoing a complex process of adaptive restructuring, showing resilience through innovation while simultaneously exhibiting vulnerability in significant domains. The review also highlights generational shifts, with younger speakers increasingly exposed to English dominant environments that influence their linguistic preferences, identity formation, and communicative practices. Taken together, these findings underscore the urgency of addressing the widening linguistic imbalance between Arabic and English, particularly in digital and educational spheres. By mapping cumulative evidence across two decades of research, this review provides a foundational framework for policy, curriculum design, and language planning initiatives aimed at strengthening Arabic’s visibility, vitality, and long term sustainability.
Systematic review (SR), Al-Jarf research program, English hegemony, English-Arabic language dynamics, dominance of English, Arabic language marginalization, language policy in higher education, sociolinguistic landscapes, medium of instruction, digital Arabic content
Critical Discourse Analysis and Donald Trump’s Speech at the Davos Convention
This study analyzes the ideological dimension of Trump’s discourse in the speech that he presented at the World Economic Forum on the 21st of January, 2026. Critical Discourse Analysis or CDA will be used in this research not only to deconstruct language choices, but to uncover hidden ideologies that might be embedded and legitimized in the discourse. These assumptions can go unnoticed by a reader, but identified by a critical analyst who is aware of the strategies employed in speeches. This research utilized Norman Fairclough’s three-dimensional CDA framework where the examination goes from textual analysis, discursive practice, to sociocultural context. Michael Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics was also incorporated at the textual level alongside Van Dijk’s ideological square. Combining these methods helped yield a more layered and comprehensive analytical results. By analyzing the pronouns, modality, transitivity processes, and genre types used in the speech, it was observed that several normalized presuppositions and hegemonic power relations are reproduced in the discourse. Recontextualizing the meanings and ideas present in the speech by media outlets assisted in re-enacting these legitimized sociocultural practices. The results showed that not only America was portrayed as the economy lead of all nations, but also other countries were framed as dependent on the success of the American nation. Trump, as well as the media, reproduced a deeper division within the American society between ingroups versus outgroups and Republicans versus Democrats.
Critical Discourse Analysis, ideologies, hegemonic power relations, discursive practices. sociocultural practices
Copyright (c) 2026 Maud Manouchakian https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Investigating Opportunities and Challenges of Integrating Artificial Intelligence into Moroccan EFL Classroom Practices
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has had a significant impact on language education worldwide. This article investigates the effectiveness and limitations of AI integration in Moroccan EFL classrooms. It addresses this issue through a mixed-methods design, combining quantitative data (questionnaires) and qualitative data (semi-structured interviews). Data analysis has shown that despite international recognition of the evidence of AI’s pedagogical efficacy, Moroccan educational policymakers have not yet invested significantly in this area. It also demonstrates that there is a growing acknowledgment of AI tools’ effectiveness, but their integration faces several challenges, such as a lack of relevant professional development, inadequate infrastructure, and the absence of institutional policy. The study concludes with some recommendations for AI integration in Moroccan EFL classrooms.
Artificial Intelligence, EFL instruction, Moroccan secondary education, mixed-methods research, teacher perceptions, technology integration, language learning
A Socio-cognitive Study of Jargon in Al-Najaf Medical Community
This study investigates the concept of jargon from a socio- cognitive approach. The research seeks to decode the dimensions of localizing English medical terms, jargon, in Al- Najaf medical discourse, depending on Van Dijk’s socio-cognitive perspective. Although the fact that the language of the staff in the medical field is Arabic, they use English when they communicate about medical cases because the language of their academic study was English. The study aimed at exploring the different terms of jargon used in Al-Najaf medical community, investigating the types and functions of jargon, and identifying the hidden ideologies of the medical staff behind employing the medical jargon. It has been observed that they use terms that cannot be understood by the surrounding people. They manipulate English words in different ways to create new modified ones. The data was collected by conducting some interviews with ten members of the medical community in Al-Najaf hospitals. Finally, the research concluded that the medical staff utilizes jargon when they interact with each other about medical cases, such as the use of مشَوِّكْ instead of “in shock “. Their usage is restricted only to the word form of jargon. Moreover, they have hidden intentions behind using jargon, such as separating themselves from anyone who does not belong to their profession to create a closed and highly prestigious linguistic community known as “in-group”, and isolate the patient in an area that constitutes “out-group”. Besides, jargon is one of the most powerful clues that help the medical staff to achieve numerous functions concerning proficiency, time saving, reproducing language, and as a result, social dominance over other language users around them.
Jargon, socio-cognitive approach, Al-Najaf medical community, and hidden ideologies
Ideological Dissonance in Gish Jen’s The Resisters
While existing scholarship has emphasized The Resisters’s resilient resistance, feminist commitments, faith in human nature, this paper contends that The Resisters simultaneously contradicts its own ethical ideals through its narrative construction of resistance: an ambivalent resister, the suffering martyr and the romanctic heroin. This narrative construction reveals Gish Jen’s dilemma as a writer: on one hand, she continues to uphold a cosmopolitan, pluralist ethical vision; on the other hand, the pressing realities of racial inequality and structural oppression compel her to attend to concrete, context-specific ethical positions.
Copyright (c) 2026 Shiyue Zheng https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Satirical Humor Translation in YouTube Automatic Indonesian Subtitles
This study investigates the translation of satirical humor in YouTube’s automatic Indonesian subtitles of a stand-up comedy performance by Armando Anto. Using a qualitative descriptive case study, the research compares the English source text with the automatically generated Indonesian subtitles. Eleven satirical segments were identified and analyzed to examine meaning shifts, humor preservation, and the contribution of multimodal elements such as music, gestures, and facial expressions. The findings show that the subtitles generally preserve the literal meaning of the source text but frequently weaken or fail to convey the humorous effect. Irony, wordplay, and culturally embedded satire are often reduced, while humor conveyed through musical and visual elements is largely absent from the subtitles. In addition, several automatic speech recognition (ASR) errors negatively affect humor comprehension. This study concludes that YouTube’s automatic subtitles function more effectively as lexical translations than as translations of multimodal comedy performances. The findings highlight the challenges of translating satirical humor through automatic subtitle systems and the importance of multimodal features in humor translation.
Copyright (c) 2026 Nafingatul Mustafidah https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Translation and Rights: A Practical Grid for Protection Settings
This article proposes a three-part grid – reliability, verifiability, equity- as an interdisciplinarity tool for reading translation in protection settings. The grid is borrowed from two well-established traditions: global governance and international protection law. For decades, governance scholars have judged institutions by three questions: Are they effective, accountable, and legitimate? (Archibugi and Held, 1995; Buchanan and Keohane, 2006). International protection law asks much the same thing in its own terms: It requires accurate information, procedural safeguards, and fair treatment for vulnerable people (Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951; UNHCR, 2019). The article brings these traditions together and adapts them to translation studies, so that very different kinds of research can be placed within an emerging protective turn. The grid is not a theory. It is a reading tool: it makes studies comparable, shows where scholars have focused their attention, and points to the gaps that remain. Three illustrative readings, all drawn from the existing literature, show the grid at work, and a set of proposed instruments is added in the appendices for future testing. The article argues throughout that translation in protection settings cannot be studied well without law, political science, and sociolinguistics. Here, interdisciplinarity is structural.
Translation studies, protective turn, global governance, international protection regimes, reliability, verifiability, equity, interdisciplinarity