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
The Dialogue of Pessimism as a Linguistic Structure of Desire: A Lacanian Psychoanalytic Reading of the Babylonian Text
This examines the Dialogue of Pessimism from a Lacanian psychoanalytic reading. It argues that mythological and early literary texts serve as spaces that reveal the early mechanisms of the unconscious as articulated by Freud and Lacan. Through an analysis of the repetitive dialogue between the master and servant, the study demonstrates how desire can operate within a narrow linguistic circle that reveals the impossibility of fulfillment of desire. Thus, the Dialogue of Pessimism is reinterpreted not merely as a satirical or pessimistic work but as a linguistic structure embodying Lacan’s notion of desire as a metonymy. تسعى هذه الدراسة إلى مقاربة حوار التشاؤم البابلي من منظور التحليل النفسي اللاكاني، بوصفه نصًا يكشف عن البنية الرمزية للرغبة واللاوعي في الفكر الرافدي القديم، ينطلق البحث من فرضية أن النصوص الميثولوجية والأدبية القديمة تمثّل فضاءً مبكرًا لتجلّي آليات اللاوعي، كما نظر (لاكان) إليها، حيث عدّ اللغة وسيطًا أساسًا بين الذات والرغبة، وعن طريق تحليل البنية الحوارية المتكرّرة بين السيد والعبد يبيّن البحث أن الرغبة في النص تتحرك ضمن دائرة لغوية مغلقة تُظهر استحالة الإشباع ووعي الإنسان بالعدم، وبذلك يُعاد فهم النص لا بكونه نتاجًا ساخرًا أو تشاؤميًّا فحسب، بل بكونه بنيةً لغويةً تُجسّد المفهوم اللاكاني للرغبة بعدّها كنايةً تنتج عن نقصٍ أزلي في الذات.
Desire, Mythology, Freud, Language and Psychoanalysis, Jacques Lacan, Mesopotamia, Slave and Master, The Big Other, metonymy, point de capiton
Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Translation of English and Arabic “Sleep” Terms and Formulaic Expressions by Artificial Intelligence: A Comparison of Copilot and DeepSeek
This study examined how Microsoft Copilot (MC) and DeepSeek (DS) translate sleep terms vs formulaic expressions from English to Arabic and Arabic to English, compared MC and DS’s translations, identified the percentage of accurate equivalents, types of errors made, the translation strategies used, and AI translation error causes. Analysis of 130 English sleep terms, 91 English sleep formulaic expressions and 110 Arabic terms and formulaic expressions revealed that MC and DS rendered 91% correct equivalents to English sleep idioms, 79% and 71.5% correct equivalents to English formulaic expressions respectively as She wept herself to sleep بكت حتى نامت, and 48% and 49% of the Arabic terms and formulaic expressions respectively as نوم قلق restless sleep. The most common translation strategy was literal, word for word translation as غرق في النّوم He drowned in sleep, instead of he is fast asleep); نمت كالقتيلة I slept like the dead instead of slept like a log. DS gave an explanation or annotation following the equivalent in 14% and MC in 3% of the Arabic items as inطار النَّومُ من عينيه Sleep flew from his eyes (couldn't sleep). The tendency to Arabic sleep items literally based on surface meaning because is due to an AI default literal translation strategy. AI systems tend to flatten nuance. Higher percentages of correct equivalents to English sleep items were given in this study than medical terms, zero-expressions, expressions of impossibility, Gaza-Israel War terminology, Arabic grammatical terms used metaphorically, Abu & Umm medical folk terms, Abu brand names and Abu & Umm metonymic animal and plant folk names. English-Arabic translation was easier than Arabic-English translation due to training bias, as most AI models are trained on English-dominant corpora, with English-Arabic translation receiving more attention and refinement than Arabic-English translation. Additionally, Arabic-English translation is less represented in the AI corpora, especially for domain-specific or idiomatic content, leading to lower performance. The study gives recommendations for enhancing Arabic idiom recognition and disambiguation by AI models, adding Arabic dictionaries, such as Almaany Dictionaries, to the AI corpora and for translators to make the best use of AI in translation.
Copilot translation, DeepSeek translation, AI translation, sleep terms, sleep idioms, English-Arabic translation, Arabic-English translation, literal translation, AI translation strategies, AI translation errors
Cultural Nuances in Translation: A Critical Examination of Language, Meaning, and Identity
Translation should not be understood as just a mechanical reproduction of words between languages; the process is very cultural as it is negotiating meaning, and identity, power across language and social borders. The paper explores the focal position of cultural nuance in translation, where it is believed that effective translation must entail cultural competency as well as linguistic competence. The paper identifies areas of fidelity and reception of translations through an interdisciplinary approach that taps into the various areas of linguistics including translation, sociolinguistics, and intercultural communication. It methodology is founded upon comparative textual analysis of idioms, case studies of text translation errors in global marketing, and critical discussion about machine translation. Canonical political models, such as dynamic equivalence developed by Nida, domestication and foreignization by Venuti, and Skopos theory claims proposed by Vermeer, are presented with the recent exchange of ideas on gender inclusivity and translation applications based on AI. Case studies also illustrate that mistranslations have caused commercial, diplomatic and ideological effects and what the translator needs to have is a mediator of cultures and not a linguistic technician who is neutral. The conclusions indicate that translation cannot exist out of culturally specific issues of cultural identity, power relations, and ethical responsibility. The paper will conclude by highlighting the necessity of training in translation to focus more on cultural competency and request increased fine-grained collaboration between human translators and new works of technology.
Cultural translation, Semantic equivalence, Identity and language, Localization, Transcreation
Challenges of Incorporating Implicit Meanings of Omitted Sentences When Translating the Holy Qur’an
This study investigates the complex challenges of translating omitted declarative, coordinative, and conditional sentences in the Holy Qur’an, focusing on the retrieval and accurate rendering of their implicit meanings in English. While ellipsis (ḥadhf) is a well-documented rhetorical device in Arabic, its syntactic and semantic implications remain underexplored in Qur’anic translation studies. By analyzing selected verses across three prominent English translations—Abdel Haleem, Abdullah Yusuf Ali, and Saheeh International—the study examines translators’ awareness, interpretive strategies, and the impact of their choices on semantic fidelity and theological accuracy. Findings reveal significant variation in the treatment of ellipsis, highlighting the difficulty of conveying nuanced meaning without explicit syntactic cues. Non-native translators occasionally outperform native speakers, demonstrating that methodological rigor and exegetical insight often outweigh intuitive proficiency. The study underscores the critical role of contextual and rhetorical understanding in translating Qur’anic ellipsis, advocating for a systematic framework that preserves both the semantic depth and rhetorical elegance of the original text.
Qur’anic Translation - Ellipsis (Ḥadhf) - Omitted Sentences -Predicate, Conjunction, and Conditional Structures - Semantic and Grammatical Challenges
Technology's Impact on International Community in American Literature
American literature has always been a mirror to societal relationships, highlighting the impact of different issues on the international community, including the new advancement of Technology. Tracing this representation of society in American literature, this study aimed to assess the representation of Technology and its impact on the international community by exploring key literary texts from each technological evolution. The study employed a thematic analysis approach on 12 seminal literary works selected through purposive sampling with 3 texts from each era from the 1900s to the current digital age. The study findings highlighted the recurring themes from each period representing the impact of Technology on the international society. The most recurring themes included cultural exchange, communication advancement, and social effects on the flow of information. The early literary texts focused on isolation and prejudice, whereas the industrialization-era texts brought mobility and labour exploitation issues in industries. Further, the advancement of mass media influence has brought issues like censorship and information control. In contrast, the modern digital age literature was focused on the virtual worlds, connectivity benefits and drawbacks, highlighting the re-emergence of issues like isolation with rapid cultural exchange and identity crisis. In essence, by analyzing seminal American literary texts, the study has covered the role of Technology from the historical period to the current era, emphasizing international communication. Further, research can focus on the intersection of society, Technology and literature with recent developments. Lastly, the study suggests that policymakers should emphasize the pros and cons of new technological innovations and ensure inclusion, empathy and the well-being of the international community by establishing dynamic and effective cultural exchange programs.
: Cultural Exchange, Prejudice, Literary representation, mobility, isolation.
Copyright (c) 2025 Farhana Tabassum https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Fragile Architecture of Knowing: Madness and Reason in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Purloined Letter
This essay approaches Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839) and “The Purloined Letter” (1844) as twin meditations on one enduring and unsettling question: how do we ever come to know anything at all? At first, the two stories seem to stand on opposite shores—one steeped in the feverish shadows of Gothic terror, the other grounded in the crisp precision of reason and deduction. But look again, and the illusion of contrast begins to dissolve. Beneath their surfaces, both works move toward the same unsettling aim: exposing how knowledge is formed and questioning the shaky trust we place in what we believe to be true. Each constructs, then deftly dismantles, the very frameworks of understanding it seems to affirm. In Usher, the house is more than a reflection of a disordered psyche—it is that psyche, alive and decaying. Its cracks, its echoes, and the shifting play of sound and shadow all mirror the narrator’s slow and steady fall into mental collapse. It’s as though his very language begins to tremble under the weight of what it tries to restrain, the sentences faltering in rhythm, surrendering to the same instability he so desperately hopes to master. The prose fractures; perception buckles under its own weight. And in The Purloined Letter, where rationality supposedly triumphs, the victory proves hollow—more performance than proof. The letter’s power resides not in its message but in its ceaseless circulation, while Dupin’s vaunted “method” reads as theater masquerading as science, a graceful choreography of intellect that dazzles precisely because it conceals the void beneath.Drawing on narratology—especially the concepts of unreliability and focalization—this essay brings those tools into dialogue with poststructural and feminist thought to examine how voice, perspective, and gendered silence dictate what can be seen, spoken, or ultimately known. The reader never remains a passive onlooker here; instead, they are quietly pulled into the machinery of interpretation itself. Almost without noticing, they begin sorting through clues, doubting their own perceptions, and feeling the ground of meaning shift—gently at first, yet with an inescapable pressure. When these two tales are placed side by side, the pattern sharpens: Poe’s deep, persistent unease with the act of cognition, with the very labor of knowing, rises clearly to the surface. Thought, in his world, is not a stable edifice but a fragile construction—carefully built, perennially endangered, and always one tremor away from collapse.
Edgar Allan Poe; narrative unreliability; focalization; Gothic architecture; epistemology
Interrogating Native-Speakerism and Linguistic Imperialism in ELT: A Comparative Review
The article reviews the deeply embedded imperialist history in the language-teaching and learning landscape. It critically looks into two identical yet thematically quite disparate articles that reveal the most pressing and talked about concerns around the imperialist institutions since the inception of the idea of linguistic imperialism as well as subconscious subscriptions to secret following of the colonizers’ cultural nuances by non-native teachers and learners through teaching and learning materials made available by the UK and the USA. Recent research (e.g., Pennycook, 2017; Phillipson, 2008) shows that these dynamics continue due to linguistic marketization, in which Western publishers benefit from sustaining "standard" English ideologies. It focuses on age-old topics such as the tendency among non-native learners and teachers to prioritize and perfect phonology, strive for near-native proficiency, and incorporate native culture into their conversations, teaching, and reading. Finally, the wilful evasion of the admission by non-native speaker teachers and students alike to the consequences of being subtly inculcated into Western culture due to the West’s strategic launching of disciplines like TESOL to silently avoid the watch of non-native speakers is discussed with much greater profundity.
native-speakerism; linguistic imperialism; ELT; English as an international language; cultural integrity
Estranged Bodies, Alienated Minds: Grotesque Aesthetics and Resistance in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar
This article examines The Bell Jar (1963) through the complementary frameworks of Wolfgang Kayser’s and Mikhail Bakhtin’s theories of the grotesque, arguing that Sylvia Plath’s novel deploys this aesthetic mode to interrogate cultural ideals of femininity, normalcy, and progress in 1950s America. While critics have often approached The Bell Jar primarily as a psychological or autobiographical document, this study foregrounds its deliberate aesthetic construction, showing how Plath uses grotesque imagery to render the familiar strange and to anchor existential alienation within the material body. Kayser’s conception of the grotesque, centered on estrangement and the uncanny, illuminates Esther Greenwood’s perception of the world as distorted, repellent, and hostile. Her experiences under “the bell jar” exemplify the dissolution of boundaries between self and environment, producing a pervasive sense of disorientation and unreality. Bakhtin’s notion of the grotesque body, by contrast, emphasizes embodiment, vulnerability, and the cyclical processes of life and death, situating Esther’s crisis within a collective, corporeal dimension she simultaneously rejects and cannot escape. The novel’s grotesque episodes function as key sites where these two traditions intersect. Each moment stages a confrontation between the alienation of consciousness and the unruly materiality of the body, exposing the violence implicit in midcentury cultural narratives of science, sexuality, and domesticity. Through this double lens, Plath’s grotesque emerges as both psychological and political: a strategy of defamiliarization that unveils the brutality underlying sentimental ideals of womanhood. Esther’s revulsion toward the bodily and the banal becomes a form of resistance – an instinctive refusal to conform to the image of the “perfect woman” upheld by patriarchal ideology. In mobilizing both Kayser’s and Bakhtin’s versions of the grotesque, The Bell Jar transforms the ordinary into the uncanny, revealing beneath the surface of postwar optimism a world of distortion, decay, and existential disgust.
Sylvia Plath; The Bell Jar; grotesque; Wolfgang Kayser; Mikhail Bakhtin
Copyright (c) 2025 Simona Porro https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Politeness Strategies in Advice Giving Used by Bani Hassan: Grice’s Approach
This study aims to examine the politeness strategies in advice giving employed by speakers of the Bani Hassan dialect, based on Grice's politeness approach as a theoretical framework and to show the most frequent strategy employed by them. A Discourse Completion Test (DCT) comprising 50 different situations was used to investigate and elicit the responses of 100 participants. The results revealed that there are two primary categories of strategies were used by the participants: direct and indirect. The direct strategies are: using the imperative form, using the imperative form preceded by the negative particle laa "not", using the verb ansah"أنصح" (advise) and using mitigation. On the other hand, the indirect strategies are: using religious expressions, using proverbs, suggesting alternatives, giving negative consequences, giving positive consequences, using insulting, using sarcasm, using emphasizing, using interjection, and using jokes. The results also showed that using the verb 'Ɂansˁaħ' (Advise) is the most frequent strategy used by Bani Hasan speakers to give advice with (17.7%) of the total strategies.
Politeness strategies, Advice-giving, , Grice politeness approach, Bani Hassan dialect
Copyright (c) 2025 Ebtesam Al-Omoush, Baseel AlBzoor, Naser AlBzour https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Students' Acceptance and Academic Use of Social Networking Sites: A Qualitative TAM-TTF-Based Analysis
This study aims to investigate students’ acceptance and use of Social Networking Sites (SNSs) for academic purposes. Using a qualitative case study methodology and drawing on the integrated Technology Acceptance Model and Task Technology Fit model (TAM–TTF), data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 20 English studies students from Sultan Moulay Slimane University. Thematic analysis of the interview data revealed that students’ engagement with SNSs is shaped by a dynamic interplay of technological, individual, and psychological factors rather than a simple behavioral choice. participants particularly identified accessibility, utility, ease of use, and cost-effectiveness, especially the platforms’ low data consumption, as key factors driving both their adoption and sustained use of SNSs for academic purposes. The implications of these results for the effective design and implementation of institutional technologies are discussed.
EFL learning, task-technology fit, technology acceptance model, social networking sites
Copyright (c) 2025 Meryem Krimi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
China's Image in Sino-US Trade War Reporting from the Perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis: Comparative Study on the Report of China Daily in 2018 and 2025
This study explores how China Daily, China’s official English-language newspaper, constructs and reconstructs China’s national image across two critical phases of the Sino–US trade war—2018 and 2025. Drawing on Fairclough’s Three-Dimensional Model of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), the research adopts a mixed-method approach combining quantitative corpus analysis and qualitative discourse interpretation. The two self-built corpora, each comprising 50 trade-related reports from the respective years, are analyzed in terms of transitivity, modality, reporting modes, and news sourcing. The findings reveal significant diachronic shifts in China Daily’s discourse strategies. In 2018, the newspaper’s coverage emphasized defensive and cooperative tones, with frequent use of low-value modality and indirect reporting to project a cautious yet resilient image. By contrast, in 2025, China Daily employed more assertive linguistic features, including increased use of high-value modals, a higher proportion of direct quotations, and a predominance of specific, identifiable news sources. These shifts signal a transformation from a passive, defensive posture to a confident, proactive representation of China as a responsible global power advocating fairness, stability, and multilateral cooperation. Theoretically, this research enriches CDA studies by providing a diachronic perspective on national image construction within domestic English-language media. Practically, it contributes to understanding how strategic discourse serves as a tool of international communication and ideological negotiation in the evolving landscape of China–US relations.
Copyright (c) 2025 Haobo Sun https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Madrilenian Poetry in the Early 20th Century. Spanish > English Translated Poems of Antonio Casero (1874-1936)
The literature in Madrid has had many masterpieces in poems, plays and novels that have remained unknown for a long time. One of the most interesting authors of Madrid’s early 20th-century literature is Antonio Casero. He belongs to one of the classical periods of the Madrilenian literature that is framed as part of a regional movement in culture, named as ‘Madrileñismo’ that had its ‘Golden Age’ between the late 19th and early 20th century. The aim of this study is to analyse, for the first time, a corpus of poems, full of Madrilenian terminology, taken from Antonio Casero’s poetical works and to make a proposal of translations from Spanish and its Madrilenian speech into English. Additionally, this research will provide some translated fragments from his poems and some translation comments. Thanks to this, they will be examples of Madrid as models to understand this rich, yet unknown, period of the Madrilenian literature within its Spanish and European contexts.
Copyright (c) 2025 Francisco Godoy Tena https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Moral Impact of Social Order in Frankenstein and Slaughterhouse-Five
This essay explores Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, two novels that examine morality and the consequences of the protagonists' actions on their communities. Victor Frankenstein, driven by scientific ambition, creates and then abandons his creature, leading to devastating consequences. His misuse of knowledge highlights the dangers of unchecked scientific pursuit and the ethical dilemmas of creation. In contrast, Billy Pilgrim, shaped by his experiences in war, retreats into the realm of his imagination and time travel as a means of coping with trauma. His detachment from reality raises questions about free will, fate, and the psychological impact of war. The essay also explores moral dilemmas within both texts, analyzing how Victor and Billy grapple with their own sense of morality. While Victor seeks to unlock the secrets of life through science, Billy’s journey is defined by his struggle to make sense of life’s chaos. Despite their differing paths, both characters ultimately search for meaning, raising questions about personal responsibility and the consequences of human actions. Additionally, this essay discusses the literary concepts of centripetal and centrifugal forces, examining how these forces shape the characters and their actions. Victor's inward focus on his own ambitions contrasts with Billy’s outward detachment from reality. By analyzing these forces, the essay uncovers how both protagonists navigate the complex interplay between individual choices and external influences, ultimately shaping their respective narratives.
Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces, Existential Inquiry, Imagination and Reality, Morality, Scientific Ethics, Trauma
Copyright (c) 2025 Saleh Aljumah https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Analysis of Linguistic Pattern “X Xue” based on Constructional Grammar: Transforming from Grammatical Construction to Rhetorical Construction
Focusing on the trending phenomenon on the internet, this study has generalized the different uses of “X Xue” from a perspective of Constructional Grammar. All data collected from Chinese mainstream social platforms went through a constructional analysis, including constructional meaning, syntactic structure and pragmatic use. According to the study, the linguistic pattern “X Xue” has witnessed a more diversified use. Compared with the traditional use of “X Xue”, the online practice of this phrase implies a sense of dismiss or self-mockery. To explain the change, Liu’s model of grammatical construction and rhetorical construction is employed in the research. In addition, the cognitive mechanisms for the variation of the phrase are also discussed in the essay. Study shows that there are two kinds of projection playing important roles in the process of such transformation. In general, the study thoroughly depicted the motion of “X Xue” in a continuum from grammatical construction to rhetorical one, and tried to explain the potential cognitive motivations behind the development.
Constructional Grammar; grammatical construction; rhetorical construction; projection; cognitive motivation
The Role of Video Games in Improving English Vocabulary Mastery Among Elementary School Children: A Quasi-Experimental Study
This quasi-experimental study examines the impact of video game–based instruction on English vocabulary mastery among fourth-grade students at Al-Fattah Primary School for Boys in Saudi Arabia. A total of 50 students participated, equally divided into experimental and control groups. Over an eight-week intervention during the second semester of the 2024 academic year, the experimental group was exposed to vocabulary instruction through interactive educational video games, while the control group received conventional instruction. Data were collected via a researcher-developed Vocabulary Achievement Test (VAT), and analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Findings indicate that the experimental group achieved significantly greater gains in vocabulary knowledge compared to the control group. Paired- and independent-samples t-tests confirmed the statistical significance of these results, and effect size calculations highlighted a strong impact of the game-based approach. These outcomes underscore the pedagogical value of incorporating digital games into EFL instruction at the elementary level. The study offers theoretical and practical implications for language educators, curriculum designers, and policy stakeholders in integrating game-enhanced strategies to foster vocabulary acquisition in young learners.
video games, vocabulary mastery, elementary education, EFL, game-based learning, Saudi Arabia, digital instruction, quasi-experimental design
From Classroom to Workplace: The Role of Soft Skills in Moroccan Higher Education
This article examines the demand for soft skills in the Moroccan job market by analyzing interviews with 180 participants, comprising 80 prospective graduates, 80 employees, and 20 employers in Morocco, specifically in the Ain Johara and Kenitra industrial zones. The study results reveal areas of divergence and convergence. Study participants prioritize communication and problem-solving; some place a strong emphasis on time management, while others tend to favor adaptability and leadership skills. By contextualizing the findings, this article emphasizes the implementation gap between declaring the importance of soft skills and their integration into higher education curriculum design. It also recommends collaboration among Moroccan higher education institutions and labor market recruiters to match graduates’ skills and job market demands. Soft skills are no longer considered an academic necessity; rather, they have become a top priority to enhance human capital competencies and competitiveness in today’s interconnected economy.
Soft skills; higher education; employability; communication; Morocco; curriculum reform; workplace adaptability; emotional intelligence
Gamified Reading with Quizizz: Performance Gains and Vietnamese EFL Learner Attitudes
The study investigates the extent to which Quizizz improves pre-intermediate learners’ reading performance in a private center in Vietnam, and their attitudes towards it. The study employed a quantitative approach: A pair of pre-test and post-test was utilized to measure the effectiveness of Quizizz in improving pre-intermediate learners’ reading performance. Their attitudes were examined through a 15-item Likert questionnaire based on the ACB model (affective, cognitive, and behavioral components) across the pre-, while-, and post-reading stages. The participants were 100 pre-intermediate learners from a language center in Vietnam, chosen through convenience sampling. Because normality was violated, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test was applied to compare scores. The results revealed a significant improvement in reading performance, with post-test scores higher than pre-test scores (Z=−7.437, p<.001) and a large effect size (r=.80). Additionally, the questionnaire findings showed positive attitudes in the while- and post-reading stages. In contrast, the learners’ attitudes in the pre-reading stage were mixed: they enjoyed quizzes with entertaining elements while reporting neutral responses to flashcards and future intentions of use. In conclusion, Quizizz significantly enhanced reading performance and encouraged positive learner attitudes, particularly in the while- and post-reading stages. These findings highlight the potential of gamified tools to support comprehension, motivation, and learner engagement in English reading instruction.
Copyright (c) 2025 Nguyen Thi Nhu Ngoc, Tran Thi Truc Vy https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Breaking the Mould: Redefining Asian-American Beauty Standards in Selected Digital Short Stories
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the discourse surrounding the Asian-Americans’ struggle has gained more prominence. Notably, the Asian-American diasporas in the United States confront multifaceted challenges, including stereotypes, discrimination, racism, and prejudice towards their physical appearance, contributing to a complex identity negotiation. Despite these multifaceted challenges, the researcher will focus on one central issue: the intricate dynamics of beauty standards in a white-dominated space. Western beauty standards are constantly idolized, fostering feelings of insecurity among Asian-American women. Media platforms, including television, entertainment, and online social media, play important roles in shaping these beauty standards. Additionally, cultural factors also contribute to the fluctuations in the perception and self-acceptance of Asian-American women. Motivated by the situation described above, this research aims to investigate how Asian-American women navigate their cultural identities and challenge mainstream beauty standards. Using a qualitative approach, the researcher will collect the data from selected digital short stories taken from the dearasianyouth.org website. The selected works are authentic data penned by Asian-American young adult female writers who represent how the main characters define beauty standards. The Asian-American characters find themselves trapped in a predicament and a process of identity negotiation. Through a postcolonial lens, the researcher scrutinizes how Western cultural beauty standards influence how the Asian-American characters define themselves and illustrate the pains of facing “standard” images of beauty. The first result of this study dismantles the aspects that shape beauty standards within the Asian-American characters, such as cultural hegemony, socio-historical context, and media influences. The second result highlights the impact of beauty standards on the characters’ lives, such as body image and self-esteem, social and cultural alienation, identity crisis, and cultural disconnection. Finally, the study scrutinizes the struggle of Asian-American characters in dealing with the impacts of cultural representation and their identity formation, manifesting resistance to Western standards, negotiation of dual identities, redefinition of beauty, and empowerment through cultural pride. Furthermore, future studies may explore how the main characters pinpoint the difference between Western beauty standards and Asian beauty standards and the effects on their lives.
Copyright (c) 2025 Catharina Brameswari https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Written Assignments and the Ethical Considerations of Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education
The rapid development of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools has created new opportunities and challenges in higher education. Written assignments, long regarded as central to intellectual development and assessment, are now being redefined by AI-assisted writing technologies. This article examines the epistemological, pedagogical, and ethical dimensions of AI in relation to written assignments, clarifying how AI reshapes academic discourse, assessment practices, and institutional approaches to integrity and fairness. The analysis draws on institutional guidelines, scholarly literature on assessment and second-language writing, theoretical debates on academic discourse, and policy frameworks in multilingual educational contexts. Findings indicate that AI can provide valuable linguistic and structural support in academic writing, particularly for second-language learners, but it also introduces risks related to academic integrity, transparency, bias, misinformation, equity, and linguistic justice. Assessment practices are especially vulnerable, necessitating innovative, process-oriented approaches such as workshops, oral defences, and reflective portfolios. In research contexts, concerns around reproducibility, data protection, and authorship are pressing. The article concludes that higher education institutions must balance innovation with ethical responsibility by embedding AI literacy, mandating disclosure, redesigning assessments to emphasize higher-order skills, and ensuring equitable access. Rather than prohibiting AI, universities should cultivate responsible digital citizenship to harness AI tools while upholding integrity, fairness, and inclusiveness.
Written Assignments; Ethical Considerations; Artificial Intelligence; Higher Education
War Narrative and Emotional Empathy through Color Metaphors in the Picture Book Nanjing: The Year of 1937
The picture book Nanjing: The Year of 1937 constructs a visual discourse system for war narratives through a unique color metaphor framework, offering an innovative approach to the contemporary transmission of historical memory. Employing multimodal discourse analysis, this study reveals how the deliberate reduction of brightness and saturation in dominant cool-toned hues (gray blue and dark red) establishes a visually oppressive atmosphere, metaphorizing the devastation of urban life by wartime violence. The symbolic use of localized high-saturation red not only marks specific spatiotemporal nodes of bloody events but also intensifies the explosive nature of traumatic memory through chromatic contrast. On the level of emotional empathy, the “visual respiratory rhythm” formed by color gradients and compositional negative space guides readers from cognitive empathy to affective engagement, with its mechanism manifesting as a three-stage progression of color symbolism: “metaphor-association-empathy”. The research confirms that the picture book maintains the solemnity of historical narrative while eliciting emotional resonance among young readers through cross-modal complementarity between color and textual elements. This multimodal narrative strategy provides an operational paradigm for aesthetic education on war-related themes, with its color-coding system serving as a model for the visual construction of collective memory.
Picture Book; Color Metaphor; War Narrative; Emotional Empathy; Nanjing: The Year of 1937
Tracing Prepositional Pathways: Temporal and Spatial Mastery Among EFL Learners
English prepositions present persistent challenges for second language (L2) learners due to their idiomatic nature and semantic overlap. This study examined whether first language (L1) background, proficiency level and type (time and place) interact with the use of English prepositions by Saudi Arabic (SA) learners. It also aimed to examine variations in accuracy both within and between preposition types. Data were gathered from thirty female SA university students who were classified at the beginner or elementary level. The data instrument was a fill-in-the-blank task involving the selection of seven-time prepositions (since, by, on, from, at, in, before) and seven place prepositions (at, next to, near, on, in, under, between) in addition to Ø. The results showed that: a) accuracy was higher when a preposition had a close semantic and syntactic equivalent in SA; b) overall accuracy increased with proficiency; c) prepositions such as in and before (time), and under and between (place) were the most accurately used items, while since, by and at (time), and next to and near (place) were the most challenging; and d) time prepositions were used more accurately than place prepositions.
Arabic, English prepositions, L1 transfer, time prepositions, place prepositions
The Applicability of Nord’s Loyalty Principle in Quran Translation: A Critical Examination
This article examines the application of the loyalty principle within Skopos Theory in the translation of the Holy Quran. Skopos Theory prioritizes the purpose of the translation, emphasizing how the intended function in the target context should guide the translator’s choices, while still requiring respect for the original text. However, translating the Quran presents unique challenges because it is a sacred text with an unchanging divine message that must be carefully preserved. Any changes to the text risk altering its original meaning and religious significance. The study compares several Quran translations to examine how translators demonstrate different types of loyalty. Some focus on literal accuracy, others on spiritual meaning, and some prioritize conveying broader religious concepts. These different approaches affect how readers understand the Quran’s message. The findings suggest that the loyalty principle is useful for Quran translation only if translators maintain a high degree of faithfulness to the original text. Translators need to protect the sacredness of the Quran while also making its teachings clear and accessible to modern readers. Balancing these goals is essential for preserving both the theological meaning and ensuring effective communication. This research concludes that a careful and thoughtful application of loyalty can guide translators in producing Quran translations that both respect the source text and meet the needs of today’s audience.
Quran translation, Skopos Theory, loyalty principle, sacred texts, translation ethics, target audience.
Phrasal Constructions in German and their translation into Albanian: An Analysis based on Children’s and Young Adult Literature
The article examines the translation of phraseme constructions from German into Albanian using selected examples from children’s and young adult literature, in particular Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart trilogy. In translation studies, phraseme constructions are considered a particular challenge, as they combine fixed phraseological patterns with a degree of lexical variation. While numerous empirical studies exist for larger language pairs such as German–English or German–Spanish, a systematic analysis for German–Albanian has so far been lacking. This study is based on a self-compiled mini-corpus that documents central phraseme constructions and their Albanian translations and evaluates them from a functional-contrastive perspective. The findings show that German phraseme constructions are predominantly translated into Albanian through functional adaptation and semantic modulation. Direct equivalences are rare, whereas culturally embedded idioms exhibit idiomatic parallels in Albanian more often than expected. This ensures comprehensibility in the target text, but the rhetorical conciseness of the original is partly weakened. The study makes a first contribution to contrastive phraseology for the German–Albanian language pair and highlights practice-oriented implications for translator training.
Translation, phraseme constructions, phraseology, translation strategies, German–Albanian, children’s and young adult literature, contrastive analysis, translator training
A Study on the Gender Politics of Maid Characters in The Odyssey: Power, Performance, and Survival
This paper examines the maid characters Eurycleia and Melantho in The Odyssey, applying Michel Foucault’s concept of micro-power and Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity. Drawing upon legal inscriptions, archaeological findings, and social practices of the Archaic period (8th–5th centuries BCE), the study investigates how gender and class intersect in the domestic sphere. It argues that Eurycleia’s so-called loyalty emerges from the internalization of patriarchal discipline and emotional labor, granting her a circumscribed “service-oriented agency.” In contrast, Melantho’s behavior, often labeled transgressive, reflects an improvisational strategy under structural violence. These contrasting trajectories reveal the literary mechanisms that reflect and reproduce gender-class hierarchies in ancient Greece, while also illuminating the limits and ambiguities of female agency within oppressive systems.
The Odyssey; Maid Characters; Micro-Power; Gender Performativity; Archaic Period
The Aesthetics of Scandal and the Poetics of Subversion in Journal du voleur by Jean Genet
This article aims to analyze the subversive aesthetics at work in Jean Genet’s Journal du voleur, highlighting how the author subverts literary, moral, and social norms to elevate transgression into a creative principle. Through both textual and contextual analysis, this study reveals how Genet, by means of an autobiographical narrative infused with fiction, transforms marginality into a space where an alternative truth takes shape. This subversion also manifests in a bold linguistic approach, where language becomes a poetic tool of reinvention, challenging the standards of the traditional literary canon. Furthermore, this aesthetic question the political dimension of the work: although the author rejects any explicit moral claim, his writing exposes the blind spots concealed by dominant discourse. Journal du voleur thus emerges as a space of radical freedom, where art, freed from ethical constraints, becomes an instrument of resistance and invites a reconsideration of literature. Genet does not merely describe transgression; he fully enacts it in the very act of writing, opening up a new territory capable of embracing and sublimating the forbidden and the condemned.
Journal du Voleur ; norms ; subversion ; marginality ; resistance
Idioms Across Cultures: A Corpus-Based Study of Translation Strategies in Amy Tan’s Novels
This study examines how English idioms are translated into Arabic in literary contexts, focusing on Amy Tan’s novels The Joy Luck Club and The Hundred Secret Senses. The purpose is to investigate which strategies translators employ when faced with culturally and linguistically distant idiomatic expressions, and to assess how these strategies affect meaning transfer and stylistic impact. A specialised parallel corpus of 150 idioms was compiled, with 75 idioms drawn from each novel. Idioms were identified using Fernando’s definition of idiomaticity and analysed according to Baker’s taxonomy of translation strategies. The analysis combined quantitative counts of strategy use with qualitative readings of context to reveal patterns and explain translation choices. A chi-square test was applied to determine whether distributions differed significantly between the two novels. The results show a clear hierarchy of strategies. Omission was the most frequently applied (46.0%, 69 cases), reflecting the difficulty of finding Arabic counterparts for culturally bound idioms. Idioms of similar meaning but different form accounted for 25.3% (38 cases), demonstrating that translators often preserved figurative meaning while reformulating the expression in culturally accessible terms. Paraphrase was used in 18.0% of cases (27 idioms), while idioms of similar meaning and form were rare, appearing in only 10.7% (16 idioms). Statistical testing confirmed that the distributions across the two novels did not differ significantly. The findings highlight the cultural and linguistic distance between English and Arabic, which constrains direct idiomatic equivalence and pushes translators toward strategies that prioritise readability and functional adequacy. While omission ensures fluency, it reduces figurative richness, and paraphrase simplifies meaning at the expense of stylistic effect. By contrast, reformulation strategies show how translators balance semantic fidelity with cultural intelligibility. Overall, this study contributes empirical evidence about idiom-translation practices in modern literary texts. It underscores the need for culturally informed, meaning-oriented approaches in translator training and offers insights for cross-cultural literary translation.
Copyright (c) 2025 Aysha Mohammed A Almagsodi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Human Being Identity Protection in Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Sexing the Cherry, and Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
This study explores the human identity protection in Jeanette Winterson’s novels, focusing on Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Sexing the Cherry, and Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? Through a combination of narratological, deconstructive, and psychocritical approaches, the research analyzes how Winterson constructs literary strategies to defend marginal identities, particularly queer and female. The narrative structures of her works, often non-linear and symbolic, reflect a deliberate disruption of normative frameworks that threaten selfhood. Her deconstruction of love, sexuality, and social happiness challenges traditional binaries and reclaims emotional and psychological space for the rejected self. Writing becomes a site of resistance, where trauma is not only represented but transformed into a tool of empowerment. The study concludes that Winterson’s fiction functions as a literary sanctuary for endangered identities, using metaphor, myth, and autobiographical resonance to protect and assert the human being’s right to define and narrate their own existence.
Identity, protection, love, social happiness, self
The Ambivalent Reception in the East and the West: Mahfouz's Novel Children of our Ally
The purpose of this article is to investigate the duality of East-West perspectives in interpreting literary texts, with Naguib Mahfouz's novel, Children of Our Alley, as a case study. The study aims to identify the reasons behind the divergent analyses and interpretations of the text, with a particular focus on the impact of cultural and historical contexts on literary reception. The research adopts a reception studies approach and examines the following two perspectives: The first one is Eastern Reception which analyses the reception of Children of Our Alley in the Arab world, exploring the significant reviews and research that shed light on how and why the novel has been perceived in a specific way. This study examines the issues related to identity and religion that arise in the context of the Arab world's reception of the novel. Moreover, it analyzes the impact of cultural and political factors on the interpretation of the text in the Arab world. Moreover, the second one is Western Reception which examines the reception of Children of Our Alley in the West, highlighting relevant reviews and research that discuss the differences in interpretation between the East and the West. This study investigates the impact of Western cultural and political contexts on the reception of the novel. Furthermore, it analyzes the differences in interpretation of the novel about issues related to identity and religion. Overall, this article provides a comprehensive analysis of the duality of East-West perspectives in interpreting literary texts. By using Children of Our Alley a case study, this research sheds light on how cultural and historical contexts shape literary reception and interpretation, and how this understanding can contribute to a more nuanced understanding of literature across cultures.
Reception, Naguib Mahfouz, Eastern, Western, Religion, Atheism
A Study on Semantic Similarity of English Translations of Costume Terms in Jīn Píng Méi Based on Natural Language Processing
This study aims to provide guidance for translating costume terms in Chinese classics, with a specific focus on exploring the semantic similarity of two English translations of costume terms in 《金瓶梅》(Jīn Píng Méi). To achieve this objective, the study compiled a corpus of 35 groups of costume terms (covering clothes, headwear, and footwear) and their corresponding translations from the two versions. It then used the multilingual BERT (mBERT) model, a key natural language processing tool, with relevant technical processes (including text preprocessing, semantic vector mapping, and cosine similarity calculation) to analyze semantic differences between the translations. The main results are as follows: the overall average cosine similarity of the translated terms is 0.69, indicating moderately high consistency. Footwear terms have the highest similarity (0.82) due to their strong practical attributes, while ceremonial and clothes terms show lower similarity (affected by cultural load and complex components). Additionally, about 33% of daily casual terms have high similarity, and around 11% of terms have low similarity, mainly caused by misinterpretation of cultural symbols.
《金瓶梅》(Jīn Píng Méi), costume term translations, natural language processing, semantic similarity
Copyright (c) 2025 Qi Li, Qiongyu Liu https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Exceptive Constructions in Najdi Arabic: A Descriptive Analysis
An exceptive construction is the construction that denotes the exclusion of an entity from a set or generalization. This construction has been scrutinized in several languages, like English, Spanish, and Standard Arabic, but has been largely overlooked in Najdi Arabic (NA). Therefore, this paper aims to provide a detailed descriptive analysis of the basic grammatical properties of NA exceptive constructions. The study first indicates that NA includes three major exceptive types: a full positive exceptive, a full negative exceptive, and an empty exceptive. The first two types have an exceptive reading, whereas the latter has only a restrictive reading. Next, it shows that the NA exceptive marker ʔillaa is a coordinating conjunction, rather than a preposition or a focal adverb. It also reveals that the exception XP in NA exceptives can be from various syntactic categories, excluding finite VPs. Furthermore, it demonstrates that the associate can generally be a universal quantifier phrase, a definite DP, a generic DP, and the quantifier ʔaɣlab ‘most’, but cannot be an existential quantifier. Lastly, it has been concluded that exceptive phrases (EP) with nominal exceptions are typically located either next to the associate or at the right-periphery, whereas EPs with non-nominal exceptions are located only at the right-periphery. The left-periphery position is not available to EPs in NA exceptives. Hopefully, the present work contributes to the limited typological research on the syntax of exceptive constructions.
Exceptive constructions, syntax, Najdi Arabic, theoretical study
Copyright (c) 2025 Bader Alharbi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0