The Buckingham Journal of Language and Linguistics

A Qualitative Teacher-Student Oriented Approach to Translation Teaching

Ali Almanna — 2020-12-11

This article proposes a move away from the traditional methodologies of teaching translation that focus on text-typologies to an eclectic teacher and student oriented approach that involves a set of interdisciplinary skills with a view to improving students’ translation quality. Here, a combination of the minimalist approach, revision vs. editing and discourse analysis is the proposed alternative in translation teaching. This combination brings together both teacher- and student-centred approaches. As the validity of the approach proposed relies partially on instructors’ competences and skills in teaching translation, universities, particularly in the Arab world, need to invest in recruiting expert practitioners instead of depending mainly on bilingual teachers to teach translation.

Persuasive Language in Presidential Speeches

Farshad Ghasemi — 2020-12-11

Persuasive strategies in political discourse provide opportunities for politicians to influence, guide, and control their audiences according to their desires and benefits. This study examines the persuasive side of the language used in presidential speeches delivered by Barack Obama and Hassan Rouhani. This contrastive study delineates persuasive strategies based on the Aristotelian approach towards the methodology of persuasion. Through extracting our corpus from the internet, we analyzed it using Aristotle’s three means of persuasion (ethos, pathos, and logos). The corpus analysis was performed through qualitative content analysis according to the predefined themes and considering earlier investigations within the frame of Aristotelian rhetoric. The results indicated the prominent role of logos in presidential speeches as the most frequent strategy. Also, the analysis indicated three contrastive themes of religion, time, and participant names in the speeches of the presidents which signified their different cultural and political discourse. The impact of contextual aspects has also been discussed.

Study of Communication Skills in Children with Attention Deficit /Hyperactivity Disorder in Shahrekord

Maryam Sadat Ghiasian — 2020-12-11

Objective: This study was to investigate those pragmatic skills that children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, especially children with pragmatic impairment, show in their colloquial interactions with their parents.

Method: In this regard, all children aged 6 to 13 years old with a diagnostic criterion for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder in a a center for learning disabilities in Shahrekord were selected as research participants in a census method. Required data were collected by using an ADHD rating scale–IV (DuPaul et al., 1998) as well as a Five to fifteen parent questionnaire and were examined through descriptive statistics and chi square test methods.

Results: Findings showed that children with more hyperactivity were of more problem, especially in nonverbal skills (r=0.079; p≤0.05) and subject Maitaining skills (r=0.032, p≤0/05), than children with more attention deficit (r =0.00; p≤0.05). In addition, compared to girls, boys had more problems in subject Maitaining skills (p= 0.02) and non-verbal ones (p=0.014). The results of the analysis also showed that most issues related to pragmatic skills occur at younger ages and decrease with age. The study of previous research literature also confirmed that the low level of such skills can have adverse consequences for such children and pose serious risks to their future psychologically, educationally and behaviorally.

Conclusion: Psychological interventions and educational strategies seem necessary to increase the level of these skills in children with this disorder.

Ethno-Linguistic Vitality of Koch

Satarupa Dattamajumdar — 2020-12-11

The Koch language is spoken in the states of Assam (Goalpara, Nagaon, Dhubri, Kokrajhar, Chirang, Bongaigao, Barpeta, Baksa, Udalguri, Karbi Anglong, Golaghat districts), Meghalaya (West Garo Hills, South-West Garo Hills, South Garo Hills and East Khasi Hills Districts). Koches are found in West Bengal (Northern part) and also in Bangladesh. The speaker strength of Koch in India according to 2011 census is 36,434. Koch community is the bilingual speakers of Assamese, Bengali, Garo, Hindi, and English. Contact situations of Koch with Assamese and Bengali languages have made the language vulnerable to language shift. The UNESCO report mentions Koch as ‘Definitely Endangered’1. Koch has gained the status of a scheduled tribe in Meghalaya in 1987. Kondakov (2013) traces six distinct dialects of Koch, viz., Wanang, Koch-Rabha (Kocha), Harigaya, Margan, Chapra and Tintekiya. He (2013:24) states, “The relationship between the six Koch speech varieties are rather complex. They represent a dialect chain that stretches out from Koch-Rabha in the north to Tintekiya Koch in the south.” This is diagrammatically represented as - Koch-Rabha(Kocha)→Wanang→Harigaya→Margan, Chapra→Tintekiya where the adjacent dialects exhibit more lexical similarity than those at the ends. Nine ethno-linguistic varieties of Koch (also mentioned in Kondakov, 2013:5) have been reported during field investigation. These are Harigaya, Wanang, Tintekiya, Margan, Chapra, Satpariya, Sankar, Banai and Koch Mandai.

Arthur Ransome the Stylist

Bridget Falconer-Salkeld — 2020-12-11

This paper breaks new ground in the field of Ransome criticism and presents new findings. It is the first to examine Arthur Ransome’s use of signals in his novels for children, here Coot Club (1934). Structural analysis of the novel has revealed a carefully concealed three-tier structure, and shows Arthur Ransome to be a consummate stylist.

The Register of the Qurʾānic Narratives

Zaid Alamari — 2020-12-11

A text is an instance of a particular ‘register’, Halliday states. Because text carries indications of its context, it is possible, then, to reconstruct out of it (text) certain features of the situation in which it is produced. Accordingly, the register, being a configuration of semantic features typically associated with the contextual variables of field, tenor and mode, can be established. The aim of this study is to construct the context of situation of a short text (an instance of language) of the Qurʾānic story of Abraham in Q19 (41-50). This pericope represents but a sample of Abraham story told in different sūras of the Qurʾān; and as instance of language (text) in a context of situation, this story belongs to a register of narratives on prophetic stories which subject matter revolves about ‘monotheism’ as propagated by the Qurʾān. This study reports preliminary observations on some features of the Qurʾānic narratives register.