International Journal of Language and Literary Studies

Developing Intercultural Communicative Competence Through an Intercultural Communication Course: Evidence from Moroccan University EFL Students

2026-05-31T13:32:59+00:00

With the growing impact of globalisation, foreign language education has increasingly emphasised the ability to communicate across cultures. In view of this, the present study examines the effectiveness of an Intercultural Communication course in developing intercultural communicative competence (ICC) among Moroccan university EFL students. To this end, drawing on Byram’s (1997) model of ICC, a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design was adopted. The study included 99 third-year English-major students who were assigned to an experimental group (n = 56) and a control group (n = 43). The data was collected through an intercultural test assessing four ICC dimensions: intercultural knowledge, skills of interpreting and relating, skills of discovery and interaction, and critical cultural awareness. The findings revealed that students who attended the course showed greater improvement across all four dimensions compared to those who were not exposed to the course. The most remarkable progress was observed in intercultural knowledge and skills, while the development in critical cultural awareness, although significant, was less noticeable. In light of these findings, the study recommends integrating intercultural communication more systematically into EFL curricula in Moroccan higher education and placing greater emphasis on critically oriented tasks. It also highlights the need for sustained instructional practices that support the gradual development of critical cultural awareness.

English Language Learning and Cultural Identity among Moroccan University Students: A Case Study of Mohammed First University

2026-06-05T12:58:39+00:00

The growing prominence of English as a global language has attracted increasing scholarly interest in its influence on cultural identity and intercultural communication. In the Moroccan context, English has gained considerable importance within higher education, particularly among students seeking greater access to global academic and professional opportunities. This study investigates the relationship between English language learning and cultural identity among undergraduate students at Mohammed First University in Oujda, Morocco. Specifically, it examines how learning English influences students’ perceptions of Moroccan cultural identity, attitudes toward globalization, and intercultural awareness. This quantitative study used a structured questionnaire administered to 200 undergraduate students enrolled in the English Studies program at the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences, Mohammed First University. Participants were selected using a simple random sampling technique and represented all undergraduate levels from Semester One (S1) to Semester Six (S6). The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistical methods. The findings reveal that most students do not perceive English language learning as a threat to their Moroccan cultural identity. Instead, English is viewed as a means of academic advancement, international communication, and cultural enrichment. The results further indicate positive attitudes toward globalization and a high level of intercultural awareness among participants. Exposure to English language and culture appears to encourage openness toward cultural diversity while reinforcing appreciation for local cultural values and traditions. The study concludes that English language learning and Moroccan cultural identity are not mutually exclusive. Rather, they coexist in a complementary relationship that promotes intercultural competence and global engagement while preserving local cultural belonging. The findings contribute to ongoing discussions on language, identity, and globalization within Moroccan higher education.

Translating Yang Masculinity: Intellectual Authority and Hierarchical Dominance in Dewoskin's English Translation of the Sanguo Zhi

2026-06-04T09:10:21+00:00

This article examines how imperial Chinese masculinity is constructed in Kenneth J. Dewoskin's English translation of male fang-shi biographies from the Sanguo Zhi (Doctors, Diviners, and Magicians of Ancient China, 1983). Drawing on imagology's ethnotype concept and Social Role Theory (SRT), the study analyses nine representative examples across three dimensions — intellectual superiority, Confucian virtue, and ruling-class dominance — through Critical Discourse Analysis. The findings reveal a systematic pattern of yang amplification: Dewoskin employs lexical intensification, scope broadening, strategic omission, evaluative addition, and tonal elevation to construct male fang-shi figures as embodiments of intellectual authority, self-restrained moral virtue, and hierarchical dominance. The article argues that this translation pattern produces a yang ethnotype of imperial Chinese masculinity shaped by Confucian ideals and Anglophone readers' pre-existing expectations of Chinese male authority, themselves partly conditioned by Cold War-era American Sinology's institutional agenda. These findings contribute to scholarship at the intersection of imagology, translation studies, and gender studies, demonstrating that historical translation is a key site for the ideological reproduction of national gender images.

Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Students with Dyslexia. A Literature Review

2026-06-22T23:28:49+00:00

Teaching neurodivergent young learners means being aware of their needs and adapting our teaching methods to match these needs. The article is focused on teaching English as a Foreign Language to young students with dyslexia, a learning difference which affects the manner in which students process language, and which is present at birth. Learning languages can represent a great challenge for these students, as a result of reading and spelling difficulties. The current article explores the characteristics of dyslexic learners, specific difficulties encountered during the English lessons, as well as successful methods for teaching EFL. This research is focused on schoolchildren and teenagers with dyslexia. A subsection in the introductory chapter is dedicated to students with ADHD and dyslexia, as these can frequently co-occur. Knowledge about neurodiversity can help teachers succeed in teaching students with dyslexia, as these students often suffer from stress in a (traditional) classroom environment. By developing inclusive learning environments, planning inclusive lessons, and using appropriate assessment methods, teachers can support dyslexic learners in developing strong language skills. The last part of the article investigates the benefits of multilingualism for dyslexic learners, as the recent decades have brought more research on bilingualism in students with special educational needs (SEN) The article aims to support teachers of English as a foreign language, but it may also be of interest to parents or other educators, as well as to dyslexia researchers. Understanding the impact that dyslexia has on language learning can make us adapt our teaching strategies in order to help these students in their learning journey. Besides using appropriate strategies, it is important to work on building confidence, by focusing on progress and strengths rather than comparing the students to their peers. As these learners may struggle with lower self-esteem, a positive teacher mindset is essential.

What the Body Withholds: Silence, Gesture, and Embodied Resistance in A Gesture Life and Never Let Me Go

2026-06-19T16:40:26+00:00

Nonverbal communication in literary narratives functions as a system to convey messages that institutional and cultural structures prevent characters from expressing aloud. This paper examines how it functions in Chang-Rae Lee’s A Gesture Life (1999) and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005) through the concept of embodied double-coding, defined here as the process by which characters appear to comply with dominant structures while simultaneously embedding subtle resistance through nonverbal communication, such as silence, gestures, and hesitations, thereby neither fully submitting to nor openly defying dominant structures. Using a qualitative comparative literary method, the study applies two theoretical frameworks: performativity theory and postcolonial subaltern criticism. This research places the frameworks in critical dialogue, especially where Butler’s performativity and Spivak’s subaltern silence produce interpretive tension, to generate a comprehensive reading of nonverbal communication in both texts. The findings reveal that, in both works, nonverbal communication reflects internal psychological states and serves as a signifier of cultural and historical backgrounds. In Lee’s text, the protagonist utilizes his gestures and silence to depict his traumatic experiences within the context of imperial and colonial histories. In Ishiguro’s narrative, the clones exhibit resignation to the social norms and expectations imposed on them through their bodily restraint and governed motion. This study argues that integrating nonverbal semiotics into literary analysis allows us to explore how characters express themselves in ways language alone cannot convey. It presents new insights into nonverbal communication across postcolonial and speculative fiction.

Culture as a Stressor and Resource in Mariama Bâ’s So Long a Letter

2026-06-08T11:52:09+00:00

This study grouped the cultural practices in So Long a Letter into five categories including marriage customs, funeral and widowhood rites, widow inheritance and remarriage, communal culture and sisterhood, and motherhood and parenting. The theoretical framework was based on Antonovsky’s health promotion theory of salutogenesis and on the six paths he outlined on culture’s role in the Salutogenetic Model of Health (SMH). Cultural practices identified as complex, hostile, or inherently stressful were categorised as stressors, while traditions viewed as Generalised Resistant Resources (GRRs), or adaptable and stable and that helped one build a strong Sense of Coherence (SOC), or provided a perception of well-being were considered resources. The classification of a cultural habit as a stressor or resource or both varied with characters and circumstances. The analysis revealed that culture was more of a resource than a stressor in the novel. Additionally, although Ramatoulaye often complained about some practices and desired modernisation, she generally adapted and remained successfully integrated in the culture. Existing scholarship mostly depicts culture as oppressive to women in postcolonial African literature. This study makes a significant contribution by shifting the discourse to a more nuanced view of culture as both a resource and a stressor.

Migration as an Intensifier of Assimilative and Retentive Dispositions in Leila Aboulela's “Missing Out”

2026-05-30T00:43:39+00:00

This article examines Leila Aboulela’s “Missing Out” as a literary exploration of migration, assimilation and cultural retention. It argues that the story represents migration not as a sudden transformation of identity, but as an intensifying condition that magnifies dispositions already present before displacement. Majdy’s pre-migratory orientation towards academic mobility, Western institutional order and his emotional distance from Sudanese collective life hardens in London into an intensified assimilative logic marked by cultural rejection and disidentification from his origins. By contrast, Samra’s embeddedness in communal experience and the rhythms of Sudanese social life becomes, after migration, a rigid form of cultural retention paralysed by nostalgia and psychological stasis. Drawing on John Berry’s acculturation theory, as well as Stuart Hall’s and Avtar Brah’s accounts of identity, diaspora and belonging, the article shows that Aboulela does not simply oppose assimilation to cultural retention, but reveals the limitations of both when they become absolute. Majdy gains mobility but loses rootedness while Samra preserves cultural memory but loses the capacity for adaptation. The article, therefore, proposes anchored integration as a possible third position between self-erasing assimilation and immobilising cultural retention.

Oral Text as Embodiment of Cultural Heritage: An Analysis of Akan Oral Forms from Wenchi

2026-06-23T19:37:02+00:00

Oral texts constitute foundational literary systems in African societies, functioning as primary vehicles for transmitting cultural memory, social values, and indigenous epistemologies. Despite growing scholarly interest in African oral traditions, the structural, cognitive, and aesthetic dimensions of oral literature remain insufficiently theorised in relation to cultural heritage preservation. This study examines oral text as an embodiment of cultural heritage through the lens of Orality Theory, as systematically developed by Walter J. Ong. Ong's conceptualisation of primary orality which is characterised by formulaic expression, additive structure, repetition, communal participation, and situational thinking that provides the theoretical foundation for analysing oral literature as a distinct mode of knowledge production. Employing a qualitative methodology grounded in oral text analysis and performance criticism, this study examines six selected Akan oral forms from Wenchi: two proverbs, two praise songs, and two fables. Findings reveal that oral texts embody cultural heritage through their mnemonic architecture, formulaic patterning, performative immediacy, and communal authorship. The study demonstrates that repetition, rhythm, symbolic compression, and audience interaction collectively ensure the preservation and intergenerational transmission of moral codes, cosmology, historical consciousness, and social identity. Contrary to evolutionary models that subordinate orality to literacy, this research suggests that oral literature constitutes an autonomous, cognitively sophisticated, and socially adaptive epistemological system. The study concludes that Orality Theory provides a robust analytical framework for understanding oral texts as embodied cultural archives and recommends renewed scholarly attention to oral aesthetics alongside digital and pedagogical preservation initiatives.

MTSS-Based Reading Comprehension Interventions for Middle School ELLs: A Case Study

2026-06-21T05:46:51+00:00

This study examined the effectiveness of a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) intervention in improving reading comprehension among middle school English language learners (ELLs). Using a mixed-methods, retrospective case study design, data were collected from 38 Tier 3 ELL students across Grades 6–8, including pre- and post-intervention FAST scores and qualitative classroom observations. Results indicated non-significant improvements across grade levels (6th: +5.5, p = .250; 7th: +3.7, p = .541; 8th: +10.0, p = .102), suggesting insufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis. Students’ posttest scores remained 28–34 points below grade-level benchmarks. However, descriptive trends revealed a positive association between intervention frequency and reading gains, with higher session exposure corresponding to greater improvement. Qualitative findings highlighted the influence of engagement, attention, and classroom environment, as well as the importance of culturally responsive instruction and explicit vocabulary development. Overall, findings suggest that while MTSS interventions may yield limited gains, increased instructional intensity, duration, and alignment with student needs are critical to improving reading outcomes for ELLs.

Describing the Phonological Features of Gay Lingo: Notes from the Films of Vice Ganda

2026-06-07T09:53:54+00:00

This study examines the segmental phonological features of contemporary Tagalog Gay Lingo as reflected in selected Vice Ganda films available on YouTube. Employing a qualitative-descriptive design, the researcher collected Gay Lingo expressions from video materials, transcribed relevant utterances, verified pronunciation through repeated viewing, and assigned corresponding spellings and meanings for analysis. The study identified the consonant and vowel phonemes present in the gathered lexical items, including nasal, plosive, fricative, affricate, tap, lateral, and glide consonants, together with the five vowel phonemes /a, e, i, o, u/. Findings reveal phonological processes such as the alternation of /b/ and /v/, frequent use of affricates and digraphs such as ch and sh, and the occurrence of consonant clusters and diphthongs across initial, medial, and final positions. The data also show that many Gay Lingo forms are highly creative, media-driven, and phonologically dynamic, reflecting the innovative practices of speakers and the influence of popular culture. Although Gay Lingo is not an official language, it functions as a significant linguistic resource that demonstrates language change, identity expression, and the vitality of contemporary Filipino speech. These findings underscore the importance of studying sociolects in Philippine linguistic scholarship.

When Prison Becomes Safer than Freedom: Mutual Entrapment in Prison Graduates

2026-05-31T17:31:21+00:00

This study examines how Efo Kodjo Mawugbe’s play Prison Graduates dramatizes the predicament of the postcolonial Ghanaian state, in which freedom outside the prison proves more threatening than confinement within it. The purpose of the research was to move beyond existing satirical readings of the play and to interpret its central motif of “Acquired Prison Traumatic Syndrome” as a metaphor for national dependency. Adopting a qualitative design, the study employed close textual analysis of selected scenes, speeches, and stage directions, which were interpreted through the lens of postcolonial theory, drawing on the concepts of neocolonialism and the psychology of dependency. The analysis revealed that the play stages a condition of mutual entrapment, in which failed state institutions (the cash-and-carry hospital, the prosperity-gospel pulpit, and the extortionate embassy) and a citizenry shaped by them together make the prison cell the most rational refuge available. It further found that the youthful urge to migrate functions as another symptom of this entrapment rather than an escape from it. The study concluded that the play presents sustainable development as contingent on transforming both the institutions and the dependent consciousness they cultivate.

Fostering Autonomous English Learning via Digital Platforms in Higher Education Settings

2026-05-28T18:07:06+00:00

Digital platforms have become crucial to modern language learning, offering opportunities for personalization, flexibility, and learner autonomy. This study examines how Moroccan university students use digital platforms to support autonomous English learning. A quantitative descriptive design was used, with data collected from 199 students through a structured questionnaire. Descriptive results indicate that most students study English as part of their academic program (82.4%) and engage moderately with digital learning platforms. Perceptions of platform effectiveness were generally positive, and 83.4% of students considered autonomous English learning important. However, only 26.6% reported receiving systematic guidance from professors on using digital platforms. The findings highlight a gap between students’ readiness for autonomous learning and institutional support. Recommendations include integrating digital literacy instruction, training professors in autonomy-enhancing pedagogies, and expanding institutional support for self-directed learning environments.

Historiographic Metafiction: The New Historicist Approach to Saleem Sinai

2026-05-13T16:21:05+00:00

This article examines Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children as a work of historiographic metafiction that constructs a counter?archive to both colonial and nationalist historiographies. Focusing on the narrative of Saleem Sinai, the study explores how New Historicism’s emphasis on the historicity of texts and the textuality of history intersects with postcolonial critiques of the archive. Methodologically, the article offers a qualitative, interpretive reading of Midnight’s Children, foregrounding episodes such as the Amritsar massacre, the Emergency, and the episodes involving the midnight children’s conference as sites where official records are questioned, supplemented, and subverted. The analysis argues that Rushdie’s use of magical realism and polyphonic narration exposes the silences and exclusions of colonial and nationalist archives while reimagining history from the standpoint of subaltern lives, affect, and embodiment. The article concludes that Saleem’s fragmented and unreliable narrative performs the labour of a counter?archive: it preserves marginal memories, foregrounds generational trauma, and insists on a plural, contested understanding of India’s past that resists closure and singular national narratives.

Narratological Analysis of P. B. Shelley’s “The Sensitive Plant”

2026-06-12T05:23:59+00:00

This paper offers a transgeneric narratological analysis of narrative voice, temporality, and metalepsis in P. B. Shelley’s “The Sensitive Plant,” a poem whose narrative architecture remains insufficiently examined. Drawing chiefly on Genette’s and Stanzel’s frameworks, the analysis argues that the poem initially establishes a sensory garden-world through an overt, heterodiegetic narrator who employs leitmotifs and cyclical temporality. The concluding movement, however, introduces authorial intrusion and first-person epistemic hesitation that complicate the narrator’s reliability. A transformative metalepsis then reorients the reader from the phenomenal world of the garden toward a transcendent realm of ideal love and beauty. This structural rupture catalyses an evolution in narrative voice from descriptive apparent objectivity to a speculative, philosophical mode. By combining transgeneric narratology with a reader-oriented approach, the study clarifies the poem’s complex narrative framework and its philosophical implications.

Signage, Space, and Multilingual Identity: The Linguistic Landscape of Southern Taraba State, Nigeria

2026-06-02T21:58:38+00:00

Public signage in multilingual postcolonial societies does more than communicate information: it allocates linguistic prestige, marks institutional authority, and determines whose language counts as a legitimate medium of civic life. This study examines how language choice in public space constructs a stratified semiotic order in Southern Taraba State, Nigeria, drawing on a photographic corpus of signs documented across educational, religious, governmental, health, commercial, developmental, and community domains in Wukari, Ibi, and Ussa Local Government Areas. Rather than treating the linguistic landscape as a passive reflection of multilingual life, the study argues that public signage actively produces a public order of linguistic value — constituting some languages as languages of authority, modernity, and institutional belonging while confining others to oral, ceremonial, and nominally acknowledged domains. The analysis is theorised through four interlocking frameworks: Landry and Bourhis’s (1997) account of ethnolinguistic vitality, Ben-Rafael et al.’s (2006) distinction between top-down and bottom-up signage, Scollon and Scollon’s (2003) geosemiotics, and Blommaert’s (2010) orders of indexicality — situated within a broader engagement with postcolonial language ideology (Woolard & Schieffelin, 1994; Phillipson, 1992) and the politics of minority-language recognition. African cases such as the Southern Taraba corpus demonstrate that public space operates as a domain where English dominance is not merely imposed from above but co-produced by local actors — churches, community associations, commercial enterprises, and recreational clubs — who have internalised English as the indispensable medium of public credibility (Shohamy, 2006; Stroud & Mpendukana, 2009). The study proposes the concept of nominal recognition — the condition in which minority communities are publicly acknowledged through the inclusion of their proper names within textual structures organised entirely through a dominant language — as a theoretically generative contribution to linguistic landscape studies, postcolonial sociolinguistics, and minority-language policy. It concludes that the linguistic study of Southern Taraba’s public semiotic order can enrich African discourse studies, language planning, and the politics of civic recognition by foregrounding the ways in which being publicly named is not equivalent to being publicly empowered — a distinction with significant implications for health communication, development discourse, and the visibility of minority languages in multilingual African societies

From Screen to Street: Vocal and Lexical Appropriation from Hausa-Dubbed Indian Films in Adolescent Peer Interaction in Northern Nigeria

2026-04-10T11:00:08+00:00

This study investigates how adolescents in the Taraba North Senatorial Zone of Nigeria appropriate vocal and lexical features from Hausa-dubbed Indian films into their everyday peer communication. While existing research on media influence has predominantly focused on behavioral outcomes, visual representation, and lexical borrowing, comparatively little attention has been paid to the recontextualization of media speech, particularly vocal texture, prosody, and stylized lexicon, within adolescent peer networks. Employing a mixed qualitative–computational design, the study draws on ethnographic observation, semi-structured interviews, assisted computational analysis of speech patterns, and Manual Diction and Lexicon Technique (MDLT) annotation to document how adolescents selectively imitate, modify, and stabilize heroic, villainous, and comic speech styles encountered in dubbed cinema. Findings reveal that film-derived vocal features, including timbre, pitch, cadence, and rhythm, alongside non-standard lexical items, function as semiotic resources that adolescents deploy to negotiate peer hierarchy, perform toughness, signal group affiliation, and manage symbolic aggression. These practices are especially salient in informal peer-dominated spaces where adult oversight is limited. The study advances the Vocal Influence–Appropriation Model (VIAM) as a heuristic framework for tracing the trajectory from media exposure to socially embedded linguistic practice, highlighting the staged process of exposure, imitation, and contextual appropriation. By foregrounding voice and prosody as performative and indexical resources, the research contributes to youth sociolinguistics, media studies, and African media scholarship, demonstrating that media influence operates not only through content but through the embodied and vocalized forms of speech that structure social meaning in adolescent peer interaction.

Moroccan Educators’ Pedagogic Roles towards Digital Sustainable Progress: The Case of Media Literacy Practices

2024-10-12T20:36:35+00:00

This article analyzes Moroccan educators’ pedagogic roles in Media Literacy Practices (MLP’s). Precisely, it seeks to identify factors triggering MLP’s among Moroccan Language Educators (MLE); how they help build strong future ties for students and stakeholders (policy/decision makers, administrators, and parents) using Media, be it digital or print, in their everyday life. This study also aims to understand the gaps they need to fill from theory to practice in meeting new 21st century demands, particularly in educational settings, be they on-site, remote or hybrid. These major points are addressed: (1) the kinds of media tools MLE use most; (2) the suitable practices considered for use and teaching in language courses; (3) MLE’s opinions about the impact of Media Literacy on both educators and students in their personal and professional lives; and (4) the feasibility of supporting the teaching and learning of Media Literacy. This study uses a mixed-methods approach with a Likert scale survey. The target population consists of 44 MLE from two language specialties, namely Arabic and English. The findings reveal different views supporting pedagogical MLP’s for good links between everyday life realities and digital transformations. Finally, MLP’s require both practitioners’ and students’ positive and ethical contributions for a successful experience.

Writing Skills The Process Writing Approach and Its Influence on Paragraph Writing Skills in Undergraduate Students

2026-06-16T10:21:05+00:00

This study investigates the impact of the process writing approach on developing paragraph writing skills among first-year B.Tech (AI&ML) undergraduate students. Many undergraduate students struggle with academic writing skills. Using a quasi-experimental pre-test single-group design, the study was conducted with thirty first-year B.Tech (AI&ML) students at Vignan University in Vadlamudi. A four-week structured process writing intervention was implemented comprising eight classroom sessions. Student writing samples were evaluated using an analytic rubric across four criteria: content and relevance, coherence, cohesion, and language use. Pre-test results indicated that 70% of students performed at poor to average levels in paragraph writing. Post-test results revealed a significant improvement, with 80% of students reaching good to excellent levels following the intervention. The mean score improved from 42.5% in the pre-test to 73.8% in the post-test, reflecting a mean gain of 31.3%. The findings confirm that the process writing approach is an effective pedagogical strategy for improving academic writing skills. The study offers important implications for ELT programme designers and classroom practitioners in technical education institutions.

Keywords: Process Writing Approach, Paragraph Writing Skills, Academic Writing, Higher Education, ELT, Pre-test, Post-test, Quasi- Experimental Design.

Speaking Across Borders: Language, Migration, and Postcolonial Identity in the Fiction of Laila Lalami and Boualem Sansal

2026-06-28T22:09:57+00:00

This article studies the politics of language in North African migrant fiction through a cross-textual reading of the works of Laila Lalami and Boualem Sansal. Language, the article argues, particularly in the postcolonial era, does not simply function as a communicative medium, but as a discursive space where political meanings of power, identity, memory, resistance, and societal critique are continuously negotiated. The study adopts a postcolonial framework to explore how both writers engage with the wor(l)ding of colonial and postcolonial experiences that constitute a major concern of migrant fiction. Lalami and Sansal write in foreign languages — English and French respectively — which are both considered linguistic legacies of colonialism in different parts of the world; hence, their multilingual narrations, code-switching, and stylistic choices are of paramount importance for a well-founded understanding of their literary engagement with colonial legacies and postcolonial sociopolitical realities in their home and host countries. Across Lalami’s fiction (mainly The Moor’s Account), language serves the purpose of restoring silenced histories, functioning as a repository for cultural memory, and as an intermediary through which hybrid identities are negotiated across borders. By contrast, Sansal gives a fractured and politically charged presentation of language that reveals alienation, failed integration, ideological manipulation, manifest discontent with the past, and the lingering effects of colonial and postcolonial violence. This article shows that the interaction between Arabic, French, English, Spanish, and local vernaculars in North African migrant fiction leads to a language pluralism which embodies the persistent yet ruptured conditions of migrant subjectivities. In the end, it demonstrates that the literary expression of displacement, belonging, and postcolonial resistance continues to be mediated through language.

Across Lalami’s fiction (mainly The Moor’s Account), language serves the purpose of restoring silenced histories, a repository for cultural memory, and an intermediary through which hybrid identities are negotiated across borders. By contrast, Sansal gives a fractured and politically charged presentation of language that reveals alienation, failed integration, ideological manipulation, manifest discontent with the past, and the lingering effects of colonial and postcolonial violence. This article shows that the interaction between Arabic, French, English, Spanish and local vernaculars in North African migrant fiction leads to a language pluralism which embodies the persistent yet ruptured conditions of migrant subjectivities. In the end, it demonstrates that the literary expression of displacement, belonging, and postcolonial resistance continues to be mediated through language.

University-Level English Major Students’ Strategies to Develop Critical Thinking Skills

2026-06-13T02:07:03+00:00

Critical thinking follows cognitive procedures such as analysing, evaluating, synthesising, and interpreting. University-level English major students need to develop critical thinking skills to thrive intellectually in this competitive world. Students at such a level adopt different strategies to develop their criticality. This study analysed the basics of critical thinking skills, such as questioning, appraising, synthesising, and interpreting, and explored the strategies that master's-level English major students adopted to foster their critical thinking skills. For this, the study employed a qualitative approach and interviews as tools to collect data. The data were collected from five master's-level English major students of Tribhuvan University using qualitative interviews. The data were categorised, codified, and analysed under qualitative themes. The discussion showed that critical thinking is a cognitive process and has sub-skills that build the core of higher-order thinking skills. Likewise, the study found that university-level English major students employed strategies to promote their critical thinking skills such as critical reading, questioning, metacognitive activities, comparison and contrast, collaboration and cooperative learning, concept mapping, and self-reflection.

Body, Sacred Language and Poetic Form in Contemporary Albanian Poetry: The Case of Ledia Dushi

2026-06-16T14:04:26+00:00

Abstract: This article examines the poetry of Ledia Dushi as a distinctive case of contemporary Albanian poetic expression in which body, sacred language, and poetic form are closely interwoven. Focusing primarily on Ave Maria bahet lot [Ave Maria Turns into Tears] and selected later developments in Dushi’s poetry, the article argues that her work does not use bodily, natural, and liturgical imagery as decorative material, but transforms them into a coherent poetic system. Her authorial use of Gheg Albanian—understood here as Dushi’s individualized and formally organized use of the dialect rather than as a fixed technical category—functions not merely as a dialectal marker, but as an aesthetic structure that shapes rhythm, intimacy, sound, and embodiment. Through close reading, the article analyses how images of the body, animals, natural elements, sacred figures, and liturgical objects produce a poetic universe in which the boundaries between the sensual and the spiritual, the human and the natural, and voice and silence remain deliberately unstable. The study also considers Dushi’s movement from early figurative intensity toward a more restrained consciousness of form, fragmentation, and poetic silence.

Reflections on the Methods of Combating Student Attrition

2026-06-16T14:59:39+00:00

Student attrition remains a critical challenge for educational systems, particularly in contexts marked by socio-economic disparities. In Morocco, despite significant efforts to expand access to education, dropout rates remain a major concern, reflecting deep structural and pedagogical issues. This raises important questions about the limitations of existing educational policies in effectively addressing this phenomenon and the extent to which they can reduce it. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of student attrition by adopting a multidimensional approach. It first defines the phenomenon and highlights its magnitude through statistical data, including those related to "second chance schools" programs. It then examines the causes of dropout, distinguishing between extra-school factors — such as poverty, family environment, and health issues — and intra-school factors, including inadequate curricula, overcrowded classrooms, and ineffective teaching practices. The study also explores the consequences of school dropout, emphasizing its social and economic impact. Particular attention is given to the role of teachers as key actors in preventing school dropout, through their pedagogical practices, classroom management, and interactions with students. Finally, the paper reviews the historical strategies implemented by the Ministry of Education, along with the contributions of civil society organizations. It critically assesses the limitations of these policies and explores the conditions under which their effectiveness could be strengthened, advocating for a holistic approach that integrates educational, social, and institutional interventions to more effectively combat school dropout.

From Monolingualism to Translanguaging: The Evolution of Theoretical Perspectives on Second and Foreign Language Education

2026-07-03T04:36:09+00:00

The field of second and foreign language education has undergone profound transformations over the past century, reflected in its gradual shift from monolingualism, through bilingualism and ultimately to translanguaging. This evolution has not only reshaped theoretical understandings of language, learning and pedagogy but has also significantly influenced pedagogical practices across diverse educational contexts. Concurrently, it has sparked sustained scholarly debate regarding effective approaches to teaching and learning a second or foreign language in increasingly diverse and plurilingual communities. Against this backdrop, this paper critically examines the historical and conceptual transition from monolingualism and bilingualism to translanguaging, with the aim of providing a critical understanding of the theoretical evolution of perspectives on second and foreign language teaching and learning. In doing so, it highlights how evolving conceptualisations of language, culminating in translanguaging, have redefined pedagogical priorities, challenged traditional assumptions about language separation, and opened new possibilities for encouraging more inclusive, equitable and responsive learning environments.

Schwa in MA After Morphological Operations: Against A Transderivational Account

2024-05-11T16:02:36+00:00

In this paper, I present an alternative account of the placement of schwa in Moroccan Arabic after morphological operations. This vowel, considered epenthetic by many scholars, moves position when certain morphological processes are applied. For example, in a word like ‘kt?b’ meaning ‘write’, schwa is inserted between C2 and C3. If the –u morpheme meaning ‘they’ is added, we get the following form: ‘k?tbu’. Schwa moves to the position between C1 and C2. Boudlal (2001) analysed this from a transderivational perspective. As far as the present account is concerned, this analysis is too complicated. Hence, I provide an analysis using tools provided by Optimality Theory to overcome the weaknesses of Boudlal’s analysis. It was found that a constraint active in the language which bans the occurrence of schwa open syllables, in combination with other constraints, is responsible for the placement of schwa. Such an analysis is simpler and accounts more elegantly for the placement of schwa resulting from morphological operations.

Mansaka Tura in ELT: Preserving Indigenous Knowledge Through Contextualized Education

2026-06-28T11:49:05+00:00

Despite growing advocacy for culturally grounded instruction in the Philippines, indigenous literature such as Mansaka Tura—the traditional poetry of the Mansaka people of Maragusan, Davao de Oro—remains largely excluded from tertiary-level English Language Teaching (ELT), leaving a gap in curricula that serve Indigenous communities. To address this gap, this study developed and evaluated a Contextualized Mansaka Poetry Course Pack for the Purposive Communication course. Using a descriptive-evaluative mixed methods design grounded in the Input-Process-Output (IPO) and ASSURE models of teaching, the study first surveyed 115 stakeholders (IP leaders, English instructors, and BSED students) to determine their awareness of and interest in incorporating Mansaka Tura into ELT, then implemented the resulting course pack with 37 first-year Bachelor of Secondary Education (BSED) English students within the GED 2 - Purposive Communication course. Results showed that although awareness of Mansaka Tura remained relatively low (M = 3.06, SD = 0.51), stakeholders expressed high interest in (M = 4.10) and strongly positive perceptions of (M = 4.46) its inclusion in ELT curricula. Following implementation, students demonstrated statistically significant gains across all four macro-language skills—reading, writing, listening, and speaking—from pre-test to post-test (t = 15.44, df = 36, p < .001; Z = -5.31, p < .001), and rated the course pack as “Very Satisfied” across all five evaluated dimensions. These findings indicate that contextualizing indigenous literature within ELT curricula can simultaneously strengthen students’ language proficiency and safeguard endangered indigenous knowledge, underscoring the broader imperative to decolonize tertiary ELT curricula in institutions situated within or near Indigenous communities.