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Communication Skills Course in Bridging the Gap of Weak Students’ Communicative Competence and Accentuating Performance: A Case of Sokoine University of Agriculture
Issue:
Volume 8, Issue 1, January 2020
Pages:
1-10
Received:
9 December 2019
Accepted:
21 December 2019
Published:
6 January 2020
Abstract: This paper reports the findings on the effectiveness of Communication Skills (CS) course in boosting students’ communication competence at Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA). In particular, the study determined whether there is a relationship between the ability in the CS and performance in other courses offered at the university. It also assessed the impact of the course on the students’ performance in other courses of their specialty after the training of the course, and lastly, it gauged the extent of effectiveness of the course. The study involved instructors and students and were obtained through random and purposive sampling procedures. Data for the study were collected using questionnaires, interviews and documentary reviews, and were treated qualitatively and quantitatively. The findings show that the course is not much effective at boosting students’ communication competence. Furthermore, it is revealed that there is no relationship between the CS course and other courses. This is perhaps the least anticipated result of all because one of the key objectives for teaching CS course is for it to help students to perform better in other courses of their specialization. Instead of simply concluding that CS and other courses are not connected or there is no impact of CS on other courses, there is a need of considering exceptional factors which have led to the situation. Of course, improved performance because of CS is expected, but based on these findings, there is no clear effect, partly would be because most of the non-CS instructors are being concerned much with the material content of their courses, rather than the grammatical/CS parts when evaluating students’ works. This makes CS components not reflected in the students’ performance of most of the courses. The study urges the government to improve and expand infrastructures to match with enrollment. Again, it needs to hire more academic staff and retain them through improving their salaries, incentives and payments of their demands to remedy the problem of high teacher-students ratio which is currently alarming.
Abstract: This paper reports the findings on the effectiveness of Communication Skills (CS) course in boosting students’ communication competence at Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA). In particular, the study determined whether there is a relationship between the ability in the CS and performance in other courses offered at the university. It also asse...
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Critical Analysis of Social Genetics and Linguistic Inquiry
Issue:
Volume 8, Issue 1, January 2020
Pages:
11-16
Received:
27 August 2019
Accepted:
24 October 2019
Published:
7 January 2020
Abstract: Human being on Earth has undergone several transitions during its history, from the fire age to modern technology. There has been notable progress in linguistic development and social development. Sociolinguistics and Social genetics as a newlly emerging discipline have strong relationship and enaged with one another. This study tried to analyzed critically the social genetics and linguistic inquiry of human being regardless of anything. The objectives of the study were to introduce this complex idea to the biologists and linguists to reduce their racial baises and to make sense of social genetics and sociolinguistics are the major parameter of human race and genetics than hereditary genetics. The critical paradigm is used as paradigm of the study. Regarding techniques of data analysis, the qualitative approach is utilized in this study. Concerning data collection tools, the secondary data were collected from journals, findings of different researches, books, and proceedings. Therefore, this research is a desktop research. To mention some of the findings, the concept of hereditary genetics distinguish an individual or a group of individual from the other is a refutational way that triggers a misconception, and incorrect. The world outlook, and paradigm of the target speech community or an individual is not a consequence of hereditary genetics, rather this can be considered as a misconception of genetics. 99.9% of the DNA of two human is identical. But also, more than 99% of language of the world share same consonants and vowels. The phoneme chart of most language of the world is almost the same. Therefore, ethnic conflict in different part of the world particularly Africa, Areb countires, and Asia has no theoretical and practical background. More explicitly, ethnic conflict among two races has no reason and a conflict between groups are those share 99.9% of the DNA and 99% of the linguitic characteristics.
Abstract: Human being on Earth has undergone several transitions during its history, from the fire age to modern technology. There has been notable progress in linguistic development and social development. Sociolinguistics and Social genetics as a newlly emerging discipline have strong relationship and enaged with one another. This study tried to analyzed c...
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About Latin Ecce ‘Behold! Lo! See! There!’ and Some Ancient Languages Presentatives
Issue:
Volume 8, Issue 1, January 2020
Pages:
17-23
Received:
19 December 2019
Accepted:
18 January 2020
Published:
4 February 2020
Abstract: In this study, which is part of a larger research project on dialogue, the author deals with “little words” (as they are often called). These common and polyfunctional words seldom appear in grammars and are only dealt with within short lemmata in dictionaries. Presentatives, such as Fr. voici / voilà, Lat. ecce, Gr. ἰδού “Here is, lo!”, form an independent grammatical class which needs to be defined, firstly, in a genetic approach. The author starts with the enumeration of ancient languages presentatives, classifies them according to their etymology and goes on to study Latin ecce in particular. This classification shows two structures: most ancient language presentatives come from a grammaticalized form of the imperative form of a verb requiring a visual or tactile perception; other presentatives are based on a demonstrative theme or a particle agglutination. Only Latin ecce remains unclear in spite of the many assumptions that have already been proposed. In addition, while all the other presentatives are often grammaticalized with a second-person pronoun, the sequence ecce + tibi is not attested in archaic Latin and does not even function as a pure presentative: the structure ecce me is used for self-presentation. In reality, while all the other presentatives are allocentric, ecce is egocentric. The author concludes that ecce is related to ego ‘I’. This particularity can help us both reconstruct the etymology of this word and define the presentation it expresses, thus enabling us to understand how ecce fundamentally illustrates the inscription of the dialogue within morphology.
Abstract: In this study, which is part of a larger research project on dialogue, the author deals with “little words” (as they are often called). These common and polyfunctional words seldom appear in grammars and are only dealt with within short lemmata in dictionaries. Presentatives, such as Fr. voici / voilà, Lat. ecce, Gr. ἰδού “Here is, lo!”, form an in...
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The Azerbaijani Language in Azerbaijan After the Political Independence: The Governmental Support of Mother Tongue and Multilingualism
Issue:
Volume 8, Issue 1, January 2020
Pages:
24-33
Received:
17 October 2019
Accepted:
18 January 2020
Published:
7 February 2020
Abstract: This article is about ongoing language policy and language planning in the Republic of Azerbaijan after the political independence from the ex-Soviet Union in 1991. The intensive policy of Russification through education, especially during the Soviet period created a sizeable Russian-speaking segment in society. With regard to Russian, Azerbaijani displays typical signs of survival of a metropolitan language in a post-colonial context. It puts a certain pressure on the role of Azerbaijani, the language of the majority. It is a matter of significant public interest and subject of ongoing discussions in society. Despite the independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian language enjoys its high prestige in the country. There exists an ongoing debate among scholars about the growth of the Russian language in Azerbaijan. The aim of this article is an analysis of government bodies responsible for the government to carry out the implementation of the Azerbaijani language- the officially sole state language in Azerbaijan after the political independence from the ex-Soviet Union. For this reason, the article covers responsible bodies for the implementation of the Azerbaijani language in post-Soviet Azerbaijan and the re-establishment of Azerbaijani in society. With this regard, the post-independence period is interpreted and analyzed. Together with the analysis of this period, some possible changes are put forward that may improve the implementation of the Azerbaijani language. The existing gap in the country is a need for analysis of the following questions: What has been done in the development of the Azerbaijani language after the political independence from the ex-Soviet Union? How does government support and advocate the importance of learning in the Azerbaijani language? And to what extent does this support work in society? The study attempts to examine the role of top policy in the “language building” which took place from 1991, as well as the changes in legislation brought about by independence. This research will contribute to the study of language-building in post-Soviet space. It will shed light on how Azerbaijani society, which has been considered the first independent country from the former USSR managed to guard and improve the inherited multilingualism and mother tongue policy. It will further explore the new phase of transition that started after independence. Also, it will discuss the existing gap between policy-makers and academia which makes the formulation of new policies and strategies incomplete.
Abstract: This article is about ongoing language policy and language planning in the Republic of Azerbaijan after the political independence from the ex-Soviet Union in 1991. The intensive policy of Russification through education, especially during the Soviet period created a sizeable Russian-speaking segment in society. With regard to Russian, Azerbaijani ...
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Understanding Code-switching from a Sociolinguistic Perspective: A Meta-analysis
Issue:
Volume 8, Issue 1, January 2020
Pages:
34-45
Received:
29 October 2019
Accepted:
18 January 2020
Published:
21 February 2020
Abstract: A meta-analysis or synthesis of prior research critically presents research findings in a discipline of knowledge to review and summarize these findings from a bird's eye view in order to put these findings appropriately within the state of the art. This meta-analysis seeks to tackle the issue of code-switching from a sociolinguistic and language pedagogical perspective. The study is a theoretical paper that highlights the concept of code-switching as a socio-linguistic and educational phenomenon as well as to present the social facts and factors that were investigated and highlighted in linguistic research. The methodology adopted in this paper is research synthesis which aims to combine the results of multiple primary research studies on code-switching to highlight the concept of code-switching from a sociolinguistic and language educational perspective. Research synthesis in this paper was conducted to cover qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods research studies and cases studies that employed cases studies and historical/anecdotal studies with the purpose of juxtaposing these findings from different studies to make these findings more applicable and generalisable in the field of foreign language education. Towards this end, the paper presents the different definitions of this phenomenon and the history of its development in linguistic theory as well as in language research. It also proceeds to highlight the sociolinguistic and pedagogical approaches to researching code-switching in items of its functions, teachers' attitudes and pedagogical applications. Eventually, the paper summarizes the role of code-switching in English language teaching philosophy and pedagogy.
Abstract: A meta-analysis or synthesis of prior research critically presents research findings in a discipline of knowledge to review and summarize these findings from a bird's eye view in order to put these findings appropriately within the state of the art. This meta-analysis seeks to tackle the issue of code-switching from a sociolinguistic and language p...
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A Review on the Book of On the Symbiosis of Discourse Types
Issue:
Volume 8, Issue 1, January 2020
Pages:
46-49
Received:
11 January 2020
Accepted:
17 February 2020
Published:
26 February 2020
Abstract: This paper gives a critical review on the book of On the Symbiosis of Discourse Types. In this book, the author, Xinfang Liu clarifies the symbiosis of the three discourse types from the perspective of rhetorical reciprocity, and proposes a comprehensive model of discourse types in the writing practice. He finds that the current problems of English writing teaching in China are the gaps between writing teaching research, textbook research and the publication of foreign language writing textbooks, and the rigidity and abstraction in the textbook edition and the writing teaching processes, thus applying the model of discourse types to the English writing teaching. Therefore, the strengths of this book lie in both theoretical and practical aspects. Besides the advantages, this book can be refined by illustrating the theory based on a corpus about everyday conversations for the studies of discourse types are closely related to people’s daily life. In addition, this work can also be improved by paying more attention to the differences between first language writing and the foreign language one because the thinking patterns and cultures lying in these two are not similar.
Abstract: This paper gives a critical review on the book of On the Symbiosis of Discourse Types. In this book, the author, Xinfang Liu clarifies the symbiosis of the three discourse types from the perspective of rhetorical reciprocity, and proposes a comprehensive model of discourse types in the writing practice. He finds that the current problems of English...
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Trivialization and Exquisite Sensationalism: The Importance of Being Earnest
Issue:
Volume 8, Issue 1, January 2020
Pages:
50-59
Received:
26 January 2020
Accepted:
17 February 2020
Published:
26 February 2020
Abstract: It is commonly recognized that Oscar Wilde’s main contribution to the late-Victorian drama is his dramatic dialogue. The present paper attempts to explore the linguistic features of Wilde’s social comedy The Importance of Being Earnest, which is summed up here as trivialization and exquisite sensationalism. It shows that Wilde’s special skill of trivialization was in fact formed in his journalistic career during the 1880s under the influence of “New Journalism”. “Trivialization” helped Wilde to come close to the theatrical audience in a most comprehensible way. Besides, Wilde was also innovative in using a sort of refined and elegant linguistic articulation. His dramatic dialogue possessed a special exquisiteness which enabled him to get rid of the vulgarity of the journalistic trivialization and to create a dramatic discourse of his own. I use the term “exquisite sensationalism” to reveal this feature in contrast to the “vulgar sensationalism” of the late-Victorian journalism and to show that in the theatre Wilde’s linguistic paradox was geared towards the most indulgent and sophisticated end. Contextually speaking, the spectacular theatre’s commitment to fashion and respectability provided a historical occasion for Wilde to exhibit his exquisiteness. The perfect combination of triviality and exquisiteness in his epigrammatic dialogues not only produced great sensations on stage but also met the need of social elevation of the theatre of the time.
Abstract: It is commonly recognized that Oscar Wilde’s main contribution to the late-Victorian drama is his dramatic dialogue. The present paper attempts to explore the linguistic features of Wilde’s social comedy The Importance of Being Earnest, which is summed up here as trivialization and exquisite sensationalism. It shows that Wilde’s special skill of tr...
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