Advances in Language and

Literary Studies

ISSN: 2203-4714
Advances in Language and Literary Studies [ALLS]
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International Academic Centre PTY. LTD".
All papers published in this book are accessible online.

Editor-in-Chief
Adams Bodomo, University of Vienna, Austria
Editorial Assistants
Saeed Kalejahi, University of Göttingen, Germany
Seyed Ali Rezvani Kalajahi, Turkish-German University, Turkey

Journal Information
ISSN: 2203-4714
ISBN: 978-1-291-71811-9
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2010 – 2018 – CC-BY- ALLS

ii
 ALLS Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief
Adams Bodomo, University of Vienna, Austria

Editorial Assistants
Saeed Kalejahi, University of Göttingen, Germany
Seyed Ali Rezvani Kalajahi, Maltepe University, Istanbul, Turkey
Advisory Board
Andrew Weiler, Holmesglen Institute, Australia
Brian Tomlinson, Leeds Metropolitan University, United Kingdom
John I. Liontas, University of South Florida, United States
Mark Pegrum, The University of Western Australia, Australia
NS Prabhu, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Editorial Board
Andrés Canga Alonso, Universidad de La Rioja, Spain
Anjali Pandey, Salisbury University, United States
Canzhong Wu, Macquarie University, Australia
Chan Swee Heng, University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia
Chamkaur Singh Gill, Bond University, Australia
Darryl Jones, Trinity College, Ireland
Dat Bao, Monash University, Australia
Karim Hajhashemi, James Cook University, Australia
Leila Lomashvili, Shawnee State University, United States
Kylie Cardell, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia
Mahmoud M Gewaily, Minia University, Egypt
Mara Frascarelli, Roma Tre University, Italy
Mohamed Abdelmageed Mansour, Assiut University, Egypt
Mohammad Hossein Keshavarz, Near East University, Cyprus
Mounir Jilani Ben Zid, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman
Neil Anderson, James Cook University, Australia
Shaofeng Li, The University of Auckland, New Zealand
Wayne DeFehr, University of Alberta, Canada
Wisdom Agorde, University of Alberta, Canada

iii
Vol 9, No 5 (2018)
Table of Contents
Articles
Developing ESP Reading Materials for Accounting Students
Farnia Sari, Yunani Atmanegara 1-10
The Impact of Timed Reading Activity on Iranian EFL learners Reading Speed,
Comprehension, and Attitudes at Intermediate Level
Molood Mahdizadeh, Naeemeh Aminafshar 11-16
Errors in Translation: A Comparative Study of Noun Phrase in English and Malay
Abstracts
Ainul Azmin Md Zamin, Raihana Abu Hasan 17-23
The Impact of Teaching EFL Medical Vocabulary Through Collocations on
Vocabulary Retention of EFL Medical Students
Maryam Najafi, Mohammad Reza Talebinezhad 24-27
Implementing Poetry in the Language Class: A Poetry-Teaching Framework for
Prospective English Language Teachers
Safiye İpek Kuru Gönen 28-42
An Investigation on Second Language Learners’ Production of Conventional
Expressions in L2 Pragmatics
Aihemaituoheti Wujiabudula 43-48
An Experimental Documentary: Making a Case for Baird’s Modernism
Ademolawa Michael Adedipe 49-52
Authentic Materials – A Natural Resource for Developing Academic English
Jana Bére-ová 53-57
Investigating More Effective and Less Effective EFL Learners’Attitudes and
Motivational Orientation
Mohammadreza Yousefi Halvaei, Ali Akbar Ansarin 58-64
Integrating Cultural Activities in the Algerian Language Classroom: On The Move
Textbook
Boukhatem Nadera 65-68
What Can the Prophet Muhammad’s Metaphors Do?
Ahmad El-Sharif 69-78
Popular Science Discourse Development in the Cyberspace
Liudmila A Egorova 79-83
Death Portrayals in Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Masque of the Red Death’: A Transtextual
Study in Relation to the Holy Qur’an and Arabic Literary Heritage
Atef Adel Almahameed, Nusaiba Adel Almahameed, Reem Rabea, Imad-edden Nayif
84-91
M A'leade Alshamare
The Critical Perspective of English Language Testing and Assessment within

iv
Framework of Elana Shohamy
Ali Siddiqui, Shabana Sartaj, Syed Waqar Ali Shah 92-95
An LFG Analysis of Gapping Constructions in Taif Arabic
Muhammad Swaileh A. Alzaidi 96-99
An Intercultural Analysis of Personal Metadiscourse in English and Chinese
Commencement Speeches
Yuting Zhu 100-110
The Role of Anxiety in Learning and Performing English in the Cadet College Classes:
Bangladesh Perspective
Zakeya Sultana 111-120
Teaching Phrasal Verbs More Efficiently: Using Corpus Studies and Cognitive
Linguistics to Create a Particle List
Ryan Spring 121-135
Social Values in Charles Dickens’s Novel “Oliver Twist”
Sylvia Irene Persulessy, - Emzir, - AcengRahmat 136-142
Applying Labelling Theory to Selected Short Stories by James T. Farrell
Afra S. Alshiban 143-151

v
 Advances in Language and Literary Studies
ISSN: 2203-4714
www.alls.aiac.org.au

Developing ESP Reading Materials for Accounting Students

Farnia Sari1*, Yunani Atmanegara2

1
Tridinanti University, Palembang, Indonesia
2
Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Tridinanti University, Palembang, Indonesia
Corresponding Author: Farnia Sari, E-mail: farnia_sari@univ-tridinanti.ac.id

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article history
Received: April 15, 2018
Accepted: July 16, 2018
Published: October 31, 2018
Volume: 9 Issue: 5
Advance access: August 2018
Conflicts of interest: None
Funding: None
Key words:
Research Development,
Material Development,
ESP,
Reading Materials,
Accounting
Exposing abundance of English information related to students’ educational background
knowledge can improve their competence in comprehending English texts. Thus, this study
developed ESP reading materials for accounting students. It was aimed at finding out what kind
of ESP reading materials should be developed to increase accounting students’ reading skill, and
examining the validity, practicality, and potential effect of the developed ESP reading materials.
The product was developed by using Akker covering the phases of analysis, design, evaluation
and revision. Furthermore, formative evaluation proposed by Tessmer was used. This study
involved 40 students selected by using purposive technique. The data were gathered from the
results of validation sheet questionnaire of content and instructional design, students’ responses
questionnaire, and reading comprehension test. The analysis of validation sheet questionnaire
from two experts’ judgement indicated that the developed product had very high validity (3.61).
Meanwhile, the results of students’ responses questionnaire showed that the average score in
one-to-one evaluation was 3.3 and in small group evaluation was 3.5. It revealed that the product
was denoted as practical in which both evaluations were in high practicality category. At last,
the results of reading comprehension test showed that there was 64% of the students could pass
the minimum mastery criterion. Thus, the findings indicated that ESP reading materials for
accounting students can be determined had average potential effect after being implemented to
the students in a real class. In other words, ESP reading materials developed in this study were
potential effect enough to increase the students’ reading skill.

INTRODUCTION
Introduction Problem
Reading is a language skill used as one of the ways for gain-
ing information. By reading, students are able to access in-
formation and knowledge about many important and useful
things widely spread in the world. Furthermore, it supports
the development of overall proficiency and provides access
to crucial information at work and in school.
For university students, reading takes on a central role
in their learning process. The ability to read and compre-
hend what one reads is crucial for their academic success as
better readers make more successful students. Hence, it is
very important to connect students’ background knowledge
of content during their reading practice so that they can get
involved in learning process and easily connect to and learn
from the text. However, it cannot be denied that students’
achievement in reading is still far from what expected. Even
though most students have already known that reading is
important but some of them still consider that reading is a
boring activity, especially when they think that it is hard for
them to understand the content of the text. In addition, their
less ability in making connection of the information from the
text with their previous knowledge also gives effect to their
reading ability. According to Chia (2001), some students re-
port that they have no problem in understanding both words
and sentence structure of the paragraph, but they cannot
reach satisfactory interpretation of the text.
Meanwhile, Sunggingwati and Nguyen (2013) state that
reading in a foreign language (English) is even more challeng-
ing as EFL students who lack of English language proficiency
will also have greater difficulties in comprehending the En-
glish text. Moreover, English texts given to them are not rel-
evant to their reading level and background. This condition is
in line with the results of preliminary study conducted in this
research site. After observing English class and interviewing
students of accounting study program, it was found that most
students had difficulties in comprehending English texts. They
stated some reasons for these problems. They agreed that the
topics of reading texts given in their English class were out of
date and the content is still general. Besides, the texts did not
reflect their educational background so that they found it dif
dif-
ficult to connect with the texts. Then, the texts given to them
were too difficult to understand. They found many unfamiliar
words from the texts. It indicates that reading materials given
by the lecturer did not match with the students’ reading level.

Published by Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.

Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.5p.1
2 ALLS 9(5):1-10
Based on condition and problems stated above, it is nec-
essary to improve the quality of teaching and learning read-
ing by developing reading materials in English classroom of
non-English major students in which in this study it focused
on accounting students. As it is very important to introduce
them to the abundance of English information related to their
educational background so that they can develop their com-
petence in comprehending English texts (Baron, 2013). Con-
sidering these crucial reasons, hence this study focused on
reading materials development which was designed for ac-
counting students. The problems of this study were formulat-
ed as follows: (1) what kind of ESP reading materials should
be developed to increase students’ reading comprehension
skill for accounting students at Tridinanti University?, and
(2) how was the potential effect of ESP reading materias for
accounting students?. The objectives of this study were (1)
to find out what kind of ESP reading materials should be
developed to increase accounting students’ reading skill, (2)
to examine the potential effect of ESP reading materials for
accounting students.
ESP reading materials developed as a result of this study
would be valuable. Firstly, it can be used as a supplementary
teaching material in teaching and learning process for lectur-
ers. Secondly, it encourages lecturers to develop their own
teaching materials for other language skills. Further signifi-
cance, it could help students in comprehending genre of texts
and lead students to be interested in reading English text in
obtaining the knowledge of content that reflect their educa-
tional backround. Also, it would be an important reference
for university to be more innovative in providing learning
materials which give good contribution on the development
of the teaching and learning, university, and graduate quality.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Material Development
Materials development represents the processes through
which materials are arranged and used for language learning
(Maroko, 2013). Furthermore, Richard (2005) asserts there
are four advantages of developing materials including rel-
evance, expertise development, reputation, and flexibility.
Relevance implies that developed materials can be relevant
to students’ and institutional needs and that exposes local
content, issues, and concerns. Expertise development means
in the process of developing materials can help researchers
and/or teachers to expand their expertise and it also gives
them a great knowledge and information of characteristics of
valuable materials. Reputation indicates that developed ma-
terials possibly will increase the reputation of the institution
by providing effective materials especially for its students.
Flexibility refers to the developed materials can be adjusted
as needed.
Further, there are two main principles of materials devel-
opment explored by Tomlinson (2012). Firstly, the teaching
materials should meet the needs of the learners. Secondly,
materials should be written in such a way in order the teach-
er can use it as references in teaching. In this case, devel-
opmental teaching materials are as additional teaching tools
rather than merely as a guide because teacher creativity is
needed in teaching and learning process. To meet the need
of teaching and learning process, the instructor can directly
adopt instructional teaching materials from available sourc-
es. Marand (2011, p. 552) asserts “Adoption of the mate-
rial is the process of choosing and selecting materials.” In
adopting instructional materials, the teachers should consid-
er that adopted-instructional materials should provide qual-
ity learning experiences for students and enrich and support
the curriculum (The Bylaws and Policies of the Miami-Dade
County Public Schools, 2015). On the other hand, adaptation
is a process of ‘matching’ between instructional teaching
materials and students’ needs with the purpose to maximize
the needs in particular circumstances better (McDonough,
Shaw, and Masuhara, 2013).
In developing materials, it is not separated from forma-
tive evaluation in which the researcher present some experts
to review the strengths and weaknesses of instructional ma-
terials. According to Tessmer (1993), there should be at least
two experts who are expertise in content and instructional
design of the instructional materials. Content expert deals
with determining the content information in the instruction-
al materials including completeness, accuracy, importance,
and currency. Then, instructional design expert reviews in-
structional design aspects in the instructional materials in the
terms of adequacy of task, clarity and completeness of learn-
ing objectives, instructional effectiveness of visuals, and the
potential transfer and retention of what is learned.
Research Development
Development research is research method that relevent
to design and develop work or instructional products. The
term ‘development’ refers to ongoing growth, evolution, and
change (Richey, Klein, & Nelson, 2005, p. 1100). Further, a
development research is a design research. McKenney and
Reeves (2012, p. 3) affirm “educational design research is
a genre of research in which the literative development of
solutions to complex educational problems provides the set-
ting for scientific inquiry.” The solution is the product as a
teaching material which is applied in teaching and learning
actvities and assists the teacher in developing appropriate re-
fective strategies and policies. Akker (1999, p. 7) also asserts
that the objective of development research is “not to elabo-
rate and implement complete interventions, but to come to
(successive) prototypes that increasingly meet the innova-
tive aspirations and requirements.” In addition, dealing with
the motives of development there are two main motives of
research development research. As clarified by McKenney
and Reeves (2012) “The first motive is driven more by what
society needs while the second has more to do with finding
adequate methods to meet those needs.” It means that it is
supposed to be used to resolve problem that should be used
to provide solution in educational field.
Regarding the procedures of development research
Richey, Klein and Nelson (2005) mention some phases
included in developmental studies, those are an analysis
phase, design phase, a development phase, and try-out and
evaluation phase. It is in line with Akker (1999) that it con-
Developing ESP Reading Materials for Accounting Students
sists of some processes i.e. analysis, design, evaluation, and
revision. Gentry (1994) describes that in analysis phase,
there are four aspects involved such as instructional anal-
ysis, environmental analysis, students’ needs analysis, and
students’ reading level analysis. In this step, the process in-
cludes discovering the needs and purpose of a system and
verifying the main concern among them, while in design
phase, it is the process of determining the purposes, plans,
methods, and media used to achieve for the instructional
goals. Then, Richey, Klein, and Nelson (2005) insist that in
the last step, evaluation and revision, it deals with analysis
of collected data from expert judgments, interviews, sur-
veys, and other essential document to know the quality of
the product. In addition, Akker (1999) also mentions that the
specific feature of development research deals with the role
of formative evaluation procedures in formative research.
According to Tessmer (1993) formative evaluation defined
as “judgment of the strength and weaknesses of instruction
in its developing stage for process of revising the instruction
to improve its effectiveness and appeal.” He also declares
that in formative evaluation, it includes some processes in-
cluding self-evaluation and expert review, one-to-one, small
group, and field test evaluation.
ESP Material
ESP is identified as typical of a typical of a particular con-
text of use (Hutchinson & Waters, 1989). It is meant that the
learners would likely meet the target situation Most teachers
recognise the need to make the learners aware of the poten-
tial relevance and utility of the language and skills they are
teaching. In ESP, it is relatively easy to convince the learn-
ers that the teaching points are relevant and useful by relat-
ing them to known learner interests and to ‘real-life’ tasks,
which the learners need or might need to perform in the tar-
get language. In general English materials this is obviously
more difficult; but it can be achieved by narrowing the target
readership and/or by researching what the target learners are
interested in and what they really want to learn the language
for (Bachir & Alaziz, 2016).
The steps of ESP course design are established as fol-
lows: the outcomes of needs analysis, determining the goals
and objectives, conceptualizing the content, selecting and
developing materials, organizing the content of syllabus, and
evaluating. Objectives underline any particular field and they
stand as the basis for designing effective courses and evalu-
ating performance to measure the effectiveness which objec-
tives are achieved and the extent to which targeted problems
are solved. To determine the objective of the course, needs
analysis in ESP is essentially concerned with the reason why
the leaners learn a language. According to Dudley Evants
and St John (1998), need analysis the process of establishing
the what and the how of the course. After conducting needs
analysis, determine the goals and objectives would be con-
ducted. In other words, Goals and objective should be the
outcomes of need analysis (Hutchinson & Waters, 1989).
The current step in designing an ESP course is the selec-
tion of appropriate materials. Materials can be newspapers,
magazines, TV/Radio program, user manuals, literature,
3
songs, etc (Gardner & Miller, 1999). According to Hutchin-
son and Waters (1989), it is a process of turning the course
into intelligible teaching materials through the implementa-
tion of the following tasks: material evaluation, materials de-
velopment, and materials adaptation. Evaluation is a process
of collecting information from students‟ perception towards
the teaching materials and learning context/process. It is
based on a selection from existing materials what matches
and serves the needs of the students. It gives the teacher the
opportunity to revise the effectiveness of ready-made ma-
terials developed by ESP specialists. Developing materials
is a task done by the ESP teacher personally by writing his
own materials. The latter should be authentic simply because
authenticity is one of the key characteristics of ESP teaching
(Basturkmen, 2010). In developing material, Harding (2007)
suggested that the text designed concerns this matter as fol-
lows: use context, texts, and cases from students’ target situ-
ation, exploit the authentic materials that the students use in
their specialism, and make the tasks authentic as well as the
texts. The last task in the selection of materials is based on
adaptation of existing materials by modifying some of them
if necessary. The teacher can add or delete some items ac-
cording to what best serve and match learners’ needs. There
are other techniques of adding and deleting as Madsen and
Bowen (1978) state “every teacher is in a very real sense an
adapter of the material he uses. He or she may apply one or
more of a number of techniques: supplementing, editing, ex-
panding, personalizing, simplifying, modernizing, localizing
or modifying cultural/situational”.
Reading Comprehension
According to Tarigan (1990, p.7), reading is a process done
and used by the readers to convey message delivered by the
writers through words or written language. Meanwhile, Bar-
on (2013, p.141) affirms “comprehension requires a dynamic
participation of the readers and their ability to seek, organize
and reformulate the information in their own words, resort-
ing to their own experiences and background knowledge”.
In short, Goodman and Niles (1980) conclude that reading
comprehension is a process of reconstructing the message
contained in the text.
In academic context, reading comprehension skill helps
students to understand about subject matter. Therefore, the
use of authentic and adapted reading materials helps students
familiarize themselves with specific content-based expres-
sions and vocabulary, and become skillful at consciously rec-
ognizing the organization of the information and the struc-
ture of the target language (Baron, 2013). However, reading
comprehension of ESP text has less attention from educa-
tors. Meanwhile, it is very important to connect students’
background knowledge to content in the English language
learning classroom. As reading comprehension is attained
through successful interaction between the reader and the
text, accordingly, background knowledge will be of prima-
ry importance for EFL readers (Alfaki & Siddiek, 2013). In
short, it is very important to expose the students who are
not majoring in English with ESP reading texts during their
reading comprehension practice in the classroom.
4 ALLS 9(5):1-10
METHOD
The developed ESP reading materials were evaluated by the
second semester of accounting students from Tridinanti Uni-
versity in Palembang, South Sumatera Indonesia. The stu-
dents who participated in this study were selected by using
purposive sampling technique. The subjects of the study in
one to one and small group evaluation were selected based
on their reading level. To determine reading level, Flesch
Reading Ease Formula was used. The result showed that the
students that were involved in one-to-one (3 students) and
small group (9 students) were the students with reading level
5 (one level below), level 6, and level 7 (one level above).
Meanwhile, the students who participated in the field test
were all students (28 students) in one class as participants.
The research procedure proposed by Akker (1999) con-
sisting analysis, design, evaluation, and revision was used
to developed the product. In analysis phase, there were four
analyses conducted: instructional, environmental, students’
reading level analysis, and students’ needs analysis. Based
on the results of analysis phases, materials development
was accomplished following these stages: (1) the syllabus,
(2) the learning objectives of each unit, (3) test, and (4) the
production of ESP reading materials. In design phase, each
unit of ESP reading materials was developed to reflect their
language needs within their professions as accountant. The
materials development was initiated by choosing the topics
and mapping the materials to be developed. The topics selec-
tion stage was continued by formulating the general objec-
tives, stating the specific objectives, and developing topics
into tasks. In evaluation and revision stage, a prototype prod-
uct had revision or improvements based on the feedback or
comments from the implemented questionnaires. In evaluat-
ing the developed product, formative evaluation developed
by Tessmer (1993) was used. It consisted of 5 stages which
were self-evaluation, expert review, one-to-one evaluation,
small group evaluation, and field test. The sequence of the
steps in formative evaluation is illustrated in Figure 1.
Formative evaluation was used in this study to improve
the quality of intervention. Akker (1999) describes three
main criteria of the intervention quality. Those are validi-
ty, practicality, and effectiveness. To determine the validity,
practicality, and potential effect of the developed English
learning materials, there were some instruments used in this
study. Those were questionnaires and reading comprehen-
sion test. The questionnaires were in the form of Likert-scale
Figure 1. The General Sequence of Formative Evaluation
(Tessmer, 1993)
with the score 1 to 4 which illustrated strongly disagree, dis-
agree, agree, and strongly agree. These questionnaires were
used to obtain the information dealing with the quality of the
product. Reading comprehension was used to measure the
potential effect of the developed product and students’ learn-
ing mastery. Reading comprehension test was given in the
field test. The designs of the questions were in the forms of
multiple choices, short answers, and match the items which
consisted of 30 valid items. In analyzing the data, there were
three techniques as follows:
1. Data Analysis of Validity
The validity of the product was validated based on
experts’ evaluation. After evaluating the product, the
experts of instructional design and content gave their
comments or opinion through questionnaire provided.
The product was classified valid if the average scores
of questionnaires was not less than 2.51.The category
of the validity level of the product was modified from
Kubiszyn and Borich (2003).
2. Data Analysis of Practicality
After applying developed reading texts to the students,
the students included into one-to-one and small group
evaluation gave their comments on the questionnaires in
the form of Likert-scale in which the score ranging from
1 to 4. Then, to determine the practicality of the product,
the data from the questionnaires were calculated. The
product was considered as practical if the average scores
obtained from questionnaires reached not less than 2.51.
The practicality level of the product was adapted from
Kubiszyn and Borich (2003).
3. Data Analysis of Potential Effect
After the implementation of the developed product in
teaching and learning process, the test that had been
tried out was conducted. A set of reading comprehen-
sion test was delivered to the students in a real class to
find out the potential effect of the developed product.
After being calculated, the result was classified into the
potential effect category. Then, students’ score from the
reading comprehension test was analyzed by using per-
centage. The minimum mastery criterion score of this
study was 70. It means that the potential effect under 70
is interpreted as being not potential therefore, the devel-
oped product needs to be revised.
FINDINGS
Analysis Phase
In instructional analysis phase, the writers analyzed the
learning materials used by both lecturer and students. It
was found that existing materials for teaching and learning
English for the students were general English. The existing
reading materials did not match with the students’ needs and
was not appropriate with the students’ reading level.
In environmental analysis, it was found that the sources
of accounting text were insufficient and most references of
accouting text used Indonesian language, thus, most of the
students were difficult to explore the new terms of account-
ing field, so they had a limited knowledge of accounting text.
Developing ESP Reading Materials for Accounting Students
The findings of students’ needs analysis revealed that
ESP reading materials for accounting students needed to be
developed. It also had to provide the vocabulary knowledge
and grammar practice. In addition, the text should be taken
from various sources and matched with the students’ reading
level. In detail, the analysis covered six aspects:
Students’ reading competence
It was found that in comprehending English text, mean of the
result was 2,46 that indicated it was difficult for the students
to comprehend English texts.
Students’ interest in reading
The results showed that students had moderate interest in
reading.
Teaching and learning process in the classroom
There was 78% of the students wanted the instructional ma-
terials were delivered not only learning face to face but also
using internet and multimedia. For the learning styles, 60%
of the students preferred the teacher gave lecturer and also
provided them with opportunities in practice, 29% studied
with the group member, 7% studied with their desk-mate,
and 4% listened to the teacher. It was also found that their
former English teacher seldom used media (Powerpoint, vid-
eo,etc) in English classroom. The mean for this item was
2,64. Furthermore, lecturing method was still used in teach-
ing English as 50% of the students said that their former En-
glish teacher sometimes delivered the materials by lecturing
(the mean of this item was 2,86). However, 75% of them
was enjoyable in doing reading activity in the classroom,
17% was ordinary, 4% was very enjoyable, and 4% was un-
enjoyable. While, the interest of the students in tutoring in
advanced English to enhance their success in business was
quite good. 50% was interested, 25% was not much inter-
ested, 21% was very much interested, and 4% was not inter-
ested at all. Thus, 68% of the students agreed that English
language lecturers teaching accounting students should have
a special set of competencies/skills that can cater specifically
for accounting students while 32% was neutral. Lastly, 93%
of the students wanted their English classroom course to be
held by using internet and multimedia facilitated with sound
system and decorated with posters and maps and the other
2% wanted to learn in the classroom whiteboard and OHP.
Table 1. The results of students’ reading level test
Text Level Total Independent
NOS % NOS
Level 4 9 (22%) 25 63
Level 5 7 (18%) 23 57
Level 6 14 (36%) 12 30
Level 7 6 (14%) 3 7
Level 8 4 (10%) 3 7
*NOS=Number of students
5
Students’ efforts in reading.
The information was obtained from the statement of how ofof-
ten students learn to read English text at home independent-
ly. The result showed that 57% was seldom, 29% was never,
7% was sometimes, and 7% was often.
Students’comments and opinions toward ESP reading
material.
It reveals that it was very important (93%) to have specialist
vocabulary practice in English classes. And, 86% agreed that
having grammar practice in English classes was also very
important while the other 14% felt quite important. More-
over, 78% of the students agreed that the types of materials
that the students thought the English course should include
containing of instruction/equipment manuals, CDs, DVDs,
videotapes, materials in content courses that trained people
for a job, materials used in a job, such as work forms, charts,
and samples of relevant course assignments and students
papers, and materials from websites like business letters,
instructions, telephone conversations. In addition, most stu-
dents agreed that English texts containing specialist vocabu-
lary should be provided as supplementary reading materials
to enhance knowledge and preserve accounting field (50%
agreed, 39% strongly agreed, 7% was neutral, and 4% dis-
agreed).
Students’ comments and opinions toward the target needs.
Students thought that text difficulty from their previous En-
glish class lesson was very difficult. Hence, they had to use
English-to-Indonesian translation of the difficult words to
help them comprehend English texts (54% strongly agreed,
39% agreed, and 4% was neutral).
Students’ reading level analysis was conducted to find
out reading level of the students participated in this study so
that the readability levels of developed ESP texts were ap-
propriate to students’ reading level. In this analysis, reading
level test adapted from Independent Reading Inventory of
Jennings Informal Reading Assessment (2001) was adminis-
tered to the students. The level of reading texts in the test in-
cluded level 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. The consideration for choosing
these reading levels was from the information obtained in
the first aspect of students’ needs questionnaire. The results
implied that most of the sample realized their reading skill,
English reading comprehension, and competence in reading
business English texts were still low.
Instruction Frustration
% NOS %
10 24 5 13
12 30 5 13
12 30 16 40
7 18 30 75
4 10 33 83
6 ALLS 9(5):1-10

The result showed reading level of the whole participants
was varied. Table 1 presents the results of students' reading
level test. However, it was determined that the class read-
ing level was level 6 as the most students were in this level
(36%) among other levels. Therefore, the students who were
in level 5, 6, and 7 were selected to be involved in one to one
and small group. In addition, the texts used for the reading
materials were selected ranging from level 4 until 8 (two lev-
els below, the level, and two levels above).
Design phase
In design phase, texts were adopted and taken from various
sources and they were suited with students’ needs. For in-
stance, the readability level of the texts covered various stu-
dents’ reading levels which were two levels above and below
of the instructional level. There were eight units for learning
materials. They were illustrated in Table 2 below.
Evaluation and revision phase
In this phase, the evaluation and revision were conducted si-
multaneously because those two stages were interrelated. Be-
fore being proceeded to the next evaluation, the book might
be revised. In this study five phases of a formative evalua-
tion proposed by Tessmer (1993) were used. It consisted of
self-evaluation, experts’ review, one-to-one evaluation using
prototype 1 (draft 1), small group evaluation using proto-
type 2 (draft 2), and field test using prototype 3 (reading prac-
tice book). The evaluation was needed to improve the qual-
ity of the developed product. Thus, to know the validity of
the product, firstly it was evaluated by two experts in expert
review phase. Then, the practicality of the product was de-
termined based on the students’ comments in on one-to-one
and small group evaluation phase. Then, the potential effect
of the developed reading materials was determined based on
the result of reading comprehension test. The results of the
evaluation and revision are elucidated as follows:
Self-evaluation
In this phase, the writers evaluated the developed product.
There were some mistakes found in the developed product.
Some mistakes from ungrammatical sentences, inappropri-
ate of word use, and misspelling were revised.
Expert review
In this phase, two experts evaluated the products. This phase
was done to know the validity level of the developed prod-
uct. Those two experts had different expertise namely expert
of content (English) and expert of instructional design (con-
struct).
Firstly, the products were evaluated and reviewed by an
expert of content (English). After evaluating and review-
ing the product, he stated that the product was valid with
revision. He gave his comments related to some parts of the
product on the validation sheet. The comments and revisions
were (1) “the content is sufficient”, (2) “mind some of your
English singular/plural”. Secondly, an expert of construct

Table 2. The readability level of reading texts for learning materials

No Unit title Text title Readability
1 Introduction to accounting Introduction to accounting 7.6
Financial vs management accounting 7.2
2 Career Job vacancy 5.8
Job application letter 4.9
Curriculum vitae 5.3
3 Investment Investment banking 6.4
4 Companies Job descriptions 5.7
PT pupuk sriwidjaja palembang 6.6
Multinational company (MNC) 5.8
5 Taxation Tax system of indonesia 8.2
6 Great ideas With bright outlook for exports, surplus may continue 8.4
Pepsico CEO’s pay rises 7.3
China’s premier says no hard landing 7.6
S&P raises cyprus credit rrting a notch 8.2
JC penney list 138 stores to shutter 7.9
S’pore’s february home sales triple 7.6
Plenty of room to expand RI-US 7.4
7 Finance Financial markets in indonesia 8.4
8 Business correspondence Complaint letter 6.2
Apology letter 5.6
Business thank you letter 4.8
Developing ESP Reading Materials for Accounting Students
validity who has expertise in instructional design evaluated
and reviewed the product in terms of instructional design.
After evaluating and reviewing the product, he stated that the
product was valid without revision. In the validation sheet,
he gave his comments which were needed to be taken into
consideration: (1) “Try to clarify the learning objectives: re-
sponding complaint letter by writing an apology letter using
the word: completion” and (2) “be focused on reading‟.
The experts’ judgment was used as a measurement to
know the validity of the product. Therefore, to determine the
validity level of the product, the writers calculated the aver-
age score from each validation sheet (i.e. validation sheet of
content and construct). The description of the validity level
of the products is described in Table 3 below.
One-to-one evaluation
One-to-one evaluation was the last phase in prototype 1. In
this phase, the product was directly used by three chosen
students. Those students had different level of reading. There
was one student as a representative of each level of reading
i.e. low (level 5), medium (level 6), and high reading lev-
el (level 7). This evaluation was conducted in a classroom.
There were eight meetings in this phase. It was conducted in
3 credits (sks) within 150 minutes for each meeting. In this
activity, the students were required to use the first prototype.
After evaluating the product, a sheet of questionnaire was
also delivered to the students. They were asked to give their
response considering the practicality of the product on pro-
vided questionnaire. To determine practicality of the prod-
uct, students’ average scores were calculated and interpreted.
The average score of the total scores of students’ response
was 3.3. The product was indicated practical which was in
very high practicality level.
Small group evaluation
Small group evaluation was the second prototype of evalu-
ating the developed product. Similar to one-to-one evalua-
tion, this phase was conducted to know the practicality of the
English reading practice book for accounting students. The
product was given to nine students who had different reading
level. The students who had been in one-to-one evaluation
were not involved in this phase. There were three students
in each reading level i.e. low (level 5), medium (level 6),
and high reading level (level 7). This phase was also done
in a classroom. There were eight meetings in this phase. It
was conducted in 3 credits (sks) within 150 minutes for each
meeting. After completing the meetings, a questionnaire was
given to the students. Students’ response was needed to de-
Table 3. Validity level of the product
Aspects Average Interpretation
score
1 English (Content) 3.24 High validity
2 Instructional design (Construct) 3.98 High validity
Average score 3.61 High validity
7
termine the practicality of the developed book. The result
showed that the average score of overall of students’ re-
sponse was 3.5. It can be said that the product was indicated
practical which was in very high practicality level.
To convince the quality of the developed reading ma-
terials, the writers asked some questions to the students at
the end of the meeting. The oral questions were concerned
about the weaknesses of the product and whether or not the
developed product should be revised. There were eight out
of nine students in small group evaluation agreed that the
product did not need to be revised because they assumed that
the texts were understandable and the design was interest-
ing enough. However, there was one student said that there
should be more pictures included in the reading materials.
By taking into consideration, the writers added some addi-
tional pictures related to the information in reading texts in
developed reading materials.
Field test
Field test was conducted to measure the effectiveness of the
product. After being tried out and analyzed, it was found out
that from 30 items, there were 96% of the items judged as
good and best items which was 1 item were above 0.20 and
29 items were in a range 0.50 to 0.80. Those items were clas-
sified as ideal items which were in ideal range. According
to Mitra, Nagaraja, Ponnudurai, and Judson (2009), if the
difficulty index of item exceeded 80% indicating that the
item was very easy for the students and it could be all of
the students could answer the question. Based on the anal-
ysis of item discrimination index, it was found out that 1
item was categorized as poor item which were below 0.20
of discrimination index value. The remaining items were in
mediocre, good, and excellent value. Those items showed
the discrimination index values of 0.2 or higher consider-
ing that the items were of acceptable discrimination quality
and the items were able to discriminate between the weak
and good student (Mitra, Nagaraja, Ponnudurai, & Judson,
2009). After all the test items of reading comprehension test
had been given to the students at the end of the study, the
result showed that the developed reading practice book was
categorized had an average potential effect on students’ read-
ing achievement as there was 64% (18 out of 28) of the stu-
dents who passed the minimum criterion mastery (70) with
the mean score of the whole students was 71.
DISCUSSION
Analysis Phase
From the result of analysis, learning materials were inappro-
priate with readability level of text and students’need. Gen-
eral English textbooks were implemented to the accounting
students which was not related to the outcome of graduate
competency.. It was found that the lecturers provided insuf
insuf-
ficient and uninteresting material which resulted in uninter-
esting learning process that caused the students had lack of
motivation and affected low reading comprehension achieve-
ment. Ideally, the materials should have a noticeable effect
8 ALLS 9(5):1-10
on students. As affirmed by Tomlinson (1999) that learning
materials should achieve impact that is when students use
the materials their curiosity, interest, and attention are at-
tracted. He also stated that learning materials can achieve
impact through novelty (e.g. unusual topics, illustration, and
activities), variety (e.g. braking up the monotone activity),
attractive presentation (e.g. use attractive colors and use of
photographs), and appealing content (e.g. topics of interest to
the students and local references). The use of technology to
facilitate reading activities and the variety of methodologies
are necessary to provide during teaching and learning process
in encouraging the students more interested and motivated.
To attract the students in reading activity, the ESP read-
ing material provided the pictures which were suggested by
the students in developed product. It was found that pictures
enable students comprehend the text and see the context of
the information in the texts more easily. It is assisted the
students to obtain the information dealing with terms of ac-
counting and unfamiliar words. It is in line with Yazdanmehr
and Shoghi (2014, p.473) that “nonverbal language and visu-
al forms could also be used as effectively to convey meaning
particularly in instructional materials.”
The findings of students’ needs analysis revealed that
ESP reading materials for accounting students needed to be
developed. According to Crookes and Schmidt, the needs of
learners can be used to develop the curriculum and teach-
ing materials which in turn lead the devolopment of more
motivating and useful programs. In this case, the teach-
ing program can assist the future employment of learners.
Needs Analysis will provide insights for policy makers and
stakeholders in ESP in particular to evaluate the success of
a course, find the points of strength and weakness as well
as to do the required amendments to improve the (Robin-
son, 1991). As interested,cthe students were enjoyable and
interest in doing reading activity in the classroom to enhance
their succcess for academic purposes and particular career.
Thus, materials in content courses that trained people for a
job and materials used in a job, such as business letters, in-
structions, telephone conversations.
Design Phase
Based on the result of students’ reading level analysis, most
of the class reading level was level 6 (36%). It indicated that
most of students realized their reading skill, English reading
comprehension, and competence in reading business English
texts were still low. The level of reading texts in the test in-
cluded level 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. Concerning having these var-
ious levels, Stark Jr. (1981) suggested that for the consider-
ation of readability level of materials provided to the student
in the various levels of reading, the teacher could consider
the materials that are at the students’ instructional level. It is
assumed that students at the instructional level could cope
with the material with guidance or assistance from an in-
structor or reading specialist.
In conclusion, the developed product needed to be devel-
oped to facilitate students in learning process based on the stu-
dents’needs and the students reading level. The ESP reading
materials had eight units for ESP reading materials as follows:
Introduction to Accounting, Career, Investment, Companies,
Taxation, Great Ideas, Finance, and Business Correspondence.
Each unit has exercises in encouraging the students to develop
comprehension of accouting texts. In constructing reading as-
sessment, the questions in the forms of multiple choices, short
answers, and match the items consisted of 30 valid items which
included the aspects of reading comprehension.
Evaluation and Revision
Self-evaluation
In this phase, the product would be evaluated to find out the
weakness of the products. In this case, there were some mis-
takes related to the use of words, misspelling, and ungram-
matical sentences that should be revised to ensure that the
product would be valid, practical and effective before being
given to the experts.
Expert review
In this phase, the products were evaluated and reviewed by
an expert of content (English) and expert of instructional
analysis. Based on the results of questionnaire, the expert
of content stated that the product was valid with revision
which dealt with grammar. Refering to instructional design,
the expert stated that the product valid without revision and
suggested that the product taking into some considerations
in revising the developed product that is focused on learn-
ing objectives in unit 8, business correspondence, and the
exercises of each unit should be focused on reading skill.
Furthermore, based on the experts response on question-
naire, the data indicated that average score (3.61) of both
in the aspect of English (content) and instructional design
(construct) exceeded 2.51 which were categorized as highly
valid. It means that the developed products catered the com-
ponents of language knowledge (content) and it is connected
with the components of intended curriculum (construct). It is
in line with Akker (1999) that materials are considered val-
id if the products met the requirements of “state-of-the- art
knowledge (content validity) and all components should be
consistently linked to each other (construct validity).”
One-to-one evaluation
One-to-One evaluation was conducted to know the prac-
ticality level of ESP reading materials. The data shows that
ESP reading materials had sufficient quality relating to the
aspects being measured which were explication of reading
materials and its instructions or directions, completeness, ef-
ef
fectiveness, effeciency, material presentation, and exercises.
The average score of the total scores of students‟ response
was 3.3 which indicated that the product had high practical-
ity level, it indicated that it is simply used by the students
(Akker, 1999).
Small group evaluation
In this phase, students’ response was needed to determine the
practicality of the developed ESP reading materials.Based
Developing ESP Reading Materials for Accounting Students
on data analysis from students‟ response, it was represented
that the average score of overall of students’ response was
3.5, It can be said that the product was indicated practical
which was in very high practicality level. It means that the
developed reading materials could be carried out in a group
of students who have different reading level. It is in line with
Akker (1999), he states “characteristic of high-quality mate-
rials is that teachers (and other experts) consider the materi-
als to be usable and that it is straightforward for teachers and
students to use the materials in a way that is largely suitable
with the developers’ intentions”
Field test
Developed ESP reading materials were categorized had
average potential effect on students’ reading achievement
who passed the minimum criterion mastery 70 with the
mean score of the whole students was 71. It can be said that
the developed reading materials enabled students to achieve
learning objectives. Likewise Waugh and Groulund (2013)
stated that effective instructional materials were designed to
fit the characteristics and needs of the students and it was
congruent with the output to be achieved.
CONCLUSIONS
Based on the results of analysis and discussions of the find-
ings, the developed product had been developed, evaluated
and implemented. It was found that the product had very
high validity, high practicality, and average potential effect.
It is assumed that ESP reading materials had a great learning
potential for improving and accelerating the development of
students’skill of reading in English for specific purposes. It
also demonstrated the potential of ESP reading materials for
increasing the students’ reading achievement in what con-
cerns the development of knowledge of their educational
background, particularly accounting field, in English which
is important for positively motivating the students.
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 Advances in Language and Literary Studies
ISSN: 2203-4714
www.alls.aiac.org.au

The Impact of Timed Reading Activity on Iranian EFL learners Reading Speed,
Comprehension, and Attitudes at Intermediate Level

Molood Mahdizadeh1*, Naeemeh Aminafshar2

1
MA Graduate, Department of Human Science, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Iran
2
MA Graduate - International Pardis University of Guilan, Iran
Corresponding Author: Molood Mahdizadeh, E-mail: moloodmahdizadeh@yahoo.com

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article history Learning English is one of the most important activities around the world. Learning a language
Received: April 18, 2018 includes a number of skills and sub-skills. Reading is one of the skills of language learning, and
Accepted: July 10, 2018 it is the focus of the present study. Comprehension and speed are two main parts of the reading
Published: October 31, 2018 skill. The main aim of this study is to investigate the effects of timed reading activity on speed,
Volume: 9 Issue: 5 comprehension and the attitudes of English learners regarding the use of timed reading activity.
Advance access: August 2018 To this aim, a pre-test, a post-test and a questionnaire were used to gather data. 40 intermediate
language learners participated in this study, and they were divided into two groups; experimental
and control groups. Timed reading activity was employed as the treatment for the experimental
Conflicts of interest: None group. The collected data revealed that the treatment had effect on the reading speed of the
Funding: None participants in the experimental group. Moreover, the data indicated that the timed reading
activity was not highly effective to develop the reading comprehension skill of the language
learners. And the results of the questionnaire indicated that a large number of the participants had
Key words: positive attitude toward the timed reading activity.
Timed Reading,
Reading Comprehension,
Reading Speed,
Reading Attitudes,
Learning

INTRODUCTION outside the classroom. For most EFL/ESL students, reading

Reading can be considered as one of the most important
skills that is now in more demand than any time around
the world due to the vast amount of data in every specific
area of research studies. It is the skill that has effect on the
success in every academic area and academic disciplines.
Learning to read is an important educational goal. For both
children and adults, the ability to read lead to new worlds
and opportunities. It makes us able to gain new knowledge,
enjoy literature, and do everyday things that are parts of our
modern life including reading novels, newspaper, instruction
manuals, maps and so on. Fazeli (2010) mentioned the im-
portance of reading in the civilized world. He believes that
with the globalization and the technological changes of the
world, reading has turned out to be an eminent skill for ac-
tive participation and it is “the royal road to knowledge”.
(Fazeli, 2010, P.3)
Reading is one of the most crucial skills that plays a sig-
nificant role in improving the readers’ language proficiency,
especially in a foreign language (FL) setting. Actually, En-
glish as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners, in contrast with
English as a Second Language (ESL) learners, mostly rely
on this skill to gain knowledge since the FL is rarely spoken
is the most important part of their English course, which
can help them to learn grammar (specially at the elementary
levels), develop vocabulary knowledge and expand effec-
tive reading strategies. Surely, in foreign language learning,
reading can be considered as a tool for getting information
from different sources such as scientific and literary books
and journals as well as the internet.
Chastain (1998) considered reading as a basic and com-
plementary skill in language learning. She believed ESL
students should learn to read as soon as possible. Actually
for most EFL learners reading is the only source of gaining
knowledge of the FL since they may hardly have access to
the native speakers and FL is not spoken outside the class-
room.
By comparing first language (L1) and second language
(L2) reading, one eminent difference is the rate of reading.
For many EFL learners, reading in L2 is a slow process with a
lot of repetitions and pauses which can never represent fluent
reading even if the reader completely comprehends the text.
Many Iranian EFL learners suffer the same problem when
they try reading in English. Due to their slow reading speed,
they may not totally enjoy reading in a foreign language.

Published by Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.

Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.5p.11
12
And as Nuttal (1996) mentioned, “speed, enjoyment, and
comprehension are closely linked with one another”. Thus,
the current study intends to show the impact of timed read-
ing activity on the reading speed and the comprehension of
Iranian EFL learners at intermediate level. Also, the learners’
attitudes toward the timed reading activity are investigated.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Due to the reading’s widespread influences, reading com-
petency is an essential concern in today’s EFL instructional
contexts (Fuchs, Fuchs, Hosp & Jenkins, 2001). Fluency is
usually considered as a major component of reading compe-
tency and a key component to successful reading program
(Wolf & Katzir-Cohen, 2001). Reading fluency is gaining
new recognition as a crucial element in both ESL and EFL
contexts.
According to the National Reading Panel, fluency is the
ability to read a text quickly and with a proper expression.
Fluency plays an important role in becoming a good reader.
For fluent readers, recognizing the words and comprehend-
ing them occur at the same time. Fluency is defined as “the
ability to read connected text rapidly, smoothly, effortlessly,
and automatically with little attention to the mechanics of
reading, such as decoding” (Meyer and Felton, 1999, p. 284).
While this definition seems simple, Hall (2006) mentioned
that there is no specific accepted definition for it, despite
the increasing recognition of the importance of fluency in
reading instruction. Miller (2007) pointed out that fluency
is a mixture of several factors: speed, prosody or phrasing,
expression, intonation, pacing, and comprehension. Rasinski
(2004) suggests that we need to consider accuracy in word
recognition, automaticity in word recognition and interpre-
tive and meaningful reading.
Reading fluency is described as “the ability to read rap-
idly with ease and accuracy and to read with appropriate ex-
pression and phrasing. It involves a long incremental process
and text comprehension is the expected outcome.” (Grabe,
2009, P. 291) Developing fluency in FL reading has become
a crucial issue for pedagogy in L2 contexts (Chung, 2010).
Timed reading is a fluency learning activity which makes
readers read a text under time pressure to read faster than
their usual speed of reading. Chang (2010, p. 287) pointed
out that “timed reading involves having students read under
time pressure, the purpose of which is to improve reading
speed to an optimal rate that supports comprehension rather
than developing speedy readers.”
A similar research study was conducted by Chang (2010).
She aimed to develop reading fluency. She employed a 13-
week timed reading activity in order to improve the learners’
reading speed. 84 participants were divided into the experi-
mental and the control groups. A test was used to gather data
regarding the speed and the comprehension of the students.
A final written report by the participants showed their percep-
tion regarding the timed reading activity. The data revealed
that the reading speed and the reading comprehension of the
participants of the experimental group were increased. “Stu-
dents who did the timed reading activity became more confi-
dent in their reading and were impressed with the amount of
ALLS 9(5):11-16
the reading they had done without the teachers’ guidance.”
(Chang, 2010, 284)
The context where the research study is conducted can be
considered as vital factor, and it may cause the study to result
in different outcomes. Therefore, the current study intends to
show the impact of timed reading activity on reading speed
and comprehension of Iranian EFL learners at intermediate
level. Furthermore, it is intended to explore the students’ at-
titudes regarding the use of timed reading activity at the end
of the course activity.
THE STUDY
Adopting a qualitative/quantitative method can provide the
research with a complement picture of the issue at study.
Accordingly, following the mixed methods approach, this
study adopted both qualitative and quantitative (pre-tests,
post-test and open-ended questionnaire) techniques to pro-
vide description of the improvement of reading in the target
language and the students’ attitudes regarding using timed
reading activity.
Participants, Instruments and Procedure
The participants of the study consist of the students (includ-
ing male and female) of an Institute for Higher Education in
Tonekabon city in Iran. In order to ensure the homogeneity of
the students, an Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was assigned,
and 40 Intermediate level students were selected. They were
randomly divided into two groups: an experimental group
and a control group. Each group consisted of 20 students.
The experimental group received timed reading activity as
a treatment. Twenty passages from Asian and Pacific Speed
Readings for ESL Learners were chosen for timed reading
activity. The control group read the same passages but with-
out any time pressure. They read and answered reading com-
prehension questions.
To access the effect of the treatment on the participants’
reading speed and reading comprehension, a pre-test was
administered to the participants of both groups. The pre-
test’s results show the participants’ level of reading speed
and comprehension. One passage of Asian and Pacific Speed
Readings for ESL Learners was chosen as pre-test. Then a
post-test was administered to both groups; it was supposed
to show the probable effects of the treatment on the experi-
mental group. One passage of Asian and Pacific Speed Read
Read-
ings for ESL Learners was considered as post-test. It is also
worth mention that ten comprehension questions were fol-
lowed by each reading passages.
An open-ended questionnaire measured the students’ at-
titudes regarding the use of timed reading activity. The ques-
tionnaire was given to the students of the experimental group
at the final sessions of their course. The open-ended ques-
tionnaire was employed to better understand the students’
experience during the timed reading activity. The qualitative
side of the open-ended questionnaire allowed the researcher
adds an extra dimension to the research.
To examine the influence of timed reading activity on
the reading speed and the reading comprehension of Iranian
The Impact of Timed Reading Activity on Iranian EFL learners Reading Speed,
Comprehension, and Attitudes at Intermediate Level 13

EFL learners, twenty passages from Asian and Pacific Speed
Readings for ESL learners were chosen for both experimen-
tal and control group. Asian and Pacific Speed Readings for
ESL Learners is a re-editing of Quinn and Nation’s (1974)
Speed Reading: A Course for Learners of English. The pas-
sages contain twenty 550 word readings, each with ten com-
prehension questions. The topics of the reading are mostly
related to Asia and the Pacific and are written within the
1000 most frequently used words of English (West, 1953).
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The results of the pre-test indicated that the two groups are
not significantly different regarding the reading speed. When
the treatment (i.e. the timed reading activity) was totally
conducted, all of the participants took a post-test. The aim of
the post-test was to investigate the progress of the learners in
reading speed and comprehension skill in order to discover
whether this type of activity is more beneficial for the lan-
guage learners.
Results of the Post-test Scores
T-test was run on the reading speed of the students in the
post-test. Independent T-test was employed to compare a
specific variable among two unmatched groups. The follow-
ing Table 4.1 provides simple summaries about the basic fea-
tures of the data.
Table 4.1 represents the descriptive statistics for the two
groups i.e. the experimental group and the control group. The
means average of the two groups seem to be different, 103
for the control group and 122 for the experimental group. As
far as random sampling had been done, this difference could
not be attributed to chance or other factors involved in the
testing issues such as environment issues or scoring issues;
therefore, such a discrepancy can be attributed to the effect
of the treatment. The following Table 4.2 takes into account
further analysis to show the output of the T-test and whether
there is a statistically significant difference between the two
groups regarding the reading speed.
As shown in the table, the significance level is 0.00
(p =.000), which is below 0.05. (0.00 < 0.05); therefore,
there is a statistically significant difference in the post-test
results of the two groups. It can be concluded that the treat-
ment, i.e. timed reading activity, had effect on the reading
speed of the participants in the experimental group. Thus,
there is a significant difference between the two groups, and
the timed reading activity can be considered as an effective
activity for improving the reading speed.
For a better understanding of the result of the analysis, a
visual representation of the results is presented in Figure 4.1
which is a line chart of the relationship among the groups.
The line chart 4.1 provides useful facts. It indicates a com-
com
parison of the reading speed of the two groups both before
and after taking the course. The difference of both pre-test and
post-test scores are significant, and this discrepancy can be eas-
ily seen in chart. The line which represents the experimental
group tends to be rising; it indicates that the experimental group
proved to be more successful regarding the reading speed.
The Comprehension Scores of the Post-test
As mentioned before, ten comprehension questions were fol-
lowed by each reading passages. And the final score of the
Figure 4.1. The line chart for the reading speed of the two groups

Table 4.1. Descriptive statistics for the reading speed of the post-test
Groups N Mean Standard deviation Standard error mean
Readingspeed Control group 20 103.10 8.422 1.883
Experimental group 20 122.15 15.135 3.384

Table 4.2. T-
T test of the post-test reading speed
Levene’s test T test for equality of means
T-
for equality
of variances
F Sig. t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Standard 95% Confidence
difference error interval of the
difference difference
Lower Upper
Reading speed
Equal variances 7.156 0.011 ‑4.919 38 0.000 ‑19.050 3.873 ‑26.891 ‑11.209
assumed
Equal variances not ‑4.919 29.737 0.000 ‑19.050 3.873 ‑26.963 ‑11.137
assumed
14 ALLS 9(5):11-16

comprehension questions is considered out of 10. The aim For a better understanding of the result of the analysis, a
of analyzing the comprehension scores of the post-test was visual representation of the results is presented in Figure 4.2
to discover whether the timed reading activity of the exper- as a clustered bar chart of the relationship among the groups.
imental group had impact on their level of reading compre- As illustrated in the graph, the comprehension scores are
hension. Therefore, the comprehension scores of the control plotted on the x axis, and the two groups are differentiated
group and the experimental group were compared together. by using two colors. The numbers of students are plotted on
Table 4.3 represents the descriptive statistics for the two the y axis. As can be seen, the experimental groups received
groups regarding their comprehension scores of the post-test. some higher scores which confirm the fact that this group be-
As shown in the table, the mean averages of the compre- came more successful in this study; however, the difference
hension scores are totally different; they are 6.80 for con- between the two groups is not significant.
trol group and 7.10 for the experimental group. The students To summarize the data regarding the comprehension
of the experimental group, who received the timed reading scores of both the pre-test and the post-test, the following
treatment, improved their reading comprehension skill just a Figure 4.3 is presented.
little more than the students of the control group. The scores The chart 4.3 provides useful facts. It indicates a com-
com
have been compared to the pre-test score and to summarize parison of the comprehension scores of the two groups both
the results by percentage, the participants of the control before and after the course. As mentioned before, the differ-
group almost got 4% improvement in reading comprehen- ence between pre-test and post-test scores are not significant;
sion. And the participants of the experimental group almost however, the reading course was effective for both groups to
got 10% improvement in reading comprehension. This dif- dif improve their reading comprehension skill.
ference seems to be significant; however, further analysis is
needed to investigate whether there is a significant differ-
ence between the control group and the experimental group
regarding reading comprehension.
The result of the Independent Sample T-test could be tak-
en into consideration to further analyze the comparison of
the two groups.
The value of t at the level of 38 degree of freedom is
significant that is the value of t is higher than 0.05 (0.42 sig
> 0.05). This reveals that the two groups are not significant-
ly different regarding the comprehension scores. This result
indicates that timed reading activity is not highly effective to
develop the reading comprehension skill of language learn-
ers. Therefore, there is no significant difference between the
two groups, and timed reading activity cannot be considered
as a highly effective activity for improving the reading com- Figure 4.2. The clustered bar chart of the reading comprehension
prehension. scores of the post-test

Table 4.3. Descriptive statistics for the comprehension scores of the post-test
Groups N Mean Standard deviation Standard error mean
Comprescores Control group 20 6.80 1.473 0.329
Experimental 20 7.10 0.788 0.176

Table 4.4. T-test of the post-test reading comprehension

Independent samples test
Levene’s test T test for equality of means
T-
for equality of
variances
F Sig. t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Standard 95% Confidence
difference error interval of the
difference difference
Lower Upper
Compare scores
Equal variances 7.592 0.009 ‑0.803 38 0.427 ‑0.300 0.373 ‑1.056 0.456
assumed
Equal variances ‑0.803 29.058 0.428 ‑0.300 0.373 ‑1.064 0.464
not assumed
The Impact of Timed Reading Activity on Iranian EFL learners Reading Speed,
Comprehension, and Attitudes at Intermediate Level
Figure 4.3. The chart of the comprehension scores of the pre-test
and the post-test
Open-ended Questionnaire
An open-ended questionnaire was used to determine the
participants’ attitude regarding the use of timed read-
ing activity. All of the 20 participants of the experimen-
tal group filled the questionnaire at the end of the three-
month course. The researcher analyzed the anonymous
filled questionnaires to gather data regarding the students’
opinions. As mentioned before, this part of the research is
analyzed qualitatively. To this aim, each question of the
questionnaire is pointed out, and the students’ answers are
mentioned in summary. The questionnaire items were vali-
dated in the pilot study. The results of the questionnaire are
presented as follows.
How effective timed reading activity is to improve your
reading speed? What are the possible advantages and
disadvantages?
The statistics indicated that the reading speed of the exper-
imental group was improved. Now, let’s have a look at the
students’ opinions regarding this issue. Nearly all of the stu-
dents reported that their reading speed had improved. Most
of them declared that now they are able to read English pas-
sages faster than before.
Regarding the possible advantages, 16 out of 20 stu-
dents also mentioned that timed reading made them
concentrate better. 15 students pointed out that their con-
fidence in reading was increased since they did not be-
lieve that they could read so many passages on their own.
14 students mentioned that now they are encouraged to
read not only their textbooks but also some other books,
e.g. novels and short stories, since they are able to read
fast enough.
As for the possible disadvantages, 14 students mentioned
that at the beginning of the course, timed reading activity
increased their anxiety level since they felt the pressure of
time. However, as the time went by, their anxiety disap-
peared since the students got used to this activity. Generally,
it can be concluded that timed reading activity has played a
significant role in improving the reading speed of the EFL
language learners.
15
How effective timed reading activity is to improve
your reading comprehension? What are the possible
advantages and disadvantages?
The statistics showed only a slight difference between the
experimental group and the control group regarding the
comprehension scores. Now let’s have a look at the students’
opinions regarding this issue. Nearly all of the students be-
lieved that timed reading activity had no special effect on
improving their reading comprehension. They mentioned
that reading comprehension can be improved by increasing
their vocabulary knowledge rather than reading fast.
Nearly all of the students mentioned that the only advan-
tage of fast reading can be related to the concept of ‘time’. In
other words, they believed that when they can read fast, they
can understand the passage soon and also finish the compre-
hension questions sooner than before. Therefore, when there
is a pressure of time, they can act better.
As for the disadvantages, most of the students pointed
out that when the passage is hard, and it contains lots of new
words, fast reading may cause some problems for reading
comprehension. Thus, they may be forced to reread some
parts in order to comprehend the passage. Generally, it can
be considered that timed reading has effect on the time that is
spent to comprehend a passage, and it has no special impact
on improving the comprehension skill.
How difficult is to use timed reading activity?
As mentioned, some of the students pointed out that at the
first sessions of the course, it was a bit difficult for them
to learn how to do timed reading activity, but later using it
became normal for them. In other words, they had no dif dif-
ficulty or problem in timed reading. As mentioned before,
another difficulty was related to the stressful moments that
some students suffered during the first sessions. However,
this feeling disappeared soon, and the students learned how
to cope with the timed reading activity. Moreover, 9 stu-
dents declared that the reading passages were not so easy
to comprehend.
Generally, it can be concluded that the main difficulty
which is directly related to the timed reading activity is anx-
iety. This is a feeling which can be decreased by providing
positive and friendly atmosphere in classroom.
Do you have any suggestions for future timed reading
courses?
Nearly all of the students mentioned that they wished they
were divided in groups, and there was a type of privilege or
prize for the group that read faster and had fewer mistakes
in answering the questions. 10 students pointed out that they
preferred they would choose at least some of the passages
which they read during the course. 12 students declared that
during a reading course, it would be better if once or twice
the teacher bring a hard passage to challenge the students.
These statements are worthwhile, and they can help teachers
to modify their techniques for a reading course.
16
CONCLUSION
In this study, the effect of using timed reading activity on
the reading speed and the reading comprehension was in-
vestigated by using a pre-test and a post-test. Moreover, the
participants’ attitudes of the experimental group were inves-
tigated by using an open-ended questionnaire. Let’s briefly
mention the final results of the present study.
Timed reading activity was a highly significant treatment
for increasing the reading speed of the language learners of
this study. Moreover, this type of activity made the learn-
ers become more confident and independent. Therefore, it is
concluded that this type of activity can be employed special-
ly for enhancing the reading speed of language learners. It
can be realized that timed reading activity is also beneficial
for those students who are supposed to take a standardized
test of English language proficiency, e.g. TOEFL or IELTS,
and also for those students who wants to take less important
tests, e.g. their school exams or any type of entrance exam.
We all know that fast reading is a valuable ability which is
useful not only for language learners but also for all of the
people since nowadays new technologies are developed and
improved to save our time and energy; thus, being a fast
reader can be considered as a kind of gift for everyone in
this world.
Timed reading activity proved to be a treatment which is
not highly influential for improving the reading comprehen-
sion of the language learners of this study. In other words,
the ability of reading fast proved to be almost ineffective
on increasing the level of reading comprehension. Reading
comprehension is also a valuable ability especially for lan-
guage learners. Therefore, teachers or curriculum designers
need to employ other remedial techniques to improve the
language learners’ comprehension.
The results of the questionnaire indicated that a large
number of the participants had positive attitude toward the
timed reading activity. They enjoyed being able to read fast-
er. However, they mentioned that their reading comprehen-
sion cannot be improved by this activity. They suggested
having different tasks for increasing vocabulary knowledge
in order to comprehend a reading passage better. Moreover,
slight level of anxiety was reported, but it disappeared when
the participants became more familiar with the activity. To
sum up, timed reading activity has a number of advantag-
es in improving the reading skill. However, other types of
ALLS 9(5):11-16
activities are needed to improve the learners’ reading com-
prehension.
It is also worth mention that the result of the present study
is in contrast with the similar study which was conducted by
Chang (2010). One reason of such discrepancy can be the
role of context. However, further research studies are needed
to be conducted to reach to a consistent outcome.
REFERENCES
Chang, A. (2010). The effect of a timed reading activity on
EFL learners. Reading in a Foreign Language, 22(2),
284-303.
Chastain, K. (1998). Developing second language skills
(2nd Ed.). Chicago: Harcourt Brace Publishers.
Chung, M. (2010). The effect of a speed reading course:
A replication. Asian Journal of English Language
Teaching, 20, 95-116.
Fazeli, H. (2010). Some Gaps in the Current Studies of Read-
ing in Second/Foreign Language Learning. Language In
India. 10, 373-385.
Fuchs, L. S., Fuchs, D., Hosp, M. K., & Jenkins, J. R. (2001).
Oral reading fluency as an indicator of reading compe-
tence: A theoretical, empirical, and historical analysis.
Scientific Studies of Reading, 5, 239-256.
Grabe, W. (2009). Reading in a second language: Moving from
theory to practice. New Y
York: Cambridge University Press.
Hall, S. L. (2006). I’ve DIBEL’d, now what?. Longmont,
CO: Sorpis West.
Meyer, M.S., Felton, R.H. (1999). Repeated reading to en-
hance fluency: Old approaches and new directions. An-
nals of Dyslexia, 49, 283-306.
Miller, D. (2007). Making the most of small groups:
oups: Differ-
Differ
entiation for all. Ontario, Canada: Pembroke.
Nuttall, C. (1996). Teaching Reading Skills in a foreign lan-
guage. Oxford: Heinemann.
Quinn, E., & Nation, P. (1974). Speed reading. Wellington,
New Zealand: Victoria University Book centre.
Rasinski, T. V. (2004). Creating fluent readers. Educational
Leadership. March, 46-50.
West, M. (1953). A general service list of English words.
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 Advances in Language and Literary Studies
ISSN: 2203-4714
www.alls.aiac.org.au

Errors in Translation: A Comparative Study of Noun Phrase in English and Malay Abstracts

Ainul Azmin Md Zamin*, Raihana Abu Hasan

Department of English Language and Literature Kulliyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences International Islamic
University Malaysia
Corresponding Author: Ainul Azmin Md Zamin, E-mail: ainul_azmin@iium.edu.my

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article history Abstract as a summary of a dissertation harbours important information where it serves to attract
Received: April 12, 2018 readers to consider reading the entire passage or to abandon it. This study seeks to investigate
Accepted: July 19, 2018 the backward translation of abstracts made by 10 randomly selected postgraduate students. This
Published: October 31, 2018 research serves as a guideline for students in composing their abstracts as it aims to compare the
Volume: 9 Issue: 5 differences in noun phrase structure written in Malay as translated from English. It also analyses
Advance access: August 2018 the types of errors when English noun phrases are translated to Malay. Preliminary findings
from this pilot study found that translation errors committed were mainly inaccurate word order,
inaccurate translation, added translation, dropped translation and also structure change. For
Conflicts of interest: None this study, an exploratory mode of semantic analysis is applied by looking at noun phrases, the
Funding: None meaningful group of words that form a major part of any sentence, with the noun as the head
of the group. Syntax is inevitably interwoven in the analysis as the structure and grammatical
aspects of the translations are also analysed. They are examined by comparing English texts to its
Key words: corresponding translation in the Malay language. Particularly relevant in this study is the need to
Translation Errors, emphasize on the semantics and syntax skills of the students before a good transaltion work can
Noun Phrase, be produced. Language practitioners can also tap on translation activities to improve the learners’
Error Analysis, language competency.
Semantics,
Backward Translation

INTRODUCTION Based on Larson’s (1998) observations, a form can have

Translating abstracts is part and parcel of writing a thesis for any
postgraduate student. Larson (1998) defines translation as “a
change of form from the Source Language (SL) into the Target
Language (TL) that refers to the actual words, phrases, claus-
es, and sentences of a particular language”. As highlighted by
Al-Hassan (2013), problems in translations do not only include
lexical content and syntax, but also ideologies, values and ways
of life in a given culture. Meaning is something that cannot stand
on its own; it is always situated within a context and coexists
in a form, be it a word, phrase or clause. It is also interwoven
with other areas of language studies, from pragmatics to syn-
tax, morphology, and even phonology where a tiny difference
in sound can bring an entirely different meaning. Baker (2011)
stated that non-equivalence in the target language is because the
source language may have more specific terms (hyponym) while
the target language only has general ones (superordinate). The
best end product of a translation is a text that uses the normal lan-
guage forms of the target language, that communicates as much
as possible to the target language speakers the same meaning
that was understood by speakers of the source language, and that
maintains the dynamics of the original text. Thus, translations
may fall in between this continuum; modified literal, inconsis-
tent mixture, near idiomatic or completely.
several meaning components, such as plurality in English
signified by the suffix –s which the Malay language does not.
A form can also have several semantic features, for example,
the features of the word ewe are [+sheep, +adult, +female] so
ewe is translated as bebiri betina dewasa (or, literally, female
adult sheep) in Malay since there is no one-word to represent
ewe. The polysemy of a form is also different across languag-
es. For example, the word run in “run a programme” versus
“run in a race” cannot be translated using the same word lari
in Malay. The two extremes of approaches to translation is
from very literal, as in word-by-word translation without any
effort to make them fit the structure of the target language,
to the unduly free translation where the translator takes lib-
erties with adding extraneous information that did not come
from the original text at all (Larson, 1998).
Backward translation can be understood as the procedure
of interpreting a document previously translated into anoth-
er language back to the original language. Some researchers
have even regarded this technique as being a quality control
mechanism in maintaining good language performance (Mo-
hatlane, 2014; Ozolin, 2009). It is evident that in the case of
back translation among the student writers in Malaysia, the
meaning that stems from the translations from English does

Published by Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.

Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.5p.17
18 ALLS 9(5):17-23

Table 1. Types of translation errors

Errors Definition
Faithfulness Translator must make sure the meaning remains constant and as close to the source text as possible when translating,
and not to rewrite the text. It is about respecting the original text
Addition Translator adds unnecessary information to his translation, whether for stylistic or clarification purposes
Omission Translator omits certain information or even the intention contained within the original text from his translation
Literalness Translator performs a direct translation, thus resulting in an awkward or unnatural rendition
Faux Ami Translator confuses words that are similar in form but have different meanings or contexts of usage
Word Form/ Translator’s use of a word is only partially correct, where its root is right but the derived form is incorrect
Part of Speech A part-of-
of speech error occurs when the translator changes the grammatical form of the original word
Syntax Syntactic errors concern the arrangement of words or elements of the sentences
Usage Translator does not follow the conventions of the target language when translating

Table 2. Types of noun phrases in malay In this study, semantics analysis is applied by looking at
noun phrases (NP), the meaningful group of words that form
Common noun Proper noun Qualifier
a major part of any sentence, with the noun as the head of the
Pronoun Numeral Determiner group. The aim of the present paper is twofold: (1) to compare
Numeral classifier Title/designation Designation the differences in noun phrase structure of abstracts written in
Malay as translated from English, and (2) to show the types
of errors when English noun phrases are translated to Ma-
Table 3. Comparison of noun phrase constituents lay. Noun phrases are examined by comparing English texts
between English and malay to its corresponding translation in the Malay language. The
English NP Malay NP goal of this study is to observe and appreciate the uniqueness
(Inclusive) Pre-Modifier Quantifier of the phrase structure each language has and in turn have a
Determiner (Inclusive) better understanding of the translation errors among student
Quantifier writers. The findings will be significant for second language
Describer learners of English as it will unveil the difficulties the learn-
Classifier
ers may face in understanding the NP of English when doing
a backward translation and enumerate such errors committed
Head Head Head
in their writing. The results also may help teachers of En-
Qualifier Post-Modifier Classifier glish understand better the errors committed by their students
Describer when doing a transaltion involving the English language.
Qualifier
Determiner LITERATURE REVIEW
Rubrics in assessment for translation
not carry the same exact meaning in English. Some of the
problems students may face in writing a translation may be In the rubric for assessment of translation certification, the
rooted from the fact that certain words, phrases or expressions American Translators Association listed as many as 23 main
denoting facts or objects are ingrained in the source culture categories of errors in translation on their website. The fol-
that they have no equivalences in the target language (Guerra, lowing are the selected errors that are deemed relevant to this
2012). Although the task of translating may come naturally study and could be observed at phrase level:
for some Malaysian students, many others can find it to be At a closer look, one can see that some of the categories
very challenging especially when the text is complicated or overlap each other. For example, literalness and usage, as
the translator’s proficiency of both languages is not of equal well as addition and omission are subsets of the faithfulness
level. In this study, the students involved were writers from category. Farahzad (1992) in his article on promoting a ru-
technical background who have very little exposure to tech- bric to assess translation work, emphasized that there should
nical terminologies in Malay as their courses were mainly be two main features that examiners must not overlook; ac-
taught in English. Failure to understand the real meaning of curacy and appropriateness. The translation should convey
the terminology often results in the misunderstanding of the the information in the source text precisely and it also should
concept of the subject. Semantics clearly has a significant role be fluent and correct in terms of structure.
in translation. In addition to that, mistakes that a non-native In terms of using translation activities as part of language
speaker makes can sometimes be attributed to interference learning, Machida (2011) emphasized that translations may
from his own first language as well as cultural differences result in “available input” in class. She explained the three
(Al-Hassan, 2013). It is important to highlight that translation steps of translating from second language to mother tongue.
does not merely concern word choices, it is also about dealing Firstly, it is imperative to comprehend the second language.
with different grammatical structures of the languages. Then it is vital to search for the equivalent expressions in
Errors in Translation: A Comparative Study of Noun Phrase in English and Malay Abstracts
their mother tongue and finally translators must synthesize
both the first two steps to recapture the meaning of the orig-
inal L2 text in L1. In her opinion, this is an ideal situation
from a constructivism approach. The translation work pro-
vides provides opportunities for problem-solvings and trig-
gers interesting communication among learners and peers.
Noun Phrase of English and Malay Languages
When studying semantics, it is almost inevitable to consider
syntax especially when the analysis focuses on translation.
This study limits its scope to noun phrases only. The struc-
ture of a noun phrase in the English language comprises (i)
determiner or referrer, (ii) describer, (iii) classifier, (iv) head,
and (v) qualifier. While linguists are familiar with the terms
mentioned, inclusives may be quite new. Inclusives is a term
used by Lock (1996) for words that refer to a complete group
of things. It could be positive (e.g., all, each, both, either) or
negative (e.g., no, neither). It is important to distinguish this
from quantifiers because an English NP can have both a refer-
rer and a quantifier, for example, all five students.
The literature on Malay syntax has not been developed
as exhaustively as their counterparts in English language.
An explanation of the Malay NP is given by Hassan (2001)
in his book Tatabahasa Bahasa Melayu. According to him,
types of noun that can make up a Malay NP are:
A noun phrase can consist of a single word or more than
one word. The latter means that the noun that becomes the
head of the phrase will have other words to modify it. These
auxiliary words can be differentiated by their order of ap-
pearance, whether they pre-modify the head or post-mod-
ify the head. English is a language that is weighty in the
pre-modifier part, while Malay is almost the exact opposite.
The following diagram shows the order of the constituents of
a noun phrase in English and Malay languages.
Table 4 below shows the example of a noun phrase in English
and its equivalent translation in Malay. The regular members are
the determiner, describer, and classifier. The rule-of-thumb that
Malay speakers adhere to in any English to Malay translation
is to reverse the order of a noun of either language so that, for
instance, “those new ball-point pens becomes “pena-pena mata
bulat baru itu.” The head appears late in the English version but
quite early in Malay. However, it is unusual for noun phrases to
have these constituents appearing all at the same time. To give
a clearer understanding of the differences between the two lan-
guages, phrases in both English language and Malay having all
these constituents at the same time are provided below.
METHOD
This study favours the exploratory mode of research in an at-
tempt to relate semantics to syntax. A comparison was made
Table 4. Translation of malay phrase in comparison to English phrase
All Those Ten New Ball‑point pens
Inclusive Determiner Quantifier Describer Classifier
Kesemua sepuluh pena-pena mata bulat baru
Inclusive Quantifier Head Classifier Describer
19
between the abstracts written by postgraduates from a local
university in Malaysia and the corresponding translations in
the Malay language. The research questions that guided this
study are as follows:
i) What are the differences found in the noun phrase
structure when comparing the abstracts written by the
students in English to the Malay translation and vice
versa?
ii) What are the errors the students make when English
noun phrases are translated to Malay noun phrases?
Since the university is the leading institution in the en-
gineering field in Malaysia, the abstracts were purposely
chosen from graduates from the two main engineering fac-
ulties, namely the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and the
Faculty of Civil Engineering. This pilot study focuses on only
10 samples that were selected from the institution’s online re-
pository, five of each faculty. The abstracts came from theses
written by Master’s students who graduated in the year 2016.
The source language of the abstracts is English while
the target language is Malay, the native language of most of
these writers. A small number of these writers, however, have
Chinese language as their mother tongue and Malay as their
second language by virtue of their formal schooling which
incorporates the subject Bahasa Melayu into the curriculum.
It is interesting to note that it is quite unusual that En-
glish, as the second language of these students, is the source
language, not the other way round. This goes back to Ma-
laysia’s curriculum which places importance of English al-
most the equal status as the national language. Therefore,
the majority of the higher institutions adopt English as the
main medium of instruction. This is mainly due to the fact
that teaching materials are in English, lectures are conducted
in English, and student assignments are required for submis-
sion in English as well. As a result, tertiary level students
are more academically proficient in English. The translation
of the abstract in Malay is a requirement for the universi-
ty’s publication of the thesis. Hence, these second language
learners must put their natural skill as a translator to good
use, performing what Kroll and Stewart (1994, as cited in
Harley, 2014) termed as backward translation.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The analysis of the data was done qualitatively. Every sen-
tence of the original abstracts was parsed into noun phrases;
in some cases, the noun phrases within the qualifier were
broken down further as well. Then, the abstracts of the target
language were segmented and matched to the noun phrase
units of the source language. From here, each segment was
examined individually to see whether there were any differ-
ences in the meaning of words or in the structure between the
In that pencil box Are mine.
Head Qualifier Predicate
di dalam kotak pensel itu saya punya.
Qualifier Determiner Predicate
20 ALLS 9(5):17-23

original text and the translation. These differences were la-
belled according to the following categories: (a) word order,
(b) different translation, (c) added translation, (d) dropped
translation, and (e) structure change. These categories are
not unlike those suggested by the American Translators
Association delineated earlier, except they have been com-
pressed into smaller number of categories.
This analysis includes all constituents that make up a
noun phrase. Since most prepositional phrases that conflate
with qualifiers were separated from its main head and treated
as a separate NP, prepositions are not covered in this analysis.
Table 5 shows the number of errors found in each sample.
For the purpose of this article’s explanation and interpre-
tation, only 3 categories are covered in this discussion; inac-
curate word order, added translation, and dropped translation.
The analysis will not go into the alteration in translation and
structure change. Alteration here means that the translation
of certain words deviated from the original meaning in the
source text. The category is more diverse compared to the
other categories so naturally the frequency obtained is high-
er. In fact, the explanation of each variant may even warrant
a separate report. Structure change, meanwhile, involves the
NP as a whole and it has more to do with the structure at
sentence level. The main focus of this paper is to analyse the
errors in relation to the meaning of the translated NP.
Inaccurate Word Order
As shown in Table 4, inaccurate word order is not present in
all samples. It is actually the crux of NP analysis from the
syntactic point of view. The most classic way a translator
would make mistake in the word order of a NP is to directly
translate each word according to the English structure. When
it is done in this manner, the head noun changes, so that the
classifier becomes the head and the original head noun be-
comes the classifier. This is illustrated by the following ex-
cerpt from Sample 1 where the meaning was changed from
“Branch-line coupler” to coupler line branch, marking it as
an erroneous translation.
These figures are not representative of all the differences
that exist in the samples. However, the frequencies as indi-
cated from Table 4 should give an idea of which differences
are regularly made by amateur translators. The differences
were first vetted by the researcher who relies on her knowl-
edge as a native speaker of Malay and a proficient learner of
English as a second language, but not yet as a professional
translator. The second layer of translation was vetted by an
Asst. Professor of Linguistics who has more than 20 years of
experience in teaching English.
When a NP is translated literally, it can also result in a
change in the word category of the classifier. A classifier
could be in the form of participles –ed, –en, or –ing such as
defined) and Sample 3 (oriented
defined
Sample 2 (defined) oriented). In sample 2, not
only did the translator directly translate the arrangement of
the phrase, he also chose the wrong derived form of the parti-
cle, accidentally giving the meaning radio definition software
(which should have been radio bertakrif perisian). The same
occurred for another example where the first word was intact
because of the use of the preposition “of” after it. In this case,
the preposition does not need a translation in Malay but it
allows the English NP to follow the arrangement of the con-
stituents in Malay NP. As evident in Sample 3, ““Histogram of
Oriented Gradients (HOG)” should be more accurately trans-
lated as Histogram Kecerunan Terorientasi. Notice that “his-
togram” remained the head noun in both versions but only the
classifier changed in meaning. The Malay version given by
the translator was for Gradient-Oriented Histogram.
Software Defined Radio (SDR)
Perisian Penakrifan Radio (SDR)
(Sample 2)
Histogram of Oriented Gradients
Histogram Berorientasikan Kecerunan
(Sample 3)
In English, the classifier can be in the form of a compound
adjective (first element is a numeral and the second a noun).
There are several ways to translate this type of classifier in
Malay. The method that is closest to the English phrase is by
treating it as a normal classifier so that “1.4 GHz frequen-
cy band
band” in sample 4 can be translated as jalur frekuensi
1.4 GHz. Unfortunately, this was not the case in Sample 4.
The second way needs a slight change in the English phrase.
For example, by tweaking Sample 5 to difference of 3.2%
to 18%, the Malay translation would be perbezaan seban-
yak 3.2% sehingga 18%. But in trying to stay faithful to the
original structure, the translator unfortunately made an error.
conventional design performance
prestasi reka bentuk konvensional
with 1.4 GHz frequency band,
dengan 1.4 GHz jalur frekuensi,
(Sample 4)
3.2% to 18% difference
3.2% ke 18% perbezaan
(Sample 5)
Both samples 6 and 7 showed an inconsistent arrange-
ment of the Malay NP. The head and classifiers in Sample
6 were in the correct order but the describer, “particular/ter-
ter
tentu”, was supposed to come after the classifier. This caused
the describer to modify the head noun as a general entity, not

Table 5. Frequency of errors in each sample abstract

Errors S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 S7 S8 S9 S10 Total
Inaccurate word order 6 3 3 2 0 0 0 3 0 2 19
Inaccurate translation 6 3 5 9 10 4 6 5 11 1 60
Added translation 1 5 1 4 2 3 4 5 5 2 32
Dropped translation 2 7 3 9 8 6 5 2 10 4 56
Structure change 1 0 1 3 0 4 3 0 4 0 16
Errors in Translation: A Comparative Study of Noun Phrase in English and Malay Abstracts
a head noun that has been narrowed down by the classifiers,
thus changing the meaning of the original NP. The same case
occurred in Sample 7. In the translation, the classifier “baha-
ya//hazard” modified the first head noun “maklumat//infor-
ya//hazard maklumat//infor
mation” only, and excluded “maklumat/reporting”, whereas
the coma after the word “reporting” in the source text indi-
cates that it is a compound head noun and so the pre-modifier
will include both components of the compound noun.
and change its particular transmission or reception pa-
rameters
serta menukar parameter tertentu sistem pemancar atau
penerima
(Sample 6)
such as hazard information and rreporting, and training
seperti maklumat bahaya dan laporan, dan latihan
(Sample 7)
In Sample 8, although it can be considered as a minor er-
ror, the placement of the abbreviation “(CO2)” is still inaccu-
rate and could cause misunderstanding. It should have been
placed immediately after “karbon dioksida” in the target text;
otherwise, some readers might think that the abbreviation
included the word ““global”. This is an illustration of what
Farahzad (1992) mentioned in his study with regards the cor-
rectness of the structure when translations are done by stu-
dents. A good translation will not only maintain the accuracy
in meaning but also keep the structure of the sentence correct.
a significant source of global carbon dioxide CO2 emis-
sions.
sumber besar karbon dioksida global CO2.
(Sample 8)
Added and Dropped Translations
Added and dropped translations are discussed together since
they are similar in the sense that one text will not have certain
words that its counterpart has. Added translations did not oc-
cur as frequent as dropped translations in the sample abstracts
but they still carry some weight to the translation. Additions
are what may lead to unduly free translations that are not con-
sidered acceptable by professional translators. In this analy-
sis, a NP is categorized as having added translation when the
target text contained words that were not found in the orig-
inal text. In contrast, dropped translation means that certain
words were omitted when meaning was being transferred
to the target text. Some omitted words could cause small or
no effect while others can distort the meaning of the phrase.
In discussing omission of words, it is important to note that
the English definite article is said to be unique and not easi-
ly translatable to other languages in the world. Malay is not
an exception. The nearest we have is kata penunjuk (Hassan,
2001) or demonstratives. Thus, we will find that translators
omit its translation in the Malay version most of the time un-
less it is necessary for that particular context. The omission of
determiners is therefore not tallied in this analysis.
The first example of a dropped translation is found in
Sample 9. The translator dropped the word “and” in the trans-
lation and thus “radio” became the classifier to “rangkaian/
network”, not to “teknologi/technology”. Even with the
omission of a mere function word, the meaning has changed.
21
an adaptive, intelligent radio
network technology
teknologi rangkaian radio
penyesuaian pintar
(Sample 9)
(Sample 10)
Sample 10 above involved major changes, including
dropped translation, incorrect word order, and alteration in
translation, not to mention the wrong spelling of “prototaip”.
This analysis would have highlighted several categories as
listed by the American Translators Association. The transla-
tion made by the translator yielded this meaning: The modified
prototype area of coupler line three-branch and four-branch
line. He dropped the word “fabricated” when translating,
causing the noun “kawasan/area” to be less specific. He also
added the word “prototaip/prototype” in the translation. This
addition is actually a reference to the couplers, which makes
it redundant. However, the addition is interesting because the
translator adopted a semantic concept called metonymy in his
translation. A metonym is a word used in place of another
with which it is closely connected (Yule, 2010). Prototype in
the text was interchangeable with coupler, as deduced from
the sentence immediately after Sample 10 in the original text
where the translator used “Both prototypes”.
Another example of the application of metonymy is found
in Sample 11. This time the metonymy came in the form of
a dropped translation. In the source text, the translator used
the phrase “a software algorithm”” but then dropped ““peri-
sian/software” in the translation. An algorithm is basically
an instance of logic written in software so having “software”
classifying “algorithm” could have been misconstrued by
the translator as redundant, which led him to merge the clas-
sifier with the main noun in the target text.
does not come with a software algorithm
tidak datang dengan algoritma
(Sample 11)
A dropped translation could cause the noun it was sup-
posed to modify to be less specific. Sample 12 is another
occurrence that has the same effect. In the target text, the
translator did not include “terpendam/latent” as the describ-
er of the noun “kesilapan//error”. Therefore, “kesilapan
diperingkat pengurusan” is just as it is, an error, whereas
the original meaning was specified as a “latent error”. As a
consequence, the meaning would have changed for readers
who know the difference between a latent error and an error.
latent error at management level
kesilapan di peringkat pengurusan
(Sample 12)
In Sample 13, the qualifier for the phrase “The result of the
study”” was dropped in the translation so it became ““Keputusan/
The result”
esult” only. In this case, the translator is simply assuming
esult
that readers will easily refer results in an abstract as the result
related to the study being reported, so the translator found the
qualifier unnecessary. Within the same sentence, the translator
also added the phrase ““yang diubahsuai” to describe the “bitu-
men” when its equivalent word in English, modified modified, was not
present in the original text. The addition provided clarity to the
head noun. It could be regarded as either an explicitation of the
noun or simply an addition that was not necessary.
22
The result of the study shows that bitumen
Keputusan menunjukkan bitumen yang diubasuai
(Sample 13)
Sample 14 is another example of a dropped translation.
The word omitted was “ujian/test” for the second entity of
the compound noun. This omission could have been disre-
garded if the translator had not added “ujian/test” to the third
entity. This made the NP violates parallelism which is im-
portant in the cohesiveness of a text. The translator should
have chosen to use “ujian/test” once only as the only head of
the noun in the Malay construction.
Penetration test, softening point test and viscosity test
Ujian penusukan, titik lembut serta ujian kelikatan
(Sample 14)
Sample 15 and 16 are examples to demonstrate the differ-
ence between English and Malay. Empty subjects in English
do not transfer in the Malay translation. Thus, the translated
sentences started with a verb. This is because subjects in an
English sentence are compulsory, whereas Malay is more
flexible by not requiring a subject when it does not exist.
Two examples of empty subjects are given in the following
excerpts, which are “it” and “there”, respectively:
it was found from
om previous
pr studies
didapati daripada kajian sebelum ini
(Sample 15)
There are two main problems in this project
Terdapat dua masalah utam dalam projek ini
(Sample 16)
Translation has been proven to be a strategy used by
learners in learning an L2 or even Lx (third language) (Har-
ley, 2014; Dmitrenko, 2017). This study has proven that stu-
dents who are native speakers can make errors in translating
to their own L1. The occurrence of errors could be attributed
to several factors. First, these students were not proficient in
their L1 within the genre of technical texts. Although they
use Malay (L1) in their daily communication, they have not
been exposed to the use of L1 within the academic context as
extensively as L2. This shows the importance of context be-
cause it can determine our proficiency regardless of whether
it is our native language or second language. Next, instead
of ascribing this problem to the proficiency level of their
L1, it is possible that they are not equally proficient in both
languages, hence the inaccurate translations stemmed from
their difficulty to grasp the meaning of the technical terms
in the L2. The existence of syntactic errors in their original
English texts lends credence to this explanation.
The third explanation is related to parole versus langue.
The translations written by native speakers could have been
perceived and interpreted by themselves as correct. After all,
they are native speakers and they have the technical authori-
ty to define their grammar and conventions. However, parole
is meaningless on its own. Without adhering to the grammar
rules set by langue, the meaning of the constructed forms in
parole cannot be shared by other speakers (or in this case,
readers). This shows the importance of following the rules of a
language. Nevertheless, one cannot overlook the issue of sub-
jectivity in interpretation. This limits the frequency listed in
Table 4 as mere estimation and cannot be used as a statistics.
ALLS 9(5):17-23
Based on the 10 samples of abstracts used for this study
and benchmarking them against the continuum of approach-
es to translation as outlined by Larson (1998), the students
were deemed to have ranged between modified literal and
inconsistent mixture (of modified literal and near idiomatic).
This is consistent with what Byrne (2012) reported in a study
by de Camargo (2001) which found that literal translation is
one of the most preferable strategy used in technical texts.
CONCLUSIONS
Using error analysis that focused on NPs has shed some light
on the similarities and differences between an English NP
and a Malay NP. In addressing the first research question,
this study has discovered that the main differences are in the
density of the pre-modifier (for the former) and post-modifi-
er (for the latter). The above discussion has illustrated these
differences clearly, retrieved from the various extracts of the
students’ translation work. This density, in turn, affects the
arrangement of the constituents of both NPs, making them
different and in some cases, the exact opposite of the oth-
er. The analysis has also helped in answering the second
research question; the errors committed were mainly inac-
curate word order, inaccurate translation, added translation,
dropped translation and also structure change. The rule-of-
thumb that a Malay learner would probably use in translating
a NP, Malay to English and vice versa, is to reverse the order
of words in the translated version but even this cannot be a
blanket rule applicable to all NPs.
It is strongly recommended that the translation of NPs
from English to Malay should be done delicately as an inac-
curate placement of a constituent can cause a major change
in the meaning of the translated NP in comparison to the
original NP, as evident from the findings of this research.
This calls for a more comprehensive teaching of semantics.
Students need to understand meaning and how meaning re-
lates to accurate and meaningful translation. The study of
structure should also be more intensive if the aim is to pro-
duce competent writers of second language. Because the
mastery of syntax of any language cannot be done easily,
vigorous training is the only option for the learners. This
study hopes to persuade scholars and practitioners in the lan-
guage learning field to investigate the possibility of includ-
ing the act of translating in their pedagogy. Although this
present study is only limited to analyzing Malay and English
noun phrases, it is a strong reflection of the students’ second
language competency. The discussion above focuses only on
abstract in thesis writing among technical students. There-
fore, there is a potential for future researchers to investigate
the translation errors at various other levels of study in a par-
ticularly different setting. This may generate more research
outcomes and suggestions.
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 Advances in Language and Literary Studies
ISSN: 2203-4714
www.alls.aiac.org.au

The Impact of Teaching EFL Medical Vocabulary Through Collocations on Vocabulary

Retention of EFL Medical Students
Maryam Najafi, Mohammad Reza Talebinezhad*
Department of English Language Teaching, Shahreza Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shahreza, IR Iran
Corresponding Author: Mohammad Reza Talebinezhad, E-mail: mrezatalebinejad@gmail.com

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article history
Received: April 02, 2018
Accepted: July 06, 2018
Published: October 31, 2018
Volume: 9 Issue: 5
Advance access: August 2018
Conflicts of interest: None
Funding: None
Key words:
Vocabulary Retention,
Collocation, Teaching, EFL, ESP
Teaching technical vocabulary in ESP context is a vital part of English language teaching at
a university level. EFL teachers almost use traditional techniques for teaching new medical
vocabulary. This study aimed at examining the impact of teaching medical vocabulary through
collocations on vocabulary learning of medical students. This quasi-experimental study with a
pretest/posttest control group design was conducted on 80 students majoring Nursing at Kashan
University of Medical Sciences, Iran. The proficiency test was used to determine the proficiency
level of the students and 62 students were selected as intermediate students. The students were
assigned into two groups. In the experimental group new medical vocabulary was taught through
collocations, while in the control group new vocabularies were instructed through traditional
techniques including synonym, antonym, definition and mother tongue translation. Data were
collected using a researcher-made test of collocation. Results showed that the mean score of
teaching medical vocabulary was increased in the experimental group after the treatment. It can
be seen that the experimental group outperformed the control group on the medical collocation
tests.

INTRODUCTION improving retention and usage (Nation, 2005). Vocabulary teaching

English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and general English are sever-
al branches of English language teaching. Needs analysis can be a
vital asset for ESP teachers to determine their learners’ key require-
ments or needs (Hyland, 2006). ESP is related to instruction for
specific purposes, and it is associated with university level learning
(Hyland & Hamp-Lyons, 2002). Vocabulary plays the major role
in the foreign language learning and without learning vocabulary
learners cannot establish any communication. The basic step in
mastering a foreign language is vocabulary learning. Language
learning has different approaches, which have a different outlook
on vocabulary (Jesa, 2008). In fact, grammar and pronunciation
are considered as major components of language learning, while
vocabulary is neglected in most ESP classes (Farghal & Obiedat,
1995). A large number of scholars believed that a high level of pro-
ficiency in the target language only can be obtained by vocabulary
learning (Boers & Lindstromberg, 2008). It is believed that having
a large and varied vocabulary is the sign of communicative com-
petence and it is one of the central aspects of language learning
(McCrostie, 2007). Also, vocabulary should be accepted as a key
element in language teaching from the early stages (Celce-Murcia
and Rosensweig, 1989). Some researchers confirm that having an
adequate stock of vocabulary with a minimum number of struc-
tures usually helps the learner more not only in reading compre-
hension, but also in attaining more efficient communication than
having a perfect command of structures with an inadequate amount
of vocabulary. Also, most of the teachers prefer to use traditional
vocabulary teaching techniques such as synonyms, antonyms, defi-
nition, and mother tongue translation when they want to instruct the
vocabulary items. Consequently, students do not make any attempt
to get to the meaning and it is unavoidable that they possibly will
not remember the meaning of the new words, or even worse, they
would not be able to use the new words they have learned even if
they remember the meaning because they do not know the appro-
priate collocates. More student-centered approaches beyond behav-
iorism and rote memorization should be modified for the purpose of
by the use of classical techniques is considered to be too mechani-
cal for the classroom learning. Acat (2008) declares that mechani-
cal vocabulary learning, just memorizing new vocabulary word by
word without interaction with existing knowledge, does little to im-
prove students’ vocabulary. Genç (2004) asserts that for stimulating
interest and consciousness in students about vocabulary develop-
ment and make the vocabulary learning process more meaningful,
teachers should test different vocabulary teaching techniques.
Also, we can determine the overall proficiency of L2 learners by
knowing their vocabulary knowledge. Students can enhance their
listening, speaking, reading and writing abilities by learning new
words. New words could be presented with collocation technique
which is extremely important for acquiring vocabulary and has yet
to be exploited to its full potential (Nattinger, 1988) so that students
will be able to use these words later in their own performance.
Many approaches and techniques to teaching and learning vo-
cabulary have appeared with the recognition of the importance of
vocabulary, and collocation is merely one of those techniques. It is
a widely accepted idea that collocations are very important part of
knowledge of second language acquisition and they are essential to
non-native speakers of English in order to speak or write fluently
and accurately (Jaén, 2007). Skrzypek (2009) indicates the signifi-
cance of collocation by asserting that one of the criteria for know-
ing a word is knowing other words with which it keeps company.
In today’s communication era when expressing one’s thoughts
could lead to arising international integration, learning English has be-
come even more essential since it serves as a medium. The demand to
convey specific information has also added to this discipline. English
language is the lingua franca for communicating the basic concepts of
different fields, including medicine (Faraj, 2015). Medical doctors and
researchers need to learn English, not only for the purpose of teaching
and learning, but also for publishing their research work (Milosavlje-
vić, 2008). It has been reported that the level of medical English used
in lectures, textbooks and journal articles has been increasing steadi-
ly (Hwang & Lin, 2010). The significant role that English language

Published by Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.

Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.5p.24
The Impact of Teaching EFL Medical Vocabulary Through Collocations on
Vocabulary Retention of EFL Medical Students
plays in the field of medicine is due to the fact that much of the scien-
tific, technological and academic information is globally expressed in
English (Creswell, 2013). Therefore, motivating medical students and
doctors to learn English is very much instrumental (Milosavljević,
2008). As was asserted previously, “English is the de facto language
of international medicine” and fluency in English would be a neces-
sity to get the essential medical and scientific information (Heming
& Nandagopal, 2012). Carrying out research and getting information
are not the only factors that highlight the role of English language in
medical education. The quality of medical care may be even impacted
negatively by the lack of language competence (Ibrahim, 2010). Con-
sidering the significant role that English language plays in medical
education, teaching medical vocabulary is worth noting more accu-
rately. Although vocabulary has been the subject of many studies, few
researchers have revealed the effective technique of teaching medical
vocabulary, especially the effect of using medical vocabulary through
collocations on vocabulary retention. Also, poor medical vocabulary
knowledge of EFL medical students is a matter of serious concern
among educational practitioners. Therefore, it seems that it would
be worthwhile to explore the effect of teaching medical vocabulary
through collocations in medical Iranian EFL classes.
Most of the medical students cannot use the correct medical col-
locations. This may result from their lack of collocational knowledge.
In order to raise EFL learners’ awareness of collocations and improve
their accuracy in composing lexical items, the researcher asked the
students to write the collocation of the highlighted words in a test and
teach them the words’ collocation to explore the effect of employing
it on raising EFL college students’ awareness of collocations.
The aim of this experiment was to answer the following re-
search question:
1) Does presenting new medical words through collocations
result in better learning of the words than presenting them us-
ing classical techniques?
The Importance of Collocation in EFL Context
Collocations, arbitrarily restricted lexeme combinations, are one type
of a group of expressions whose importance in language has been
increasingly recognized in recent years. This group of expressions
has been variously called prefabricated units, prefabs, phraseological
units, (lexical) chunks, multi-word units, or formulaic sequences.
Currently, most empirical support has come from corpus stud-
ies, which have regularly found that most of naturally occurring lan-
guage, both spoken and written, consists of recurrent patterns, many
of which are phraseological (e.g. Altenberg 1998; Sinclair 1991).
Several important functions have been identified for prefabricat-
ed units. First, there is growing evidence that they play an essential
role in language learning, as they seem to be the basis for the devel-
opment of creative language in first language and childhood second
language acquisition. Secondly, prefabricated units are essential for
fluency in both spoken and written language. Psycholinguistic ev-
idence indicates that the human brain is much better equipped for
memorizing than for processing, and that the availability of large
numbers of prefabricated units reduces the processing effort and
thus makes fluent language possible (Aitchison 2003). Thirdly, the
use of prefabricated units supports comprehension, as the recipient
can understand the meaning of a passage of text without having to
attend to every word (Hunston & Francis 2000). And fourthly, pre-
fabricated units serve to indicate membership of a certain linguistic
group; they fulfill “the desire to sound like others” (Wray 2002).
For the adult nonnative speaker, the first of these functions proba-
bly does not play a major role, as it seems that prefabricated language
is not regularly used as a basis for creative language in adult L2 acqui-
sition. However, two of the other functions are at least as essential for
non-native speakers as for native speakers. Enhancing fluency through
reducing processing effort must be of particular interest for non-native
speakers, as they naturally need more processing effort to convey their
intended message. Indeed, it has been shown that whether or not L2
production is fluent crucially depends on the learner’s control over a
large repertoire of prefabricated units (Towell & Hawkins 1996). The
third function, making comprehension easier, is doubtless of impor impor-
tance for every user of a language. While the use of native-like prefabs
aids comprehension, non-native-like prefabs can irritate the recipient
25
and draw the attention away from the message. The knowledge of and
the ability to use prefabricated units are thus essential for the language
learner. These combinations sound natural to native speakers, but stu-
dents of English have to make a specific effort to learn them because
they are often difficult to guess. For example, the adjective “difficult”
collocates with “task”, but not with “disease”, so your students must
be taught the collocation “severe disease”.
Some collocations are fixed, or very strong, for example, “strip
to the waist” but some collocations are more open, for example,
“take the temperature/check the temperature.
Today, the collocational competence of medical students is paid
much attention. Here are some examples of medical collocations: medi-
cal aid, premature fetus, blood test, upset stomach, admitted to hospital,
prescribe treatment, adjust the dosage and many others. The colloca-
tions may refer to any kind of typical word combination, for example
verb+noun (have an operation), adverb+adjective (absolutely vital),
noun+noun (lack of energy), adjective+noun (streaming cold) etc.
An appreciation of collocations will help medical students to: 1)
use the words they know more accurately. They will make (not do)
fewer mistakes; 2) sound more natural when they speak and write.
By saying, for example, “respond well to treatment”, rather than “re-
act to treatment”, you won’t just be understood, you will sound like a
fluent user of English; 3) vary your speech, helping avoid repetitions;
We can ask our students to use, for example, the verb “pre-
scribe” with other nouns: prescribe drugs, prescribe antibiotics etc.
Or we can ask them to create their own sentences, using the new
combinations, or creating short dialogues, that might include these
collocations. The students should use them in different grammar
forms. Collocational competence of medical students is of great
importance, so, English teachers should pay it a lot of attention and
they should not neglect them.
Empirical Studies on Collocations
Taylor (2000) conducted an important study on collocation. He be-
lieved that collocations are difficult to learn because joining words
that are semantically compatible does not always produce acceptable
combinations. Secondly, there are no standard rules that can be ap-
plied to the word combinations as word combinations differ from lan-
guage to language. The knowledge of collocations requires pragmatic
knowledge as well. Another reason is negative transfer from L1 and
the unfamiliarity with the structure of the particular collocations. His
study aimed at investigating the patterns of acquisition of English col-
locations and 275 junior high school Greek learners in three different
levels participated in this study. He used three measures: a writing
task, a gap-filling task and a translation task. The results showed that
the knowledge of collocations occur gradually; the higher levels were
more successful than the lower levels. Gitsaki (2000) also found that
lexical collocations were more difficult to translate than grammatical
collocations and the higher levels were more accurate in translating.
Another finding was that the amount of exposure to a particular collo-
cation correlated with better acquisition of that collocation. The most
important conclusion of this study was that subjects were less accurate
with fixed, arbitrary and unpredictable verb-noun lexical collocations.
This conclusion shows that collocations are language specific and di-
rect translation would end with inaccuracy. They should be dealt with
as a significant part of vocabulary instruction. It can be inferred that
lexical collocations should be taught separately, otherwise students
would try to translate them, which leads them to wrong use. Nist and
Simpson (1993) states that knowing the definition of a word is im-
portant and may be sufficient in many situations. However, memoriz-
ing and connecting a definition to a targeted word is just a beginning
point. According to them a memorized definition is often the tip of the
iceberg, the part mistakenly believed to be the total iceberg because it
is so visible and obvious. Beneath the surface of the water is a much
larger mass of ice which is far more important 39. Deveci (2004) states
that over the last few years, vocabulary teaching has gained more in-
terest from English teachers and theorists who argue that, without
a wide range of vocabulary, grammar does not help learners much.
Having a wide range of vocabulary is not adequate because a single
word rarely stands alone. Therefore, language teachers need to make
sure that their students know which word goes with other word(s),
and that necessitates teaching collocations. Doing so will help learn-
26
ers acquire the language more quickly and efficiently. Altınok (2000)
conducted a study on collocation. The purpose of her study was to
investigate whether teaching vocabulary in collocations will result in
better vocabulary learning than teaching vocabulary using definitions
only. The participants were from Çukurova University, Center of For For-
eign Languages Department. In the study, there were 65 students par par-
ticipating, one control group and two experimental groups. According
to the results of her study, teaching words in collocations did not pro-
duce ant statistically significant difference in learning new vocabulary
items; she still suggests that the idea that collocates of words should
be taught when presenting new vocabulary because students particu-
larly Turkish students have difficulty in finding appropriate collocates
for words. The purpose of my study is to find out whether the learners
learn the lexical items better in collocations rather than individually.
Also, it aims to find out the extent to which the known collocates can
help the students learn unknown items. This study will give a chance
to gain an insight about teaching and learning collocations and com-
pare it with teaching words in isolation.
Moreover, Aşık, Vural, and Akpınar (2016) investigated the
attitudes toward data-driven learning (DDL) of 126 students in
an English language teaching department. To this end, they intro-
duced corpora or a variety of corpus tools as the content of a lexical
competence course during the semester. The results indicated that
lexical awareness of the students improved through DDL-based ac-
tivities, in particular, improving their knowledge or “depth of vo-
cabulary” by learning words with different collocations.
METHOD
The present study employed a quasi-experimental design making
use of two groups. One group formed the experimental group and
another one the control group. Pre-test/post-test design was used in
this study. The pretest was administered just before presenting the
collocation instruction in order to investigate the collocational com-
prehension of the learners and after 5 sessions of the instruction, the
posttest was administered to investigate the effects of collocation
instruction on learners’ vocabulary retention. Finally, the scores of
two tests were compared to examine the effects of the instruction.
Data were analyzed using t-test by the SPSS software.
Participants and Setting
The participants in this study were 80 female students majoring
nursing and operating room at Kashan University of Medical Sci-
ences during 2016-2017. The Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was
used to select the students with intermediate level of proficiency.
After homogeneity of students, 62 students were selected and as-
signed into two groups of control (n=30) and experimental (n=32).
Materials
The words utilized in the treatment period were taken from the
course book designed for the students of medicine (SAMT Publica-
tion). This book is a course for students of medicine and paramed-
icine who want to learn and use the English language for medical
purposes. This book contains reading passages, a lucid presentation
of vocabulary, and a systematic grammar syllabus in every unit.
It puts particular emphasis on assisting medical students become
Table 1. Distribution of demographic and educational variables in the two groups
Variables Control group (n=30) Treatment group (n=32)
Age (years) 22.1±6.8
Academic year
First 15
Second 8 8
Third 7 8
Fourth 7 5
Field of study
Nursing 20
Operating room 12
P<0.01: level of significance
ALLS 9(5):24-27
familiar with general and technical medical vocabularies in order
to use them in their courses.
Procedure and Instruments
The instrument was a 40 multiple-choice item medical collocation
test (grammatical and lexical collocations) based on the colloca-
tions of their course book (SAMT Publication) to determine the
vocabulary knowledge of the students. To check validity, the tests
were confirmed by a couple of experienced language teachers at
Kashan University. The pretest and posttest were given to a similar
population. The reliability of the pretest and posttest were 0.83 and
0.79, respectively. Then, they were administered to the participants.
The subjects participated in 10 sessions of 2 hours. The 10 passages
from the book were selected and given to the students during a five-
week period (1 passage in each session).
The new vocabulary was offered to the control group via con-
ventional techniques such as synonym, antonym, definition and
mother tongue translation as it was in their routine classes before
the study. The new medical vocabularies were taught to the experi-
mental group through their collocations. The highlighted new med-
ical vocabulary was written in a circle in the center of the board.
Then, the new word’s collocations were written around the word.
After presenting the new words with their collocations, comprehen-
sion questions associated with the passage were asked and respond-
ed to make the task more tangible.
The same reading passages were received by the control group
but no new techniques were applied to teaching the new medical
vocabularies in this group. Having finished the treatment, students
in both groups took the post-test to examine the effect of the treat-
ment on vocabulary learning of the medical students.
RESULTS
In this study, 80 students majoring at nursing and operating room
were voluntarily included in the study. The Oxford Placement Test
(OPT) test was used to homogenize the students based on the lev-
el of proficiency. Sixty-two students were selected as intermediate
students. In the treatment group 32 and in the control group 30 sub-
jects were given the post-test. All the participants were females and
given pretest before selection. The mean age of the participants was
21.3±7.4 years. Twenty students from the treatment group and 21
from the control group were nursing students and the remainder
were the operating room students. The students were most frequent-
ly from the first academic year (Table 1).
The mean score of pretest in the collocation group was 8.2±7.1,
which was increased to 17.7±11.3 after the treatment (P<0.001).
Also, in the control group, the mean pretest score was 8.7±6.5,
which was increased to 11.1±8.5 after the treatment (P=0.07). The
change in scores was 9.5 in the collocation group and 2.4 in the
control group (P<0.01) (Table 2).
Also, analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to remove
the effects of pretest scores in both groups. The results of ANCOVA
showed the significant effect of the treatment on the test scores by
controlling the pretest effect (P<0.001). On the other hand, there
was a significant difference in the post-test scores between the two
groups (P<0.001).
Significance P value
20.9±7.8 T=0.478
9
X2=0.389 0.943
21
9 X2=0.598 0.362
The Impact of Teaching EFL Medical Vocabulary Through Collocations on
Vocabulary Retention of EFL Medical Students
Table 2. The mean and SD of scores in the two groups
before and after the treatment
Variable Treatment Control P value2
group group
Score
Before the treatment 8.2±7.1 8.7±6.5 P=0.07
After the treatment 17.7±11.3 11.1±8.5
P value1 P<0.001 P<0.01 - room. In: Celce-Murcia M, McIntosh L (eds) Teaching English as a second
1
Paired t-test, Independent t-test, P<0.01: level of significance
2 or foreign language, 1st edn. New York, Newbury House Publishers Inc
DISCUSSION
The results obtained by this experimental research revealed that teach-
ing medical vocabulary through collocations results in a better learn-
ing of the words than presenting them using classical techniques and
enhance retention of new vocabulary items. The present study’s result
is consistent with the result of the Özdemir (2014) study conducted on
323 Turkish medical students and it was found that a large majority
of the students paid greater attention to the meaning of English words
with their collocations in medicine and also students perceive learn-
ing meanings of English words with collocations as a highly important
need. The result of the present study is also in line with those of the
Pavičić Takač et al. (2013), which confirmed that collocations are in-
deed a problematic area for non-native users of medical English and
teaching medical vocabulary through collocation can be very useful
for these students. This study showed interesting findings regarding
the impact of teaching medical vocabulary through collocations and
also supported the findings of previous research studies. Research
indicates that teaching medical collocation has a significant effect on
vocabulary retention and instructors should strive to design course
content that meets students’ needs and assures optimal learning regard-
ing. We believe that this study may be helpful for medical teachers
and students in terms of becoming familiarized with a comparatively
new technique which will be helpful in their vocabulary development.
Based on the findings of this study, the following recommendations for
additional studies, program enhancements are suggested. This study
could be replicated in other technical and academic disciplines as well
as other community colleges. Studies could also be conducted that ad-
dress students’ grammatical and lexical medical collocations separate-
ly. Similarly, Maghsodi (2010) supports our idea by stating that even
though memorizing terms with their respective translations is quick
and preferred by learners, it is superficial and does not let students use
the needed vocabulary correctly in context. Also similar to our study,
Hsu (2010) investigated the effects of direct collocation instruction on
Taiwanese college English majors’ reading comprehension and vocab-
ulary learning. Similarly, the author concluded that direct collocation
instruction improved the subjects’ vocabulary learning and improved
retention. His suggestion is in accord with our findings in that colloca-
tion instruction could be worthwhile to explore as a teaching option.
CONCLUSION
To sum up, collocation technique helped EFL medical students to
remember the vocabulary items better than the classical techniques
did. On the basis of this result, it could be suggested that teaching
vocabulary through collocations may enhance retention of new vo-
cabulary items in EFL classes. Also, medical students have serious
problems in finding suitable collocates of words mostly because of
the differences between the word order in Persian and English. We
believe that this study may be helpful for medical teachers and stu-
dents in terms of becoming familiarized with a comparatively new
technique which will be helpful in their vocabulary development.
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 Advances in Language and Literary Studies
ISSN: 2203-4714
www.alls.aiac.org.au

Implementing Poetry in the Language Class: A Poetry-Teaching Framework for Prospective

English Language Teachers

Safiye İpek Kuru Gönen*

Department of English Language Teaching, Anadolu University
Corresponding Author: Safiye İpek Kuru Gönen, E-mail: ipekkuru@anadolu.edu.tr

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article history
Received: April 19, 2018
Accepted: July 27, 2018
Published: October 31, 2018
Volume: 9 Issue: 5
Advance access: August 2018
Conflicts of interest: None
Funding: None
Key words:
Literature and Language Teaching,
Using Poetry in the Language Class,
Poetry-teaching Framework,
Incorporating Poetry into Language
Teaching Methodology,
Pre-service Teacher Reflections
Poetry has often been neglected as a favorable tool for language teaching. What is more, its
role to expand human experience and create language awareness has not been fully realized.
As a reaction to often-underestimated value of including literature in the language class, this
article proposes a poetry-teaching (POT) framework for language practitioners to bridge the
gap between literature and language teaching methodology. Step-by-step procedure followed in
the framework aimed at helping prospective teachers incorporate poetry into language teaching,
while at the same time offering various materials and activities to be used in their future teaching
practices. The proposed framework was presented to 21 student teachers at an English Language
Teaching (ELT) department of a state university in Turkey to help them integrate the ideas of
using poetry in a micro-teaching context. Prospective teachers acted both as learners and teachers
while following the steps of the suggested framework, and reflected on this experience through
reflective diaries and stimulated recalls of their teaching performances. They also took part in
semi-structured interviews at the end of the study. Qualitative analyses revealed that poetry can
have a place in language teaching by using a systematic and guided framework tailored to the
features of a language classroom. With the help of the proposed framework, implementing poetry
in the language class helped to promote motivation, creativity and self-expression along with
multi-skill development and interaction among learners. However, incorporating poetry into the
language class was challenging in terms of time and effort required and difficulties in material
selection and design. This study suggests that poetry can become part of language teacher
education. In this regard, this article proposes implications for teachers and teacher educators for
the implementation of poetry in language teaching practice.

INTRODUCTION use while teaching language. Then, how can we overcome

Literature has long been rejected as a part of language teach-
ing methodology (Carter, 2007) following the fall of Gram-
mar-Translation Method. It is generally viewed as an artistic
vein of study that has little or no role in enriching language
learning experience. With the rise of the communicative ap-
proaches, the dethroned value of literature in the language
class has been revised, and how to integrate literature in an L2
class to foster language development has become a recent issue
(Bobkina and Dominguez, 2014). Although much emphasis
has been directed at the role of literature for language study,
there has been no consensus among the practitioners about how
to incorporate literature into language teaching (Lima, 2005).
In language teacher education, almost no place is reserved
to guide pre-service teachers (PST henceforth) to use literary
forms for language teaching purposes. Prospective teachers
at many ELT departments are generally required to take var-
ious literature related classes, yet they may lack training to
use literature for teaching English. They tend to see litera-
ture as a way to improve general knowledge putting aside its
such an attitude as teacher trainers and cultivate motivation
of using literature in language classes? How can we motivate
language learners appreciate literature by educating language
teachers before they embark onto their professional life? As a
reaction to often underestimated value of including literature,
this article proposes a poetry-teaching framework for lan-
guage practitioners to bridge the gap between literature and
language teaching methodology. The aim of this study is to
create awareness and motivation for using poetry in the lan-
guage class by presenting a stepwise framework for prospec-
tive language teachers. Based on this purpose, it explores the
opinions of PSTs about the use of the proposed framework
and integration of poetry into English language teaching. The
findings of the study may illuminate further attempts of incor-
porating poetry into language teaching practice.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Using poems in the language classroom have many reported
benefits from both linguistic and literary perspectives. Nu-

Published by Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.

Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.5p.28
Implementing Poetry in the Language Class: A Poetry-Teaching Framework for
Prospective English Language Teachers
merous linguistic gains can be counted such as poems’ po-
tential to enrich vocabulary (Lazar, 1996), improve pronun-
ciation, foster grammatical knowledge (Kırkgöz, 2008), and
practice language skills and forms (Tomlinson, 1986) along
with its value in providing a rich source for language input
(Duff and Maley, 2007). Poetry also promotes literary appre-
ciation by increasing cross-cultural awareness (Lazar, 1996),
improving expressive abilities (Iida, 2016) and construct-
ing social connections among students (Chanmann-Taylor,
Bleyle, Hwang and Zhang, 2016). Using poems enhances
more personal involvement in the language class to find a
ground for expressing personal ideas within a larger human
reality (Hess, 2003). As a result, poetry reading is assumed
to have a facilitative effect on promoting linguistic and cul-
tural knowledge (Hanauer, 2001).
Despite these advantages, using poetry in the language
class is somewhat marginalized by many teachers. Poetic
language involves manipulation of grammar and lexis to suit
for orthographical and phonological congruence; and thus,
deviation from standard norms of language may be consid-
ered inaccessible to foreign language learners. Teachers’ re-
luctance towards using poems may stem from considerations
about following textbook materials which reserve little or no
room for literary texts, and lack of time and motivation to
include poetry and literature in general (McIlroy, 2013). As
a result, potential of using poetry to foster language develop-
ment has not been realized so far.
Approaches and Models in Teaching Poetry in the
Language Class
While analyzing and teaching poetry, or any piece of liter-
ature, teachers may base their practices in different theo-
retical lenses such as new criticism, structuralism, stylistic
approach and reader-response approach. The first two ap-
proaches almost have no place for the reader, or historical/
social context of literary texts. New criticism purports im-
portance to a literary text with an objective stance, and struc-
turalism highlights mechanical-almost scientific-analysis in
literary reading (Carter and Long, 1991). However, reader’s
(that is the learner’s) personal involvement, enhancement of
cultural awareness and development of language skills are
basic considerations for many teachers while using literary
texts in the language classroom. Hence, these approaches
are not referred to while creating the proposed framework
here as they may fall short behind in invoking an interest
of learners in a foreign language classroom. The latter two
theoretical approaches, on the other hand, offer practical ap-
plications in foreign language teaching since they value the
reader and his/her experiences with the language of the text
for meaning making. One of them is the stylistic approach
directed at analyzing formal features of a poem at various
linguistic levels including vocabulary, grammar, discourse
and phonology (Short, 1996). This approach fits within
the purposes of language instruction in many L2 contexts
to teach formal aspects of the English language and create
language awareness (Akyel, 1995; Rosenkjar, 2006; Watson
and Zyngier, 2007). That is, learners may focus their atten-
tion on formation of linguistic structures in poems to create
29
an effect, and analysis of word choice to express different
feelings and ideas. In this way, it is possible for learners to
gain an awareness on how language is formed and discourse
is created in the contexts of poems.
Another approach is the reader response approach
rooted in transactional theory. Accordingly, reciprocal re-
lationship between the reader and the poem is important in
interpreting meaning rather than seeking for a fixed, sin-
gle interpretation (Hirvela, 1996). This approach proposes
that it is the individual learner who extracts meaning from
a poem through a personal transaction with the text via dy-
namic process of experience and exploration. According
to Rosenblatt (1994), these transactions can range from an
efferent stance of reading for information to an aesthetic
stance of reading for pleasure or experience. In a foreign
language class, adopting such an approach may help learn-
ers interpret texts by building up personal relations with
the texts, and by sharing related ideas and feelings. Trans-
actions with the text may include reading poems to gather
information through comprehension based activities, and
building relations between the poem and the students’ lives
through various speaking, writing or drama activities. Such
a stance may help learners get the pleasure of reading and
share their personal experiences.
Apart from the aforementioned approaches for poetry
teaching, there are three models practitioners can resort to
while using poetry in a language class; namely, language,
cultural and personal growth models (Carter and Long,
1991). Language model is directed at deconstructing liter-
ary texts into their linguistic forms without a literary goal
by putting emphasis on designing and using language-based
activities. Cultural model pays attention to transmission of
cultural aspects of a language community evident in literary
texts whereas personal growth model highlights interaction
between the reader and the literary text. In this way, personal
growth model regards the text as a way to generate feelings
and ideas on the basis of readers’ own experiences.
With respect to approaches and models that have been
presented so far, it is clear that they propose different per-
spectives by either prioritizing personal appreciation or
linguistic gains. Widdowson (1992) emphasizes mutual
benefits of literary interpretation based on personal under-
standing and linguistic analysis. Bridging the gap between
poetry as a literary genre and language teaching methodol-
ogy in this paper compromises to melt these two perspec-
tives in the same pot rather than seeing them as opposed to
each other. A balance is required to match both linguistic
and responsive needs of the learners. Moreover, there has
been an increasing agreement on the insufficiency of de-
pendence on one single approach or model, and thus; there
is a tendency on the integration of different approaches and
models based on the needs of the language learners for the
effective implementation of literature into language prac-
tice (Divsar and Tahriri, 2009; Savvidou, 2004; Van, 2009;
Timucin, 2001). As a result, while composing the proposed
framework here, aforementioned approaches and models
are considered as tools to be used in different parts of the
lesson to foster motivation, personal appreciation and lin-
guistic awareness.
30
PoetryTeaching (POT) Framework
POT framework was designed to enhance the idea of imple-
menting poetry in language teaching. This framework targeted
at combining both stylistic and reader response approaches by
building relationship between readers and poems as well as by
making use of various linguistic choices poems provide for
teaching purposes. What is more, POT framework integrates
ideas from all three models proposed by Carter and Long
(1991) seeing them as complementary to each other while
using poetry in language teaching. POT is also nourished by
the idea of meaningful literacy practice proposed by Hanauer
(2012) which prioritizes reflection on life experiences through
literary texts. Specific attention has also been given to foster
all four strands of language (reading, listening, speaking and
writing) as much as possible to highlight the role of poetry to
achieve linguistic outcomes. In each step of the framework,
specific features of poetry (i.e. economic use of language, de-
viant forms used, figures of speech, inherent meanings in lines
etc.) were given attention to make this framework peculiar to
using poetry in the language classroom. Table 1 below shows
the steps of the framework along with a range of possible ac-
tivities that can be used with any poem.
As it is visible in Table 1, the first four steps can be used
to present various activities and ideas related to using poetry.
Here, practitioners are in the role of language learners. These
four steps are also useful for teachers who would like to use
poems in their classes. Although participants in this study had
advanced level of L2 proficiency and used rather complex
poems, this framework is also suitable for using simple po-
ems with lower level learners in a language class. The last two
steps are intended to help prospective teachers use ideas in the
first four steps to incorporate poetry into language teaching.
This time, they are in the role of teachers. Steps 5 and 6 then
are exclusively beneficial for teacher training purposes. POT
is designed for prospective teachers to train them on how to
use poetry in a language class by following the six-step proce-
dure. They can follow a similar procedure in their future prac-
tices while working with language learners. All in all, with the
help of this stepwise framework, PSTs are transformed from
learners into teachers by taking active roles in each step.
Aim and Significance of the Study
Success of language learning and literary understanding
largely depends on teacher’s scaffolding. Teachers can ap-
preciate the use of literary texts for language teaching when
training opportunities are provided (Dymoke & Hughes,
2009; Paran, 2008). Hughes and Dymoke (2011) report feel-
ings of anxiety on the part of the teachers while using po-
etry in their classes, and urge training pre-service teachers
on how to teach poetry for transformation of hesitation into
motivation. This article proposes a framework with the aim
of incorporating poetry in language teacher education, and it
explores how prospective teachers perceive the use of such
framework for language teaching purposes.
Guiding PSTs see poems as valuable resources to be used
while teaching language, and helping them reflect on such ex-
perience lay at the heart of the framework. Steps of the pro-
posed framework may include practices familiar to foreign
ALLS 9(5):28-42
language teachers in different contexts. What is original about
this framework is that it is specifically designed for incorpo-
rating poetry, rather than literature in general. Moreover, it
offers a comprehensive and systematic guide both for teacher
trainers and teachers alike to follow with various alternative
practices while using poetry in a language class. The main aim
here is to foster motivation for using poetry in the language
classroom. In this study, the proposed framework helps PSTs
integrate the ideas of using poetry in a micro-teaching context.
The following research questions are asked to explore the ef ef-
fectiveness of the framework as a tool for teacher education:
• What are the opinions... of PSTs about POT frame-
work designed for integrating poetry into language
teaching?
• How do PSTs reflect on using poetry for teach-
ing purposes based on their actual micro-teaching
performances?
METHOD
Participants and the Context
21 PSTs in the ELT department of a Turkish university partici-
pated in the study. Participants were selected based on the ideas
of convenient sampling (Creswell, 2005) as they were available
and voluntary. PSTs in this study were enrolled in an elective
poetry class. All of them were third year students who were sup-
posed to become English language teachers upon their gradua-
tion the following year. Participants were expected to perform
advanced level of mastery in English language since their ac-
ademic studies centered on using all four skills successfully in
various courses. In the previous literature classes they had taken,
PSTs analyzed poems mainly by focusing on literary devices and
main themes. All PSTs were taking methodology classes related
to ELT concurrently, in which they learnt how to take students’
attention, tailor activities according to students’ needs, prepare
lesson plans and teach language skills. Hence, PSTs were famil-
iar with lesson planning and material design. However, literature
and language teaching methodology were mainly regarded in
isolation from each other. That is, PSTs received no training in
using literature for language teaching purposes.
At the beginning of the term, PSTs were informed about
the outcomes of the poetry class they were enrolled in. Ac-
cordingly, this class aimed at helping them get into the atmo-
sphere of the poems and the era, discuss the feelings evoked,
work on different linguistic choices in poems, and design
various activities and materials to create an awareness on
how poetry could be used in EFL/ESL classes. PSTs signed
consent forms before the class since all their efforts depend-
ed on their voluntary participation.
Implementation of the POT Framework
PSTs were trained in the use of POT framework by follow-
ing the procedures given below:
• Presentation of POT: The instructor of the course
(that is the researcher) introduced the POT framework
and presented all steps with examples. The rationale
behind each step and how they served for various out-
comes regarding linguistic, cultural understanding and
Implementing Poetry in the Language Class: A Poetry-Teaching Framework for
Prospective English Language Teachers
Table 1. Steps and possible activities for the POT framework
Steps
1 Tune-in: The aim of this step is to activate schema to lead learners
into the poem and give them necessary background information.
To do this, various visual and auditory materials can be used to
create a relaxing atmosphere. A familiar key concept or topic
relevant to the poem can activate learners’ prior experiences.
From a stylistic perspective, vocabulary and grammar points can
also be highlighted by giving striking stanzas from the poem.
2 Basic Comprehension: In this step, students’ understanding overall
meaning of the poem is important. Poems evoke feelings within
the limits of stanzas; hence guiding learners identify the main idea
is crucial. Various comprehension activities to get the gist of the
poem can be designed. To ease basic comprehension, glossaries
with key vocabulary can be given along with the poems.
3 Detailed Analysis: In this step, further questions for detailed
understanding can be asked along with various activities for
literary appreciation/interpretation and linguistic analysis.
Moreover, details in the poem that may help to understand the
social and cultural factors/values can be analyzed.
4 Cultivation: This is a kind of personalization step aimed at
cultivating information from the poem into learners’ own lives.
At this point, they are familiar with the poem. Hence, they can
be involved in various speaking, listening, writing or even drama
activities (in pairs/groups) to foster interaction and linguistic
practice. Linking poetry with popular culture may help to
cultivate further interest in the poem.
5 Bridge: This step targets at building a bridge between the poem
and language teaching methodology. This step serves as an
opportunity for training practitioners (PSTs) on how to use
poems in micro teaching contexts. In the previous steps, they are
in the role of the students participating in the activities. Thus,
they form ideas about what types of activities are boring or
motivating while using poems. This step is where they can value
the importance of teacher’s scaffolding to promote motivation.
31
Possible activities
- Elicit main concept/theme through brainstorming or by
designing a semantic map with key words
- Present necessary background information related to the
poet or the period via various sources
(flashcards, slides, animations, online channels)
-TTalk about an anecdote or use background music that can
be associated with the mood of the poem
-TTeach difficult key words and concepts important for
understanding the poem
- Design jigsaw activity by giving each student a stanza
within small groups
- Start with the linguistic analysis of a striking line/stanza
- Present or revise a grammar point evident in the poem by
paying attention to how it is used in the poem
-TTalk about how linguistic forms are presented within
lines by extracting samples from the poem
- Ask comprehension questions in dif different formats (e.g
multiple choice, yes/no, wh-) or fill in the table/chart for
the gist
- Read aloud when appropriate to ease basic
comprehension
-TTalk about what the poet tries to tell and how s/he tells it
in a limited space via lines
- Focus on linguistic choices such as tense or adjective
use, and how they are formulated in the poem (i.e. how
inversion is used and what effect it creates)
- Find what referring expressions mean
- Identify figures of speech and rhyme
-TTalk about poet’s choice of words and replace them with
different words to identify the effect created by word
selection
- Analyze cultural/social factors underlying meaning
- Put together jumbled lines
- Work on synonyms/antonyms of selected words
- Translate poems into other mediums such as prose or drama.
- Change the speaker, addressee, mood, tone or some
linguistic aspects
- Write/add another stanza
- Dramatize the poem with background music and
costumes, or design a role play activity
- Read the poem with dif different types of music in the
background and discuss their appropriateness
- Read aloud the poem with dif different modes of
feelings (i.e. angry, content, frustrated, depressed etc.)
and discuss the feelings evoked in each mode of reading
- Make a short movie, a T.V show or a radio broadcast
based on the poem. Create characters and work on
dubbing
- Write scenarios in small groups or pairs
- Create a piece of art about the poem
- Discuss how ideas in the poem are reflected/changed in
popular culture through remixing popular songs with poems
- Create a sort of microteaching context and ask
practitioners prepare a short lesson plan to use the
poem in the class.
- Guide practitioners formulate learning outcomes (for
personal growth, cultural understanding or linguistic gains)
- Motivate practitioners to use various activities given in
the previous steps
(Contd...)
32
Table 1. Continued
Steps
6 Reflection: In this step, it is important to find out how practitioners
benefit from incorporating poetry into language teaching, and
whether efforts to bridge the gap between literature and language
teaching are useful in practice. Guiding practitioners reflect on
their experiences through various tools may help to create an
awareness on using poems in language practice.
personal growth gains were clarified.
• PSTs as learners: PSTs studied various poems for
three weeks (three hours a week) by using the first four
steps (Tune-in, Basic Comprehension, Detailed Analy-
sis and Cultivation) in the framework. PSTs were in-
formed that they would focus on various poems in the
following weeks within these four-step procedure and
their attention was drawn into how the instructor moved
from one step into another. Famous poems from differ-
ent eras were selected without any simplification since
the participants in this study had a high level of pro-
ficiency. Where necessary, glossaries with unfamiliar
words or concepts were provided. At this phase, they
were language learners. Instructor designed activities
and materials appropriate for the first four steps while
working on the selected poems. The aim here was to
familiarize PSTs with the idea of using poetry for cul-
tivating personal growth, fostering cultural understand-
ing and creating linguistic awareness. In this way, PSTs
were able to see how poems could be used in a language
class. At the end of each class, the instructor led discus-
sions on how they felt about using poems this way.
• PSTs as teachers: It was time for PSTs to be in the
role of teachers, and the Step 5 (Bridge) of POT served
for this aim. PSTs designed lessons for using poems
within a micro-teaching context. They were asked to
present their lesson plans to their classmates by regard-
ing them as language learners. Participants were formed
into groups of three and each group was responsible for
selecting a poem for their classmates and plan a lesson
with various activities and materials. PSTs were guided
to use the first four steps in their planning. All partici-
pants were familiar with the steps and further support
was provided for any difficulty they experienced while
planning. They were free to choose poems that would be
interesting for their classmates. Micro-teaching experi-
ences lasted for seven weeks. While planning the lesson,
they were instructed to pay attention to the following:
- Write outcomes for your lesson with respect to
linguistic gains, cultural understanding and personal ex-
periences
- Use the four-step procedure for using the poem
you selected. Design activities and materials appropri-
ate for using your poem in the language class by paying
attention to rationale of each step.
- While choosing activities and materials, make
sure they involve all learners (your classmates) in your
lesson and motivate them as much as possible.
• Reflecting on experience: Step 6 (Reflection) aimed
ALLS 9(5):28-42
Possible activities
- Use written reflections such as reflective diaries/journals
and checklists
- Implement collaborative and/or dialogic reflection tools
such as ad-hoc
hoc self
self-observation frameworks and stimulated
recalls based on video recordings of teaching performances
at guiding PSTs reflect on their experience with POT
framework. They wrote reflective diaries for seven times
after each presentation of poems by their classmates.
Moreover, each group recorded their own teaching expe-
riences for further reflection in stimulated recalls.
Instruments
In order to explore PSTs’ opinions about POT framework,
they wrote reflective diaries upon each implementation of
poetry for teaching purposes. Participants wrote a total of
seven reflective diaries. These diaries were used to gather
data regarding their thoughts and feelings for using poems in
the language class. Reflective diary/journal is a valuable tool
in teacher education to elicit teachers’ perceptions and feel-
ings about an application or their own experiences (Gallego,
2014). Hence, it appeared as an appropriate instrument for
the purposes of the study.
Walsh and Mann (2015) call for a data-led approach to
reflection featuring spoken reflective processes in order to
provide vivid and detailed reflections. Thus, not only diaries
but also stimulated recall reflections were collected to see
how PSTs perceived using POT and using poetry in general
in a language class. Those stimulated recalls have potential
to raise awareness about specific features of teaching prac-
tices based on actual evidences (Lyle, 2003). To guide those
reflections, some guided questions were asked to lead STs
while writing diaries and reflecting on actual performanc-
es (see Appendix A). Another reflection tool was the fo-
cus-group interviews conducted at the end of the study (see
Appendix B) to shed further light on incorporating poetry
into the language class. In this way, data were triangulated to
see the effectiveness of the proposed framework.
Data Collection and Analysis
The study lasted for a total of 10 weeks. In the first three weeks,
POT framework was presented to the participants by regard-
ing them as language learners. The following seven weeks
were reserved for micro-teaching experiences of PSTs acting
as language teachers by using the framework. Reflective dia-
ries after each micro-teaching experience were collected from
all participants. Each group video recorded their teaching ex-
periences and reflected on these recordings by watching them
afterwards. At the end of the study, focus-group interviews
were conducted with each group of participants. Interviews
were transcribed verbatim for qualitative analysis.
As for the data analysis, a total of seven reflective dia-
ries for each PST and focus-group interviews were analyzed
Implementing Poetry in the Language Class: A Poetry-Teaching Framework for
Prospective English Language Teachers 33

qualitatively based on the ideas of grounded theory (Miles
and Huberman, 1994). In order to explore PSTs’ percep-
tions, Constant Comparison Method (CCM) appeared as an
appropriate method here as it targeted at revealing emerging
themes out of the data rather than preconceived categories
(Boeije, 2002; Leong, Joseph and Boulay, 2010). Accord-
ingly, communication units in which participants expressed
their opinions on the use of POT and their experiences re-
garding the use of poetry for language study were identified.
In this study, a communication unit referred to a single idea,
opinion or feeling participants expressed about the imple-
mentation of the POT framework. Identified communication
units were constantly compared and contrasted by follow-
ing the ideas of CCM until similar communication units
were grouped to reach sub-categories. A similar constant
comparison methodology was used to form main catego-
ries out of similar sub-categories. As a result, all categories
and sub-categories identified were generated from the data.
Two separate raters analyzed the data by coding, sorting and
identifying categories to reach at a consensus. Although re-
searcher was one of the raters in the analysis process, specif
specif-
ic attention was given to analyze the anonymous data from
an objective lens within the methodology of CCM. Both rat-
ers were experienced in the analysis method. Inter-rater reli-
ability was calculated by following the formula (the number
of agreements/the number of agreements (x) the number of
disagreements multiplied by 100) suggested by Tawney and
Gast (1984). Inter-reliability was.92, which indicated a high
rate of reliability.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Reflections on the POT Framework
The first research question explored the opinions of PSTs
about the POT framework. As a result of qualitative analysis
via CCM, a total of 436 communication units were identi-
fied from reflective diaries, stimulated recall reflections and
focused-group interviews. These communication units were
formed under eleven sub-categories and three main catego-
ries. Table 2 below shows main and sub-categories related
to PSTs’ opinions on using POT. Sample statements were
extracted from PSTs’ reflections on the implementation of
the POT framework.
According to Table 2, PSTs mostly favored the frame-
work as it created awareness on the role of poetry in a lan-
guage class and on language practice. That is, POT promoted
motivation for reading and appreciating poetry. One of the
participants (PST14) stated in a sample statement that even
with long poems including many unknown words, they were
able to realize the potential of poetry to evoke feelings and
add emotion to language. POT was also found to foster cre-
ativity since lots of different and creative ideas were used
in the class in various steps of the framework. For example,
for some poems they created a piece of art (i.e. creating their
own piece of art in a group work based on the descriptions in
the poem) or changed the medium of the poem (i.e., writing
a short story by changing the lines into prose and discussing
the effect of such change). Moreover, as expressed by one
of the participants (PST9) in a sample statement, with the

Table 2. Main and sub-categories related to PST’s opinions on the POT Framework
N* Sample Statements
Awareness on the role of poetry “Today I really feel motivated. This poem is very long and full of new words.
POT promotes... I thought it would be a boring class. Instead, it was very enjoyable with the help of
music, videos and colorful pens. With the activities we used, I see now how poetry
motivation 102
adds emotion to language.” (PST14-reflective diary)
creativity 72
self expression
self- 53 “What we did in today’s class changed my ideas. I did not think I could express
myself while discussing a poem in this way. Now, it is not difficult. I have lots of
real-life connections 28
things to say once I am into the poem.” (PST9 reflective diary)
understanding of human nature 11
Total 266
Awareness on language practice “We talked a lot, wrote short stories, listened to music, drew pictures, lots of
POT promotes... different activities. We did all those in English. I learned many new words and
expressions.” (PST2 interview)
multi-skill development 73
interaction in the class 34 “All the activities used in this poetry class involved us in the lesson. We discussed
context for teaching 24 together and played with the language. We can use poetry to teach any language
skill in a meaningful way.” (PST7 interview)
Total 131
Challenges
POT is challenging in terms of... “Using poems in the class take time. There are almost no prepared materials, the
teacher has to prepare everything. I think it is difficult to include poetry in the class
time and effort 18
within the tight schedules of teachers.” (PST18 interview)
material selection/design 12
linguistic outcomes 9
Total 39
Main total 436
N*: Number of communication units
34
help of the activities and step-by step procedure, participants
found a ground to express themselves and discuss their ideas
and feelings with their peers. They were also able to make
connections between the poems and themselves by consid-
ering the ideas and feelings they experienced in their daily
lives. While following the steps of POT, participants real-
ized that a poem that was written a long time ago by some-
body else in a different part of the world could reflect similar
feelings based on similar human experiences. Hence, from
a reader response perspective, the participants were able to
make connections between themselves and the poems by
sharing their real-life experiences and responding to the po-
ems in a creative way.
The POT framework also created awareness on devel-
oping language skills. While implementing the steps of the
framework, PSTs were involved in various activities which
required them to read, listen to, write and speak in the target
language. As expressed by one of the participants (PST2), it
promoted multi-skill development and resulted in learning
new words and expressions. Within the stylistic perspec-
tive, participants analyzed the poems at linguistic levels
and gained awareness on the potential of using poetry for
language practice. What is more, the participants interacted
with each other through discussions and sharing of personal
interpretations. They were involved in group activities; and
thus, had a ground for communicating with each other. PSTs
also realized the effectiveness of POT to create a context
for teaching. Using poems within a step-by-step procedure
provided a natural context to present language in a mean-
ingful way. PSTs were in the role of learners during the first
four steps, and then were in the role of teachers in the last
two steps. They had a chance to see the effectiveness of the
framework for teaching purposes. It was visible from their
reflections that they appreciated the potential of using this
framework for language teaching purposes.
Although qualitative analyses revealed favorable results
for the POT framework, PSTs also expressed some challeng-
es they faced. As it can be seen in the table above, PST18
complained about lack of finding prepared materials for
using poems in the classroom. That is, practitioners had to
spend time and effort to prepare their own materials for each
poem, which brought forward further challenges in the tight
schedule of teachers. Since poems provoked motivation in
the classroom and were useful for promoting creativity in
general, PSTs expressed some concerns for finding specific
linguistic outcomes for each poem they were using. Poems
were not written for pedagogic purposes to teach linguistic
features; hence, practitioners had to spend more effort in
identifying appropriate outcomes for linguistic study. How-
ever, the difficulties PSTs mentioned were a few compared
to positive views related to the POT framework. As a result,
PSTs’ opinions on the POT framework revealed a positive
tendency for implementing poetry in the language class-
room. Their stimulated recall reflections on micro-teaching
experiences, in which they acted as teachers, also support-
ed this finding. The following sub-section presents a sam-
ple stimulated recall reflection on using poetry for language
teaching.
ALLS 9(5):28-42
Reflections on micro-teaching experiences- a sample
PSTs tried ideas presented through POT in the first four steps
while they were in the role of learners. In the final two steps
of POT, they were in the role of teachers to incorporate po-
etry into a language class. In this regard, PSTs were able to
have a broad understanding about how learners were drawn
into poems, and how poems served to meet both linguistic
and responsive needs of the learners. In addition to reflec-
tions on POT, prospective teachers in the study also reflected
on their actual teaching performances of using poetry in a
language class based on video recordings. In Step 5, Bridge,
PSTs collaboratively worked to design an activity based on
the poem analyzed. They chose one group member as the
teacher for the actual performance and video recorded these
performances. In Step 6, they reflected on this performance
as a group by watching these recordings. These simulated
recall reflections were taken for further analysis. Table 3 be-
low includes a sample of these dialogical reflections about
an activity PSTs prepared and used in the class.
In the sample extract and reflection in Table 3, it was
apparent that the activity created an unexpected effect. The
learners were cultivated into the poem they analyzed in the
previous steps and responded personally. They reflected
their own stories on the ‘urns’ they created, and their peers
interpreted these stories from their own perspectives. Such
an activity helped all learners make a connection between
the poem and their own lives, and transformed the urn from
an object in the poem into a means to foster personal reflec-
tion. In this way, participants learned personal details about
each other; and thus, the poem became a tool to cater mu-
tual understanding. While reflecting on their teaching per-
formance, PSTs 4-5 and 6 realized how their activity in the
classroom helped to elicit some personal responses to build
up a sharing atmosphere. Dialogical reflection revealed that
PSTs gained an awareness on the potential of using poetry
to promote personal understanding. PSTs who were in the
role of teachers in this activity did not expect to see such an
effect, and they were fond of creating such an atmosphere in
the classroom. A poem they used in the class helped them to
reveal individual stories which otherwise would not be elic-
ited. Since poems reflect deeper human experiences embed-
ded with emotions and opinions, realizing the effectiveness
of using them as tools for individual contribution unlocked
personal experiences. As a result, reflections on the activity
above underlined that poems could be used to create person-
al and collaborative meaning in the language classroom. The
findings of the study in general yielded that when prospec-
tive teachers were provided with pedagogical tools such as
the framework presented here, they would be able to gain
awareness on the role of poetry in the language class.
Discussion
PSTs in this study generally perceived the POT framework
favorably benefiting much from it to gain awareness on the
role of poetry for language practice. With the help of POT,
they were motivated to use poetry in the language class. It
was evident from the results that the proposed framework
Implementing Poetry in the Language Class: A Poetry-Teaching Framework for
Prospective English Language Teachers
Table 3. Sample dialogical reflection on an activity
Extract
T: OK. Time is up. Now I will collect your own descriptions of
your own urn and distribute it randomly(.) You will receive the urn
of any of your friends. I will give you two minutes to look what
is on that urn and comment on it (.), what it looks like and what
memory it talks about (.) Then the owner of that urn will tell the
real story behind it.
-After two minutes-
T: who wants to comment? Any volunteer? -pointing to a
learner-yes…you can start…oh please show the urn you have
-learner shows the urn to whole class-
L: Hmm…this (2 sec) I think it is about dancing…two people are
dancing (.) one man and a woman. It can be tango or salsa…look
at the skirt of the woman. I can see the audience. And on the corner
is a kind of.trophy. I think they won a kind of…competition.
T: Whose urn is it?
-one of the students raise his hand- O.K is it true? I mean what
your friend said
L2: Yeah…It was the time I and my dancing partner won a
competition.
-learners show a reaction of surprise-
L3: Vaoww… are you dancing?
L2: yes… for years
L4: I didn’t know that
T: Teacher
L: Learner
Activity: Depicting an unforgettable memory. The reflection was on a groups’ activity they prepared for step 4-Cultivation. The
activity was about the poem ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ by J. Keats. PST distributed a picture of an urn with a blank space, and instructed
the learners to fill in this space with the description of a memory they couldn’t forget. They could write or draw anything that reflect
an unforgettable memory on the urn. On the left part is the extract from the part of the lesson where the teacher is checking learners’
responses, and on the right part is the PSTs’ dialogical reflections.
guided them to understand human nature and comment on it
in a creative fashion. In this respect, active participation in
exploring both linguistic and cultural processes resulted in
self-discovery through access to others’ experiences (Carter,
2007). Some other positive perceptions centered on realizing
the potential of using poetry in the language class to foster
multi-skill development, and to create more communication
opportunities with peers. Incorporating poetry was perceived
as beneficial for fostering language skills, interaction, and
creating context for teaching in the language class. This find-
ing is aligned with previous research on the benefits of using
poetry for language development (Hanauer, 2001; Kırkgöz,
2008; Lazar, 1996; Tomlinson, 1986). Furthermore, when
they were in the role of learners, PSTs worked in a col-
laborative fashion through discussion and sharing of ideas
despite the fact that poetry has often been considered as an
individual activity. Kim (2004) highlights such opportunity
poetry brings in the language classroom stating that it in-
creases interaction with reference to responsiveness, emo-
tional engagement and authenticity. Creating an interactive
atmosphere is crucial to engage learners in literary experi-
ences in a foreign language classroom (Al-Mahrooqi, 2012).
The findings of the study revealed that when poetry is ef ef-
fectively incorporated into the language classroom in an
35
Reflection
PSTs 4-5 and 6 are reflecting on the activity by watching the
recording of the particular extract on the left.
PST4: -she was the teacher- I didn’t expect this activity to turn
into such thing…I mean they were all involved and shared their
ideas… willingly.
PST5: (everybody) learned many things about each other…look.
how they are (2 sec)
PST6: (surprised?)
PST5: Yes. Surprised!
PST6: I can’t believe he is dancing
-laughter-
PST3: I didn’t know that…I can’t imagine him dancing like a
pro
-laughter-
PST5: we all have different lives and we don’t know so much
about it
PST3: (we have no idea)
PST6: maybe we can watch him dancing one day
PST5: yeah why not? –laughter-
PST3: I didn’t assume this activity would have an effect like this
PST 3: yes.me too
PST6: (another surprise)
Key for transcription
(sec): time elapses
(.): instant pauses
… : on-going talk
-text-: explanations
(text): overlapping talk
interactive fashion, it may promote expressive abilities of
the learners (Iida, 2016), and serve as a common ground to
construct social connections within the class environment
(Chanmann-Taylor et al., 2016). In this sense, POT utilizes
interaction among PSTs featuring their reserves for interpre-
tation, discussion and mutual understanding. As evident in
reflections, PSTs had a chance to practice language and had
fun especially while creating something of their own. Hence,
it was implied that poetry could become a vehicle for genu-
ine creation in the language classroom as well.
As visible in PSTs’ reflections, their perceptions were
generally positive albeit a few concerns about including po-
etry into tight curriculum. Teachers may be unwilling to use
literature due to some negative beliefs and preconceptions
and these may affect the way they approach literary texts for
language practice (Hughes and Dymoke, 2011). As echoed
previously by McIlroy (2013), PSTs in this study perceived
poetry integration challenging in terms of time and effort re-
quired and difficulties in material selection and design. Since
poetry is not considered as a tool for language teaching in
general, teachers may need to resort to their own resourc-
es for selecting poems for language practice and preparing
materials and activities. Although PSTs tackled with certain
challenges while implementing poetry in the language study,
36
they experienced poetry in a different and enjoyable sense
both in the role of learners and teachers. Hence, some of
them were able to change their negative beliefs about using
literature in the language classroom. One reason of this out-
come would be related to the potential of POT to influence
classroom atmosphere positively by giving PSTs various op-
portunities to create, involve, enjoy and reflect. As a result,
incorporating poetry into language learning is likely to sup-
port whole person learning from a holistic perspective by tak-
ing affective factors into account (Paran, 2008). It was visible
in the reflections that PSTs were able to experience poetry
in a different sense compared to their previous experiences
with literature. With the help of POT, they enjoyed reading
and dealing with poetry, and built up connections with po-
ems and real life. They gained an understanding about their
own feelings with respect to the ones presented in poems.
This finding underlines poetry’s potential to build up connec-
tions with learners’ own lives (Baron, 2013) and to create a
positive attitude towards using literature in language study.
Once the prospective teachers enjoyed reading poetry, they
appreciated implementing poetry into language study when
they were in the role of teachers. If we want to cultivate ap-
preciation of poetry and literature in general in the language
class, the first step would be to create opportunities for first
hand experiences. Then, they may have a chance to enhance
the idea of incorporating poetry into language teaching.
Qualitative analyses yielded that activities based on
the poems helped PSTs get to know each other better and
learn some personal information. In this way, building up
relationships based on reciprocal exchange of ideas might
likely to strengthen personal and social connections. Mittal
(2016) emphasizes such promoting effect of poetry to build
communication and enhance emotions in a peer group. The
reflective attitude of PSTs towards the interactive outcomes
of using poetry helped to unveil the valuable effect of using
poems as a way to develop mutual understanding. Hence,
the dialogical reflections of the PSTs underlined the power
of using poetry in the language classroom for revealing emo-
tions, unlocking personal reactions and shaping language
learning into a more personal experience. As it was evident
in a sample reflection on micro-teaching experience, through
personal exploration and meaning-making process, poetry
can foster more personal involvement in the language class
(Hess, 2003), and strengthen social bonds among learners
(Chanmann-Taylor et al., 2016).
Training prospective teachers on how to respond to lit-
erary texts can help to create a common ground for sharing
experiences. In this vein, POT followed the implications of
the reader-response approach by prioritizing the experience
with the text as the cradle for interaction and active-meaning
making (Lynn, 2008). For PST education, providing an ac-
tive, analytic and reflective reading experience for prospec-
tive teachers is also important to be able to guide them in
their future practices (Garzon and Castaneda-Pena, 2015). In
alignment with the positive outcomes of the study for incor-
porating poetry into language practice, a meaningful literacy
practice experience based on reflection and personalization
(Hanauer, 2012) can be promoted in foreign language teach-
er education. Encouraging teacher candidates to respond per-
ALLS 9(5):28-42
sonally to literary texts may also benefit their own students
in their future classroom contexts (McIntosh, 2010). When
PSTs practice such experience as exemplified in the extract
above, it can undeniably guide their future attempts of us-
ing poetry in a language class. Prospective teachers who are
aware that poetry can serve as a valuable tool for expression
and personal interpretation may encourage a similar attitude
among learners when they become professionals.
As a result, by using POT to incorporate poetry into the
language class, PSTs realized the potential of sharing experi-
ences for better interaction, cooperation and understanding. It
echoes the idea that when poems are used to create interactive
and collaborative atmosphere, they promote communication
and individual expression as well (Finch, 2003). It can be as-
sumed from PSTs’ reflections that receiving training on using
poetry broadened their horizons and paved the way for more
motivation, language development, and learner involvement.
The following extract shows how experience related to POT
created awareness about using poetry in language teaching:
“I think I discovered myself both as a learner and as a
teacher. I understand that a piece of poem can create a
sense of togetherness in the class while at the same time
encourage individuals to express themselves confident-
ly. I believe my students in the future will enjoy read-
ead
ing poems when I use the techniques I learned here.”
(PST12-interview)
CONCLUSIONS
This study aimed to propose a poetry-teaching framework
(POT) for prospective English language teachers, and to
offer training on using poetry for language teaching. For
this purpose, PSTs were engaged in incorporation of poetry
into language practice, first as learners and then as teachers.
While they were in the role of learners in the first four steps
of the suggested framework, they had a chance to take part in
activities designed to integrate poetry for language practice.
In the last two steps, they were in the role of teachers and
used poems for teaching purposes in a micro-teaching con-
text. As a result, they experienced how poetry could be used
as a tool to foster language development at different phases
of an English lesson. PSTs reflected on these first-hand ex-
periences of incorporating poetry into language practice by
following a stepwise framework. Both written and stimu-
lated recall reflections revealed that PSTs benefited much
from this dual experience and had the opportunity to gain
awareness on how poetry could be integrated into language
teaching. Exploration of PSTs’ perceptions have highlight-
ed the importance of offering guided training in language
teacher education for the effective implementation of liter-
ature into language teaching agenda (Al-Mahrooqui, 2012;
Iskhak, 2015; Paran, 2008).
It is evident that poetry can become part of language teach-
ing methodology. With the help of POT, PSTs had a chance to
feel the transformation from students to teachers. When po-
etry becomes accessible to teacher candidates, they may feel
more motivated to use poems while teaching a foreign lan-
guage. Lack of training on using literature as part of language
teaching methodology creates a tendency to underestimate
Implementing Poetry in the Language Class: A Poetry-Teaching Framework for
Prospective English Language Teachers
the role of poetry in EFL/ESL teaching contexts (Çetinavcı
and Tütüniş, 2012). Creating a positive poetry experience
in PST education and providing opportunities may help to
change negative beliefs about the role of poetry in language
teaching (Hughes and Dymoke, 2011). In this study, PSTs
stated that experiencing poetry through POT helped them to
change their negative beliefs into positive, and to gain aware-
ness about integrating poetry in language teaching. It was
clear from the PSTs’ reflections that poetry could be used as
a resource for thought-provoking discussions and language
awareness. This study was limited as the participants only
used advanced level of long and complicated poems due to
their high proficiency level. However, PSTs’ reflections on
various poems pinpointed that even long stretches of, and rel-
atively difficult literary texts, could also be used in a language
class. In this regard, when they become professionals they can
use similar shorter and easier texts with their students in the
language class. When the steps of the proposed framework is
analyzed, it becomes clear that various ideas and outcomes
related to the steps of the framework can be adapted for using
any type and level of poems in the language classroom.
Bobkina and Dominguez (2014) highlight the importance
of research evidence to offer ways to integrate literature in
a language classroom. How to use literature for language
teaching purposes and how to train teachers on the effec-
tive implementation of literary texts are still questions unan-
swered. In this respect, this article provides insight into the
use of poetry as a tool to train prospective language teach-
ers. More research is undeniably required to investigate the
effectiveness of similar models or frameworks to foster the
incorporation of literature into language teaching curricula.
Research reported here was limited in terms of its depen-
dence on the reflections of PSTs in the study. Thus, investi-
gating whether PSTs would use the ideas presented through
POT in their future teaching practices might provide deeper
insight about the effectiveness of the framework.
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APPENDIX A. GUIDING REFLECTION QUESTIONS

Diaries
• What do you think about the role of poetry in language teaching?
• What do you think about preparing language teaching materials based on poems?
• What do you think about the framework (what we do in this class) for implementing poetry in EL
ELT?

Video recordings
When you watch your poetry teaching performance …
• how do you feel about using poems as part of teaching practice?
• what do you think about your own performance of teaching poetry?

APPENDIX B. FOCUS-GROUP INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

1. What do you think about the poetry-teaching framework implemented in this class throughout the term?
2. Is there any dif
difference between previous literature classes and this one? If yes, briefly talk about it.
3. Is there any change in your views about using poems as language teaching materials before and after this class?
39
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 Advances in Language and Literary Studies
ISSN: 2203-4714
www.alls.aiac.org.au

An Investigation on Second Language Learners’ Production of Conventional Expressions in L2

Pragmatics

Aihemaituoheti Wujiabudula*
Department of English Preparatory Program, Istanbul Arel University Istanbul, Turkey
Corresponding Author: Aihemaituoheti Wujiabudula, E-mail: alanhoca@gmail.com

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article history
Received: April 07, 2018
Accepted: July 15, 2018
Published: October 31, 2018
Volume: 9 Issue: 5
Advance access: August 2018
Conflicts of interest: None
Funding: None
Key words:
Foreign Language Learners,
Conventional Expressions,
Pragmatic in Second Language
This study is designed to elicit second language learners’ production of conventional expressions
in L2 pragmatics. A questionnaire was conducted to students who were required to write the oral
responses towards 19 scenarios instead of answering the scenarios orally. In prepared scenario
questionnaire, a production task was consisted of 19 scenarios, which demonstrate various speech
acts. Such as, expressions of gratitude, apologies, warning, leave-taking, requests, condolences,
declining offers, acceptance of offers, acceptance of request, acceptance of invitation, declining
an invitation, an agreement, deflecting thanks… etc. Twenty four second grade students from
Translation and interpretation department in an private university completed the questionnaires
voluntarily, with no class credit and compensation available for participating in this research. No
level differences were taken into consideration, and it is assumed that all participants are non-
native upper-intermediate and advanced English users. Content analysis was applied to measure
the frequency and rate in production of conventional expressions.

INTRODUCTION Achieving pragmatics in speech community enables in-

Formulaic language has been a hot research topic by many
researchers over the past decades. Under the umbrella of for-
mulaic language, conventional expressions has been taken
into researchers’ consideration and it has become a major
research areas in second language acquisition. Conventional
expressions in sociolinguistics plays an important role in L2
language comprehension and acquisition.
Conventional expressions includes strings of words (I am
joking, I am sorry, no problem. etc.) which predominantly
applied in spoken language, often used by native speakers
of English users within the same speech community. Many
researches has put a glance on conventional expressions and
reported that there is a lack of usage of these expressions by
learners in general (Roever, 2005, Scarcella, 1979, Bardo-
vi-Harving, 2009).
From sociolinguistic perspective, it is crucial to learn
routines at any learning stage since it incorporates the
knowledge that any society shares and it is essential to learn
that it helps improve verbal communication in daily lives. It
is very difficult to say that everyone, even advanced speakers
have trouble learning it seamlessly, even some learners feel
uncomfortable using some conventional expressions (Bardo-
vi-Harlig, 2012). It might be also difficult for some others
to link the meaning of these expressions to their target lan-
guage, which they cannot control the form.
dividuals to produce meaning in socially acceptable manner.
Not only it is beneficial for individuals to interpret the mean-
ing of these conventional expressions, but also it entails hav-
ing ability to implicit or explicit what has stated, according
to context (Taguchi, 2007).
Conventional expressions throughout the research is
called lexical phrases, and it has been paid attention by En-
glish instructors and many researchers via demonstrating an
extensive inventory of expressions (Nattinger and DeCar-
rico, 1992). To determine if learners know the meaning of
conventional expressions, Kecskes carried out a research on
it. The research results reveals that learners recognized liter-
al meaning of these expressions than idiomatic meaning of
these. It is also found that production of these expressions
were always grammatical and appropriate, but it is not native
like among Asian participants in this research (Bardovi-Har-
lig, 2009).
In 2005, Rover also conducted a research to test pragmat-
ic competence of learners, which includes decoding speech
acts, selection of turns for context provided a multiple choice
task, and production of a turn. Rover concluded that learners
who were exposed to English language environment score
performs betters than those with less exposure which sug-
gests that a great knowledge of situational expressions as
measured by this task. (Rover, 2005).

Published by Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.

Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.5p.43
44
Several researches has been conducted as to production
of conventional expressions. Bardovi-Harlig and Vellenga
performed a research on the effect of instruction on oral
conventional expression in L2 pragmatics. 36 university
students attended the survey by demonstrating pre-test-in-
struction and post-test design. Participants were divided into
2 groups of three classes; in each group, students were giv-
en instruction on a various conventional expressions. It was
found that learning conventional expression is responsive to
instructions and constrained by the transparency of expres-
sions and learners level of linguistic improvement (Bardo-
vi-Harlig, Vellenga, 2012).
A similar study was also performed about pragmatic anal-
ysis about thanking strategies among Kurdish speakers of
Ilam based on gender and age. From this research, it conclud-
ed that “Thanking”, ”Positive feeling ”, ”Appreciation ” were
seen as most frequent applied strategies among participants
under 30 years. The common strategies among participants
were found the common strategies about “Thanking”, “Pos-
itive feeling” and “Appreciation”. It was also found that this
pragmatics listed above were the most frequent in male par-
ticipants while this pragmatics were the general tendency of
female participants. It was also suggested that it is beneficial
for learners to acquire pragmatics to develop their pragmatic
competence (Yusefi, Gowhary, Azizifar, Esmaeili, 2015).
Edmonds also carried out a study investigating pragmat-
ics and processing on conventional expressions, which aims
to address questions regarding native and non-native speak-
er’s knowledge and processing of such expressional strings.
By the participants answers, it revealed that all groups eval-
uated the conventional expressions similarly and significant-
ly different from the matched conditions, which includes
grammatical, but not conventional expressions (Âmânda
Edmonds, 2014).
Usó-Juan et al. also studied on the conventional expres-
sions of complaining and apologizing to assess learners’
performance. Pragmatic expressions, such as conventional
expressions, is found difficult by many foreign language
learners since contextual factors and cultural background
involved in it. In this study, authors investigate the learners
choice of semantic formula applied to apologize and com-
plain in situations, which differs according to social distance,
socio-pragmatic factors and severity of offence. This study
aforementioned revealed that foreign language learners are
limited to make themselves clear when they apologize or
complain about situation (Usó-Juan, Martínez-Flor, 2015).
METHOD
The task was completed during 40 minutes in a language
laboratory by handing out the production task questionnaire
which includes total 19 scenarios. In the first part of produc-
tion task, 2 examples were given to clarify and make stu-
dents clear about how it is supposed to be responded. All
given scenarios elicit conventional expressions.
All participants took part in this study voluntarily, no
course credit or compensation available for completing
production task paper. All participants are from 2nd grade
undergraduate students in Translation and Interpretation
ALLS 9(5):43-48
Department, no level differences is taken into account and
all participants are supposed to be upper-intermediate and
advanced users of English language.
Production task consists of 19 scenarios which was de-
signed by Bardovi-Harlig (2009), which elicit conventional
expressions. These scenarios elicit a variety of speech acts:
expressions of gratitude, apologies, warning, leave-taking,
requests, condolences, declining offers, acceptances of of-of
fers, acceptance of request, acceptance of an invitation, an
invitation, declining an invitation, an agreement, deflecting
thanks and an introduction.
An example of production task scenarios is provided
here.
Example:
Scenario: You’re talking outside with your longtime
neighbor and he tells you about his dog’s accident.
Audio only (AO): “Last Sunday my dog got hit by a truck.”
You say:….(please write your oral response.)
All the productionn task questionnaires were collected af
af-
ter 40 minutes of starting of the task. Some students have
ambiguity to some scenarios, a considerable help was pro-
vided to understand the scenario without interfering the ex-
pected result or students responses.
RESULTS
The written production task produced 456 responses from
24 students from translation and interpretation department in
a private university. Each student’s written production task
consists of 19 scenarios, which include variety of conven-
tional expressions of speech acts such as expression of grat-
itude, apologies, thanking, acceptance of offers, declining
offers, receiving and declining invitation etc.
After transcription, all collected data were identified in
the production database; all the responses were coded for the
second time to clarify the frequency of appearance of con-
ventional expressions in situational dialogue. For example,
for scenario No.15, this scenario requires students to write
their answers about introduction of a new friend, 19 students
replies to the scenario as “nice to meet you (n=19)”, and 3
students answer the scenario as “glad to meet you (n=3)”.
Aforementioned examples are also the case for other 18
scenarios; some conventional expressions demonstrate vari-
ability in terms of what is recorded in the formula literature
(Nattinger & Decarrio, 1992).
In the first scenario, students were asked to reply about an
accident of dog hit by a car, 45.83% of students answers the
as “I am sorry” with frequency of 11. 10 students answers
the scenario as “ Oh, I hope” with 41.66% frequency, 4.1%
out of all participants replies to this scenario by replying as
“is he head” or “I am sad for you. ”The results from this item
is in accordance with original study of the finding done by
Amanda Jo DeBoer (Deboer, 2015). In the original study, the
replies from participants were “I am so sorry…” of the final
accepted expressions, in our study, “I am so sorry” holds the
highest frequency due to the fact that 11 participants replies
it with the accepted final expression.
The following scenario is designed to elicit participants’
reply towards accepting the offer, 16 students reply it with
An Investigation on Second Language Learners’ Production of Conventional Expressions in L2 Pragmatics 45

Table 1. Production task responses on conventional expressions

ID Scenario Expression produced by non‑native Frequency (%) Final accepted expression
speaker students
R1 Dog hit by a car I am so sorry (n=11) 45.85 I am so sorry.(n=11)
Oh, I hope…(n=10) 41.66
I am sad for you (1) 4.1
R2 Pick a book for someone Thank you (n=16) 66.67 Thank you (n=16)
I am really happy (n=3) 12.5
That is nice (n=2) 8.3
Can you do this for me (n=1) 4.1
I would like to make it (n=1) 4.1
R3 Thanking for coming You are welcome (n=8) 33.3 No predominant phrases
Thanks for… (n=5) 20.8
It was good (n=4) 16.6
I am glad, I will come (n=1) 4.1
Left blank (n=5) 20.80
R4 Help someone Yes, please (n=9) 37.5 Yes, please, I am looking
I am looking for (n=8) 33.33 for (n=17)
Thank you (n=3) 12.5
It would be good (n=3) 12.5
No, I can find it by myself (n=1) 4.1
R5 Hold a line for someone Yes, of course (n=19) 79.16 Yes, of course (n=19)
Sorry, I cannot (could not) (n=3) 12.5
No, I cannot (n=2) 8.33
R6 Have a nice day Thank you (n=14) 58.33 Thank you (n=14)
Have a nice day (n=4) 16.6
You too (n=5) 20.83
Left blank (n=1) 4.1
R7 Late 5 minutes for meeting I am sorry (n=23) 95.83 I am sorry…(n=23)
I apologize (n=1) 4.1
R8 Bring someone’s book I am sorry …(n=23) 95.83 I am sorry.(n=23)
Yes, I can bring it (n=1) 4.1
R9 Thanks for the ride You are welcome (n=12) 50 You are welcome.(n=12)
No problem (n=5) 20.83
Never mind (n=3) 12.5
Thank you (n=3) 12.5
Left blank (n=1) 4.1
R10 Come on Friday party No, I am sorry (n=15) 62.5 No, I am sorry (n=15)
Yes, (thank you, of course) (n=8) 33.33
I need to check my to-do-list (n=1) 4.1
R11 Studying in a library Yes, it is ok (n=22) 91.67 Yes, it is ok (n=22)
Left blank (n=2) 8.34
R12 Do not need help Yes, thank you (n=4) 16.67 No, thank you (n=20)
No, thank you (n=20) 83.33
R13 Talk to your teacher Do you have time.?(n=10) 41.67 I need to talk to you (n=11)
I want (need) to talk to…(n=11) 45.84
Thanks (n=3) 12.5
R14 Replying to the invitation Yes, I will join.(n=19) 79.17 Yes, I will join.(n=19)
Sure, I could come.(n=4) 16.67
Left blank (n=1) 4.1
R15 Introducing someone Nice to meet you (n=19) 79.16 Nice to meet you (n=19)
Glad to meet you (n=3) 12.5
Hello, I am pleased to meet you (n=1) 4.1
Hello, how are you? (n=1) 4.1
R16 Participating the funeral I am sorry (n=21) 87.5 I am sorry.(n=21)
God rest his soul (n=2) 8.34

(Contd...)
46
(Continued)
ID Scenario Expression produced by non‑native
speaker students
R17 Make-up test Thank you.(n=19)
Sorry, it will not happen again (n=4)
Can you make a make-up test fort his
time (n=1)
R18 Offering a ride Yes, thank you.(n=20)
No, thanks (n=4)
R19 Need more food No, I am full (n = 10)
Thank you (n = 2)
No, thanks (n = 12)
R=Responses, n= Numbers of frequency
“Thank you” with the frequency of 66.66%. “I am really
happy” yields 12.5% of frequency, “that is nice” is also seen
with 8.3% of frequency, “can you do this for me” and “I
would like to make it” shares the same percentage of 4.1%.
The accepted final answer in original study is “that would
be great”, but in this study “that would be nice” takes the
frequency of 8.3%.
Scenario No.3 is about deflecting thanks, from the stu-
dents reply, it can be seen that participants did not under-
stand the scenario, 20.8% of participants left the answers
blank, 33.3% of participants replies “you are welcome”,
4.1% of participants wrote, “I have no time”. However, in
the original study, accepted final expression is “thanks for
having me”. It can be concluded that participants misunder-
stood or did not understand the given scenario, or it could be
drawn to the conclusion that participants had no idea about
what has to be replied to the scenario.
The next scenario is about accepting the request, It is
found that 33. 33% of participants reply it with “I am look-
ing for…”, which agrees with the original study in which “I
am looking for” is seen with frequency of 12. In our study, 8
participants answers it in the same way.
In the 5th scenario, it is tested to reply someone’s request,
79.16% of students answered as “yes, of course”, 3 students
answered “no, I cannot or I could not”, 8.33% participants
directly declined the request with the frequency of 2. In
the original study, it was concluded that as “sure, no prob-
lem” which was replied by 17 respondents. In the following
scenario, expressing sorry is tested on students’ ability to
produce. In the original study, “you too” holds the highest
frequency in which 20 participants replied as “you too”, but
in our investigation, “thank you” takes the highest propor-
tion with the percentage of 58.33%. 1 student did not reply
the scenario, and 4 participants answered “have a nice day”
instead of “you too”.
In the scenario No.8, students are required to express
the excuse for being late. In this scenario, 23 students out of
24 replied as “I am sorry” while one participant replied, “I
apologize for” with the frequency of 4.1%. The results from
this research is similar with the previous study in which 14
participants replied, as “I am sorry”. In the next scenario,
according to the original study, “no problem” holds the high-
est percentage of frequency while in our examination, it is
found that “you are welcome” shares the highest frequency
ALLS 9(5):43-48
Frequency (%) Final accepted expression
79.16 Thank you (n=19)
16.66
4.1
83.34 Yes, thank you.(n=20)
16.67
41.67 No, thanks.(n = 12)
8.34
50
of percentage. “No problem” only holds 20.83% of total re-
sponses.
In the scenario No. 11, it is found that most of the respon-
dents replied as “yes, it is ok” with the 91.67% of frequen-
cy while in the original study “that works for me” takes the
most responses form participants. In this scenario, 2 partici-
pants left the answers blank. In the following scenario, it was
designed to elicit students replies on declining an offer or
assistance, 83.33% students replies “no, thank you” whereas
in the original study, “I am just looking” had the highest fre-
quency with 13 respondents. In the 14th scenario, accepting
an invitation is tested, 19 students replied, “yes, I will join”
while expecting answer is “I’d love to”.
The results from 15th scenario significantly matches the
original study due to the fact that 79.16% of participants re-
plied “nice to meet you” with the replies of 19 participants
in our study, in the original research “nice to meet you” is
answered by 18 participants. It can be reached a conclusion
that students from translation and interpretation department
quite familiar with the usage of this conventional expression.
The next scenario was asked to express sorry to the funeral,
“I am sorry” is produced by students with highest percent-
age of 87.5%. 8.34% of participants used “god rest his soul”
which indicates that they have a high level of using conven-
tional expressions in this situation.
Results from the last three scenario is also in accordance
with the original research’s findings. In scenario No. 17,
students were asked to write their oral responses on express-
ing gratitude towards teacher’s make-up test, 79.16% par-
ticipants replied “thank you” with frequency of 19, In the
original study also calculated 12 participants with the same
responses to the same scenario. The last scenario is on re-
fusing an offer on food, 50% participants replied as “No,
thanks” with the frequency of 12, 41.67% of participants an-
swered as “No, I am full”, with comparison to original study,
quite similar result is found in the investigation of second
language learners’ production of conventional expressions.
CONCLUSION
This investigation was set out to elicit second language
learners’ production of conventional expressions in L2 prag-
matics. There were 24 students from second grade from
translation and interpretation department in a private univer-
An Investigation on Second Language Learners’ Production of Conventional Expressions in L2 Pragmatics
sity. From our research, it can be concluded that students
are familiar with expressing themselves in various situation
whereas they are unaware or they have no idea to express
themselves in some scenarios. It can be viewed plainly that
students did not understand especially scenario No. 3. The
example is given below;
Scenario No:3, “There is a reception on campus. The
organizer invited you and a few other students as well. It
is getting late, and you decide to leave. You go over to the
organizer.”
(AO): “Thanks for coming.”
In this scenario, the expected answer is “Thanks for having
me”, but majority of students with the percentage of 33% re-
plied to this scenario as “you are welcome”, it can also noticed
that 4.1% students answered as “I have no time”, with the
aforementioned percentage of 4.1% participants replied as “I
am glad, I will come”. It can also be viewed that 20.8% of stu-
dents answered “thanks for inviting me” which approximately
related to the expected answer. Answers left blank accounted
for 20.8% of total research. The same situation also were seen
in the scenario No.6 with 1 blank, No.9 with 1 blank, No.11
with 2 blank and No. 14 with 1 blank respectively.
With the regard to the expected answers and given re-
plies, it can be clearly illustrated from our research that the
very similar results have been achieved in comparison with
the original study. For instance for scenario 1, in the original
study, the match between expected answers and given replies
was 17, in our research the number of participants replied
was 11. For scenario no.2, original study outcome with 14
participants for expected answers, but in our study the num-
ber of participant is only 2. For scenario no.4’ answers also
matches with the expected replies with 33.33% of frequency.
Scenario no.5 also had the similar results: in our study,
19 participants answered with the expected answers, and
original study appeared with 17 participants who replied
with the agreement of expected answers. In our research the
answers given to scenario no.7 matched with the findings
with the original study. In original study, 14 participants re-
plied closely to the expected answers, and in our research,
the number is 23 which is slightly higher than the percentage
of original study. For scenario no.15 had the highest match
among other replies in our investigation, it can be seen that
18 people replied “nice to meet you”, which is a expected
answer, and in our study 19 students answered with the ex-
pected answers.
It can be also observed from our investigation that some
participants replied to the scenarios with irrelevant answers
such as in scenario No.3. Some participants answered, as “I
have no time” while the scenario tested participants ability
on producing conventional expressions. The result from this
tells us 2 things: 1. Students do not understand the given sce-
nario. 2. Students have no idea about expressing themselves
in this situation even they understand the scenario complete-
ly. Form these; we can conclude that pragmatic knowledge
is very important in language education and teaching prag-
matics when teaching should be emphasized to reiterate their
speaking ability with the written or formulaic language.
From our research, it can be concluded that the most
recognized and widely used conventional expressions are
47
“thank you”, “yes, of course”, “I am sorry…”, “nice to meet
you”. In addition, it can also concluded that the least or not
widely used conventional expressions are “thanks for having
me”, “that would be great”, “that works for me” in our inves-
tigation among non-native speakers.
Another interesting finding in our investigation is that
most participants provided the reasons for each scenari-
os when replying to the scenario. For example, in scenario
No.7, the scenario asked participants to reply to the scenario
to express their sorry, lots of participants used “I am sorry…”
as conventional expressions, at the same time, they provided
the reason why they were late. It is not the case only for this
scenario, for other scenario, participants also offered the rea-
sons for expressing their conventional expressions.
Overall, it can be drawn to the conclusion that low
production of some conventional expression in some scenar-
ios can be attributed to a lack of access to the convention-
al expressions of learners. Investigation and the data from
research illustrates that sociolinguistic knowledge has the
relevant interaction with the knowledge of conventional ex-
pressions to determine which or what expressions to be used
in these contexts. It can be said that low production among
some learners reveals that interpretation of the context pro-
vided is the factor that learners’ production of conventional
expressions in some target language as appropriate for an
alternative speech act.
DISCUSSION
In this part, the findings of this research is concluded and
summary of our findings were discussed. From our research,
we can come to the conclusion that conventional expressions
in the view of development in second language pragmatics
is regarded as pragma linguistic resource, and it should be
emphasized in second language acquisition.
It can learned from House’s study that instruction in L2
had the influence on learners’ production of conventional
expressions used in an appropriate context or situation, but
interpretation is the case for native English speakers since
non-native speakers have the difficulty or they found it am-
biguous to interpret with accuracy (House, 1996).
Our findings also supported House’s findings because
interpretation the provided context is key to use the appro-
priate conventional expressions. In some scenarios of our in-
vestigation, it shows that some participants answered to the
scenarios with the quite irrelevant replies, it is estimated that
the participants had trouble interpreting the given context so
that the inappropriate answers were given.
The findings from our research is quite similar with the
previous studies. As an example for the finding in our study,
some students had difficulties or they had trouble inter-
preting the context given, so it is concluded that pragmatic
knowledge, not only conventional expressions, is beneficial
for learners to improve their understanding and communica-
tion in every day speech acts. The similar results match the
finding from Yusefi and Azizifar in which it suggested that
it is important for learners to acquire pragmatics to develop
their pragmatic competence (Yusefi, Gowhary, Azizifar, Es-
maeli, 2015).
48
From our literature review and introduction section, it
could be observed that learning conventional expressions
is responsive to instructions and it contained by the trans-
parency of expressions and learners’ level of linguistic im-
provements (Bardovi-Harling, Vellenga, 2012). The similar
findings concluded our research that linguistic improvement
is responsive to instructions and it is the transparency of lin-
guistic knowledge of learners.
It concluded in our research that it is hard for second lan-
guage learners to interpret the context provided, so that many
answers to the scenarios were irrelevant to the scenario. It can
be said that cultural background and contextual factors were
involved when replying to these scenarios. This conclusion
is also in agreement with the study performed by Uso-Juan
et al. In their study, they also demonstrated that many for-
eign language learner finds pragmatic expressions, such as
conventional expressions, difficult since contextual factors
and cultural background involved in it. The aforementioned
study suggested that foreign language learners are limited
to make themselves clear when they express themselves in
actual context (Uso-Juan, Martinez-Flor, 2015).
For all mentioned above, it can be concluded that devel-
oping students’ linguistic knowledge is beneficial for sec-
ond language learners. It can be claimed that importance of
conventional expressions benefit to learners who use them
(Coulmas, 1981, House, 1996). Another study carried out
by Nurdan Gürbüz in 2017 reveals that conventional expres-
sions or formulaic language in language learning is crucial
to improve students’ fluency in speaking. It is suggested that
teachers play more important role in developing paralinguis-
tic skills, so teachers are expected to, needless to say, motive
or design speaking lessons and not to impair learners confi-
dence by paying attention to the language mistakes learners
make during the process of language learning and teaching
(Gürbüz, 2017).
Concisely, language practitioners should remember that
only teaching language skills such as listening, reading, writ-
ing and speaking are not enough, but also teaching pragmatic
knowledge to boost their competence in all area of language
learning has the equal importance in developing learner’s so-
ciolinguistic competence. This conclusion resulted from the
findings that even students are upper or advanced language
speakers, but learners are limited in expressing themselves
in various pragmatic contexts. These findings suggest the
importance of pragmatic competence and sociolinguistic
competence of learners in language teaching and language
learning process.
ALLS 9(5):43-48
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to thank my supervisor Assistant Prof.
Dr. Çiğdem Karatepe, Uludağ University, Bursa, Turkey.
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 Advances in Language and Literary Studies
ISSN: 2203-4714
www.alls.aiac.org.au

An Experimental Documentary: Making a Case for Baird’s Modernism

Ademolawa Michael Adedipe*

Liberty University
University, United States
Corresponding Author: Ademolawa Michael Adedipe, E-mail: ademolawa@yahoo.com

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article history The refutation and the obliteration of the modernist era in Canadian literature by Robert Kroetsch
Received: April 16, 2018 and reasserted by Glen Wilmott makes it imperative to look at highly experimental literary works
Accepted: July 25, 2018 in the first half of the 20th century in Canada. The purpose of this paper, thus is to make a case
Published: October 31, 2018 for the inclusion Irene Bird’s Waste Heritage in the repertoire of modernist works in North
Volume: 9 Issue: 5 America. The various criticism of Canadian literature as not having a modernist era needs to be
Advance access: August 2018 debunked. The false assertion that Canadian literature moved straight from the Victorian era to a
postmodernist face is probably due to the difficulty of defining what modernism is. The evolution
and the expansion of the term modernism makes it imperative for one to reappraise the creative
Conflicts of interest: None works of Irene Bird (Waste Heritage) and Sheila Watson
atson (Double
Double Hook)
Hook as modernist. An attempt
Funding: None to include Waste Heritage in the new modernist discourse of global literature by looking at the
experimental way by which Baird used documentary modernism. The sustainability of a growing
modern society vis-à-vis modernism, and the resistance of capitalism in Baird’s narrative would
Key words: be used to make a case for Baird’s modernism.
Modernist era,
Canadian literature,
Experimental,
Waste Heritage,
Expansion

In many ways, Irene Baird’s 1939 classic Waste Heritage is
beyond fiction. Events in the novel occurred in Vancouver
and Victoria during the Depression era in the 30s. The sit-
downs that occurred in this era of great suffering
fering were signif
signif-
icant in Canadian history. The challenges faced by a group of
unemployed people who found it difficult to secure a job and
a decent life evoked some emotions amongst sympathizers.
The leftist communist also used this opportunity to advocate
for their socialist ideology. One can hardly argue that Baird
was politically neutral, despite her objective documentation
of the travails of the sit-downers. Her experimental style of
social documentary is something worth mentioning, as she
gave a voice to the voiceless. Hill notes that “Few if any ear-
ly twentieth-century Canadian novelist match Baird’s stylis-
tic rigor” (Hill ix). Her singular plot shows the seriousness
and the urgency of her documentation. Published just before
the calamitous World War II, Waste Heritage did not get the
kind of reception it should have received. With the continu-
ing expansion of the term modernism, an inclusion of social
commentaries that capture the experience of the unemployed
during the Depression era is necessary. The various criticism
of Canadian literature as not having a modernist era needs
to be debunked. The false assertion that Canadian literature
moved straight from the Victorian era to a postmodernist face
is probably due to the difficulty of defining what modernism
is. The obliteration of Canadian modernist fiction by Robert
Kroetsch— “Canadian literature evolved directly from Vic-
torian into Postmodern (1) — and reasserted by Glen Will-
mott— “a link between Canadian and modernist works is
lacking” (5) — needs to be put aside now. The term modern-
ism keeps evolving over the years. It seems to encompass our
whole modern experience. “Modernism is still ongoing and
can’t be reduced to a simple definition” (Mao and Walkowitz
737). We can’t also restrict it to a myopic view. An attempt
will be made here to support the inclusion of Waste Heri-
tage in the new modernist discourse of global literature by
looking at the experimental way by which Baird used docu-
mentary modernism. The sustainability of a growing modern
society vis-à-vis modernism, and the resistance of capitalism
in Baird’s book would be used to make a case for Baird’s
modernism. Willmott asserts that: “Canadian modernism has
not been examined through the lenses of modernist and in-
ternational critical theories” (6). With the growing expansion
of modernism and its increasing ambiguity, it is worthy to
note that: “everything we write is a story told from a view-
point, and the author expects his or her readers to share, or
at least to understand, the values presented in the fiction”
(Daniels 1). Values inherent in literature are not restricted
to its didactic and intellectual function; literature also serve
as a documentary container. The fictional representation of

Published by Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.

Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.5p.49
50
happenings around us has been one way literature functioned
until the likes of Steinbeck and Baird used a more journalis-
tic and realistic approach to represent the negative effects of
capitalism. Their representation is very serious and devoid
of any form of excitement. The multiplicity of the interpre-
tation of the term modernism encompasses the following:
modern industrial societies, rapid growths, Freud’s primacy
of the unconscious mind, resistance to religion, experimen-
tal technique, self-consciousness and modern expression and
technique. One might be tempted to categorize Baird’s nar-
rative as Prairie realist; a journalistic or documentary style
of writing set on a Canadian prairie, which focuses on gritty
details of life on the prairie, during the great depression: fea-
tures are isolation, bareness, dust, despair, but what sets Baird
apart is the urban setting of her plot. Despite arguments made
by Altieri against the expansion of modernism (764), there
is a great need to reconsider putting Waste Heritage in the
archives of Canadian modernist fictions. Doing this would
not be futile, and it would not be an over ambitious attempt to
expand the modernist discourse; it would be commitment to
service, and not self-indulging in pleasures. Candida Rifkind
notes the comparison between Waste Heritage to Steinbeck’s
Grapes of Wrath in one of its review
MacGillivray opens his “Letters in Canada: 1939” review
of the novel by comparing it favorably to Steinbeck’s
Grapes of Wrath. Although he recognizes differences
between the two works, MacGillivray urges Canadians
who were impressed by Mr. Steinbeck’s novel as a so-
ciological document to read Mrs. Baird’s also. (166)
This review supports my argument that Waste Heritage
is a modernist work. If Grapes of Wrath is accepted as an
American modernist fiction, one can make a case for Baird’s
modernism because of the similarity both novels. They are
both socialist writings that reveal the travails of the middle
class at one of the most perilous periods in history. Stein-
beck’s Grapes of Wrath was categorized as modernist be-
cause of the militant nature of Steinbeck, and his opposition
to capitalism and the marginalization of the masses. Irene
Baird exemplifies these qualities in her Waste Heritage, and
even more. She was more daring, more of a dissident, more
experimental, and more objective. She was an epitome of a
true modernist.
Documentary Modernism
Documentary modernism is an experimental form of natu-
ralism that serves as a social commentary. Baird’s audacious
move to move close to the Sit-downers to take note of their
daily activities and efforts can be compared Emile Zola’s Ger-
Ger
minal, who went into a mine to get daily information about
their conditions before writing his classic novel. Candida
Rifkind notes that “Baird’s sources for her descriptions of the
actual events she fictionalizes were her own notes obtained
when she disguised herself as a nurse to tour the flop-houses
the men occupied in Victoria” (172). Baird saw an urgent need
to relate the plight of the Sit-downers in Victoria to the public.
She is one of the people who empathized with the Sit-down-
ers. She was willing to disguise herself as a nurse to make
her objectivity undiluted. She had a clear view of some of the
ALLS 9(5):49-52
character’s plights. Her representation of the sit-downs gave
account of police brutality, and hypocritical laws that disal-
lowed the unemployed qualify for social benefits twice in a
region, thus giving birth to transient men. These transient men
moved from one region to the other looking for jobs and as a
last result confronted the government by grouping together to
stage sit-downs at major public buildings like the post office.
There was public resentment on the part of people who be-
lieved these transient men deliberately refused to work. This
kind of resentment was shown when a man asked Matt; “Don’t
you boys have nothing to do but sit around here and wait for
a settlement” (Baird 50)? Another account was given of an-
other man who questioned the sincerity of the sit-downers:
“most of these men don’t want to work. If they’d wanted work
they’d have gone out and rustled for it, not waited around to be
spoon-fed by the government” (Baird 76). Baird, on the other
hand, informs us of the difficulty of maintaining full time jobs
by some of these transient men. Some of the sit-downers had
several seasonal jobs and found themselves right back in the
labor market. Matt mentions his travails before finding a voice
with the sit-downers: “Before this it was always lone-wolfin’,
fightin’ up against something you couldn’t see an’ not gettin’
any place. But it’s different now, I got an organization behind
me to back me up” (Baird 73).
The media are also one of the venues through which
Baird documented the social injustice that went on during
the depression era. Some media outlets during this period be-
longed exclusively to the government. The media did a bad
job of not being sensitive enough to the struggles of the tran-
sient men. Their participation was somewhat political; they
portrayed the sit-downs and riots as mere entertainment that
people wait eagerly to hear about and discuss in cafes. There
were reports in newspapers and on radio about the condition
of the boys, but no suggestions of potential solutions on the
social crises. Harry gave one of such insensitive and pitiful
account of the information he got from the newspaper: “I
read in the papers where you boys do not seem to be doin’
so good” (Baird 197). The superficial impact of the media is
also seen in one of the letters Harry wrote to Matt: “I hope
the papers is all wet as always when they say you boys is not
doin’ so good but I picked up the same news over the radio
so I guess the radio is not all wet too” (Baird 198). The insen-
sitivity of the media was one of the motivating factors that
made Baird write Waste Heritage. The war did not deter her
from ensuring the novel was published on time. The hypo-
critical role played by the media can also be seen in the letter
Matt sent to Hazel: “The newspapers stayed friendly and the
general impression left on the town was good. There was
talk of a big sympathetic walk-out of loggers and mine work-
ers and a march on Gath solid sympathizers. The air buzzed
with rumours, mostly wild, but outwardly the situation re-
mained deadlocked” (Baird 121). The monopolized media
is the only source of information about the sit-downers for
most people, before Waste Heritage was published: “I guess
you will be wondering what happened to me unless you read
in the papers about our arriving” (Baird 130). The unimpres-
sive journalism of the media propelled Baird’s experimental
journalism, documentary, and experimental naturalism.
An Experimental Documentary: Making a Case for Baird’s Modernism
The Sustainability of a Growing Modern Society
The sustainability of a growing modern society was a great
challenge in the early twentieth century. The invention of
new technologies, and the creation and expansion of bigger
cities rapidly changed a world that was previously rural. One
of the first major negative consequences of advancement
was the use of sophisticated weapons in the First World War.
By the time Baird was done writing her novel, the world
was ready to use nuclear bombs and high tech machine gun
in World War II. The misery caused by the great depression
did not only affect the unemployed. The confusion of the
inner cities is captured by Baird: “massed bodies, swimming
heads, urgent single hurrying ant-like units, formless con-
fusing weaving into pattern, slow tightening into disciplined
design. Spat of motorcycles, Shrill crowd voices, heavy surg-
ing of feet” (Baird 34). The hopelessness of Matt’s dream of
having a decent life is emphasized when Harry tells him he
will never achieve his dreams: Matt says, “I’d like to live
here all the time. I’d like to get me a job an’ be some use to
myself an’ some use to someone else for a change. That’s
what I’d like to do, Harry. God,” Matt said, staring straight
at the closed-up fronts of the Wong on fish market, “I nev-
er saw a lovely place as this is!” (Baird 45). Harry’s blunt
response shocks Matt: “But you ain’t never goin’ to do any
such thing” (Baird 45). This highlights the hopelessness in
Matt’s dreams. Climbing the social ladder in a chaotic envi-
ronment was almost impossible in this era of depression and
war. The rapid pace by which things go in the city vis-à-vis
the slow response of government to new societal challenges
logically determines the progression of the plot. Matt, who
had this lofty dream owning a big house, could not even af af-
ford a clean shirt to take a girl out; he had to ask Charlie.
As an adult, he could not even afford a place invite his date.
When he took Hazel out on a date they had to make love in
the bush: “Down there, down there in the trees where it’s
dry” (Baird 80). This sexual scene is also a characteristic of
modernist fiction because sexual scenes were considered as
taboos in literary works in the proceeding centuries. Matt
confirmed his sexual activity to Charlie “I made out okay”
(Baird 81). The sexual scene also shows the decadence in the
society and the loss of moral values during chaos. The rep-
resentation of a crude woman in the person of Hazel whose
profession is typically that of a man shows women did not
have it better.
The Resistance of Capitalism
The entire plot of Waste Heritage is a resistance to capital-
ism. The sit-downers basically wanted to have social ben-
efits. Baird resisted capitalism as a system of government.
Their stance on capitalism is due to what they perceive as
the evils of capitalism. Capitalism as a market based system
where profit is the bottom line has several advantages, which
includes maximization of the nation’s resources, variety of
products, and the possibility of those at the base to move up
the social ladder. Moving up the social ladder is not always
viable since the means of production are owned by a few. The
concentration of wealth in the hands of a select few ensures
51
those at the base of the economy, the proletariat, remain per-
petually in their place. It is due to the unequal distribution
of resources that many advocate for communism a system
of government where the government ensures equal distri-
bution of the nation’s resources. Baird’s narration serves as
a wake-up call to reevaluate the existing social and econom-
ic structures that are in place. During the era of depression,
capitalism failed as a system of government as it could not
even ensure that those that were hardworking had a meal on
their table. The negative effect of capitalism in Baird’s novel
is highlighted when Eddy sees an advert for shoes: “Come
around Saturday and get a pair of shoes for one cent” (Baird
252). In the hope of getting what he needed desperately, he
went to the store to get shoes only to be told he couldn’t
get them because the prize of the shoes were more than the
advertised prize. This also add to the fact Waste Heritage
is a voice for the masses: “I read Waste Heritage as an ex-
ample of documentary modernism that draws on satire and
allegory, but it also has a history of being identified as either
social or socialist realism and even as proletarian fiction”
(Rifkind 174).
To better understand the resistance of Baird, The Resis-
tance Theory by Paul de Man would help elucidate what con-
stitute resisting a theory. This would help us understand the
resistance to capitalism in Waste Heritage. This discourse
by de Man was written at the request of a “Committee on
Research Activities of the Modern Language Association as
a contribution to a collective volume entitled “Introduction
to Scholarship in Modern Languages and Literatures” (de
Man 101). In this essay, de Man’s focus is on how theory
should be treated as a practice and not a body of knowledge.
He emphasizes that the goal of scholars should be on how to
use theory properly. De Man believes resisting theory means
theorizing, because a discourse that criticizes another theory
in debunking its views brings about another theory itself, just
as resisting capitalism means making a case for communism.
Resistance theory then is a theory because it uses a frame
to resist. Jody Mason reemphasizes how Waste Heritage is
more on the communist side than the capitalist side:
Existing criticism of the novel is largely influenced
by leftist nationalist Rubin Mathews, who argued that
Baird’s novel should be heralded as a classic of pro-
letarian literature in Canada—a novel that sympathet-
ically represents the inevitability of class revolution.
(Mason 143)
Baird’s narration calls for labor reforms because the con-
dition of workers is the pivot of a nation’s economy. The
novel serves as a social document that strongly pushes for
the ideology of communism which they think would save the
country from the manipulative hands of the capitalist.
The experimental nature of Baird accords Waste Heri-
tage to be considered as a modernist novel. Her journalistic
reporting of actual events in a documentary—like book is
artistic beauty that is worth mentioning. Not even Steinbeck
could boast of the rigor in the singularity of Baird’s plot.
The intermingling of events that show the difficulty of many
keeping up with the advancement of the modern world is
a modernistic feature that can be used to make a claim for
52
Baird’s modernism. The resistance to existing structures
like capitalism is another point that makes Waste Heritage
modernist. Creating a voice for the oppressed in a capitalist
society and resisting the government in a pseudo-objective
documentary gives advocates of communism an important
tool for battle in an era where capitalism crumbled. The
communism that Baird advocate for would ensure that ev-
erybody only get what they need for survival irrespective
of their level of education or talent. In Waste Heritage, the
tragic conditions of some Canadians as narrated by Baird
are directed to advocates of capitalism. The narration serve
as a wake-up call to reevaluate the existing social and eco-
nomic structures that are in place. During the era of De-
pression capitalism failed as a system of government. This
system of government could not even assure those that are
hardworking a decent life. Baird’s narration would remain
in the archives of Canadian modernist fictions, despite the
obliteration of the modernist era in Canadian literature by
some scholars.
REFERENCES
Altieri, Charles. “Afterword: How the ‘New Modernist
Studies’ Fails the Old Modernism. “Textual Practice,
26:4 (2012): 763-782. Print.
Baird, Irene. Waste Heritage. Ottawa: University of Ottawa
Press, 2007. Print.
ALLS 9(5):49-52
Daniels, Patsy J. Understanding American Fiction as Post-
colonial Literature: Literaturee in the Historical Devel
Devel-
opment of a Fluctuating Cultural Identity. Lewiston,
N.Y: Edwin Mellen Press, 2010. Print.
Hill, Collin. “The Modernist-Realist Movement: Contexts,
Aesthetics, Origins.” Modern Realism in English-Cana-
dian Fiction. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2012. 3-22.
Kroetsch, Robert. “Introduction: A Canadian Issue.” Bound-
Bound
ary 23.1(1974): 1-2.
de Man, Paul. The Resistance to Theory: Literary and Cul-
tural Studies. Ed. Davis, Robert Con., Schleifer, Ronald.
Longman. 1998. Print.
Mao, Douglas, and Rebecca L. Walkowitz. “The New Mod-
ernist Studies.” Pmla. 123.3 (2008): 737-748. Print.
Mason, Jody. “’Sidown, Brother, Sidown!’: The Problem
of Commitment and The Publishing History of Irene
Baird’s Waste Heritage.” Papers of the Bibliograph-
ical Society of Canada/Cahiers De La Société Bibli-
ographique Du Canada 45.2 (2007): 143-161. MLA In-
ternational Bibliography. Web. 10 Oct. 2016.
Rifkind, Candida. Comrades and Critics: Women, Litera-
ture, and the Left in 1930s Canada. Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 2009. Print.
Willmott, Glen. Excerpt from “Introduction: A Utopia of the
Common Type.” Unreal Country: Modernity in the Ca-
nadian Novel in English. Montreal: McGill-Queens UP,
2002. 3-8.
 Advances in Language and Literary Studies
ISSN: 2203-4714
www.alls.aiac.org.au

Authentic Materials – A Natural Resource for Developing Academic English

Jana Bére-ová*
Faculty of Education, Trnava University Hornopotočná 23, Trnava 918 43, Slovakia
Corresponding Author: Jana Bére-ová, E-mail: jana.beresova@truni.sk

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article history The approach to language learning as a way of coming to understand target culture and its impact
Received: April 11, 2018 on target language is reflected in the concept of teaching and learning languages through the
Accepted: July 06, 2018 integration of intercultural capabilities. The concept will be supported by a number of examples
Published: October 31, 2018 taken from authentic materials language learners have encountered in target language contexts,
Volume: 9 Issue: 5 predominantly gaining experience through reading authentic materials. The paper presents the
Advance access: August 2018 ideas of university students who carried out their own projects within and after research run
by Trnava University, the representatives of which actively participated in a three-year project,
supported by the VEGA funding scheme under number 1/0106/15. Twenty-two students who
Conflicts of interest: None participated in our experiment were asked to analyze formal English in its written mode,
Funding: None searching for characteristic features of formal writing, used in contemporary English. After the
completion of the first task related to the selection of appropriate samples, the students were
expected to compare the quality of authentic materials received through technologies and that
Key words: achieved from reading contemporary literary prose, newspapers and academic texts. The idea
Authentic materials, behind this task was to help university students to be able to critically assess other people’s ideas
Critical thinking, and arguments, to apply critical thinking when reading, to evaluate authentic materials and to
Effective argumentation, achieve the ability to construct effective arguments in formal writing.
Academic writing

INTRODUCTION and providing evidence that concerns their research. Both

Languages are intertwined with the culture of their native
users and as they influence each other, the intertwinement
between them is clearly recognizable in the utterances pro-
duced by native speakers. Despite the fact that the focus of
traditional language teaching was put on native-likeness and
good language learners were expected to use native-like pro-
nunciation and master grammatical patterns with proper use
of vocabulary, many foreign language users were able to use
the acquired language more theoretically rather than practi-
cally. It is possible to sort out a list of pitfalls the language
learners encountered in traditional teaching. One of them
was an intensive correction of their utterances that prevented
them from speaking fluently, spontaneously and naturally.
Summing up the list of pitfalls can be provided through gen-
eralization that the emphasis on accurate language prevailed
over its natural use for real-life purposes when language us-
ers apply communicative language skills in their integration.
Bachelor and master degree studies are officially com-
pleted by theses submission and their oral defense. In a vari-
ety of tertiary education institutions, the requirements differ
in particulars. However, it is possible to generalize the main
distinctions. While bachelor-degree students can still focus
on the study of a particular topic, master-degree students are
obliged to implement practical research with intent to pres-
ent their findings, justifying their opinions and conclusions,
pieces of writing entail unique approaches of thesis writers,
nevertheless, universities usually provide their students with
a handbook containing clear guidance on aspects of thesis
writing. The handbook will normally clarify the maximum
length of theses, thesis format, main areas to be covered, etc.
The thesis format is often elaborated into details such as text
type and size, line spacing, style of referencing, apart from
clear instructions referring to thesis structure and so on. Stu-
dents are expected to show that they are competent research-
ers, which seems to be a very difficult task for them as this is
predominantly the first time they have attempted such a piece
of work of this magnitude working independently, though
supervised by their supervisors. Therefore, most universi-
ties have special academic courses during which students
are provided with information concerning particular stages
they have to follow, for example, putting forward research
proposal, evaluating literature pertinent to their research ob-
jectives, using a variety of sources, designing methods for
data collection, implementing empirical research, analyzing
and discussing findings, drawing conclusions, summarizing
recommendations with the final stage that concerns wrap-
ping up research work.
However, these requirements refer to writing a thesis in
the mother tongue and do not concern the skills necessary
to write a coherent, accurate and logical text in a target lan-

Published by Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.

Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.5p.53
54
guage. Writing a thesis in English requires from students to
be able to summarize information from sources written in
both native and target languages, reconstruct arguments and
accounts in a coherent presentation of the overall result and
write a clear, well-structured text in an appropriate and effec-
tive style, using natural, accurate and appropriate English.
This task is challenging and demands university students to
master the language in order to analyze the information they
gain from a variety of sources as well as to be able to use the
academic tone of theses, proper for writing in English. For
non-native speakers, writing a thesis in English should be in-
tensively practiced to help students develop specific writing
and analytic skills, for example, how to develop a logical se-
quence of ideas or to write effective paragraphs. Therefore,
courses called English for Academic Purposes are incorpo-
rated into university study programs all over the world.
METHODOLOGY
In Slovakia, students who major English encounter a number
of problems as they are obliged to write their theses in En-
glish. Despite the fact that they have spent many years learn-
ing English (at least seven years at primary school and four
years at secondary school), majority of them is able to use
English at level B2 of the Common European Framework
of Reference (CEFR) in their first year of bachelor-degree
studies. Taking part in many academic courses related to lin-
guistic disciplines, reading literary works of famous British
and American writers, they head for C1, predominantly in
communicative language skills. Learning a target language
does not narrow the focus of learning to the linguistic dimen-
sion. It entails the intercultural dimension as well to enable
language learners to realize that linguistic formulae are the
surface indicators of native speakers’ cultural knowledge. In
writing, there are certain conventions non-native students
might not be aware of and should be presented, for example,
genre-based writing (Jordan, 2012).
In our research conducted in 2015-2017, we could dis-
cover that only 45% of students were aware of cultural-
ly-induced language and of how culture affects the way
of expressing ideas and opinions. Regardless the fact, the
national curricula for primary and secondary schools entail
the intercultural dimension, only few teachers devote their
classes to these issues. It is also due to the fact that officially
this part of the curriculum content is obligatory and serves as
a stimulus for teachers what they should do in their English
class. The purpose of these words is not to emphasize the
fact that learners studying English at primary and secondary
schools should be given lectures related to the interaction
between cultural thought patterns and rhetorical patterns, yet
we reject the idea that teaching writing in English is based on
the mother tongue models and previous experience related
to writing in the mother tongue. Writing in Slovak is sig-
nificantly different from writing in English from the cultural
perspective, for example, communication in Slovak is direct
with a different rhetoric style of constructing utterances. In
addition to this, Slovak native speakers quite often express
their viewpoints without any justification and critical think-
ing is not developed properly at primary and secondary ed-
ALLS 9(5):53-57
ucation institutions, despite the intensive debate in society
that it should be focused on at any level of education.
Writing theses in English should be preceded by training
students to think critically, construct sentences logically, write
proper topic sentences, present the line of reasoning, provide
evidence to illustrate someone’s argument and avoid overgen-
eralization, irrelevance, etc. English major students need to be
trained to understand concepts concerning critical thinking. For
students, who have never written a longer piece of writing, there
are weighty pressures associated with initiating the process and
usually do not feel self-confident enough to start without being
supervised. It is recommended to start with writing academic
essays because they include research (Chin, Reid, Wray & Ya-
mazaki, 2013). However, the thesis viewed as a detailed dis-
course on a subject is more than an extended essay. Students
are obliged to submit an independent piece of work to satisfy a
board of examiners that they are competent to do research and
present their advanced knowledge on a specific topic, which re-
quires a systematic approach and intensive work.
In our research, the first step was to support developing
students’ strategies associated with critical thinking such as
attention, categorization, selection, and judgements. Twenty
two students who decided to participate in our experiment
were explained a concept of critical thinking viewed as identi-
fying positive as well as negative aspects of a particular issue,
and that to be able to critique refers to being able to acknowl-
edge that there are several ways of looking at any issue, and
sometimes they might be quite distinct from each other. This
approach was fundamental as the students were expected to
encounter authentic materials to develop their intercultural
communicative competence which concerns the abilities to
communicate effectively and appropriately in a target cultural
context. Writing their theses, students are expected to employ a
variety of sophisticated language and to communicative com-
plex ideas in an effective way. To be able to do it, they need
to analyze a number of texts to discover salient characteristics
of a written text in English. The students participating in our
experiment were provided with a set of materials, selected on
purpose, which entailed two chapters or articles, each taken
from a variety of sources: applied linguistics, British newspa-
pers and contemporary literary prose. Since young people pre-
fer working with information technologies, they were required
to analyze two pieces of writing presented online. Information
technologies provide contemporary information and this con-
temporaneity means that technology-mediated information
does not exist simply as static information. Real-world instan-
tiations of attitudes, values, and understandings offer oppor-
tunities for reflection. Students analyzed BBC topical news
and discuss the issues, but considered the language used in
the mass media difficult. Apart from using printed dictionar-
ies and grammar reference books, the students were instructed
to get as much information as possible concerning particular
structures used currently in English through searching for
their frequency on the Internet.
THE FINDINGS
Apart from the focus on language (morphology, syntax,
lexicology and stylistics) used in the articles, students (22)
Authentic Materials – A Natural Resource for Developing Academic English
engaged in our research were expected to discover the prag-
matic and socio-linguistic aspects of using English by native
speakers. The idea behind this requirement was based on the
descriptors provided in the CEFR Companion Volume Pro-
vided with New Descriptors (2017) that reads for a C1 level
of sociolinguistic appropriateness: Can adjust his/her level
of formality (register and style) to suit the social context:
formal, informal or colloquial as appropriate and maintain
a consistent spoken register. Can frame critical remarks or
express strong disagreement diplomatically (Council of Eu-
rope, 2017:137) and for thematic development entailed in
pragmatic competence: Can use the conventions of the type
of text concerned to hold the target reader’s attention and
communicate complex ideas. Can give elaborate descrip-
tions and narratives, integrating sub themes, developing
particular points and rounding off with an appropriate con-
clusion. Can write a suitable introduction and conclusion to
a long, complex text. Can expand and support main points
at some length with subsidiary points, reasons and relevant
examples (Council of Europe, 2017: 140).
During the experiment, students focused on samples of
English that attracted their attention and initiated an intense
discussion in working groups. They verified the use, fre-
quency and appropriateness of chosen samples on the Inter-
net and compared them with possible Slovak translations.
They realized that sentences are constructed and linked dif dif-
ferently and came to a conclusion that they cannot translate
their Slovak thinking into English while writing in English.
They conceived an idea of a necessity to focus more on pro-
ficiency in English, either specialized or cultural knowledge
to be able to express their ideas accurately and appropriately,
respecting the style and the purpose of the text constructed
in English. They became aware of formal writing that should
be clear and objective and that their ideas must be expressed
in a formal, factual way. From the linguistic point of view,
they concluded some of the ways in which formal writing is
different from informal forms of writing, such as avoidance
of slang and informal language, use of complex sentences,
avoidance of contractions, use of the passive, use of the
nouns, etc.
Table 1 shows the most frequently selected samples of
salient features students chose for discussion. While discuss-
ing salient features of formal writing in English, students
focused on current trends in contemporary English as they
were to read only materials published recently. Despite the
fact that some of salient features are viewed as more formal
than the others in a variety of grammar-reference books, stu-
dents could find them in both formal and less formal modes.
All the tendencies students were able to systemise were anal-
ysed and thoroughly discussed as some of them seemed to be
more characteristic for particular genres. Those ones that are
typical for academic writing such as hedging, boosting (Car-
ter & McCarthy, 2013) or using reporting verbs, language
of description, classification and evaluation, etc. (Bérešová,
2014) were not discussed, despite the fact that some of them
were recognized by students. The intention was to provide
students with a number of samples that are characteristic for
formal writing, and only later let them focus on academic
55
writing, introducing other patterns in order not to overwhelm
students with a large number of patterns at a time. The phi-
losophy behind this was to encourage them to read anything
in the original language to be exposed to English as much as
possible.
DISCUSSION
Students were motivated to discover the ways of expressing
ideas and opinions naturally, appropriately and accurately.
They encountered authentic texts that were thoroughly cho-
sen on purpose, with the aim to facilitate their communication
in written mode. Their engagement in the task was supported
by the fact that they are expected to write their theses in En-
glish, the task they have never encountered before and that
is a big unknown for them. The task accomplishment was
based on their own decision, either to work individually or
in groups, in which they could discuss particular patterns and
the effect of their mother tongue on their writing in English.
Most of them changed the way of working; once they want-
ed to focus on collecting samples and needed silence to be
able to concentrate on particular samples, another time they
enjoyed sharing their samples and discussing whether they
follow the instructions and focus on the same aspects. They
cooperated intensively when drawing on their common con-
clusions about the relevant sampling.
The selection of the materials was aimed at making stu-
dents read any authentic materials, despite the fact that aca-
demic books seemed to be the best choice. The original idea
was aimed at discovering how much about discourse students
can learn while reading contemporary literary prose, news-
papers and online articles in case they represent a formal or
less formal way of writing. Students were recommended that
they should use formal language for writing theses while less
formal language is acceptable when offending their theses.
Accomplishing the first task, students were expected to write
a paragraph and present it, focusing on the areas in which
they could recognize interference of their mother tongue.
As writing is a complex process which demands cognitive
analysis and linguistic synthesis, students could discover the
differences in sentence constructions in both languages En-
glish and Slovak, based on a distribution of communicative
dynamism where ‘theme’ describes the topic or starting point
for a message and ‘rheme’ refers to the information about the
theme. Since English word order is quite restricted or fixed,
communicative dynamism is based on different rules of its
distribution. Analyzing various sentences, students were able
to become aware of expressing new ideas in English sentenc-
es and came to conclusions that sentences in their mother
tongue have the rheme placed at the end, which is its stan-
dard position while in English the theme-rheme order is not
kept rigidly also in cases nothing stood its way apparently.
Although word order in an English sentence is fixed by the
grammatical factor, students were able to find examples, in
which they could recognize distribution of communicative
dynamism from the highest to the lowest degree, for exam-
ple, Thousands of federal employees [who had been placed
on temporary, unpaid leave since Saturday] breathed a sigh
of relief,
elief, in which thousands of federal employees is themat-
elief
56 ALLS 9(5):53-57

Table 1. Formal English – salient features

Salient features Samples
Comment relative clauses There is a naturalness with which they assimilate another language, once they are regularly exposed to
it, which is the envy of adults (Crystal, 2003: 17).
But the positive is that Guy Batchelor his handling his new role well, which is giving me a bit more time
to get on with all the pre-trial paperwork I have to deal with (James, 2017: 230).
The authorities have also put 407 people under house arrest since Nov. 14, requiring them to report to
the police three times daily, which forced those who were working to quit their jobs or take leaves of
absence (International New York Times, 2016: 5).
Pragmatic markers The other points, however, need to be taken more slowly, to appreciate the alternative
perspectives (Crystal, 2003: 16).
In addition to the approving glances of the other guests, the woman in white held the full attention of
two sleek security officers who shadowed her closely (Brown, 2017: 61).
Throughout it all, the OED churns on, attempting to be slightly more complete today than it was
yesterday (The Guardian, 2018: 29).
Punctuation rules One important aim of the current update, therefore, was to, finally, provide such descriptor scales for
mediation (Council of Europe, 2017: 47).
And the, out of the blue, three days ago, Langdon had received a FedEx envelope with a plane ticket,
a hotel reservation, and a handwritten note from Edmond urging him to attend tonight’s event (Brown,
2017: 14).
But in some eyes, not least the editor’s, the book was also a heroic failure (The Guardian, 2018: 27)
Nominalisation However, the emergence of any one language as global has only a limited causal relationship to this
unhappy state of affairs (Crystal, 2003: 21).
Kirsch gave a gracious smile and shook the man’s hand (Brown, 2017: 9).
The quest to capture ‘the meaning of everything’…. has absorbed generations of lexicographers
(The Guardian, 2018: 27).
Impersonal style It remains to be seen whether such affirmations of good will have long-term effect (Crystal, 2003: 19).
After a career of giving commands, it was a relief to relinquish the helm and let others steer this
ship (Brown, 2017: 22).
It’s hard to make that into a selling point for the technology (International New York Times, 2016:18).
The passive As stated above, this ability can be viewed both as an interaction strategy or as an integral aspect of
discourse competence (Council of Europe, 2017: 96).
They would know more about Kipp Brown when he was questioned (James, 2017: 234).
Words that would previously been spoken are now typed on social media (The Guardian, 2018: 28).
Existentials There is no shortage of books – chiefly within the genre of science fiction – which foresee a future in
which, following some cataclysmic scenario, the universal language is Chinese, Arabic, or even some
Alien tongue (Crystal, 2003: 26).
There was a gap between a white van and a little Hyundai (James, 2017: 237).
There is little evidence that the modern electorate wants to embrace the heavy-metal socialism of a
super-statist society (the Guardian, 2018:18).
Inversion Never has the need for more widespread bilingualism been greater, to ease the burden placed on the
professional few (Crystal, 2003:14).
The more he thought about Sandy’s strange message, the less concerned he was (James, 2017: 225).
But a healthy and successful society shouldn’t be sending this many overgrown children scurrying back
for refuge, nor should it leave quite this many parents feeling bad about it (The Guardian, 2018: 48).
No sooner have you reached the summit of the mountain than it has expanded another hundred feet (The
Guardian, 2018: 27).
Cleft sentences What has been so impressive about the developments which have taken place since the 1950s is that
they have affected to a greater or lesser extent, every country in the world, and that so many countries
have come to be involved (Crystal, 2003: 13/14).
‘What you are about to see,’ Kirsch said, ‘is a rough cut of an announcement I hope to share with the
world – perhaps in a month or so’ (Brown, 2017: 10).
‘What I am interested in is a good bit of fun’ (The Guardian, 2018: 23).

ic and conveys the lowest degree of communicative dyna-
mism while breathed a sigh of relief is rhematic due to the
highest degree of communicative dynamism, referring to
the main part of the message, which indicates the important
information about the topic. It might be also presented that
a completely new message was achieved through the verb
breathed as transition. Some students preferred breaking
down a communicative field into communicative units when
communicative fields were larger than one clause or sentence
and an analysis of sentence elements was based on larger
communicative units, for example, Republican Senate leader
Mitch McConnell said his part had come to an arrangement
Authentic Materials – A Natural Resource for Developing Academic English
(theme) to negotiate on the Democrats’ calls for an immigra-
tion deal (rheme). They were recommended to focus on these
issues more intensively in their translation and interpreting
courses. Academic writing requires constructing sentences
in a target language. However, using sources written in their
mother tongue demands certain skills of mediating the infor-
mation from one language into another.
Despite the fact that university students are exposed to
reading materials related to their academic courses, they
mainly focus on slow reading during which they try to un-
derstand the subject of the topic or to get as much content
as possible, without paying a particular attention to specific
issues such as distribution of communicative dynamism or
the ways of a natural flow of ideas in a particular context.
Students could become aware of different patterns of tex-
tual organisation and the fact that inadequate or inconsis-
tent application of writing strategies in English above word
level may lead to instances of incoherence at the level of
discourse. The students managed to reveal a significance of
topic sentences that introduce paragraphs, enabling writers
to develop a paragraph by justifying their viewpoints.
IMPLICATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
Language learning is influenced by several factors, out of
which one seems to play a significant role – being exposed to
language as much as possible. Therefore, English major stu-
dents were provided with a short list of newspaper articles and
book chapters they were to read, focusing on contemporary
English. The aim of the activity was based on our previous
experience concerning language competence of university
graduates which is usually more theoretical rather than practi-
cal and most students were struggling with different problems
in writing in English. To complete their degrees at both levels
of university education, either bachelor’s or master’s, students
are obliged to produce a long text in which they analyse, syn-
thesise, compare or contrast – a text that needs to be written
in natural, appropriate and accurate English. This is viewed as
a very demanding task as most English major students have
never experienced writing such a complex text in English.
In general, it seems to be important to present students
with samples of good practice that enable them to discover
how the sentences are constructed, and ideas worded, for-
mulated and linked to one cohesive and coherent text. Since
there are differences between writing in Slovak and English,
students need to segment sentence elements to see how the
language works properly in case they want to express their
viewpoints clearly and comprehensively. Despite the fact
that academic writing in different languages has some com-
mon features such as impersonal style, there are other issues
Slovak students are not familiar with and have to focus on
while writing in English, for example, the passive, pragmatic
markers, punctuation rules, nominal tendencies, etc.
The experiment twenty-two students participated in
proved our assumption concerning the concept of learning
through doing as the participants were able to discover cur-
rent tendencies in contemporary English and typical features
of writing in a target language. Based on our teaching expe-
rience, it is possible to conclude that when Slovak learners
57
write in Slovak, their sentences are less-focussed and vagu-
er, and emotional factors are more prevalent in the decision
making while writing in English makes Slovak learners to be
more rational and logical, accepting the style native speakers
formulate their sentences in. This cultural aspect seems to be
important to be taken into account while teaching writing in
a target language as it might result in making students use a
target language effectively. This should be supported by ex-
posing language learners to authentic materials, either printed
or online. Despite the fact that they prefer working with on-
line materials, during the experiment, students admitted that
it had been easier for them to work with printed materials as
they could write their comments and underline the sentences
chosen for a thorough analysis. The only drawback referring
to printed materials was their availability any time students
decided to work on them. The quality of language both sourc-
es provided students with was considered high as the texts
were purposefully chosen and written in Standard English.
Working with the materials was based on several stages,
the cycle of which was not straightforward linear, therefore
students needed to be aware of possible revisiting previous
stages, a necessity to search for additional materials or
consulting dictionaries and grammar-reference books for
information on particular issues, omitting irrelevant infor-
mation that do not relate to the chosen structures and pat-
terns, problem solving through more thorough analysis of
collected data, etc. While analyzing and discussing the col-
lected data, students frequently compared practical research
findings with information achieved from literature review.
Since these are general stages of writing any academic paper
or thesis, regardless of the university degree students intend
to achieve, students were given opportunities to experience
a process of doing research with the aim to develop their
writing skills.
REFERENCES
Bérešová, J. (2014). English for Academic Purposes. Trna-
va: Pedagogická fakulta Trnavskej univerzity.
BBC. (2017). US shutdown ends as Congress passes bill.
Available on: http://www.bbc.com/news
Brown, D. (2017). Origin. UK: Penguin, Random House.
Carter, R. & McCarthy, M. (2013). Cambridge Grammar of
English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Council of Europe. (2001). Common European Framework
of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching,
assessment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Council of Europe. (2017). CEFR Companion Volume With
New Descriptors. Strasbourg: Council of Europe,
Education Policy Division.
Crystal, D. (2003). English as a Global Language. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press.
Guardian News and Media. (2018). The Guardian. Vol. 198,
No 15, pp. 18-29.
New York Times Company. (2016). The International
New York Times. Thursday, February 18, 2016.
James, P. (2017). Need You Dead. London: Macmillan.
Jordan, R. R. (2012). English for Academic Purposes. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press.
 Advances in Language and Literary Studies
ISSN: 2203-4714
www.alls.aiac.org.au

Investigating More Effective and Less Effective EFL Learners’Attitudes and Motivational
Orientation

Mohammadreza Yousefi Halvaei, Ali Akbar Ansarin *

English Language Department, University of Tabriz, Iran
Corresponding Author: Ali Akbar Ansarin, E-mail: Ansarin@tabrizu.ac.ir

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article history
Received: April 19, 2018
Accepted: July 26, 2018
Published: October 31, 2018
Volume: 9 Issue: 5
Advance access: August 2018
Conflicts of interest: None
Funding: None
Key words:
Attitude,
Individual learner differences,
Learner effectiveness,
Motivation
The present study investigated the differences in attitudes and motivation between more
effective and less effective learners studying at the first year of graduate university program.
Based on this aim, first, the researcher developed the three-part 35-item attitude-motivation
questionnaire of the present study based on the AMTB developed by Gardner (1985). Second,
he selected 441 students (224 male & 217 female) studying at the first year of their graduate
program at universities in East Azarbayjan province (Iran) as the participants of the study.
Third, he administered the questionnaire of the study to the selected participants and asked
them to complete it. Finally, he analyzed the data of the study in order to answer the mentioned
research questions. The chi-square test was utilized to analyze the collected data of the study.
The results of the study showed that there were significant differences between more effective
and less effective learners’ attitudes and motivation. Based on the results of the study, it was
argued that, the EFL syllabus designers and teachers should help the learners to become aware of
their attitudes, and motivational orientations. Furthermore, they should make an effort to tailor
classroom materials and classroom teaching to the EFL learners’ individual differences.

INTRODUCTION approach which is favored in established research approach

Individual learner differences have been an enticing issue
for researchers even before the development of the field
of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) (Horwitz, 2000).
These differences refer to the “enduring personal character-
istics that are assumed to apply to everybody and on which
people differ by degree” (Dörnyei, 2005, p. 4). In other
words, they account for the learners’ endmost grasp of the
second language knowledge (Skehan, 1989). Horwitz (2000)
pointed out that, these factors have acted as a benchmark to
categorize the learners as good and bad, or smart and dull
among the others. Nonetheless, recent studies of these vari-
ables have tended to use more neutral terms for marking the
language learners such as field-dependent/independent and
integratively and instrumentally motivated. Ellis (2008) con-
tended that the transition to the neutral terms emanates from
the fact that, while the former studies attempted to predict the
successful learners for educational and vocational purposes,
the more recent studies have endeavored to explicate the
variation among the learners in terms of academic achieve-
ment. Nevertheless, the individual learner differences have
received scant attention in SLA theories due in part to their
investigation within the Differential approach to language
acquisition which is the orthodox approach to learning in
psycholinguistics and is not congruent with the Universalist
in SLA (Ellis, 1994). It is perspicuous that, this issue engen-
ders a fragmentary understanding of the nature of language
learning (Dörnyei, 2005). As a result, the formulation of an
integrated SLA theory demands a thorough perusal of the
individual learner differences (Segalowitz, 1997).
A close scrutiny of the relevant literature shows that,
among the various learner-related factors, motivation and atti-
tude have attracted the uttermost attention in second language
acquisition (Bandura, 1993; Dörnyei, 1990; 1994; 1997,
2005; Gardner, 1985). An examination of the relevant empir-
ical studies reveals that most of these studies (e.g. Benson,
1991; Gardner, 2001; Gardner & Lambert, 1972) have been
conducted in second language learning contexts. Furthermore,
the studies which have been carried out in foreign language
contexts (e.g. Eshghinejad, 2016; Mokhtarnia & Ghafar-Sa-
mar, 2016) have employed a survey design to determine the
learners’ attitude and motivational orientation. Nonetheless,
there is a lack of research in regard to the modifying impact
of the language learners’ personal factors including their ef ef-
fectiveness on their attitude and motivation. The present study
tried to deal with this issue in the EFL context of Iran. To this
end, the study tried to answer the following questions:
1. Are there any differences between the attitudes of more
effective and less effective learners?

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Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.5p.58
Investigating More Effective and Less Effective EFL Learners’Attitudes and Motivational Orientation
2. Are there any differences between the motivation of
more effective and less effective learners?
REVIEW OF THE RELATED LITERATURE
Motivation
Motivation is one of the learner differences which have
been extensively investigated in SLA (Linnenbrink & Pin-
trich, 2003; Pajares & Vakliante 1997; Yang, 1999). It in-
volves “language learners’ goals, their effortful behaviors,
their desire to attain their goals, and their favorable attitudes
toward the activity in question” (Gardner, 1985, p. 50). It
“energizes and directs human behavior” (Dörnyei, 1998,
p. 16). This learner factor is an indispensable aspect of the
language learning process due to the fact that “without suffi-
cient motivation, even individuals with the most remarkable
abilities cannot accomplish long-term goals, and neither are
appropriate curricula and good teaching enough on their own
to ensure student achievement” (Dörnyei, 2005, p. 65). The
early studies of motivation were carried by a number of psy-
chologies (e.g. Gardner, 1980) who focused on intercultural
communication in bilingual contexts (Cain & Dweck, 1995).
These researchers adopted a social-psychological approach
which stipulated that the language learners’ attitudes toward
the target culture were the key determiner of the language
acquisition. It was claimed that, “the students’ attitudes to-
ward the specific language group are bound to influence
how successful they will be in incorporating aspects of that
language” (Gardner, 1985, p. 6). The social-psychological
perspective tried to integrate the notions of individual and
society in the empirical studies of motivation. In regard to
education, this perspective endorsed the view that, unlike
the other school subjects, language acquisition is affected by
various social and cultural variables including learner atti-
tudes (Bong & Clark, 1999).
The social-psychological perspective has resulted in the
development of Gardner’s Socio-Educational Model of sec-
ond language learning (e.g. Gardner 1983, 1985). Gardner
(1979) claimed that, in his model, “acquiring symbolic el-
ements of a different ethno-linguistic community” (p. 193)
results in second language acquisition. Furthermore, he
pointed out that, on the basis of this model, integrative mo-
tivation is an indispensable factor that affects the learners’
success in second language acquisition. Integrative moti-
vation comprises three fundamental constructs including:
integrativeness, attitudes towards the learning situation,
and motivation (Gardner & MacIntyre, 1993). Integrative-
ness refers to the language learners’ orientation to integrate
into the target language community. It shows the learners’
interest in the target language, and highlights their positive
attitudes towards the native people of the target language
(Dörnyei, 1990). This construct underlines the “individual’s
willingness and interest in social interaction with members
of other groups” (Gardner & MacIntyre, 1993, p. 159). At-
titudes towards the learning situation manifest the way in
which the language learners evaluate the language learn-
ing program and the performance of their instructor in the
classroom (Dörnyei, 1994). Motivation refers to “language
59
learners’ goals, their effortful behaviors, their desire to attain
their goals, and their favorable attitudes toward the activity
in question” (Gardner, 1985, p. 50).
Gardner (1985) developed the Attitude/Motivation Test
Battery (AMTB) on the basis of the socio-educational mod-
el. AMTB is a questionnaire which appraises the language
learners’ integrative and instrumental motivations in the ed-
ucational contexts. It is a self-report questionnaire which has
acceptable reliability and validity indices. In addition to the
mentioned constructs, this questionnaire involves a certain
section with items that assess the learners’ language anxiety.
Moreover, one part of this instrument focuses on the role of
parental encouragement in second language acquisition.
Attitude
Attitude refers to “the sum total of a man’s instinctions and
feelings, prejudice or bias, preconceived notions, fears,
threats, and convictions about any specified topic” (Gard-
ner, 1980, p. 267). It is “a hypothetical construct used to
explain the direction and persistence of human behavior”
(Baker, 1992, p. 10). In other words, it involves “a dispo-
sition to respond favorably or unfavorably to an object,
person, institution, or event” (Ajzan, 1988, p. 4). Wenden
(1991) distinguished three main components of attitude in-
cluding: cognitive, affective, and behavioral components. As
he explained, the cognitive component comprises a person’s
opinions regarding the essence of an object. The affective
component focuses on the person’s emotions towards the
diverse aspects of an object. Lastly, the behavioral compo-
nent reflects the actions of an individual which are done as
a result of his/her intentions to deal with the relevant object.
Gardner’s (1983) socio-educational model of second
language acquisition includes attitudes towards the learn-
ing situation (which includes attitudes towards the language
teacher & language learning context) as a fundamental
component of second language motivation. Gardner (1985)
argued that, learner attitudes, which are an integral compo-
nent of learner motivation, can be categorized to two main
types including: social attitudes and cultural attitudes. So-
cial attitudes involve “attitudes which focus on the cultur-
al implications of second language acquisition” (Gardner,
1985, p. 41). Some examples for this type of attitude com-
prise “attitudes towards French Canadians, ethnocentrism,
and anomie, for example gain their significance because
they refer to the individuals’ attitudinal disposition towards
social groups, in-group or out-group which might influence
second language acquisition” (p. 42). Gardner (1985) point-
ed out that, attitude towards second language community
is the most prominent type of social attitudes and stems
from the language learners’ beliefs in regard to the social
structure and social rules of the target community. In oth-
er words, learners’ social attitudes are influenced based on
the compatibility between the social structure and rules on
their native community and the target language community.
Cultural attitudes, which are similar to social attitudes, are
adopted during an individual’s childhood as a result of three
main factors including: the caretakers’ attitudes, the per-
son’s own emotional experiences, and the person’s exposure
60 ALLS 9(5):58-64

to the member of other cultural groups (Gardner, 1985). It is
argued that, the cultural attitudes form an individual’s per-
ceived self and impact on his/her opinions of their native
culture and target language culture, integrative motivation,
and success in target language (Gardner, 1985).
the study in order to answer the mentioned research ques-
tions. The chi-square test was utilized to analyze the collect-
ed data of the study.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

METHOD Data Analysis

The Participants of the Study
The participants of this study consisted of 441 students
(224 male & 217 female) studying at the first year of their
graduate program at universities in East Azarbayjan prov-
ince (Iran). All of the students were chosen from among
those who had taken the same University Entrance Exam-
ination administered by the Organization of Measurement
and ranged in age from 18 to 22. Based on the results of this
examination the participants were divided into two groups:
a) more effective language learners with a grade of at least
66 on the 100 point entrance examination, and b) less ef ef-
fective learners with a grade of at most 33 on the 100 point
entrance examination. According to this classification, there
were 232 more effective and 209 less effective participants
in the present study.
The Instrument of the Study
The first research question investigated the differences be-
tween the attitudes of more effective and less effective learn-
ers. Based on the results of the analysis, there were differences
between these groups in four items of the attitude part of the
employed questionnaire of the study including: item 2, item 4,
item 13, and item 14. These results are provided below:
Item 2: If I can speak English, I will be respected by my
family and relatives.
Table 1 provides the frequency and percentage of the dif dif-
ferences between these groups in regard to item 2:
A chi-square test for independence was employed to de-
termine the statistical significance of the difference between
these groups. Table 2 shows the results of this test:
As shown in Table 2, there was a significant difference
between the more effective and less effective EFL learners’
responses to this item since the p-value.000 (marked as Sig.)
was less than the level of significance.05. This significant
difference is shown in Figure 1:

The data of the present study were collected by means of

a three-part 35-item attitude-motivation questionnaire. The Table 1. Frequency and percentage of more effective and
first part of this questionnaire intended to solicit the par- less effective EFL learners’ preference degree regarding
ticipants’ personal information including their gender, age, item 2
native language, university major, and University Entrance Preference degree More effective Less effective
Examination grade. The second part of this instrument was learners learners
adapted from AMTB (Gardner, 1985) and measured the par- F (%) F (%)
ticipants’ language learning attitudes. It involved 17 items No 84 (36.2) 17 (8.1)
which were rated on a 4 point scale. (i.e., No, A Little, Good, A little 103 (44.4) 31 (14.8)
& Best). Finally, the last part of the questionnaire intend-
Good 27 (11.6) 69 (33.0)
ed to determine the participants’ second language learning
Best 18 (7.8) 92 (44.0)
motivation. Similar to the second part, it was adapted from
AMTB (Gardner, 1985) and comprised 18 items which were
rated on a 4 point scale. (i.e. No, A Little, Good, & Best).
Table 2. Chi-square test of the more effective and less
The results of statistical analysis revealed that, the Cron-
effective EFL learners’ preferences degree regarding
bach’s Alpha coefficient of this questionnaire was.85 which
item2
is considered to be acceptable (Pallant, 2007). Consequently,
the questionnaire was regarded to be an appropriate instru- Value df. Sig.
ment for the purpose of examining the learners’ attitude and Chi-Square 150.499 3 0.000
motivation.

Table 3. Frequency and percentage of more effective and

The Procedure of the Study less effective EFL learners’ preference degree regarding
According to the purpose of the study, first, the researcher item 4
developed the three-part 35-item attitude-motivation ques- Preference degree More effective Less effective
tionnaire of the present study based on the AMTB devel- learners learners
oped by Gardner (1985). Second, he selected 441 students F (%) F (%)
(224 male & 217 female) studying at the first year of their No 101 (43.5) 34 (16.3)
graduate program at universities in East Azarbayjan province A Little 89 (38.4) 31 (14.8)
(Iran) as the participants of the study. Third, he administered
Good 23 (9.9) 66 (31.6)
the questionnaire of the study to the selected participants and
asked them to complete it. Finally, he analyzed the data of Best 19 (8.2) 78 (37.3)
Investigating More Effective and Less Effective EFL Learners’Attitudes and Motivational Orientation 61

Item 4: Being able to speak English shows that a person
is classy and educated.
Table 3 provides the frequency and percentage of the dif
dif-
ferences between these groups in regard to item 4:
A chi-square test for independence was employed to de-
termine the statistical significance of the difference between
these groups. Table 4 shows the results of this test:
As shown in Table 4, there was a significant difference
between the more effective and less effective EFL learners’
responses to this item since the p-value.000 (marked as Sig.)
was less than the level of significance.05. This significant
difference is shown in Figure 2:
Item 13: I like to communicate with the native speak-
ers of English and become familiar with their culture and
lifestyle.
Table 5 provides the frequency and percentage of the dif
dif-
ferences between these groups in regard to item 13:
A chi-square test for independence was employed to de-
termine the statistical significance of the difference between
these groups. Table 6 shows the results of this test:
As shown in Table 6, there was a significant difference
between the more effective and less effective EFL learners’
responses to this item since the p-value.000 (marked as Sig.)
was less than the level of significance.05. This significant
difference is shown in Figure 3:
Item 14: I like English speaking countries and their
people.
Table 7 provides the frequency and percentage of the dif
dif-
ferences between these groups in regard to item 14:
A chi-square test for independence was employed to de-
termine the statistical significance of the difference between
these groups. Table 8 shows the results of this test:
As shown in Table 14, there was a significant difference
between the more effective and less effective EFL learners’

Table 4. Chi-square test of the more effective and less Table 6. Chi-square test of the more effective and less
effective EFL learners’ preferences degree regarding effective EFL learners’ preferences degree regarding
item4 item13
Value df. Sig. Value df. Sig.
Chi-Square 177.066 3 0.000 Chi-Square 107.847 3 0.000

Table 5. Frequency and percentage of more effective Table 7. Frequency and percentage of more effective and
and less effective EFL learners’ preference degree less effective EFL learners’ preference degree regarding
regardingitem 13 item 14
Preference degree More effective Less effective Preference degree More effective Less effective
learners learners learners learners
F (%) F (%) F (%) F (%)
No 28 (12.1) 83 (39.7) No 38 (16.4) 81 (38.8)
A Little 34 (14.7) 76 (36.4) A Little 45 (19.4) 76 (63.4)
Good 73 (31.5) 21 (10.0) Good 63 (27.2) 31 (14.8)
Best 97 (41.8) 29 (13.9) Best 86 (37.1) 21 (10.0)

Figure 3. The difference between more effective and less effective

Figure 1. The difference between more effective and less effective
efl learners’ preference degree regarding item 13
efl learners’ preference degree regarding item 2

Figure 2. The difference between more effective and less effective Figure 4. The difference between more effective and less effective
efl learners’ preference degree regarding item 4 efl learners’ preference degree regarding item 14
62 ALLS 9(5):58-64

responses to this item since the p-value.000 (marked as Sig.) Table 13 provides the frequency and percentage of the
was less than the level of significance.05. This significant differences between these groups in regard to item 29:
difference is shown in Figure 4: A chi-square test for independence was employed to de-
The second research question examined the differences termine the statistical significance of the difference between
between the motivation of more effective and less effective these groups. Table 14 shows the results of this test:
learners. The results of the statistical analysis showed that,
there were significant differences between these groups in
three items including: item 21, item 28, and item 29. These
results are provided below:
Item 21: In order to have a better job.
Table 9 provides the frequency and percentage of the dif
dif-
ferences between these groups in regard to item 21:
A chi-square test for independence was employed to de-
termine the statistical significance of the difference between
these groups. Table 10 shows the results of this test: Figure 5. The difference between more effective and less effective
As shown in Table 10, there was a significant difference efl learners’ preference degree regarding item 21
between the more effective and less effective EFL learners’
responses to this item since the p-value.000 (marked as Sig.)
was less than the level of significance.05. This significant
difference is shown in Figure 5:
Item 28: I want to be able to speak English.
Table 11 provides the frequency and percentage of the
differences between these groups in regard to item 28:
A chi-square test for independence was employed to de-
termine the statistical significance of the difference between
these groups. Table 12 shows the results of this test: Figure 6. The difference between more effective and less effective
As shown in Table 12, there was a significant difference efl learners’ preference degree regarding item 28
between the more effective and less effective EFL learners’
responses to this item since the p-value.000 (marked as Sig.)
was less than the level of significance.05. This significant
difference is shown in Figure 6:
Item 29: I want to become familiar with English speaking
countries and their people’s lifestyle.

Table 8. Chi-square test of the more effective and less

effective EFL learners’ preferences degree regarding
item14
Value df. Sig. Figure 7. The difference between more effective and less effective
Chi-Square 72.858 3 0.000 efl learners’ preference degree regarding item 29

Table 9. Frequency and percentage of more effective and Table 11. Frequency and percentage of more effective
less effective EFL learners’ preference degree regarding and less effective EFL learners’ preference degree
item 21 regarding item 28
Preference degree More effective Less effective Preference More effective Less effective
learners learners degree learners learners
F (%) F (%) F (%) F (%)
No 110 (47.4) 24 (11.5) No 18 (7.8) 86 (41.1)
A Little 77 (33.2) 29 (13.9) A Little 19 (8.2) 70 (33.5)
Good 24 (10.3) 58 (27.8) Good 72 (31.0) 40 (19.1)
Best 21 (9.1) 98 (46.9) Best 123 (53.0) 13 (6.2)

Table 10. Chi-square test of the more effective and less Table 12. Chi-square test of the more effective and less
effective EFL learners’ preferences degree regarding effective EFL learners’ preferences degree regarding
item21 item28
Value df. Sig. Value df. Sig.
Chi-Square 140.032 3 0.000 Chi-Square 171.065 3 0.000
Investigating More Effective and Less Effective EFL Learners’Attitudes and Motivational Orientation 63

Table 13. Frequency and percentage of more effective tive learners’ motivation. More specifically, generally, the
and less effective EFL learners’ preference degree more effective language learners were intrinsically motivat-
regarding item 29 ed to learner the target language whereas the less effective
language learners were extrinsically motivated to acquire
Preference degree More effective Less effective
the second language. These results support the results of the
learners learners
studies by Dörnyei and Cszér (1998), Noels, Clemént and
F (%) F (%)
Pelletier (1999), Dörnyei (2001) and Wu (2003).
No 20 (8.6) 88 (42.1) These results may be attributed to the more effective lan-
A Little 35 (15.1) 76 (36.4) guage learners’ favorable feelings in regard to competence
Good 85 (36.6) 29 (13.9) (Deci, 1975). Dörnyei (2001) stated that, the learners who
Best 92 (39.7) 16 (7.7) are intrinsically motivated to acquire the target language
develop a sense of achievement as a result of the second
language acquisition. In other words, these learners’ self-ac-
Table 14. Chi-square test of the more effective and less tualization stems from their learning and authentic use of
effective EFL learners’ preferences degree regarding the target language (Noels et al., 1999). Nevertheless, the
item29 learners who are extrinsically motivated to learn the target
Value df. Sig. language are not likely to derive satisfaction from learning
Chi-Square 138.125 3 0.000 the target language. These learners pursue instrumental ob-
jectives in language learning and may not develop a sense
of internal accomplishment as a result of second language
As shown in Table 14, there was a significant difference
acquisition (Dörnyei & Cszér, 1998).
between the more effective and less effective EFL learners’
responses to this item since the p-value.000 (marked as Sig.)
was less than the level of significance.05. This significant CONCLUSION
difference is shown in Figure 7: The present study aimed to explore whether there were iden-
tifiable differences in attitudes and motivation between more
Discussion effective and less effective learners studying at the first year
of graduate university program in Tabriz, Iran. The results
The first and the second research questions of the study
of the study showed that there were significant differences
aimed to determine the differences between the more ef ef-
between more effective and less effective learners’ attitudes
fective and the less effective language learners’ attitudes
and motivation. Based on the results of the study, it is rec-
and motivation. Based on the results, there were significant
ommended that, the EFL syllabus designers include specific
differences between these groups’ attitudes toward second
attitude/motivation questionnaires in the EFL teaching ma-
language learning. More specifically, generally, the more efef-
terials of the language courses. These instruments will assist
fective had generally integrative attitudes while the less ef
ef-
the language learners to determine their attitudinal and moti-
fective learners had instrumental attitudes. These results are
vational orientations and will encourage them to adopt inte-
in line with the results of studies by Spolsky (1969), Gardner
grative attitudes toward the learning of the target language.
and Lambert (1972), Gardner, Day and MacIntyre (1992),
Moreover, they may be helpful to strengthen the learners’
and Cszér and Dörnyei (2005).
intrinsic motivation in learning the target language. Similar-
These results may be attributed to favorable impacts of the
ly, it is suggested that, the EFL teachers make an endeavor
integrative attitudes on the more effective language learners’
to modify their learners’ unfavorable attitudes and encourage
learning behaviors both in the classroom and out of the class-
them to adopt more positive attitudes toward the second lan-
room (Gardner et al., 1992). As, Cszér and Dörnyei (2005)
guage. Finally, it is recommended that, these teachers make
noted, the learners with integrative attitudes seek learning
an effort to reinforce their learners’ intrinsic motivation to
opportunities in diverse settings and are not afraid of taking
learn the target language.
risks to learn the target language. They explained that, these
Nonetheless, there is a need for further studies of learner
learners are more ambiguity tolerant in comparison with
factors in diverse learning contexts. It is recommended that,
their peers and tend to internalize the cultural aspects of the
the researchers replicate the present study in second language
target language which are not in line with their own native
contexts to reinforce its results. Moreover, it is suggested
culture. Nonetheless, the learners who have instrumental
that, the researchers examine the impact of the participants’
attitudes toward the learning of the target language are not
age and native language on the correlation between the in-
likely to take risks or to internalize contradictory cultural
dividual learner differences and second language learning.
characteristics. They prefer to learn the target language to
Furthermore, it is recommended that, the future studies in-
attain particular objectives and may not seek to use the sec-
vestigate the individual specific learner differences variables
ond language in everyday situational contexts. These issues
(e.g. intelligence, language aptitude, working memory, &
may have detrimental impacts on these learners’ language
self-esteem) which were not dealt with in the present study.
learning (Gardner et al., 1992).
In addition, it is suggested that, the future studies conduct
In addition, the results indicated that, there were signif
signif-
different studies in diverse educational contexts such as
icant differences between the more effective and less effec-
schools and private institutes to determine the impact of var-
64
ious individual learner differences on the students’ language
learning.
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 Advances in Language and Literary Studies
ISSN: 2203-4714
www.alls.aiac.org.au

Integrating Cultural Activities in the Algerian Language Classroom: On The Move Textbook

Boukhatem Nadera*
Superior school of Management Tlemcen, Algeria
Corresponding Author: Boukhatem Nadera, E-mail: boukhatem.nadera@yahoo.fr

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article history
Received: April 04, 2018
Accepted: July 14, 2018
Published: October 31, 2018
Volume: 9 Issue: 5
Advance access: August 2018
Language and culture are two inseparable entities.Therefore, learning a language is at once
learning the culture of the people using it.One’s mastery of the linguistic elements of a language
does not guarantee a person can communicate through it. Cultural understanding is obligatory.
This paper discusses the various finding and ideas on the integration of culture into a foreign
language teaching.Its focus is to highlight the importance, existence, impact, and the techniques
of integrating cultural elements into the teaching of English as a foreign language.

Conflicts of interest: None

Funding: None

Key words:
Language teaching,
Culture, Learning,
Techniques

INTRODUCTION linguistic and cultural boundaries is the objective of teaching

This research aims at investigating the place of teaching cul-
ture at the level of Algerian schools and showing its impor-
tance as a part of teaching English.
It also aims at exploring the teacher’s knowledge, views
and perceptions of culture teaching in theory and practice:
Our main aims in this research are:
-to examine the situation of teaching culture in the Alge-
rian middle schools.
-to show the importance of integrating target culture.
-to test the teacher’s awareness of the importance of
teaching culture as well as their cultural knowledge.
The need to integrate culture in foreign language teach-
ing is not a new debate, and has been long highlighted by
many researchers like: *Kramsch, Byram,Seelye….etc*.
yet it seems to be common practice that English textbooks
designers, in Algeria, frequently overlook the conclusions
drawn in such studies, and neglect the essential information
about the target language that would help students reach a
cultural understanding to complete their linguistic one. In
fact, the major purpose motivating this study is that there is a
need of studies that examine the quality of materials used in
teaching culture in Algerian textbooks.
It is intended to find out whether the Algerian classrooms
provide sufficient content for student’s cultural understand-
ing and make them ready for communication, developing
learner’s ability to communicate with each other across
English in Algeria which cannot reached unless the target
culture is fully understood.
Our study aims at addressing the following questions
-what is the importance of teaching culture ?
-can language and culture be separated?
- Do middle school teachers and textbooks give impor-
tance to culture in teaching English?
To meet the objectives of the study, we will examine the
place of culture in the fourth year middle school On The
Move ”.we choose it as a sample because students have gone
through four years of English because they are following the
new curriculum.
The Relationship between Language and Culture
It has been a subject of rapid change in the history of foreign
language teaching. Many scholars and researchers like kramsch
and Byram emphasized that without the study of culture, teach-
ing a foreign language is inaccurate and incomplete. Therefore,
teachers must not only help to improve students linguistic abil-
ity but also focus on developing student’s cultural awareness.
What Do They Say about Culture?
Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge,
belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities

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Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.5p.65
66
and habits acquired by man as a member of society (Taylor,
E,1871)
It is the way a group of people behaviour reacts to various
conditions or circumstances (Boards, f, 1911). it is signifi-
cant because it reveals relationships which are important to
us due to their connection with our values “ (Weber,m,1904).
It is the capacity for constantly expanding the range and ac-
curacy of one’s perception of meanings “ (Dewey, j 1916).
The term culture [refers to] what is learned … the things
one needs to know in order to meet the standards of oth-
ers “(Goodenough, w 1971). [the culture concept] denotes
a historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied
in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed
in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate,
perpetuate and develop their knowledge about and attitudes
toward life”(Geertz,1966). It is a presupposition of cultural
psychology that when people leave in the world differently, it
may be that they live in different worlds “(shweder,R,1991).
The most important characteristic of culture according to
samovar (2004) is that “it is learned.and transmitted from
generation to generation. From the moment a child is con-
ceived, culture is already handed down to him/her through
the rituals of child-bearing.
Consequently, culture nurtures a person throughout his/
her lifetime persistently following him/her and dictating
what to do in almost all circumstances from the cradle to
the grave.Samovar also included five elements that are found
in each culture: history, religion, values, social organization,
and language.
History is handed down from generation to generation,
religion influences culture, values help determines how peo-
ple ought to behave social organization help members of the
culture organize their lives and lastly, language allows mem-
bers to communicate with one other”.
Language and Culture
Interest and inquiry on the question of language and cul-
ture originate in the field of anthropology. Boas and Sapir
were the first to throw light on the crucial relationship of lan-
guage and culture, language expresses the thoughts, beliefs
and assumptions of a community hence, language reflects
the way of looking at the world and understanding reality.
The study of culture has developed under the heading of an-
thropology.
The language was already recognized as a valuable tool
for the scientific study of culture.
Risager(2006) considers culture as a component and a
part that cannot be separated from the language, and she adds
that linguistic production and practice is a way of cultural
practice since language is always embedded in the culture.
Byrams(1989) believes that language is a tool to express
speaker’s knowledge and perception of the real world, thus it
reflects their cultural concepts and values. He goes on saying
that one cannot learn a language and neglect its culture because
speaking a language means expressing its culture, exchanging
a language embodies a particular way of thinking and living.
Language is bound up with culture in different ways;
first, language expresses speaker’s beliefs, the point of view
ALLS 9(5):65-68
and assumption about the real world, second, members of
the same speech community create an experience through
language, thus language always embodies cultural reality,
third, language itself is seen as a cultural value.
Kramsh(1998) puts three links between language and
culture which can be summarized as follows:
-language expresses cultural reality.
-language embodies cultural reality.
-language symbolizes cultural reality.
Language is an inseparable part of culture because it is
impossible to ignore the place of language in a given culture.
Language reveals the way of thinking and norms which
are common in the culture.
“ language as a symbol of culture ”. “ language can be
considered as a symbol to defend or attack.
The Importance of Teaching Culture
Culture should be taught in language course because cultural
competence is indisputably an integral part of foreign lan-
guage learning.
Valdes insisted that it is impossible to ignore or avoid
teaching target culture when teaching language since they
are inseparable. Moreover; according to Byran (1989) cul-
tural awareness is very important in language teaching be-
cause it contributes to language proficiency. He insists that
any language curriculum should include either implicitly or
explicitly elements of its culture because language reflects
the speaker’s values and perception of the world. Thus, it
is impossible to learn a language and ignore its speaker’s
values and intentions. In other words, speaking a language
is speaking its culture, and exchanging messages which em-
body a particular way of thinking and living.
Teaching culture is undoubtedly needed because *lan-
guage use has its own social grammar of rules, settings, rules
of speaking and norms of interpretation*
Ned Seelye writes: “Learning a language in isolation of
its cultural roots prevents one from becoming socialized into
its contextual use. Knowledge of linguistic structure alone
does not carry with it any special insight into the political,
social, religious, or economic system (1976).”
According to Wilga Rivers: “We must focus on both ap-
propriate content and activities that enable students to as-
similate that content. Activities should encourage them to go
beyond fact so that they begin to perceive and experience
vicariously the deeper levels of the culture of the speakers of
the language (1981).”
In a seminar on linguistics and language teaching in
GEORGETOWN Pulitzer(1959) points out: As language
teachers, we must be interested in the teaching of culture
not because we necessarily want to teach the culture of the
other country, but because we have to teach it. We cannot be
competent in the target language if we don’t comprehend the
culture of the other and how it assimilates to our own culture.
The Consequence of Avoiding Teaching Culture
If students are not thought cultural aspects in FL lessons,
They will face different problems.
Integrating Cultural Activities in the Algerian language Classroom: On The Move Textbook
First of all, in the process of language learning, students
will go back to their Mother Tongue whenever they don ‘t
know how to say something in FL and linguistic transfer will
arise(Nuria Calvo Cortes 2007:233)
Different linguists have expressed their opinion on this
most of them agree that a language cannot be isolated from
its correspondent culture and it will make such a learning
process easier, although not many devote their attention to
cultural transfer, is more likely to happen at linguistic lev-
els rather than at cultural ones. However, there are different
researchers drawing their attention to the fact that transfer
can be present at socio-cultural level (E. OLSHTAIN&A.
COHEN1989), That is if students become aware of how the
target culture works their knowledge of the foreign language
will improve.R.LADO (1989:55)
Practical analysis:
METHODOLOGY
Description of the EFL pupils at Middle School
English is studied from the first year of the middle school
until the third year of secondary school which makes sev-
en years of English tuition. At the middle school, English is
part of the curriculum. During learners studies, the focus of
the four skills (Listening, speaking, reading comprehension
and written expression) in addition to grammar, vocabulary
and other language functions which learners have to show
their proficiency and mastery of the target language through
different units.
This research work has taken a sample population of pu-
pils of fourth-year level in Cherif Moulay Idriss at Tlemcen.
Learners Profile
As far as the pupils of fourth-year level are concerned, their
number is 240, among them 110boys and 130 girls. These
pupils ranging in age between 14 and 16 years.All of them
are from Tlemcen, they nearly differ in their cultural, social
and educational background.
Analysis of the Teachers’ Questionnaire
The main objective of the questionnaire was the collection of
a set of information about teaching culture in Middle school.
The questionnaire result provided important information
about the teaching culture.
Item one: what steps do you follow when teaching cul-
ture?
The teachers answer that they first warm up then intro-
duce gradually the four skills in each session and use differ-
ent techniques to acquire the culture of a language. These, in
turn, should raise learners’ awareness of intercultural issues
and enable them to communicate effectively and appropri-
ately in a variety of communicative contexts.
Item two: Does the textbook use sufficient items in-
volved in discussions about other culture?
culture has been considered to be some sort of fifth mac-
ro-skill, which is introduced once the skills of speaking,
67
listening, reading and writing have been established. Quite
often in language textbooks we see a separate section re-
served for culture. However, these notes, while interesting,
are not usually the elements of culture that learners typical-
ly experience difficulty with. When we use a language, we
are involved in culture, whether we are speaking, listening,
reading or writing.
The textbook focuses on manifold cultures such as the
American, the British, the Indian compared to the Algerian
one, promote mutual understanding and tolerance.
The teachers agreed that the textbook contains cultural
aspects such as some songs.
(where have all the flowers gone? sung by Bob Dylan),(a
rainy Sunday sang by Jimmy Sphens),(yesterday sang the
Beatles) and (If I had a hammer sang by Peter, Paul and
Mary).
Besides, we can find some American cultural texts such
as Indian tribes living in the south-east of America, an article
entitled: should we celebrate Martin Luther King Day.
Indian cultures like the biography of Mahatma Gandhi.
Songs could help to understand the other culture to be
more emphatic, tolerant, promote mutual understanding and
tolerance, respect for other identities and cultural diversity.
Pedagogical Recommendations
Despite all of us agree on the importance of teaching culture.
This will remain limited. Thus, teachers need to decide about
on appropriate techniques and combine between the culture
related topics and activities in teaching. This should foster
students’ cultural knowledge and awareness.
Sometimes the students’ knowledge of the foreign culture
is very limited because teaching is not systematic and de-
pends on what the teacher considers more important.
CONCLUSION
When teaching culture the teacher has to bear in mind stu-
dents’ age, maturity, command of language and educational
level. The main aim is that teachers should be prepared to
deal with students learning facts or opinions that may con-
flict with their own or what they regard as natural. Ideally,
the textbooks should be more meaningful and relevant to the
life experiences of the students and they should prepare them
for real life situations since the textbooks dominate the edu-
cational practices.
They must be vigilant or aware of the challenges facing
the learner’s identity. And finally, this includes the teachers’
skills, attitudes and knowledge.
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 Advances in Language and Literary Studies
ISSN: 2203-4714
www.alls.aiac.org.au

What Can the Prophet Muhammad’s Metaphors Do?

Ahmad El-Sharif*
Department of English Language and Literature, Al-alBayt University, Jordan
Corresponding Author: Listyani, E-mail: a.el-sharif@aabu.edu.jo

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article history
Received: May 10, 2018
Accepted: July 26, 2018
Published: October 31, 2018
Volume: 9 Issue: 5
Advance access: August 2018
Conflicts of interest: None
Funding: None
The current article approaches the issue of the persuasiveness of metaphors in The Prophet
Muhammad’s Tradition. The main concern of the article is to show that the Prophetic metaphors
are discursively practiced by the Prophet for the function of persuading his audience to accept
Islamic laws, and introduce rites and rituals, and to prohibit the unlawful. Through a survey of
instances of metaphoric scenarios and images, and in reference to the contemporary cognitive
theory of metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980), the article demonstrates that the persuasiveness
of the prophetic metaphors is primarily evoked by disambiguation, arousing the emotions, and
implicit threat.

Key words:
Metaphor,
Persuasion,
Discourse,
Prophet Muhammad,
Islam

INTRODUCTION ideologies and social practices which distinguish the Muslim

One of the established conceptions about the Prophet Muham-
mad’s Tradition that it involves a large bulk of Sayings with
their main objective is to establish a discourse that calls for
the full submission and allegiance to a faith that calls for the
worship of one God. Furthermore, this Tradition proposes a
matching discourse that regulates the inter-communal relations
between members of Islamic society and the neighbouring
non-Muslim societies. On the one hand, delivering such paral-
lel discourses necessitated a body of edifying, moral, and leg-
islative principles which encompass and delineate the purposes
of Islamic faith, and the Prophetic Tradition encompasses the
largest portion of these principles (Forte, 1978). As well, the
Prophetic message has laid down a discourse that has repro-
duced a new society which adores an original faith with agree-
able norms, standards, and values. This discourse is the product
of a language tailored in terms of form and content by means of
discursive practices; communicative practices based on rules
that define and construct their referents (Buchanan, 2010: ‘dis-
cursive practice’), and one of these most salient practices is the
Prophet’s purposeful employment of metaphors.
This article argues that metaphorical language is used in
the Prophetic tradition to address a variety of functions and
purposes. These ‘Prophetic metaphors’ are used within a pro-
cedural framework that represents and recapitulates a set of
society and Islamic doctrine based on early Arabs’ beliefs and
experiential knowledge (El-Sharif, 2012). For instance the
prophetic metaphors present Islam as a faith, introduce Mus-
lims and non-Muslims and their characteristics, implement
Islamic laws and legislation, define the nature of faith, and
introduce the path of Islam in terms of beliefs and rites and
rituals, and prohibited practices. However, several social prac-
tices which are dictated by the Prophet Muhammad involve
an unquestionable sense of duty and obligation. A Muslim is
compulsorily required to adhere to these practices and observe
them, and lenience in observing them might be recognised as
deviating from Islam. Still, a substantial argument on the use
of the Prophetic metaphors is their primary use for the purpose
of persuading the Prophet’s followers about the message of
adhering to Islam and embracing it as the only sound faith.
Islam, as a word, is originated from the Arabic triadic
consonantal root s-l-m that makes the verb ‘aslama’1, which
means ‘to accept, surrender or submit’ (Gardet, 2017: ‘Is-
lam’). Islam means the complete obedience and submission
to the commands of one omnipotent and omnipresent god,
Allah. Hence, Muslims, who embrace Islam as a faith, ex-
press this obedience by worshiping Allah, following His
commands and recanting what He declare prohibited, espe-
cially polytheism (‘sherk’). The principles of this faith are

Published by Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.

Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.5p.69
70
presented according to diverse themes which are mostly
dictated via Holy Qur’an and elaborately by the Prophet
Muhammad’s Tradition.
To name a principle, the Prophet Muhammad’s Tradition
accentuates the universality of the message of Islam and
that it targets all mankind. The Prophet’s Tradition goes fur-
ther radically on arguing that that all mankind are innately
endowed with a tendency to embrace and accept Islam as
a faith even if they are born by non-Muslim parents. Such
proposition may not simply find its way to the recipient’s
mind and heart, and the Prophet discursively postulates that
Islam shall not be regarded as a special privilege which God
has favoured to one class of people (i.e. ethnicity, origin, or
nation) and disregard the other ones. In fact, Islam is meta-
phorically depicted as the native faith; the Prophet says:
1. Everyone is born a Muslim (calaa alfeeŧra), but his par-
ents make him a Jew, a Christian, or a Magian; just as
a beast2 (albaheymah) is born whole. Do you find some
among them [born] maimed?. (Miškat3, 90, p.26)
The proposition of the innateness of Islam sounds eccen-
tric to the non-Muslim; however, the metaphoric analogy is
employed here to make accepting the proposition feasible.
The Saying recipient is provoked to make an analogy between
faith and his experiential knowledge of the real world, espe-
cially from the domains of animals and beasts. By this anal-
ogy, the Prophet postulates that believing in Allah, and Islam,
is the natural disposition of a man, because anyone is born
with an innate inclination and disposition to be a monotheist;
a believer of one God, Allah (Boz, 2011: 130). This inclination
is idiomatically identified in Islam as ‘alfeŧra’, an instinctual
innate knowledge that a person is endowed with, and which
makes him/her properly distinguish good from evil (See Iz-
zati, 2002; 93ff). Naturally, the individual acquires faith and
religion by family and education; nevertheless, the Prophet
proposes that deviating from monotheism is against what Al-
lah decree. Here, the Prophet overtly acknowledges the par-
ents’ instinctual intervention in deforming that inclination in
their children. In addition, the ‘beast’ (albaheymah) metaphor
develops the recipient’s own interpretation on faith by making
an analogy that conceptualises spiritual qualities in terms of
animals’ innate qualities. This analogy is fore-grounded by
the Prophet’s rhetorical question “Do you find some among
them [born] maimed?” that incites the recipient to call his ex-
periential knowledge about nature and that animals are natu-
rally born with whole limbs. Accordingly, the one’s aptitude
to embrace Islam as faith is recognised as a sign of intactness
and wholeness, and that its absence epitomizes an undesirable
deficiency that undervalues the quality of the beast (albahey-
mah), and implicitly the person. Herein, I argue in favour of
the proposition that an association between faith innateness
and the positive evaluation of the intactness of the beast’s
limbs make the metaphoric image adequately persuasive. That
means changing attitudes or behaviours or both without using
coercion or deception (Fogg, 2003: 15).
Remarkably, the Prophetic Tradition frequently employs
metaphors of animals’ innate qualities to illustrate the re-
lationship between the believer and faith; for example, the
Prophet says:
ALLS 9(5):69-78
2. The believer and faith are like a horse ((faras) with the
stake (?axeyah) to which it is tethered, which moves
round and then returns to its stake, for the believer is
negligent and then returns to faith. (Miškat, 4250, p.900)
Faith is metaphorically portrayed as a source of opulence
and protection to its bearer. Here, the Prophet presents two
metaphors: the ‘believer’ as a tethered horse (faras
( ), and
‘faith’ as a stake (?axeyah). The two metaphors propose re-
semblance between spiritual qualities and innate animals’
qualities. The ground of this analogy is pre-Islamic Arabs’
familiarity with domesticated animals, and the Saying mes-
sage emphasizes that faith can restrain the sinning soul, and
a true believer is always bound to faith even if he falls into
sin.
Islam is also frequently portrayed in the Prophetic Tradi-
tion as a path that the believer follows to reach a destination
along a journey that quest for God’s forgiveness and Para-
dise (El-Sharif, 2012: 5). Such metaphor is conventionally
elaborated by images of the Prophet, for example, is resem-
bled to the right guide in this path (a.k.a Sunna). Herein, the
Prophet’s path (Sunna) is reinstated as an ontological meta-
phor ((See Lakoff and Johnson, 1980: 25-33) to reconceptu-
alise its abstractness; thus I see the Prophet conceptualising
his tradition (Sunna) as an object; he says:
3. ...You must therefore follow my Sunna and that of the
rightly guided Caliphs. Hold to it and stick fast to it4.
Avoid novelties, for every novelty is an innovation, and
every innovation is error. (Miškat, 165, p.44)
Here, the Saying accentuates that the Prophet’s own life,
in addition to the rightly guided Caliphs5’ life makes a tradi-
tion (Sunna) that must be followed. This Sunna, or path, is
reconceptualised as an ontological metaphor as a valuable
object that a Muslim should adhere to despite of the hard-hard
ships that a Muslim could face in defending his faith.
WHAT CAN THE PROPHETIC METAPHORS DO?
I see that the Prophetic Tradition resorts to metaphorical
language in order to make its argument persuasive. This is
attained by regarding the Prophetic metaphors a communi-
cation process in which the persuader (the Prophet) sends a
persuasive message to a persuadee or audience (the Mus-
lim and non-Muslim recipient) with the intention of chang-
ing the recipient’s attitudes or behaviour, although always
leaving the persuadee with the power of decision (Simons
et. al., 2001). Thus, I will present in the following sections
that the Prophetic metaphors are discursively practiced by
the Prophet for the function of persuading his audience to
accept Islamic laws, and introduce rites and rituals, and to
prohibit the unlawful. Then, I will discuss, with more elabo-
rated examples, how the Prophetic metaphors establish their
persuasiveness.
Introducing Islamic laws
The set of Islamic of laws, also known as Shari’ah (meaning
‘way’ or ‘path’), is a large body of legislations and princi-
ples believed to be revealed by God. In fact, Islam holds that
“God has not revealed Himself and His nature, but rather His
What Can the Prophet Muhammad’s Metaphors Do?
law.” (Ruthven, 1997: 75); thus it is argued that “Shari’ah it-
self is considered to be a timeless manifestation of the will
of God, subject neither to history nor circumstance.” (ibid.).
Derived mainly from the Qur’an and Prophetic Tradition,
Islamic laws are meant to direct habitual aspects of the Mus-
lim’s life including his worships, contracts, economic trans-
actions, marital relationship, among many other aspects. As
legislation from the Qur’an and Prophetic Tradition are char-
acterised by their comprehensiveness, these legislation con-
stitute the foundation of other essential guiding principles
and purposes (called Maqasid al-Shari’ah) which include
the protection of human religion, life, intellect, lineage, and
property (Khan and Ghifari, 1985).
Moreover, Shari’ah classifies the Muslims deeds into
obligatory ((farĐ), recommended (mustaħabb), neutral
(mubaaħ), discouraged (makruuh), and forbidden (ħaraam).
This classification constructs the basis of Fiqh, a develop-
ment of Shari’ah and Islamic law that is based directly on
the Qur’an and Sunnah among other sources of legislation
and evolved from the interpretations of early and contem-
porary Islamic jurists. Human deeds belong to one of these
five categories (Horrie and Chippindale, 2007); obliga-
tory actions ((farĐ) are those required of all Muslims, and
they include the five daily prayers, fasting, articles of faith,
obligatory charity, and the pilgrimage to Mecca. The recom-
mended (mustaħabb) include proper worldly deeds in mat-
ters such as marriage, funeral rites and family life. Neutral
(mubaaħ), or permissible, deeds are those which are neither
recommended nor discouraged by Islamic law, and they are
not forbidden. Several deeds are not sinful in themselves,
but they are considered undesirable among Muslims; these
deeds are the discouraged (makruuh) ones. The forbidden
(ħaraam) deeds are explicitly forbidden, and they are both
sinful and unlawful as committing them makes a Muslim
liable to illicit penalties, and within this category we have
murdering, fornication, and drinking wine (ibid).
As the person will be rewarded for the good deeds and
accountable for the evil ones, distinguishing between the dif
dif-
ferent levels of lawful and prohibited deeds in Islam might
be deemed challenging to the Muslim and his personal
judgement. Thus, knowing the differences between the good
and evil require the Muslim’s Ijtihad, diligence and indepen-
dent reasoning (See Rabb, 2009: ‘Ijtihād’), with determina-
tion and patience, and sometimes sacrifice, and above all,
a persuasive argument that convinces the Muslim recipient
to embrace what sounds good and avoid what sounds evil.
The Prophetic metaphors are used here to sustain the per-
suasiveness of the divine messages by fore-grounding the
common experiential knowledge of Arabic society at the
Prophet’s time. For example, Islamic law repeatedly refers
to the Muslim ruler because rulership in Islam is seen as a
sacred indispensible duty by which God’s rulership and jus-
tice is practiced on earth (Sonn, 2010: 38). In the ‘Succes-
sion’ (‘istexlaaf)
‘istexlaaf) verse in the Qur’an, God emphasises the
‘istexlaaf
religious basis of having a Muslim ruler who rules according
to His commands:
• ‘Allah has promised those among you who believe and
do righteous good deeds, that He will certainly grant
71
them succession to (the present rulers) in the land as He
granted it to those before them, and that He will grant
them the authority to practise their religion which He
has chosen for them (i.e. Islam). And He will surely give
them in exchange a safe security after their fear (provid-
ed) they (believers) worship Me and do not associate
anything (in worship) with Me. But whoever disbelieves
after this, they are Fasiqun (rebellious, disobedient to
Allah).’ (Surah An-Nur, The Light, 24: 55).
The Prophetic Tradition accentuates the need of a ruler to
enact the commands of God on earth; the Prophet says:
4. The sultan is God’s shade (Zellu) on the earth to which
each one of His servants who is wronged repairs. When
he is just he will have a reward, and it is the duty of
the common people to be grateful; but when he acts ty-
rannically the burden rests on him, and it is the duty of
the common people to show endurance. (Miškat, 3718,
p.789)
Having a Muslim just ruler is regarded fundamental be-
cause it assures the temporal means to enact Islamic laws on
earth. Herein, the Muslim just ruler is depicted as the shade
(Zellu) of God on earth. The Saying addresses as God’s
Shade all those who are recruited of enacting the prevalence
of God’s justice, and those can be a Sultan (a Muslim rul-
er), a judge, or even an army officer. The shade metaphor
is derived from the domain of natural phenomena, and it
is culturally based on the ecological features of pre-Islamic
society of the Arab lands which were characterised by aridity
and heat. Both aridity and sun heat are negatively depicted
in the Saying by virtue of the metaphoric keyword repairs
(
(ya?wy ), and the metaphoric image of the repairs evokes a
negative evaluation of oppression; justice, on the other hand,
is positively evaluated by the shade metaphor. Thus, the
metaphor emphasizes the role of the Muslim just ruler as
a representative of God on earth, and the persuasiveness of
the shade metaphor is evoked by the contrast between the
negative evaluation of aridity and heat on the one hand, and
the positive evaluation of the shade on the other in addition
to the empathetic image of the ‘repairing’ ((ya?wy) of the
wronged to the shade; or the ruler. This empathetic image
is discursively significant because it arouses the recipients’
emotions and reinforces the persuasiveness of the ruler as
a shade metaphor; especially as the Prophet interprets and
elaborates the metaphor in the surroundings of the Saying.
In another matter, Islam admits differences in wealth dis-
tribution in society. Nevertheless, Shari’ah, or Islamic law,
proposes that it is the duty of the rich to share their wealth
with the poor. Islamic law reinforces an annual obligatory
charity, or tax, called zakaat, on the rich for the poor (See
Hallaq, 2013: 123). In order to encourage those who abstain
from paying it, the Prophet introduced this obligatory charity
tax metaphorically by depicting it as purification and clean-
liness to the property; a Prophetic Saying says:
5. Ibn ‘Abbas told how, when this verse was revealed, “And
those who hoard gold and silver...”6 the Muslims were
grieved about it and ‘Umar told them he would dispel
their care. He therefore went and told God’s Prophet that
his companions were grieved by this verse, and received
72
the reply, “God has made the zakat obligatory simply
to purify (le’yuŧayeba) your remaining property, and He
made inheritances obligatory (mentioning a word) that
they might come to those who survive you. ..” (Miškat,
1781, p.374)
The purification and cleanliness ontological metaphor
challenges the person’s desire to abstain from paying this
charity tax because it evokes a positive evaluation of the
person’s natural disposition to prefer cleanliness over dirt-
iness. So, the persuasiveness of purification and cleanli-
ness metaphor is evoked by contemplating the essence of
the purified substance, money. Still, Islam accentuates that
a person’s property should be gained by lawful permissible
means like trading and inheritance. Purification conveys the
message that if a Muslim’s property is ‘polluted’ by a doubt-
ful financial practice, such as usury (which is prohibited in
Islam (See Khan, 2013: 134-35)), and then the obligatory
charity ((zakaat) is the means to purify it. Remarkably, the
Saying mentions the effect of the saying, and its metaphor,
on ‘Umar, the Prophet’s companion, who instantly agreed
with the Prophet’s message.
When it comes to defending Islam, the Muslim is asked to
be vigilant and prepared to defend his faith and religion with
soul and property against all sorts of enemies. The concept of
holy strife ((jihad
jihad)) is frequently emphasised by Islamic law.
jihad
In classical Islamic jurisprudence jihad consists of warfare
with the aim of expansion and extending Islam, and for the
defence of Islamic territory against its enemies (Sir Hamil-
ton et. al., 1960: ‘Djehad’), and many Muslim scholars refer
to this duty as the sixth Pillar of Islam, though it occupies no
such official status (Esposito, 2005). Jihad requires Muslims
to “struggle in the way of God” or “to struggle to improve
one’s self and/or society.” (Humphreys, 2005). In Islamic
discourse, it is argued that jihad comes in several forms: it
can be directed against Satan’s inducements, aspects of one’s
own self, or against a visible enemy. Accordingly, jihad is
categorised into four major categories which includes jihad
against one’ss self ((jihad al-nafs), jihad of the tongue (jihad
( duced in terms of building metaphors to mean that Muslims
al-lisaan), jihad of the hand (jihad
(jihad al-yad
al-yad),
), and jihad of the
jihad as-sayf). Nevertheless, it is jihad of the sword
sword ((jihad
which is most difficult as it involves physical confrontation
with the enemy and the risk of injury or death. To encour-
age the believers to jihad, the Prophet required a convincing
justification that motivates the Muslims to willingly go for
it, and he did this by associating jihad with goodness and
spoils; a Saying narrates:
6. Jarir b. ‘Abdallah told that he saw God’s messenger
twisting his finger in a horse’s forelockelock and saying,
“The horses (alxaylu) have good tied in their forelocks
(nawaaSeyhaa) till the day of resurrection, i.e. reward
(al’ajru) and spoil (γanymah)”. (Miškat, 3867, p.822)
Here, jihad is regarded as one of the Muslim’s duties
to God and religion, and this is why it is called ‘striving
in the path of Allah’ (al-jihad fi sabyl Allah). The Saying
appeals for participating in jihad and highlights the profits
and reward that a participant Muslim (mujahid)
mujahid) might gain
mujahid
in this strife which could be God’s blessings, forgiveness,
and Paradise and/or the spoils gained from the defeated
ALLS 9(5):69-78
enemy. The Saying links between the two by the image of
the horse, which is metonymically associated with jihad in
Islamic discourse. The metaphor of reward
eward (?ajr)
( and spoils7
(γanymah) involves an ontological portrayal of the two as
material valuable objects or substances tied to the forelock
of a horse. This portrayal conveys a message that the muja-
hid will be rewarded in abundance regardless of the outcome
of his strife; either gaining martyrdom and Paradise or tri-
umphing over the enemy and win the spoils; or even gaining
both. Thus, both reward and spoils are close to the mujahid
and within his hands literally and figuratively. Moreover, the
metaphor draws attention also to the elevated status of re-
ward and spoils which are associated with the forelock of the
horse. This idea can be entailed from the evaluative function
of spatial metaphors that associate what is being in a high
head) with being good and significant (Lakoff
position (the head
and Johnson, 1980). Accordingly, portraying spoils and re-
ward as valuable objects and associating them with the high
forelock of the horse aims to emphasize their significance
and elevated status. As the importance, and the status, an ob-
ject, or person, is determined by the space it occupies.
Introducing Rites and Rituals
The Prophetic Metaphors are employed to introduce rites
and rituals (cibadaat) and underline their significance and
meaning. For example, Islam involves obligatory and rec-
ommended rituals which are recognised as the pillars which
distinguish the Muslim from the non-Muslim; the Prophet
says:
7. Islam is based ((buneya) on five things [pillars]: the tes-
timony that there is no god but God and that Muham-
mad is His servant and messenger, the observance of
the prayer, the payment of zakat, the pilgrimage, and the
fast during Ramadan. (Miškat, 4, p.6)
Here, the Muslim’s adherence to Islam is distinguished
by his commitment in performing five obligatory Islamic rit-
uals, known as ‘the pillars of Islam’. These rituals are intro-
are accountable to do them in their life, and they might be
exempted from them by justified reasons. In addition, the
Saying message emphasises that a Muslim’s Islam is deemed
incomplete if these rituals are not observed in their timely
basis (See Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, 2018: ‘Pil-
lars of Islam’). The metaphor of Islam as a building evokes
the proposition of completion as performing these rituals is
elaborated in terms of a process of building. Building met-
aphors is an elaboration of a generic metaphoric schema
that conventionally represents abstract complex systems as
well-established structures, or buildings; and creating and
developing ideas and thoughts is portrayed a building pro- pro
cess (See Kövecses, 2002: 131). Thus, the structure of an
abstract system is perceived as the physical structure of a
building, and that an enduring abstract system, like religion,
is represented in terms of a strong structure or building,
and what is spiritual is understood in terms of a physical
(Kövecses, 2002). Accordingly, the persuasiveness of the
Saying is evoked in contemplating the metaphor of building
conveyed by the keyword buneya (‘based’8) which involves
What Can the Prophet Muhammad’s Metaphors Do?
a positive evaluation. This evaluation reflects the positive
qualities of the portrayed building; its beauty, value, and
persistence, and which in turn enhance the positive reception
of the significance and meaning of rites and rituals in Islam.
Performing the daily five prayers (alSalaat) is one of the
‘Five Pillars of Islam’ by which the Muslim constantly com-
municates with God (Allah
( ) and thanks Him daily for His
graces at prescribed times. These five prayers are obligatory
on the adult Muslim, and their observance is considered a
perceptible reflection of faith, piety, and adherence to Islam;
the Prophet emphasizes that:
8. The covenant (cahd ahd) between us and them [the disbe-
lievers or hypocrites] is prayer, so if anyone abandons
(tarakahaa) it he has become an infidel. (Miškat, 574,
p.115)
The Prophet accentuates the importance of the five daily
prayers as a reflection of the person’s adherence to Islam in
the same sense that one adheres to covenant (cahd ahd), though
with God. The purpose of this covenant is to be rewarded
an eternal paradise and be spared from God’s punishment
which is understood in terms of a conflict. Remarkably, the
identity of the ones who do not observe the prayers is not
overtly articulated, but they are alienated by refereeing to
them as ‘them’
them’ in contrast of ‘us’. This polarisation of us ver-
sus them, without an explicit reference to the identity of the
meant party, accentuates the universality the Saying’s mes-
sage and that it addresses all who do not observe the prayers;
even unobservant Muslims. However, what we know of
those them is that they deserved God’s wrath, and being
fought, because they have abandoned Islam by not observ-
ing its obligatory rituals; namely, the five obligatory prayers.
This ‘implicit threat’ is invoked by the covenant metaphor
strengthens the negative evaluation of the metaphoric act
of abandoning a covenant and lays emphasis on the Saying
message and its persuasiveness.
In another respect, fasting (aS-Seyaam) is the fourth of
the Five Pillars of Islam, and it involves the obligatory aban-
doning of eating and drinking and sexual intercourse from
the dawn (alfajr) until the dusk (maγreb) of the days of the
month of Ramadan (in the Islamic Hijri calendar) (Farah,
1994: 144-145). While fasting Ramadan, the Muslim is en-
couraged to endeavour on other sorts of worships; such as
giving alms, visiting the siblings and relatives, and reciting
the Holy Qur’an. The Prophet frequently promotes the rec-
itation of the Holy Qur’an while fasting is considered; he
says:
c
9. Fasting and the Qur’an intercede (yašafa ( aan) for a
man. Fasting says (yaquulu
( ): ‘O my Lord, I have kept
him away from his food and his passion by day, so
accept my intercession for him.’ The Qur’an says (ya ( -
quulu): ‘I have kept him away from sleep by night, so
accept my intercession for him.’ Then their intercession
is accepted. (Miškat, 1963, p.418)
The Saying involves the personification of both fasting
and the Qur’an as the companions of the Muslim in his life
journey, and as advocates on the Hereafter. Personification is
an eminent discursive practice in the language of the Proph-
et Muhammad, and it is frequently used for ontological
73
purposes to portray and conceptualise non-human entities
such as abstract concepts, body parts, and human deeds (See
El-Sharif, 2015).
Both Fasting and reciting the Qur’an are hard rituals,
and they deprive the Muslim from pleasures of food, pas-
sion, and sleep. However, both fasting and the Qur’an will
come on the Day of Resurrection as companions interceding
(
(yašafa c
) for the one who observed them while fasting in Ra-
madan. The metaphoric scenario here involves the believer
is accompanied by fasting and the Qur’an, and all are stand-
ing before God’s throne and both fasting and the Qur’an are
interceding for the observant believer. The scenario then
evokes feelings of fear of God and gratification for allowing
faithful companions to intercede for their companion. As a
result, an emotional appeal is reflected by the images of fast-
ing and the Qur’an’s sincere endeavour to intercede for their
observant; fasting beseeches God to accept its intercession
because it deprived its companion his food and his passion
by day, and the Qur’an, beseeches God to accept its inter-
cession because it deprived its companion from the pleasure
of sleep by night. Remarkably, the Prophet explicitly tells
that God will accept the intercession; such an affirmation in-
vokes a sense of relief and gratification upon the recipient
and makes the Saying message accessible and persuading.
Prohibiting the Unlawful
Metaphors are used in the Prophetic Tradition to warn the
believers from approaching the unlawful and prohibited
(ħaraam) by negatively-evaluating metaphors used to ex-
plain the severity and consequences of doing the prohib-
ited. For example, major sins (al-Kaba’ir)9 are portrayed
in the Prophetic Tradition as destruction and damage; the
Prophet says:
10. The one who is easygoing about the limits set by God
and the one who violates them are like people who cast
lots about a ship (safeynah), some going below decks
and some above. Then when those who were above
decks were annoyed by one who was below decks pass-
ing them for the sake of water, he took an axe ((fa?s) and
began to make a hole (θuqb) in the bottom of the ship.
They went to him and asked what was the matter with
him, to which he replied that they were annoyed by him
but he must have water. Now if they prevent
event him they
will save him and be safe themselves, but if they leave
him alone they will destroy both him and themselves.
(Miškat, 5138, p.1065)
The message of this saying is based on the metaphor God’s
realm as a ship. This metaphor is derived from journey and
movement metaphors (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980), and it rep- rep
resents development of the Islamic society in terms of a polit-
ical body, or a state, where the Islamic society’s compilation
of experiences and events is conceptualized as the progress,
or voyage, of a ship on the sea (See Grady, 2007). The ship
of the state metaphoric image elaborates and accentuates the
society’s collective responsibility in protecting Islam from
both internal and external dangers, and the passengers of the
ship metaphor shows how a person’s mistake might have de-
structive consequences on the group; even if it is made for
74
bad intentions. In addition, the metaphor emphasises the
responsibility of the Muslim rulers (the crew
ew of the ship) and
other members of the Muslim society (the passengers of the
ship) in preventing what may cause instability to the course
of the ship of the Muslim society, or state, by reinforcing
God’s commands on all members of society.
The ship of state metaphor involves several evaluative
schemes. First, partnership and the common destiny of mem-
bers of Muslim society are emphasised. Second, there is the
negative of metaphor of damage evoked by the axe ((fa?s) in
making a hole (θuqb) in the ship which might cause its sink-
ing. Minor faults can lead to severe consequences, and indif
indif-
ference can be catastrophic on the individual and the group.
Herein, the metaphor reinforces the idea of the collective re-
sponsibility of Muslims in preventing unlawful practises in
society by the authority of the ruler.
In another case, the consumption of wine had been com-
mon among Arabs during pre-Islamic and early Islamic peri-
od; however, Islam came and prohibited it10. This prohibition
is justified by the severe consequences of wine and its con-
sumption on the person and society, and this is highlighted
by the Prophet Muhammad as he says;
11. …; and do not drink wine, for it is the key (meftaaħ) to
every evil. (Miškat, 580, p.117)
The above Saying strictly prohibits wine because it is as-
sociated with evil deeds. This idea is evoked by introducing
the container metaphor, a case of the conventional conduit
metaphor (See Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). However, the
saying elaborates this metaphoric image by which evil is
portrayed as a substance contained in the closed container,
and there is a padlock that should remain locked because it
locks the container of that evil. Wine is portrayed as the key
to this container lock, and opening it means allowing the ac-
cess to all sorts of evil deeds and its spread in society. Here,
the persuasiveness of the key and the lock of the container
metaphor is evoked by the implicit warning and threat which
the metaphor involves.
In another Saying, backbiting, called γeybah in Ara-
bic, is a prohibited demeanour because it spreads distrust
among members of society. It is narrated that the Prophet
once warned his wife Aisha when she talked about one of the
Prophet’s wives (Safiya); the Saying narrates:
12. ‘A’isha told that she said to the Prophet, “It is enough
for you in Safiya [one of the Prophet’s wives) that she
is such and such,” meaning that she was short; and he
replied, “You have said a word (kalemah) which would
change the sea if it were mixed (muzeja) in it. (Miškat,
4853, p.1011)
The Saying warns here that backbiting impure the one’s
faith and values in the same manner a sea, despite its im-
menseness, might be polluted by a small amount of dirt.
Here, a word is resembled to this amount of dirt that can
impure the water of the sea. The hyperbole here makes a
discursive practice that aims to draw attention to the serious-
ness of backbiting and its negative consequences in polluting
the one’s moral purity.
The forbidden deeds of the tongue cover also the writing
and recital of immoral poetry. In one incident, the Prophet
ALLS 9(5):69-78
compares the poets who compose and recite immoral, and
dishonest, poetry to the devil; the Saying narrates:
13. Abu Sa’id al-Khudri told that when they were journey-
ing with God’s messenger in al-’Arj [a place] a poet ap-
peared and recited, whereupon God’s messenger said,
“Seize the devil,” or, “Catch the devil11. It is better for
a man to have his belly filled with pus (qayħan) than to
have it filled with poetry.” (Miškat, 4809, p.1004)
Here, the Saying denounces those who dishonestly re-
cite poetry to praise people for the sake of reward, and the
ones who recite hypocritical poetry are compared to the dev-
il that allures man. Furthermore, the metaphor is elaborated
to convey a repulsive image of the pus that fills the poet’s
abdomen. This metaphor evokes a negative evaluation to
hypocritical and deceitful poetry. Accordingly, the persua-
siveness of the Saying in prohibiting reciting dishonest and
hypocritical poetry is invoked by the vile metaphors of the
poet as a devil and poetry as pus (qayħan).
HOW THE PROPHETIC METAPHORS WORK?
The succinct presentation above demonstrates that the Pro-
phetic metaphors make a discursive practice that is used as
persuasive device. These metaphors are introduced within
the Prophetic Tradition in several manners in terms of their
structure, creativity, and mode of presentation. Remarkably,
the choice of metaphors within the Prophetic Tradition is
dominated by the Prophet objectives of persuasion. Thus,
these metaphors are not merely for decoration and embel-
lishing the language; instead, they are discursively practiced
to increase the persuasiveness of the Prophetic messages
especially, as we saw, to introduce Islamic laws, rites and
rituals, and prohibiting the unlawful.
Herein, the brief survey above demonstrates that persua-
siveness of the Prophetic metaphors is evoked by several
practices; and I here below discus three of them: disambig-
uation, arousing the emotions, and the implicit threat. For
representativeness and illustration, and to avoid redundancy,
I will illustrate these practices by one or two Sayings of each
practice.
Disambiguation
First of all, disambiguation is one of the main functions of
the Prophetic metaphors. It is found that several Prophetic
metaphors are used in order to facilitate the comprehension
of a Saying message and to make it more appealing and
persuading for the Saying recipient. Several Prophetic met-
aphors construct a complex set of metaphoric associations
and scenarios to make a comprehensive image that redefines
a concept or an idea. Thus, we saw in the Sayings presented
above how Islam is portrayed as a complex system that is
‘based on five obligatory pillars’ (Saying no.7), and that the
Muslim’s blood is safe, and should not be shed, as long as he
respects the ‘covenant’ he made with God by observing the
obligatory prayers (Saying no.8). And we saw also how fast-
ing Ramadan and reciting the Holy Qur’an will ‘intercede’
for the observant Muslim (Saying no.9), and how the Proph-
et demonstrates why wine is prohibited (Saying no.11). And
What Can the Prophet Muhammad’s Metaphors Do?
finally, the Prophet illustrates the reality of backbiting and
how harmful it is on the believer (Saying no.12). Remark-
ably, disambiguation is achieved by the metaphor, and in
many cases, by the Prophet by interpreting the metaphoric
scenario. For example, in introducing ritual rights, a Saying
involves a metaphoric scenario that redefines the difference
between what is lawful and what is unlawful by using met-
aphors from the domain of pasturalism; the Prophet says:
14. What is lawful (ħalaal)
ħalaal) is clear and what is unlaw-
ħalaal
ful (ħaraam) is clear, but between them are certain doubtful
things (muštabahaat) which many people do not recognise.
He who guards against doubtful things keeps his religion and
his honour blameless, but he who falls into doubtful things
falls into what is unlawful, just as a shepherd who pastures
his animals round a preserve (alħemaa) will soon pasture
[but he’s not allowed to do so] them in it. Every king has a
preserve, and God’s preserve is the things He has declared
unlawful.” (Miškat, 2762, p.592)
The Saying introduces the idea that the aptitude to dis-
tinguish the good from evil cannot fail those with true faith.
However, the Prophet emphasises that there are several is-
sues in religion which are not easily recognisable (mušta-
bahaat) by the unversed believer (Ibn Qutaiba, 1973: 5-6).
The Prophet recommends that approaching these doubtful
issues must be avoided because the person who guards him-
self against doubtful things keeps himself, his religion, and
his honour from falling into doubt, and may be dragged later
to do the unlawful. The role of metaphors in disambiguating
the Saying message is perceived by looking at the last part
of the Saying because of the ambiguity of the idea of ‘fall-
ing’ (waqaca) into what is considered ‘unlawful’ (ħaraam)
even if the Muslim is still in the area of the ‘safe’ doubtful
things. In this regard, the metaphor of pasturalism, a famil-
iar domain of experience to the Arabs at the Prophet’s time,
facilitates the comprehension of the idea. The Muslim who
risks approaching doubtful things is likened to the shepherd
who pastures his animals next to the private pasture (alħe-
maa) of a king, and the commoners’ are prohibited from
pasturing in it. If the shepherd watches his herd and where
they pasture, he, and his animals, will remain safe, and they
enjoy their pasturing. Nevertheless, breaking into the king’s
private preserve will be considered a violation on the king’s
property and might lead to the king’s anger and reprimand.
Herein, the Saying message is elaborated and its ambiguity
is resolved by the Prophet’s emphasis that if a believer was
easy about approaching the doubtful, then he would, sooner
or later, fall into the unlawful.
In another Saying, the Prophetic metaphors are used to
redefine worldly concepts which are common in society. The
Prophet explains these worldly concepts by metaphors and
interprets them to his followers. For example, the Prophet
redefines the concept of the Poor One (the bankrupt), or
almuflis, derived from metaphors related to the domains of
business and money transactions. The Saying states:
15. .when God’s messenger asked if they knew who the
poor one (muflis) was and received the reply that among
them the poor one was the person who had neither
dirham nor goods he said, “The poor one [bankrupt]
75
(almufles) among my people is he who will bring on the
day of resurrection prayer, fasting and zakat, but will
come having reviled
eviled (šatam)
( this one, aspersed (qaðafa)
(
that one, devoured the property (?akala maala) of this
one, shed the blood (safaka
( dama) of that one and beat-
en (Đaraba
( ) this one. Then this one and that one will be
given some of his good deeds; but if his good deeds are
exhausted before he pays what he owes ((yuqĐaa maa-
c
aleyhe), some of their sins will be taken and upon him
and he will be cast into hell.” (Miškat, 5127, p.1062)
The Saying here stresses that a Muslim is characterised
by virtuous qualities and adherence to kindness and good
manners. The Prophet portrays the aggressive Muslim as the
poor one or the bankrupt whose property is taken from him
in order to settle up the debts with those whom they owe.
The Prophet explains the reality of the poor person in Islam
by elaborating that he is unsympathetic and does not con-
sider the others esteem. So, his fine and righteous deeds will
not be counted for him on the Day of Resurrection. In addi-
tion, the metaphor of the aggressive person as a poor person
(bankrupt) is associated to the metaphor that defines spiritual
wealth in terms of physical wealth.
Remarkably, although the metaphor of the poor person
(or a bankrupt), derived from the domain of business and
money transactions, is a familiar domain to Muslims, we see
that the Prophet elaborates the message and illustrates it in
detail. This is chiefly because the metaphor evokes a variety
of implications which must be recognised. For instance, the
last part of the Saying evokes the scenario of God as the
judge who takes from the aggressive person’s rewards and
gives them to those whom he/she has wronged in the worldly
life. Accordingly, the persuasiveness of the message of the
Saying is conveyed through the detailed representation of
the qualities of some Muslims by the metaphor of the poor
or bankrupt person.
Arousing the Emotions
Secondly, classical theories of metaphor emphasize the role
of metaphorical language in arousing the emotions. Follow-
ing the Aristotelian argument, metaphorical language is per-
suasive because it involves ‘pathos’, or ‘emotional appeal’.
This pathos helps identify the discourse maker’s point of
view, and made the audience feel what he/she feels, and re-
spond emotionally to it (Charteris-Black, 2005: 21-22).
Several Prophetic Sayings involve metaphors which
appeal for the recipient’s emotions. For instance, we saw
above the case of arousing the emotions of seeking refuge
against oppression in the ruler as a shade metaphor (Say-
ing no.4), and the instance of metaphor by which obligatory
charity is depicted as purification (Saying no.5). In addition,
the Prophet appeals the emotions of pride and courage by
linking between jihad and reward
eward and spoil and the horse
(Saying no.6). And we saw the negative representation of
poetry as a pus; a metaphor that appeal negative and dread-
ful emotions (Saying no.13). The evaluative significance of
such emotional metaphors is emphasised by the broad-spec-
broad-spec
trum of beliefs in the society which reflect evaluative ‘clues’
within the Saying. These ‘clues’ invoke either a favourable
76
or unfavourable appeal. For example, the Prophet likens the
debt that a Muslim owes to a prison; the Saying narrates:
16. ...a corpse was brought to the Prophet on a bier for him
to pray over it and he asked the people whether their
friend owed anything. On being told that he did, he
asked whether he had left anything to discharge it, and
when they replied that he had not, he told them to pray
over him. But ‘Ali b. Abu Talib said, “I shall be respon-
sible for his debt, messenger of God,” so he went for-
ward and prayed over him. A version has something to
the same effect, adding that he said, “May God redeem
[set your pledges free] your pledges ((fakka rehaanaka)
from hell as you have redeemed the pledges of your
brother Muslim! No Muslim will discharge his brother’s
debt without God redeeming his pledges on the day of
resurrection.” (Miškat, 2920, p.624)
And in another Saying the Prophet emphasises that:
17. A debtor is bound (ma?suur)
( to his debt and will com-
plain to his Lord of loneliness on the day of resurrection.
(Miškat, 2916, p.624)
The Sayings emphasise that a believer would not be re-
warded with paradise if he died with debt owed to anoth-
er person. This debt is portrayed as a prison into which the
debtor is held imprisoned until the debt is paid or excused.
Thus, the last two Sayings involve two images derived from
the novel metaphor of imprisonment. The persuasiveness of
these metaphors is evoked from the negative evaluation of
the idea of imprisonment or confinement, and all other met-
aphoric scenarios which convey the idea of restraining the
freedom. These metaphors arouse the emotions of sympa-
thy towards the imprisoned, who is in debt, because of the
images of suffering, grief, and humiliation associated with
imprisonment. In addition, there is the scenario of God re-
deeming the pledges of the person who has redeemed the
pledges of another Muslim. What is more, there is the as-
sociation between the image of brotherhood hood in Islam and
the idea of setting a brother free from imprisonment which
all strengthens solidarity among members of the Muslim
society. All these elaborated metaphoric scenarios work on
arousing emotions solidarity in the Saying, and make it more
persuasive.
One of the most emotion arousing metaphors in the Pro-
phetic Tradition are the ones which involve personification
(El-Sharif, 2015). These metaphors are used to conceptualise
abstract notions by bestowing them the human capacity of
speech12. In one Saying, the ‘ties of relationship’ (alraħem)
are personified using the human attributes of pleading for
justice and beseeching; in one Saying, the Prophet says:
18. ...that when God had finished creating all things,
ties of relationship (alraħem) arose and seized the loins of
the Compassionate One. He said, “Stop!” and they13 said,
“This is the place for him who seeks refuge in Thee from be-
ing cut off.” He replied, “Are you not satisfied that I should
keep connection (?aSela) with him who keeps you united
and sever connection (?aqŧaca) with him who severs you?
“They said, “Certainly, O Lord,” and He replied, “Well, that
is how things are.” (Miškat, 4919, p.1025)
One may ponder of this allegoric scenario, as it is fea-
sible to argue that the Saying may be interpreted literally,
ALLS 9(5):69-78
since its scenario is taking place on the Day of Resurrection.
However, the metaphoric realisation involves an intensely
emotional appeal as it presents the kinship relationship (al-
raħem) as a female14 who beseeches God and under His loins
and calling for justice from those who wrongly treated ‘her’
in the worldly life. The emotional appeal is further strength-
ened by God’s promise to response to alraħem’s pleads. This
response emphasises the proposition of God’s benevolence
and justice for those who had been wrongly treated; such as
those who do not observe the ties of relationship (alraħem).
The Implicit Threat
Finally, Several Prophetic metaphors evoke threat and warn-
ing to make the Saying more persuasive because it makes
the recipient wary of some dire consequences. This sort per-
suasiveness is influenced by coercion. Here, the recipient’s
natural disposition is to avoid what may cause physical or
psychological harm and uneasiness to him.
In most instances of the Prophetic metaphors which in-
volve an implicit threat, the Saying warns against actions or
deeds which may bring God’s wrath or cause afflictions that
concern the believers. Herein, God is portrayed as mighty
and omnipotent and capable of afflicting the disobedient and
sinner in the worldly life and the hereafter, or removing this
affliction. Such threats appeared implicitly in the metaphoric
image of God’s realm as a ship (Saying no.10), and when
the Prophets warned his wife of backbiting by likening it to
pollution (Saying no.12). And we saw it also when God con-
sidered the five obligatory prayers as a covenant, and that not
observing this covenant will lead shedding the blood of the
Muslim (Saying no.8). We present here an instance that ex-
plicitly presents an elaborate threatening metaphoric scenar-
io from the conflict and warfare domains; the Prophet says:
19. I and the message with which God has entrusted me are
just like a man who came to a people and said, ‘I have
seen the army with my own eyes, and I am a simple
[uncovered] Warner (alnaðyru alcaryaan), so flee, flee.’
A section of his people obeyed him, and setting off at
nightfall (?adlajuu), went away without hurry and es-
caped. But a section of them did not believe him and
caped
stayed where they were, and the army attacked them at
dawn, destroying
oying and extirpating them. That is a com-
com
parison with those who obey me and follow my mes-
sage, and with those who disobey me and disbelieve the
truth I have brought. (Miškat, 148, p.40)
Here, we see that the metaphoric scenario evokes an at-
mosphere of threat and alarm reflected through the metaphor
of God’s punishment as a devastating army. This metaphor
invokes a feeling of fear in the heart the recipients because
of their awareness of the consequences of invasions by an
army. Furthermore, invoking threat is attained by the fright-
(alnaðyru alcaryaan) who
ening image of the simple warner (alnaðyru
runs hastily to warn his people from the army in his torn
clothes. Meanwhile, there is the metaphor of some people
trying ‘setting off at nightfall’ (?adlajuu) to flee from the
devastating army and others not fleeing. These images aim
to alarm the believers to comprehend the importance of the
Prophet Muhammad as a Warner arner who warn his people of
What Can the Prophet Muhammad’s Metaphors Do?
what afflictions might descend upon the disobedient because
of God’s wrath.
CONCLUSION
The metaphors in the Prophet Muhammad’s Tradition are
discursively used to convey the functions and purposes of
Islamic doctrine and its ideological foundations. These met-
aphors are primarily used as a persuasive device, and this
in turn, reflects the reality of the Prophetic Tradition as a
communication process in which the persuader (the Proph-
et) sends a persuasive message to a persuadee or audience
(the Muslim and non-Muslim recipient) with the intention
of changing the recipient’s attitudes or behaviour, although
always leaving the persuadee with the power of decision (Si-
mons et. al., 2001). Then, the Prophetic metaphors make a
‘discursive practice’ that is used as persuasive device, and
they are introduced within the Prophetic Tradition in several
manners, in terms of their structure, creativity, and mode of
presentation, with the objectives of persuasion. According-
ly, the Prophet Muhammad ‘discursively practiced’ meta-
phors in his Tradition in persuading his audience to accept
Islamic laws, and introduce rites and rituals, and to prohibit
the unlawful. These discursive practices are intensified and
elaborated by means of other three linguistic practices: dis-
ambiguation, arousing the emotions, and the implicit threat.
All together, the Prophetic metaphors make a ‘discursive
practice’ that explains how the principles and foundations of
Islamic creed and faith and practices are enacted and repro-
duced by the language of the Prophet Muhammad within its
social and historical contexts.
END NOTES
1. Transliteration of Arabic words is written in italic.
2. Metaphoric noun phrases are highlighted in bold; metaphoric
verb phrases are highlighted in italic.
3. Prophetic Sayings are extracted from Mishkat Al-Masabih;
translated to English by James Robson (Robson 1965)
4. The literal translation of the expression is: “and bite it firmly
between your teeth”.
5. The successors of the Prophet.
6. The verse is: “And those who hoard up gold and silver [[Al-
Kanz: the money, the zakat of which has not been paid] and
spend them not in the Way of Allah, announce unto them a
painful torment. On the Day when that ((Al-Kanz: money, gold
and silver the zakat of which has not been paid) will be heated
in the fire of Hell and with it will be branded their foreheads,
their flanks, and their backs….”(Surah At-taubah, The Re-
pentance, 9: 34).
7. On spoils in Islam see Iqbal and Lewis, 2009: 99-115.
8. In a more literal sense ‘to be constructed by’.
9. See “Oxford Islamic Studies Online”. Sin. Oxford University
Press.
10. The mentioning of wine in the Holy Quran appears in three
different places. At first, it was forbidden for Muslims to at-
tend prayers while intoxicated (Surah an-nisa’, the Women,
4:43). The next step in turning people away from wine con-
sumption is achieved by a later verse that was ‘revealed’ and
which said that alcohol contains some good and some evil, but
the evil is greater than the good (Surah al-baqarah, the Cow,
2: 219). Finally, a verse was ‘revealed’ stating that “intoxi-
77
cants and games of chance were some sort of the abominations
of Satan’s handiwork; so Muslims must avoid them all (Surah
al-ma’edah, the Table Spread with Food, 5:90-91).
11. It seems that the narrator does not recollect what the Prophet
has said precisely.
12. For example, the case of personifying fasting and the Holy
Qur’an in Saying no.9.
13. alraħem is singular in the Arabic origin.
14 This can be realized from the feminine morphemes t and y in
the Arabic verbs qalat (said) and tarĐyna (satisfied).
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www.alls.aiac.org.au

Popular Science Discourse Development in the Cyberspace

Liudmila A Egorova*
Department of Foreign Languages in Theory and Practice, Institute of Foreign Languages, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, 6
Miklukho-Maklaya st., 117198 Moscow, Russian Federation
Corresponding Author: Liudmila A Egorova, E‑mail: egorova_la@rudn.university

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article history
Received: April 16, 2018
Accepted: July 19, 2018
Published: October 31, 2018
Volume: 9 Issue: 5
Advance access: August 2018
Conflicts of interest: None
Funding: None
Key words:
Popular Science Discourse,
Hypermedia Communication,
Podcast,
Multimodal Texts,
Intercultural Interaction
Popular science sphere of communication is acquiring new features of virtuality, globality, mosaic
structure and social orientation, which are essential in fulfilling its functions in modern society.
Based on the examination of 92 podcasts, the study deals with podcasting research identifying
typical characteristics of the podcast and factors contributing to the spread of podcasting in the
popular scientific hypermedia communication. The survey showed that increasing popularity of
the podcast in the popular scientific sphere is explained by several factors. First, informing the
user becomes more accessible, quicker and easier. Secondly, the listener takes part in interpersonal
communication not with a virtual author, but with a real person, gets the opportunity to make
his own conclusions based on sounding speech, which is more expressive, emotional, and has
a strong impact on the addressee. Thirdly, most podcasts are interviews and discussions, which
facilitates the perception and processing of new information making it more structured by means
of questions, paraphrasing, exemplification, clarifications, etc. Analysis of the Nature publication
podcast helped single out structural features that allow a podcast to function in a hypermedia
environment as an independent multimodal node. The conclusions about the emergence of new
virtual environment for intercultural interaction and cooperation were made.

INTRODUCTION scientists the opportunity to influence society and society

Scientific and popular sphere of communication is now
rapidly developing and gaining new features ‑ virtuality,
globality, mosaic, social orientation. The development of
the scientific picture of the world, processing huge flows
of information, new technologies cause a real collapse in
the mass consciousness leading to a real ideological crisis.
Overcoming the conceptual vacuum is the main goal of pop‑
ular scientific publications (Russell, 2009).
Non-profit organizations and foundations that publish
popular science magazines, books, Internet sites, television
channels set global goals for the organization of the entire
world community to address the interdisciplinary world
problems related to environmental protection, the develop‑
ment of education, the protection of human rights, the in‑
tensification of medical research, etc. These are the aims of
a number of projects, information, financial, scientific and
technical support of which is provided by the scientific com‑
munity as well as government agencies.
Creating an information multimedia network linking var‑
ious sources of information contributes to the advancement
of scientific and technological achievements worldwide,
which is impossible without developing communication
between scientists, engineers and ordinary people giving
to influence the scientific world (Sava, 2011, Gürsul, F., &
Canim, S., 2013; Pearce & Scutter, 2010).
Podcasting has recently gained particular popularity, es‑
pecially in scientific and academic spheres of communica‑
tion (Gürsul & Canim, 2013; Ono & Ishihara, 2010).
Podcast (derived from iPod and broadcast) is a digital
media file distributed over the Internet (usually an mp3 au‑
dio file) or a group of files that can be played back using a
computer or a portable media player, a car stereo, a mobile
phone, and a home stereo system.
The most important advantages of podcasting are stan‑
dardized format, regular updating of content (seriality) and
free subscription. The main difference between podcasting
and other ways of distributing digital audio and video is its
standardization based on the RSS Protocol. Standardization
makes it possible to unify programs created by different
authors, regardless of their specific content. Another dis‑
tinctive feature is the dynamic nature of podcasting, i.e. the
frequency of programs. This contrasts sharply with one-time
publications of any multimedia materials. Another important
reason for the widespread use of podcasting is that all pro‑
grams are fundamentally free for listeners, and the procedure
of subscription and its subsequent changes is quite simple.

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Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.5p.79
80
“From the point of view of users, standardization and dy‑
namics are important because they can subscribe to any
number of RSS-channels that publish materials on topics of
interest to these users at different intervals. Standardization
makes it possible to simply combine (syndicate) different
sources, whereas dynamics contributes to the development
of selected topics over time” (Stupina, 2007:4-5).
Another feature of a podcast is its fundamental dialogical
character. Podcast is dialogic both implicitly, in the sense
of M. M. Bakhtin, in connection with direct and indirect
references to the context, and explicitly ‑ each block is a
polylogue among several speakers, moreover, each reply is
addressed to the listeners making them direct participants
of the communication (Stupina, 2007; King & Gura, 2009;
Gürsul & Canim, 2013).
AIMS OF THE RESEARCH
The objectives of this research were as follows:
• to analyze the factors contributing to the spread of pod‑
casting in the popular scientific hypermedia communi‑
cation;
• to identify typical characteristics of a podcast in the
area;
• to examine the Nature podcast edition and single out
its structural features that allow the podcast to function
in a hypermedia environment as a separate multimodal
node;
• to assess the implementation of podcasting in translators
and interpreters training.
Therefore, the research consisted of three experimental
studies directed at fulfilling different tasks.
EXPERIMENTAL STUDY 1
Methods and Materials
92 popular science podcasts were examined to identify typi‑
cal characteristics of the podcast and factors contributing to
the spread of podcasting in the popular scientific hypermedia
communication.
Results and Discussion
The features of a typical podcast format in this area were
identified. So, this is
• an audio podcast (video podcasts are about 6%)
• lasting on average 20 minutes (the range is from 1 min‑
ute to 1 hour),
• regularly updated (once a week -30%, daily - 5%) or
released in form as a series of episodes (about 35%).
• 77% of podcasts are fundamentally polythematical,
23% are devoted to developments in one scientific field.
• 36% of the (mostly regularly published) podcasts in‑
clude news about the most important research with
commentaries,
• 57% - interviews, round table discussions on a topic
(discovery, problem, research).
• To attract the listener, the authors focus their attention
ALLS 9(5):79-83
on the topical issues that are important for humanity
(15%), invite famous scientists or leading (10%), use
interactive mode (5%), humorous comment (6%), curi‑
ous facts or unusual phenomena (7%), create an original
show atmosphere (for example, with the help of hip-hop
music or friendly gatherings in the pub - 4%).
• The authors do not impose restrictions on the recipient
of their podcast, although special podcasts are created to
popularize science among schoolchildren and students
(2%).
• All podcasts are a node in a hypermedia environment,
connected with other nodes by a developed system of
hyperlinks.
The analysis proved that the increasing prevalence of
podcast in the popular science sphere is explained by a num‑
ber of factors:
• on the one hand, the perception of a written text is much
slower in comparison with an oral one, on the other,
technical means development makes the subscription
to the podcast quite easy. Thus, informing the user by
means of podcasting becomes more accessible, faster
and easier. Nowadays a new term “enhanced podcast”
has appeared meaning a podcast containing hyperlinks,
images, etc. synchronized to the audio information.
• listeners become a party of interpersonal communica‑
tion not with a virtual author, but with a real person,
get an opportunity to draw their own conclusions on the
basis of the sounding speech, which is more expressive,
emotional, having a strong impact on the addressee.
• any podcast is mostly interviews and discussions, i.e. a
dialogue or a polylogue. The material is presented in the
form that facilitates the perception of new information
by means of questions, paraphrases, exemplifications,
comments, etc.
EXPERIMENTAL STUDY 2
Methods and Materials
For a detailed analysis, we selected podcasts for 2005-2017
of the English-language site of the popular science magazine
Nature. [http://www.nature.com/nature/podcast/index.html
due to several reasons.
Firstly, this podcast is released every week since 2005,
with all issues stored in the archive and available for analy‑
sis; it is free and quite popular. Each podcast in the format
of a radio program is thematically linked to the journal, re‑
leased during the week, and highlights the problems raised
in it. The hosts invite leading scientists and researchers to
comment on or present a discovery, research or a problem.
Secondly, being a part of the site http://www.nature.com,
the podcast exists in a hypermedia environment, it is con‑
nected by a system of links with printed publications, other
pages of this site, other sites, therefore, it is a valuable source
of interdiscursive characteristics.
Thirdly, from the point of view of goals, a format and
highlighted themes, this podcast is typical for podcasts of
popular science sphere. It is polythemic, addressed to a
wide range of listeners (no restrictions on age, education,
Popular Science Discourse Development in the Cyberspace
profession, interests), aims at promoting scientific research
as well as informing the listener about the most important
achievements and searching for solutions to pressing inter‑
disciplinary problems. Each transmission lasts 20-35 min‑
utes and has a fairly rigid pre‑established structure.
We aimed to identify structural peculiarities of podcasts
(tapescripts and audio texts were compared); to define func‑
tions, themes and interrelations of their structural units and
to consider functioning of Nature Podcast as a node in hy‑
permedia environment.
Results and Discussion
The podcasts topics are directly connected with the theme
of the journal Nature. It should be noted that the sections
presented by the authors do not coincide with the traditional
scientific areas and reflect the interdisciplinary policy of this
publication. The theme of the podcast as a whole is reflected
in the announcement of the podcast on the website of Nature,
and in more detail in the podcast. Each podcast contains in‑
terviews as well as comments on research in various fields.
The structure of the podcast corresponds to the time
frame (the volume of the audio file), as well as the target
setting of the authors. The set characteristics of the program
are reproduced in each podcast, which facilitates semantic
perception of new information for the listeners forecasting
the order of semantic blocks.
Each Nature podcast consists of defined blocks, contain‑
ing information of a particular type and having a number of
recurring formal characteristics. Podcasts are mainly hetero‑
geneous, include passages with various aims (for example,
advertisement, greeting, informing, announcement), modes
(description, narration, reasoning, definition, explanation),
methods of producing, duration, numbers of speakers, fo‑
cus on different listeners. According to their functions the
blocks can be divided into structural units forming the pod‑
cast “frame” (advertising, greeting, ending, slogan, names
of speakers, farewell), forming connections within the pro‑
gramme (announcements, links to the interview) and bearing
the main content of the podcast (interview, public speech).
Nature website archive contains text records of most pod‑
casts (tapescript), a comparison of which with the sounding
material made it possible to find a number of features related
to the functioning of the podcast in a hypermedia environ‑
ment.
The text record of the podcast (tapescript) on the Na‑
ture website does not include such features of the speakers’
sounding speech as hitches, repetitions, hesitation pauses;
punctuation marks do not always reflect the segmentation of
the sounding speech by the speaker, there are no indications
of the tract (phone), noises during recording. This greatly
facilitates the visual perception of the text, bringing its char‑
acteristics closer to the journal article‑interview.
However, the tapescript contains a number of structural
elements that are missing in the recording and link the pod‑
cast to other hypermedia nodes.
First of all, this is an introduction that indicates the text
type and the date of the podcast, providing a hyperlink to the
podcast archive, where you can subscribe to regular releases,
81
and describes the possibility of feedback. The changes apply
only to the date of the podcast.
“This is a transcript of the May 31st edition of the weekly
Nature Podcast. Audio files for the current show and ar ar-
chive episodes can be accessed from the Nature Podcast
index page (http://www.nature.com/nature/podcast),
which also contains details on how to subscribe to the
Nature Podcast for free, and has troubleshooting top-
tips. Send us your feedback to mailto: podcast@nature.
podcast@natur
com Oh.”
[http://www.nature.com/nature/podcast/v447/n7144/na-
ture-2007-05-31.html]
Another structural element that is not present in the
speech is the hyperlink to the article on the problem dis‑
cussed in each interview and public speech, for example,
“Nature 447, 589-591 (31 May 2007)” – from the podcast
on May 31, 2007.
Thus, the analysis of the podcast structure showed that it
exists in a hypermedia environment, being its integral part, a
node of hypermedia discourse. Investigating the links of this
node with others, it is possible to construct an entire open
network consisting of multimodal texts, in the perception
of which several perceptual modalities are engaged (Sonin,
2006).
The connectors are in the form of links, hyperlinks, repe‑
tition of the title (key words of the title), the title of the jour‑
nal, repetition of the research keywords, names of scientists,
names of scientific institutions, the references to which come
from each podcast (see Appendix).
EXPERIMENTAL STUDY 3
Methods and Materials
12 university teachers and 30 undergraduate students ma‑
joring in Linguistics (Translation Studies) were surveyed to
analyze the peculiarities of podcasting usage and the role of
multimedia in translators training. The experimental study
consisted of 3 stages. At Stage 1 both the teachers and the
students were asked to answer the questionnaire to find out
their attitude to the usage of multimedia and podcasting in
particular in translators’ training. At Stage 2 the students were
divided into 3 groups - A, B and C (10 students in each one).
Group A was the control one, the classes were held according
to the established practice. Group B fulfilled specific tasks
based on the usage of audio and video files from Nature pod‑
casts presenting the research in various field during one se‑
mester. On the whole, 15 podcasts were used. The tasks were
aimed at introducing the topic, listening comprehension,
discussion of the research, acquiring new vocabulary units,
translating the audio or video text into Russian. Group C
were given the same tasks together with the opportunity to
surf the Internet looking for some information connected
with the group project based on Nature publications. At Stage
3 the final assessment was held testing the progress of all the
students in acquiring new vocabulary, developing the skills
of information search, summarizing and presenting their find‑
ing. The students from groups B and C and the teachers were
asked to estimate their experience in podcasting usage.
82
Results and Discussion
The analysis of the survey showed that most teachers are
not aware of the benefits of podcasting in teaching practice,
though the students would like to be able to use mobile and
online podcasting during the classes. They pointed out the
diversity of topics covered in popular science podcasts and
the way they facilitate mastering the specific sphere of com‑
munication vocabulary and system of concepts. However,
being active participants of Stages 2 and 3 of the experimen‑
tal study the teachers changed their mind, as the assessment
procedure proved statistically relevant differences between
groups A and B\C in terms of acquired vocabulary diversity
and translation skills development and between Groups A\B
and C as far as the speed of information search and presen‑
tation were concerned. The significance of the differences is
confirmed by testing using criterion 3 σ, where σ is a selec‑
tive quadratic deviation of tangents of the slope angles of the
curve on the segment.
The study confirmed the results of Walls, Kucsera, Walk‑
er, Acee, McVaugh, & Robinson, D. H. (2010), Pegrum,
Bartle, & Longnecker (2015) and Heilesen (2010) where
the influence of podcasting on the changes of educational
environment was investigated and showed the positive eval‑
uation of podcasting integration on the final output. The final
survey demonstrated that the podcast in the popular scientif
scientif‑
ic sphere had got popular with university teachers and stu‑
dents, which is explained by the following factors:
• informing the user becomes more accessible, quicker
and easier;
• the listener takes part in interpersonal communication
not with a virtual author, but with a real person, gets
the opportunity to make his own conclusions based on
sounding speech, which is more expressive, emotional,
and has a strong impact on the addressee;
• most podcasts are interviews and discussions, i.e. dia‑
logues and polylogues, which facilitates the perception
and processing of new information making it more
structured by means of questions, paraphrasing, exem‑
plification, clarifications, etc.;
• the teachers are provided with free didactic materials,
which reflect modern findings in various fields of re‑
search;
• the users become active members of virtual scientif scientif‑
ic community, they are involved in various events,
round‑table talks, discussions, conferences, get infor‑
mation about new job vacancies.
CONCLUSION
The popular scientific discourse, reflecting the language
practice in the field of popularization of scientific knowl‑
edge is characterized by a special set of features associated
with typical communication situations, participants, goals,
strategies, subjects of communication. An important fea‑
ture of popular science discourse is that this type of dis‑
course intersects with a huge number of others: pedagogi‑
cal, political, advertising, gaming, computer, media. This is
due precisely to the fact that popular science publications,
ALLS 9(5):79-83
programs and Internet sites set themselves a whole system
of goals.
Specific virtual space, which acts as the real abode of real
phenomena, which in reality are not represented together. The
hypertext information model, proposed back in the 80s and
based on the hypothesis that the processing and generation of
ideas by the human brain is associative, is increasingly recog‑
nized as a structure for the effective representation and trans‑
fer of knowledge. A hypertext system containing a network of
nodes (fragments, modules, frames) and the associated links
create a multidimensional information space adequate to the
deep structure of the ideas processing by the human brain.
New virtual environment for intercultural interaction and
cooperation is emerging nowadays.
Openness of the hypermedia discourse, the absence of
a rigid hierarchy, the orientation toward interpersonal and
specialized communication contribute not only to the global
spread of innovative technologies that facilitate virtual com‑
munication, but also change the structural characteristics of
the popular science discourse itself.
The importance of systematizing the goals and trends of
the development of the popular science discourse is essential
for deep understanding of the specifics of discourse struc‑
tures, the dynamic aspect of the functioning of linguistic
means, and the internal mechanisms of communication. The
further study of popular science discourse, the generalization
of the data obtained is not only important for the develop‑
ment of communicative and pragmatic linguistics, but can
also be used in distance education, cross-cultural scientific
communication.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The publication has been prepared with the support of the
“RUDN University Program 5-100”.
REFERENCES
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in the information age: Benefits and challenges of us‑
ing podcasting as an educational tool. In Knowledge
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trieved from http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.
url?eid=2s2.084895365216&partnerID=tZOtx3y1
Heilesen, S. B. (2010). What is the academic efficacy of pod‑
casting? Computers and Education, 55(3), 1063–1068.
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King, K. P., & Gura, M. (2009). Podcasting for teachers :
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learning. Emerging technologies for evolving learners
(Vol. Rev 2, p. 288).
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(2010). What is the academic efficacy of podcasting?
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doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2010.05.002
Ono, Y., & Ishihara, M. (2010). Examination of the pod pod-
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(pp. 540–545). https://doi.org/10.1109/ICIS.2010.139
Pearce, K., & Scutter, S. (2010). Podcasting of health sci‑
ences lectures: Benefits for students from a non-English
speaking background. Australasian Journal of Educa-
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casting for learning content in an undergraduate science
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A hypermedia Nature podcast network with nodes of the first and second levels referenced from each podcast.
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McVaugh, N. K., & Robinson, D. H. (2010). Pod‑
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 Advances in Language and Literary Studies
ISSN: 2203-4714
www.alls.aiac.org.au

Death Portrayals in Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Masque of the Red Death’: A Transtextual Study in
Relation to the Holy Qur’an and Arabic Literary Heritage

Atef Adel Almahameed, Nusaiba Adel Almahameed*, Reem Rabea, Imad-edden Nayif M A'leade Alshamare
Al-Hussein Bin Talal University, Jordan
Corresponding Author: Nusaiba Adel Almahameed, E-mail: n.almahameed@yahoo.co.uk

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article history This paper is aimed at interpreting Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ (1842) and
Received: April 25, 2018 its portrayal of death in relation to the Holy Qur’an and Arabic literary heritage. This reading
Accepted: August 30, 2018 provides new insights into the understanding of the story. The paper argues that Poe’s story and
Published: October 31, 2018 its depictions of death allows for a transtextual analysis as it is based, for a significant extent,
Volume: 9 Issue: 5 on stories from the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam, which informs of the inevitability of death.
Advance access: August 2018 In addition, the anatomic study of the story investigates the influence of Arabic literary heritage
and its role in arousing the writer’s imagination. Scholarly work notes that Poe’s story follows
many traditions of gothic fiction and is often analysed as an allegory about the inevitability of
Conflicts of interest: None death, though some critics advise against an allegorical reading. Apart from scholarly work on
Funding: None the story, the paper is purported at rereading the story and explores the transtextual connections
and affiliations between the story’s portrayal of death and what Qur’an tells about death. There
are striking moments of parallelism between the two sources on the notion of death although the
Kay words: story’s oriental and Islamic references to death shine implicitly through and never made explicit
Edgar Allan Poe, nor directly copy the Qur’anic verse or the Arabic literary sources. Therefore, the paper digs
The Qur’an, deeply into the story to explore how its representations of death are influenced and shaped by the
Arabic, Holy Qur’an and Arabic literary heritage.
Intertextuality,
Transtextuality

INTRODUCTION stranger whose “costume” proves to contain nothing tangi-

‘The Masque of the Red Death’ is probably one of Poe’s
(1809-1849) most popular and widely read and criticised
short stories. The story is originally written and published
as ‘The Masque of the Red Death: A Fantasy’ in 1842. It
offers a fantastic vision of man’s failed attempts to avoid
or escape death. The story narrates the tale of Prince Pros-
pero who attempts to avoid a dangerous plague, known as
the Red Death, by hiding in his abbey. The story’s events
take place in his castellated abbey where the Prince, along
with other wealthy nobles, hosts a masquerade ball. He and
his guests take a secure refuge in this “happy and dauntless
and sagacious” (Poe, 1920, 175) abbey to escape the “Red
Death”, a terrible plague that swept over the land. Within
this walled abbey, seven rooms are decorated with different
colours: blue, purple, green, orange, white, and violet except
for the last that is decorated in both black and crimson red
colour. The seventh room is illuminated by a scarlet light,
“a deep blood color” (177) cast from its stained-glass win-
dows. One night and in the midst of their revelry which lasts
for six consecutive months, a mysterious figure in a dark,
blood-splattered robe resembling a funeral shroud disguised
as “Red Death” victim, enters and makes his way through
each of the rooms. Prospero dies after he confronts with this
ble inside it; the guests also die in turn (182).
The story’s fantastical embodiment of man’s deeply
haunted fears of death, frantic condition of wipe-out and his
attitude towards the end of life challenge readers to delve
deeply inside their consciousnesses and unravel their dark
and realistic deep fears of the inevitability of death. The sto-
ry’s rich portrayal of darkness, death and decay is considered
in various ways and received multiple readings and inter-
pretations that attempt to identify and discover the origins
of man’s portrayal of the deadly disease and the nature of
human traumatic attitudes and fears behind.
This paper aims to provide an alternative transtextu-
al reading of the story in relation to the Holy Qur’an and
the Arabic literary and heritage. This textual absorption is
self-evident in the writer’s portrayals in ‘The Masque of the
Red Death’. The story’s imbedded references to death and its
inevitability is indicative of Poe’s noteworthy influence and
profound inspiration by Qur’anic stories. Before turning into
the paper’s illustrative account of the story’s elucidation and
its significant imported portrayals, it is certainly worth look-
ing through the body of literary criticism and scholarship.
Poe is one of the most prolific writers of the gothic hor-
ror genre and his story is often read as macabre tale. Most

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Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.5p.84
Death Portrayals in Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Masque of the Red Death’: A Transtextual Study in Relation
to the Holy Qur’an and Arabic Literary Heritage
scholarly work on the story present it as an exemplary that
typifies gothic horror fiction and is noted for its remarkable
incorporation of its key dark elements (Agassi and Jarvie,
2008, 70). Critics such as Agassi and Jarvie recognises the
story’s incorporation of particular gothic tropes, gothic imag-
ery and certain haunting and nightmarish qualities. They note
that this story is one of Poe’s most terrific gothic tales where
plague destroys a party in progress (2008, 70). In the same
vein, Sova (2007) contends that the story is a typical horror
narrative and gothic fantasy that explores the gothic trope of
death in the way it focuses on very ghastly imagery of blood
and death while the personification of the “Red Death” im-
parts an element of the supernatural. Sova comments that the
story offers a personification of “the deadly red death disease
that he characterizes as being incurable, fatal, and inescap-
able, much as his contemporaries viewed tuberculosis” (110).
The story is shrouded in horror and extremely preoccupied
with mad fear of death and for the most part due to exist-
ing common gothic components including the supernatural.
Freud (2003) already considered the strong relation between
the uncanny and the death, affirming that “to many people
the acme of the uncanny is represented by anything to do
with death, dead bodies, revenants, spirits and ghosts” (148).
In this respect, it is further emphasised that death cannot be
represented directly in literature but materialises through the
figure of the ghost: “the ghost is the fiction of our relation
to death made concrete” (Jackson, 2003, 68). Death is still
viewed as one of the largest fears and mysteries of mankind,
and as such remains the greatest source of horror literature.
The story and its portrayal of death, supernatural figures
and ghosts, on the other hand, is considered an epitome of
symbolism and allegory. The story is often analysed as an al-
legory of the inevitability of death, man’s fear of sin, mad-
ness, death and the end of the world. The story closes with
the line that sums it all up, “And Darkness and Decay and the
Red Death held illimitable dominion over all” (185). Hence,
the story has another story within and a hidden meaning.
Death is brought by a ghastly mysterious figure who sudden-
ly shows up putting an end to human extravagant fantasies:
“The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to
foot in the habiliments of the grave” (182). Prince Prospero
and his people unmask the disguised guest and finally dis-
cover its intangible form so to realise that it is the Red Death
itself but sadly it is too late as they all fall dead.
Some critics also observe the significant and rich sym-
bolic nature of Poe’s tale. Their research has focused on
the symbolism of the seven colours used in the tale. For in-
stance, Parks (2010) notes this symbolic feature by linking
it to Poe who in his youth “may have seen people as colors,
or associated certain colors with certain individuals” (98).
The symbolism of blood is also discussed. In this particular
vein, Maul (2002) argues that in many instances blood is de-
fined as “the juice of life”; however, in ‘The Masque of Red
Death’ blood means the exact opposite, “it is the bringer of
Death” (5).
Furthermore, the story’s fictionalisation and dramatisa-
tion of death is seen by some critics as an allegory of man’s
deep terror of death. The story does not only explore the
85
reality of death and its extreme inevitability and unstoppabil-
ity but also depicts it as a terrifying phenomenon. In this par-
ticular setting, Pereira (2017) examines how time and space
are juxtaposed to obtain the effect of terror. She notes that
Poe’s story and its fantastic notions of death are primarily
and significantly linked to space. Her analysis aims to inves-
tigate the extent to which the space of the body functions as
a space of memory and the relation between this space and
the effect of terror (195). Pereira notes that the characters
are constantly haunted by the terror of death particularly the
juxtaposition of past and present that is responsible for this
effect of terror. This obsession can range from a character to
a supernatural event or death itself (196).
This paper purports to tackle the story and its portrayal of
death but from a different perspective. It is intended to com-
pare Poe’s explicit as well as implicit references to the notion
of death to verses of the Holy Qur’an and certain sources of
Arabic literature. This paper argues that the imaginative ex-
perience of death constructed in Poe’s ‘The Mask of the Red
Death’ is influenced and bears unprecedented resemblance
to the Holy Qur’an and some sources of Arabic literature.
This transtextual reading aspires mainly to reveal the story’s
various depictions of the inevitability as well as the annihi-
lative nature of death as it is based, for a key extent, on sto-
ries from the Holy Qur’an. Moreover, this analytic reading
provides new insights on the interesting influence of Ara-
bic literary heritage and its role in conjuring up the writer’s
imagination. The study explores certain prominent moments
of parallel between the two sources on the specific notion of
death which, for the most part, shine implicitly through and
never straightforwardly or directly copy the original source
of influence. The first part of this transtextual analysis fo-
cuses on the story’s manifestations of death by considering
some transtextual references to Arabic literature, some of
which, fall under Genett’s paratextuality. This paratextu-
al element, remarkably noted in the phrase used in the title
of the story, observes this transtextual relationship with the
Arabic literary heritage. The second part of the study con-
siders the story’s transtextual adaptation of the content of
some Qur’anic verses on the inevitability of death. Most of
these adaptations are in the form of transformation of the
original Qur’anic stories. Doing so, the study presents a few
examples that are transtextual with the Qur’anic verses and
illuminate their implications in the story.
POE, ARABS AND ISLAM
Poe is a predominant figure of gothic fiction and a master
of horror and mystery stories. His contribution to American
gothic fiction is profound and foundational as an early inno-
vator and “an author of the very first horror books” (Zapała-
Kraj, 2015, 2). He also presents a distinguished example
of an American writer profoundly touched and inspired by
the Qur’anic stories and the Arabic literary heritage, which
serve as a controlling metaphor for Poe’s body of writing.
Beyond Gothicism, affiliations with the Qur’an and the Ara-
bic literary heritage were prevalent in his written corpus. His
fascination arose from an in-depth reading of second-hand
materials and translations rather than original texts.
86
The awareness of Arabic literature and culture particu-
larly during the late 18th and early 19th centuries became the
popular taste and the spirit of the age in Europe and America.
People enjoyed reading oriental stories and appreciated ori-
ental objects. For example, Moore’s oriental romances, ‘Lal-
la Rookh’ and ‘Aliciphor’, published in 1840 in Graham’s
Magazine, revealed the general excitement about things of
oriental nature. Also, Galland’s (1704) translation of the
massive and widely popular ‘Arabian Nights’ is yet anoth-
er notable example. In the same vein, Attar (2014) observes
Poe’s drawing from the Arabic and Islamic culture. She
points out the wide popularity and the powerful influence
of ‘The Arabian Nights’ and its tales that fuelled the English
romantic imagination. She adds that oriental sources were
accessible including “pre-Islamic poetry, Arabic history and
literature, Muslim mystic poetry, and numerous oriental
tales” (14). Poe’s interest in the Arabic culture serves as one
part of a wider and more prevailing therein American inter-
est. Hutchisson (2011) mentions that newspapers accounts of
the expeditions to the area captured American’s imaginative
thirst for travelling and discovery (38). Poe’s interest began
in one of his early works, ‘Eleven Tales of the Arabesque’
(1833) which observes the impact of the culture of the Mid-
dle East on his literary imagination. Arif’s (2014) analysis of
some of Poe’s poems highlights Poe’s fascination with the
Orient as a significant backdrop which shaped his vision to
become “a eulogizer to the Oriental wisdom” (113).
The Holy Qur’an was a great inspiration for Poe. Many
of his poems embrace Qur’anic imagery. This influence also
shines thoroughly through his poetry. Three of his poems
first published in 1831 collection namely; ‘Israfel’, ‘To Hel-
en’, and ‘The Doomed City’ all centre on Qur’anic imagery.
‘Israfel’, for instance, presents Poe’s skilful employment of
Qur’anic references and characters notably, the character of
Israfel as well the allusion to doomsday. Concerning Qur’an-
ic imagery, Poe’s long and most acknowledged poem, “Al
Aaraaf” offers a remarkable example of an overflowing text
filled with Qur’anic imagery. The poem is deeply indebted
to the Our’anic narratives, imagery, and prophesies. It nota-
bly reveals Poe’s deep interest and affectionate inclination
to the Islamic Orient. The Poem’s depictions of Qur’anic
stories evidently trace Poe’s assimilation and stresse the ef-
ef
fect of the Qur’an on his writings. The poem is entitled, ‘Al
Aaraaf’ (1829) emulating the name of ‘Al Aaraaf” chapter in
the Qur’an. ‘Al Aaraaf’ is originally an Arabic word and in
the Quranic interpretation, it stands for the region between
Heaven and Hell. It similarly portrayed in Poe’s Poetry and
Tales. Poe (1984) writes: “Al Aaraaf of the Arabians, a me-
dium between Heaven and Hell where men suffer no punish-
ment and yet do not attain that tranquility & even happiness
which are supposed to be the characteristic of heavenly en-
joyment” (1368). According to his definition, ‘Al Aaraaf’ is
the elevated place where dead souls between Heaven and
Hell neither suffer any sort of punishment nor find peace and
happiness promised for the righteous.
This Qur’anic spell is also prevalent in ‘The Masque of the
Red Death’, the subject of this paper, which offers a striking
example of Poe’s interesting influence by Qur’anic stories.
ALLS 9(5):84-91
The plentiful implicit Quranic imagery and the arousing par-
allel found in the story can be illustrated by Poe’s reading of
the Qur’an in the translation made by the Orientalist George
Sale in 1734. Einboden notes that the Qur’an was a standard
reading and widely recognised among American writers
during the Federalist period. He comments:
Qur’anic quotations are to be found diffused throughout
the texts of America’s literary patriarchs, permeating the
public works and private papers of not only Emerson,
but also contemporaries, successors and rivals such as
Washington Irving (1783-1859) and Edgar Allan Poe
(1809-1849), building an architecture of Islamic allusion
within the very foundations of early US letters (2009, 2).
The Holy Qur’an, as Einboden explains, plays an import-
ant role in Poe’s early poetic development. Indeed, Poe’s
poetry is “indebted not only to Islamic reference, but to spe-
cifically Qur’anic allusion” (7). The story demonstrates this
remarkable fascination significantly noted in its reworking
of the Qur’anic stories and the Arabic references. In this par-
ticular story, Poe reflects on the notion of death as an ex-
tremely horrific and inevitable truth.
TRANSTEXTUALITY IN EDGAR ALLAN POE’S
‘THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH’
Recent decades have witnessed a growing tendency to study
culture in all its forms in terms of texts and intertextual re-
lations as transtextuality has been increasingly recognised
as a permeating literary phenomenon. The concept of inter-
textuality which emerged during the 1960s is a critical key
tool in literary criticism. As a term, intertextuality was first
coined by the French linguist Julia in a way to illustrate her
complete belief in the mutability and movement of texts. The
first usage of the term was in Kristeva’s ‘Word, Dialogue and
Novel’ (1966). Kristeva’s idea of intertextuality views the
text as a dynamic site which makes it to read as an assim-
ilation and transformation of another text or group of other
texts. “A text”, Kristeva (1980) explains, “is a permutation
of texts, an intertextuality: in the space of a given text, in
which several utterances, taken from other texts, intersect
and neutralize one another” (66). According to Kristeva,
the literary text is not a unilinear entity but a heterogeneous
combination of texts. Kristeva resists the idea of a text as a
singular or autonomous entity created by a single author but
an assemblage of prior texts. Her notion of intertextuality fo-
cuses on the idea of shared dialogue amid pieces of literature
as she notes that “each word (text) is an intersection of words
(texts) where at least one other word (text) can be read” (66).
Intertextuality which denotes the way in which texts
gain meaning through their referencing is originated in the
context of poststructuralist theories of language. Kriste-
va’s enunciation of the theoretical term intertextuality was
based on combining Saussurean and Baktinian theories. The
idea of intertextuality was first found in Saussure’s (1857-
1913) theories of semiology which speculate how signs de-
rive their meaning within the structure of a text. Bakhtin’s
(1895-1975) followed Saussure but was interested in the
social aspects of language and ideas of dialogism – a theory
which suggests a continual dialogue within the works of lit-
Death Portrayals in Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Masque of the Red Death’: A Transtextual Study in Relation
to the Holy Qur’an and Arabic Literary Heritage
erature. Saussure was first alarmed by this interactive aspect
of language and the relational nature of the word and how its
meaning is constructed. Bakhtin has later asserted the nature
of intertextual dialogue or the dialogic nature of texts. He
asserts that the text is not just an individual verbal entity but
a social phenomenon. Building on Bakhtanian’s dialogism,
Kristeva coined the new term, intertextuality, in describing
the intertextual dialogue and interactions among texts and so
the whole conception of intertextuality came into use. When
a writer borrows from another writer or author, he does this
either to strengthen the text and to highlight the meaning or
to employ a specific vision provided by the author.
Kristezva’s terminology labelled as intertextuality is
called transtextuality by Genette (1997). Transtextuality
is, basically, Genette’s version of intertextuality. Genette
builds on Kristeva’s critique of intertextuality and widens
the importance of the potential dynamics that lay within the
text by pointing out the relation between various texts. Ge-
nette believes that a text can never stand alone, as he de-
fines transtextuality as “all that sets the text in a relationship,
whether obvious or concealed, with other texts” (1997, 1).
Genette’s transtextuality or textual transcendence is pro-
posed as a more inclusive term that covers the entire field of
intertextuality and provides five subdivisions of the transtex-
tual phenomenon.
TRANSTEXTUALITY IN RELATION TO ARABIC
LITERARY HERITAGE
The theory of transtextuality or transtextual transcendence
upon which this study is based is meant to highlight the in-
tentional connections and conscious textual transcendences
between Poe’s narrative tale ‘The Mask of the Red Death’
and (now dissolved) verses of the Holy Qur’an as well as
some sources of Arabic literary heritage. In doing so, this
paper aims to investigate how the different aspects of in-
tertextuality are utilised in Poe’s story. The investigation is
purported to unravel to what extent references to the Holy
Qur’an and the Arabic literary heritage have been used as
well as the effect this process creates in interpreting the sto-
ry. The transtextual analysis of Poe’s narrative will benefit
from Genette’s theory of transtextuality and its subdivisions.
The analysis of the transtextual features of the story uses
Genette’s terms including intertextuality, paratextuality and
hypertextuality.
To this end, the story makes several transtextual
references to some Arabic literary heritage which can fall
under paratextuality using Genett’s terms. Genette divides
paratextuality into two subcategories namely “peritext” and
“epitext”. Genette refers to the “peritext” as one to include
elements such as titles, epigraphs, prefaces, captions and
notes. Other elements, such as interviews, private letters, and
reviews are called the “epitext”. The title of ‘The Masque of
the Red Death’ provides a remarkable example of paratex-
tuality. The title which is an example of a peritext demon-
strates its significance as a decoding tool that uncovers the
text itself. Considering the title, one does not look at it as it
is given to the story unconsciously, but as a factor helping
in interpreting the text and penetrating into its infinites. The
87
title is the point at which the author and reader stop before
delving into the text itself (QaṭŪs, 2001, 33).
The title which Poe gives to his story is something of
deliberate misleading. The word “masque” is used ambiv-
alently and with deliberate intention of bemusement. In
fictional narratives, the masque usually refers to the cover-
ing that disguises and conceals the entire face or most of
it. It has many uses including disguising for the purpose of
committing a crime; most thieves and criminals wear it, so
no one can recognize them. The first word “masque” sug-
gests disappearance of perceptible things. However, using
the word with imperceptible or abstract things (in this case
death) through metaphoric language (metaphor, metonymy
and synecdoche) suggests mystery. Therefore, using this ef- ef
fective form of language violates the normal rule of regular
language law and adds an element of surprise to the read-
er, which in turn awakens their inner vision. This violation
of the language law is called displacement (Kohen, 1986,
101-130). The masque is the most acceptable tool to reveal
the untold story or the taboo in all its forms. This is evident
in Fables in the world narrative heritage such as in ‘Animal
Farm’ by George Orwell (1945) and ‘Kalilah and Dimna’ by
ʽIbn Al-Muqaffʻa (756 AD).
The word death, in the literal sense, has no association
with the red colour. This is simply because of the abstract-
ness of death which has neither shape, image nor colour. The
red colour also has no inherent meaning of death. However;
it connotes death once figuratively used. Words and colours
often bear cultural and emotional associations or meanings,
in addition to their denotations or literal meanings. Literary
language is one that reflects, displaces, and deviates from
the one familiar to the reader. Therefore, the red colour be-
comes associated with meanings of danger, warning or death
particularly if this displacement occurs, hence, red obvious-
ly becomes representative of death. Using the word “red”
as a descriptor of “death” in the story stimulates meaning
and provides an aesthetic dimension at non-literal level. This
aesthetic provocation of new levels of meanings arises out
of this unusual combination of the two words. The word
“red” is not accompaniment of “death” at the dictionary or
literal level. However, this unusual combination provides a
remarkable example of displacement that elicits meaning
far beyond the straightforward or explicit interpretation of
language. This displacement implied by this unique combi-
nation stimulates the reader’s thinking and provides an aes-
thetic illusion. In addition, it blends physical reality and its
illusion with the connotative aspects of meaning; potential
aesthetic functions of language.
Therefore, it can be said that the red colour bears a wide
array of associative connotations partly due to its multiple
hues. The red colour carries a set of contradictory emotional
nuances. Apart from its positive connotations such as calm-
ness and serenity, the intense red colour evokes images of
malice, murder and hatred. This conflicting significance
surface when the red colour departs from its perceptible
connotation in favour of some inherited social relationship
that suggests some potential negative connotations including
roughness, violence and murder.
88
Based on a search made in this study concerning possible
usages of the phrase “red death” in Western literature, no
old usage was found but in Poe’s story in which the phrase
made its first appearance. However, the phrase is found to
have been used in old Arabic literature and this sets the story
in transtextual relationship with the Arabic literary heritage;
one of the focuses of this study. This descriptive phrase,
“red death”, is used by some Arab poets and writers a long
time ago. Some examples of the phrase’s usage are found in
Arabic literature during and after the pre-Islamic era and in
various contexts. For example, Al-Hariri said “Even my blue
foe commiserated me, will it then be red death?” (quoted
in Al-Qazwini, 2007, 193 [our translation]). The metaphoric
use of the phrase in this context is to demonstrate the praise
of death.
Another usage of the phrase “red death” is also found
in ʿĀtikah bint Nawfal’s expression when she describes the
bravery of her husband, ʽAbdullah Bin Abi Bakar Al-ṣid-
dĪq, in the battle. She said: “If spears hurled at him, he faces
them until he kills them and so his foe is left red” (Al-Hasan
Al-Baṣri, 1999, 607 [our translation]). In the same vein, the
phrase “red death” is used in Arabic poetry. The poet AbŪ
Tammām says: “A man falls at night embracing the clothing
of red death dabbled in blood for the sake of gaining the
dress of green fine silk in paradise” (Al-TabrĪziy, 1994, 219
[our translation]). This metaphorical use of the “red death”
within the context of facing death and afterlife, depicting it
as the path to paradise paints a heavenly picture of reward of
noble death and blood sacrifice.
In addition, the phrase “red death” is also utilised in one
of ‘Maqāmāt of Badiʿ Al-zamān Al-Hamdhāni’ in which the
fictional hero recounts: “the black day and the red death”
(Al-Hamdhāni, 2002, 288 [our translation]). Colours are
imbued with great symbolic power. The red colour and as
referred to in the previous discussion and in the context of
Arabic culture implies the prevision of death. It is gener-
ally associated with the approaching of death, stances of
fierceness, violence and brutal murder. The connection that
the colour red bears with fierce killing and death implies a
psychological impact that transforms this mental represen-
tation into a perceptible property that is discernible by the
human eye. It is evident that the writer’s choice of the title
is highly influenced by and communicate the meanings of
the “red death” and its implications as found in the context
of the Arabic culture and literature. In this context, Poe uses
two images that describe death as red; one is perceptible and
seen in the portrayal of death as masked figure and another
that depicts the psychological death and its implications and
associations of blood, brutality and violence.
MANIFESTATIONS OF TRANSTEXTUALITY IN
THE HOLY QUR’AN
Poe’s ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ draws heavily on the
Holy Qur’an and this is profoundly evident in its employ-
ment of the content of some Qur’anic verses which talk
about death. Most of these employments are in the form of
reproduction of the original Qur’anic stories within a con-
text that serves the formal and semantic structure that each
ALLS 9(5):84-91
employment is aiming for. On studying this aspect, therefore,
the study presents some models that are transtextual with the
Qur’anic verses and refers to the original verses in the Holy
Qur’an and illuminate their significances and functions in
the story. There are several examples of this transformation
and transtextual connection that can be found in the story.
A few of them are presented below.
Poe begins his story with an obvious case of transtextu-
ality in relation to the Holy Qur’an. The story opens with
“‘[t]he Red Death’ had long devastated the country”. (Poe,
1985, 307). This text observes a transtextual connection, im-
bedded in its content, with the saying of Allah in the Holy
Qur’an. Allah describes death as annihilation and perishing:
And when We decide to destroy a town (population),
We (first) send a definite order (to obey Allah and be
righteous) to those among them [or We (first) increase
in number those of its population] who lead a life of
luxury. Then, they transgress therein, and thus the word
(of torment) is justified against it (them). Then We de-
stroy it with complete destruction (The Nobel Qur’an,
Al-Isrāʼ 17. 16).
In the verses quoted above appears the first aspect of this
manifestation and transtextual affiliation that is apparent in
using the phrase “devastated the country” (Poe, 307). This de-
scriptive expression of death that demolishes the village ob-
serves a significant parallel not only with the Qur’an but also
with the Arabic language where death usually comes coupled
with torment, extermination and annihilation. In addition,
this phrase is also used in the Holy Qur’an as a metaphor. The
Qur’anic phrase is originally, “We decide to destroy a town
(population)” as destruction falls upon the people of the vil-
lage, and they are the ones who are meant by destruction; for
they themselves, not the village, who might be disbelievers
and liars. The warning, lesson and sermon lie in the destruc-
tion of the people and not the destruction of the village itself
without its people. However, as implied by the phrase, the act
of destruction of the village, without its people, is delayed in
order to indicate generality, inclusiveness and briefing, which
is the main purpose for which such uses are cited in the Holy
Qur’an. This structure helps the writer to describe the plague
which inflicts the village provoking horror in the hearts of
all of the people as indicative of generality and inclusiveness
that agrees with the content of the verse.
The previously mentioned Qur’anic verse explains how
in every nation, there are those sybarites who usually indulge
themselves in affluence, money, servants and power and live
in comfort and luxury until they become slouch. They live
in debauchery, disdain values, sanctities and dignities and
commit taboos which lead to immoral life. A village is thus
doomed and destructed upon adopting some means that lead
to its downfall, and so sybarites disperse widely and multi-
ply as the village fails to stop them or even reforms its own
system. In the same respect, Sayyid Qutub (1967) explains
that those sybarites and delinquent voluptuaries who are to
spread debauchery and corruption will lead to the village’s
ultimate destruction and perishing (20).
This signification that is embedded in the interpretation
of the verse is also found and reflected in Poe’s story which
Death Portrayals in Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Masque of the Red Death’: A Transtextual Study in Relation
to the Holy Qur’an and Arabic Literary Heritage
talks about Prince Prospero, the symbol of corruption, tyr-
anny and oppression. Prospero seemingly is indifferent to
the suffering and death of people outside his castellated ab-
bey, hiding himself far from the city and the plague. In order
to escape the spread of the infectious deadly disease, Pros-
pero invites more than one thousand of his friends among
them are healthy knights of his palace, beautiful women and
retired ones to stay with him and his entourage in one of
his most beautiful churches. Inside the secluded abbey, all
means of comfort and entertainment are provided; including
dancers, musicians, beautiful ladies, drinks and festivities all
of which imply fornication and debauchery.
Another example of significant transtextual connection
which observes the writer’s influence by the Holy Qur’an,
in relation to the notion of death, is where he makes the sto-
ry based on an important event; the sweeping of the “Red
Death”. Prospero attempts to survive himself and his entou-
rage, who are not yet afflicted with the horrible disease. They
resort to a fortified monastery of high walls and iron gates
so that no one is infected by the deadly contagion. As Poe
writes that Prospero “retired to the deep seclusion of one of
his castellated abbeys […]. A strong and lofty wall girdled
it in. This wall had gates of iron” (Poe, 307). The story’s
depiction of the imminence of death makes resemblance to
what is referred to in the Holy Qur’an. Allah says: “Where-
soever you may be, death will overtake you even if you are
in fortresses built up strong and high!” (The Noble Qur’an,
An-Nisāʼ 4. 78). Therefore, their attempts to run away from
death shall be doomed to failure and this is obviously evident
in Prince Prospero’s futile and desperate attempts to escape
the “Red Death”. Lofty and fortified towers can never avert
death because it is both natural and inevitable. Death has
nothing to do with the fortification of the place that shelters
man. The timing of death is only associated with the term of
life and the time estimated by Allah for man’s death and the
advent of that date.
In the rhetorical sense, attributing the notion of advent or
capturing of death is also metaphoric. Referring to death, the
above Qur’anic verse uses the word “overtake” that implies
the notion of inescapability as well as capturing. Similarly, the
story provides a remarkable portrayal that personifies death
by comparing it to a monster or mystical beast that chases hu-
mans and seizes them. In the same vein, Al-Alusi states:
Expressing the awareness of the passage of death is
a warning that reveals the extent to which people try
hardly to distant themselves away from the causes of
death and its imminent proximity. However, death will
approach them through breathing paths and groaning as
there is no way to escape it. Death is serious, insistent
and persistent; it spares no one soul (2000, 78 [our trans-
lation]).
The Qur’anic phrase, “fortresses built up strong and high”,
indicates the fact that castles are built mainly for a specific
purpose which is to prevent death from touching or reach-
ing them. Nonetheless, nothing can stop death from entering
these castles. Poe is evidently inspired by the meanings of the
above Qur’anic verse that highlight and underscore the idea
preoccupying him, namely death, which is the inevitable end
89
of all creatures regardless how long they live, and regardless
of any precautions they may take to protect and shelter them-
selves from death. Nobody, whatever his power, position or
rank, can ever escape death. This picture overlaps with other
many pictures reflected in the Holy Qur’an for some tyrants
who lived long time ago and thought that their power, tyranny
and wealth shall keep death away from them.
The story’s transtextual affiliation with the Holy Qur’an
is also observed in its portrayal of dying, chasing of man,
and man’s confrontation with death. This connection is evi-
dent in Poe’s narrative. He tells:
It was then, however, that the Prince Prospero, madden-
ing with rage and the shame of his own momentary cow-
ardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers, while
none followed him on account of a deadly terror that
had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and
had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or
four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having
attained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned
suddenly and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp
cry—and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable
carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards fell prostrate in
death the Prince Prospero (Poe, 310).
The above quoted lines show Poe’s apparent drawing on
the Qur’anic verse which asserts the fact that no one can es-
cape death: “Verily the death from which you flee will surely
meet you” (The Noble Qur’an, Al-Jumu’ah 62. 8). The verse
accentuates the reality of death and reminds of the imperma-
nency of life and the irrevocability of death. The verse depicts
an extremely turbulent scene to escape death that is ultimately
inescapable. In this scene, death is used metaphorically ren-
dering the man’s trepidation of facing it. Poe compares death
to a monster which chases a man and causes his dread. All
man’s attempts to run away, or escape death will turn to failure
as death is unavoidable; facing or confronting it is inevitable.
Another manifestation of transtextuality is also evident in
the story’s use of the coal-black “gigantic clock” (Poe, 308).
The clock presents a symbol of the transience of life and in-
evitability of death. In the story, every time the clock strikes
and chimes an hour, horror and fear finds its way to the
hearts of those who are in the castle, then shortly they return
to their busy status in an attempt to distract themselves from
the reality of death. At this point, it is worth mentioning that
the word ‘hour’ is mentioned forty-eight times in the Holy
Qur’an, eight of which are used to signify the fleetingness of
time that in turn implies the ephemerality of life itself. An
example of this is found in Al-A'râf Surah in which Almighty
says: “And every nation has its appointed term; when their
term comes, neither can they delay it nor can they advance
it an hour (or a moment)” (The Noble Qur’an, 34: 204). In
the same token, ʾAbŪ Jaʻfar Al-Naḥḥās states that: “The
‘hour’ is specified due to its being the least terms for label-
ling time” (1988, 379 [our translation]). Additionally, the
“hour” is mentioned in different places to refer to doomsday
(the end of the world). Explaining the reasons behind nam-
ing the doomsday as the ‘hour’, Alrazi (1999) points out that
at doomsday, judgment is so fast as if it takes just one hour.
In addition, hour is used in this position particularly because
90
doomsday happens suddenly and surprises all creatures just
in an hour that nobody knows but Allah (52). Therefore, one
central fact of Islamic creed ascertains that humans’ life ends
with death which interrupts their life in a specified hour. The
aim behind mentioning it is to warn those whose hearts are
oblivious to the remembrance of Allah and to wake them up
from their oblivion, so that the prolongation of life does not
entice them. This confirms the inevitability of death and that
every human being dies at a specific time that is unchange-
able and unavoidable.
It is clearly seen that Poe is fascinated and inspired by
the Qur’an and this is evident through utilising some words
of the Qur’an and then using them in a similar semantic con-
text. By adopting the main idea of depicting death, Poe re-
moves the borders with the (dissolved) text which imparts to
his narrative great amounts of sacred emotions derived from
the sanctity of Qur’anic impact. Moreover, Poe’s fictional
portrayals are enriched with his background knowledge and
his artistic ability which enable him to reshape his inspira-
tion but in a new portrayal.
Furthermore, the use of the word ‘rain’ is yet another
example of transtextuality in relation to the Holy Qur’an.
The meaning of rain in the story does not refer to familiar
meaning of the fall of water. To the contrary, the Qur’anic
meaning of rain goes far beyond this and signals immense
fear and horror. Poe describes the masked guest’s clothing
as “dabbled in blood – and his broad brow, with all the fea-fea
tures of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror”
(Poe, 310). In the same vein, rain is mentioned in the Holy
Qur’an in many places to indicate the severity of torment
inflicted upon the past disobedient nations. As Allah says:
“And We rained down on them a rain (of stones). Then see
what the end of the Mujrimun was. (criminals, polytheists
and sinners)” (The Noble Qur’an, Al-A’rāf 7. 81).
Allah destroyed Prophet Lot’s people with a shower of
stones of clay accompanied by deadly rain for their immoral
transgression of the bounds of Allah, their arrogant display
of sins, and for not responding to the call of their Prophet.
Poe’s inspiration by the Holy Qur’an is apparent with regard
to the Qur’an’s implied usage of the meaning of the word
rain. Poe’s artistic employment of the word rain benefits
from this implicative meaning and adds further suspense and
excitement to the expression. Poe’s words and expressions
become consistent with the general purpose of the context
and with the underlying feelings of fear and terror. The beau-
ty of intertextuality appears through the difference between
the use of the word ‘rain’ in the Qur’anic script and the story.
The Holy Qur’an talks about tangible torment that was in-
flicted upon the disobedient past nations and was attended
by the spectators. However, Poe uses it to refer to psycho-
logical and moral dilemmas that arouse horror and fears in
their souls.
In addition to the aforementioned examples of transtex-
tuality, the story’s closure provides a noticeable case of
transtextual connection with the Holy Qur’an. The following
two verses stresses the fact of the inevitability of death as in
Almighty’s saying: “Everyone shall taste death” (The Noble
Qur’an, Āl ʻImrān 3.185) and in “Whatsoever is on it (the
ALLS 9(5):84-91
earth) will perish) (The Noble Qur’an, Ar-Rahamān, 55.26).
The previous two verses determine a fact that should settle
in the soul and heart of everybody, and which also implies
that life is transitory, and its end is unstoppable. So, every
soul will perish regardless of its wealth, strength, position in
life or deeds be righteous or evil. This meaning corresponds
with the ending of Poe’s story. Poe closes his tale with the
following lines:
And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red
Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one
by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls
of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of
his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with
that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods
expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death
held illimitable dominion over all (Poe, 311).
The lines quoted above by which Poe ends his story con-
nect to the two verses in relation to the emphasis of the fact
that death is both nonavertable and inescapable. Poe depicts
the internal psychological conflict between mind and sensa-
tion, underwent by every human towards death. This inter-
nal struggle that is an outcome of the human’s awareness of
the inevitability of death deepens his inner feelings of fear,
so one is unable to accept its reality. It can be said that the
end of the story reveals three facts related to death; its place,
time, and inevitability which the Holy Qur’an stresses in
many verses. Concerning place, the Holy Qur’an indicates
that everybody will taste death no matter what measures of
fortification and protection are followed or taken. Regard-
ing time, the Holy Qur’an confirms the fact that whether a
man lives for a short or a long time, death will come in its
predetermined time which is unchangeable and cannot be
eluded. The story’s ending emphasises the third fact about
death, i.e., its inevitability. This is apparent when death is
compared to a thief who sneaks into a man’s life and steals
his soul then moves into another man’s life and another until
the entire mankind perishes.
CONCLUSION
The paper purports to investigate Poe’s gothic tale from a
new perspective, delineating the story’s portrayals of death
in association with the Holy Qur’an and Arabic literary
heritage. Previous studies have examined the story’s goth-
ic qualities and allegoric nature. The author’s nightmarish
setting, ghastly imagery and use of the supernatural make it
a perfect example of the gothic genre. The story’s symbolic
nature also appeals to critics as a great example of allegory.
Nonetheless, this paper proves valid undertaking particularly
taking into account explicit and implicit references to death.
Through depicting this image of death, Poe is evidently
profoundly inspired by some of the ideas and meanings of
death as found in the Holy Qur’an and some Arabic literary
sources.
The writer is distinctly overwhelmed by the transtextual-
ity that depends on dissolution and absorption so he is sat-
isfied to give some quick hints associated with the Qur’anic
text. This kind of transtextuality is extremely deep as it is
based on implications and embedded hints hardly noticed by
Death Portrayals in Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Masque of the Red Death’: A Transtextual Study in Relation
to the Holy Qur’an and Arabic Literary Heritage
any reader unless s/he is familiar with the contents of the
absent texts. The forms of transtextuality used by Poe do
not negatively reflect the Qur’anic text and its connotations
thereof, but it shows that the writer had an immense knowl-
edge and background of the diverse mass Arabic and Islamic
culture.
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 Advances in Language and Literary Studies
ISSN: 2203-4714
www.alls.aiac.org.au

The Critical Perspective of English Language Testing and Assessment within Framework of
Elana Shohamy
Ali Siddiqui1*, Shabana Sartaj2, Syed Waqar Ali Shah3
1
English Language Development Center (ELDC), Mehran University of Engineering and Technology (MUET), Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan
2
Department of English, Sindh Agriculture University, Tandojam, Sindh, Pakistan
3
English Language Development Center (ELDC) Mehran University of Engineering and Technology (MUET), Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan
Corresponding Author: Ali Siddiqui, E-mail: scorpion_king2893@hotmail.com

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article history The language assessments and testing are the crucial aspects of teaching and learning processes.
Received: April 21, 2018 Therefore, the following study is aimed to focus on these two most important aspects with refer
Accepted: August 11, 2018 to a critical view on its practical aspect that is after passing through a tactful teaching process.
Published: October 31, 2018 The crucial notion of practicing language assessments as well as testing towards a critical sense
Volume: 9 Issue: 5 was initiated by Elana Shohamy in her critical works. It was after her thorough observations and
Advance access: August 2018 experimentations of testing within various learning disciplines, the present study is designed as a
review on some of particular testing structures that has been observed under influence of power,
hegemony and biasedness with respect to social elements that encounters it. Therefore, it is
Conflicts of interest: None quite necessary to highlight a prospective of Elana Shohamy, who has tried her best to arrange a
Funding: None valuable platform in order to discuss the related issues critically regarding testing procedures. In
the end, reasons provided by Elana Shohamy has been highlighted that can verily show that test
itself cannot be a fully trusted authority. It can be a challenging aspect at any rate that could be
Key words: dealt accordingly in order to restore its very nature of being neutral in every respect.
Critical,
Assessment,
Testing, Power,
Control,
Language

INTRODUCTION Research Problem

This article consists of the perspective that what is Assess-
ment? Then, it follows on, what is testing? Finally, it aims
to identify what is language testing? And why the language
testing is so critical?
Purpose of this Study
The purpose of this study is to investigate the language
Assessment and Testing in the perspectives of the com-
plexities in the process of language teaching. How tests are
associated with Power? How tests can change one’s life.
How testing influence the teaching scenario and how high
Stake Tests works as a barrier for people who believes En-
glish Language as the passport to enter into the English
Countries.
Significance of the Study
This study is an attempt to know the complexities, difficul-
ties and challenges that arises while to design, conduct, and
assess, the effects of a test that is mainly concerned with a
High stakes test.
The idea of language testing has been changed with past
times. Earlier, the notions of language testing and assess-
ments have not been researched on critical basis. However,
these important notions of language teaching have been tak-
en as granted by language teachers and test takers without
any concern on point of contextual variations.
Aim of the study
The present study is designed to know the critical aspect of
language testing and assessment. This important aspect of
critical design in evaluating the language test itself is based
on Elana Shohamy’s approach.
Objectives of the study
The study has few objectives. The present study is designed
to present the actual concepts of language testing and assess-
ment according to critical perspective framework of Elana
Shohamy.
It will tend to highlight the following objectives with crit-
ical evaluation of following topics:

Published by Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.

Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.5p.92
The Critical Perspective of English Language Testing and Assessment within Framework of Elana Shohamy
• What is assessment?
• What is testing?
• Why is language testing critical?
• To know how the power of testing controls over masses?
LITERATURE REVIEW
What is Assessment?
The depiction of language and language learning has essen-
tial properties for the assessment of language. First, since it
is the object of an assessment is to evaluate the thing and
second since it is the medium of assessment (the methods
through and inside of which one surveys). Instructional re-
sults in the language expressions, assessment strategies and
practices that ought to reflect what one thinks about language
and its scoring. For instance, to construct a test with respect to
the presumption, there is a solitary right approach to compose
an enticing exposition which can have a questionable prac-
tice. Inducing somebody to purchase a house is not the same
as influencing somebody to go out to the town. Influencing
somebody in a less capable position is not the same as con-
vincing somebody in an all the more intense position—which
is to say that powerful practices vary crosswise over circum-
stances, purposes, and social gatherings. Additionally, that
messages can (and ought to) be perused from alternate points
of view must be taken as a sureness; an objective of educating
that is not to be upset by assessment rehearses, however it
imagines generally. It is to affirm through various decisions
that test is a bit of content which has a stand out importance
taken as unsatisfactory and given what we know of language.
What is Testing?
It is a technique to decide an under-study’s capacity for fin-
ishing certain errands or towards show an authority of an ex-
pertise for information of substance. A few sorts can be made
for numerous decision tests, or a week by week spelling test.
While it is usually utilized reciprocally with assessment, or
even assessment, it can be recognized by the way that a test
is one type of an assessment.
Language testing is one of those uncommon sciences
which skew towards observational methodology, (Farhady
2006, Shohamy 2001); (McNamara and Roever, 2006) and
Shohamy (1997). They contends that the power of tests
is because: (1) test producers claim the scores and people
as surviliant, (2) They choice producers for alluding test
scores and to practice power in instructive projects, final-
ly (3) scores are thought to be valid data about test takers’
capacity since target measures were executed to assemble
them. That target dresses provide food for the power of
test and welcomes a general guideline. As McIntyre (1984)
claims that since chiefs are to modify and intended to the
finishes proficiently, scores are valid since they are logical
information apparently crystalized by numbers. At the end of
the day, the test scores are regarded to follow where there are
no different numbers and opponent them (Hanson, 1993);
the same objectivity and appeal to rationality legitimize test-
ing practices (Broadfoot 1996).
93
Power and Language Testing
Rea Dickins (1997) contends that a great deal of partners
are impacted by test scores extending from understudies to
instructors, folks, chairmen, Government operators to sub-
sidizing associations, and to distributers, for open. Farhady
(2006), alluding to the occasion of IUEE characterizes all
these partners into instructive, social and political gather-
ings, attests that each bunch has an alternate sort of enthu-
siasm and expectation for using tests wellspring of power.
The instructive gathering includes understudies, instruc-
tors and educator mentors that nurture more test quality as
they are the most influenced gathering with respect to the
results. Educators for the most part attempt to focus on the
subjects that might show up in the test and their own needs,
arranging and teaching are even shadowed to the detriment
of would-be tried materials and procedures. It is confusing
that both understudies and educators and here and there in-
deed, even folks are discerning that what shows up in the
IUEE and the practices they render amid class hours are not
in accordance with the present techniques for language teach-
ing and learning (Barootchi and Keshavarz, 2002; Hamayan
1995; Tsagari, 2004). However reminiscent of conventional
strategies (e.g., Sentence structure Interpretation techniques)
for language learning and teaching (Mahdavinia and Rahimi,
2011), still they do not dither to act per the test needs as their
scholarly and social power may not past this since they are
controlled to act in specific ways (van Dijk, 2003; Bloor and
Bloor, 2007). The social setting grasps different gatherings
with regards to social class and every gathering might trans-
late test scores in an unexpected way. Farhady (2006) clar-
ifies that a few families may be fanatical about scores and
uphold a few changes in the family undertakings to give a
superior circumstance to their youngsters to pass IUEE since
they know the outcome influences the eventual fate of test
takers and the family while a few families could not care less
about the outcomes and the test process goes ahead without
influencing the families’ common way.
Scholarly Contributions on Testing
Some researchers even trust that tests are critical and they
are utilized for control (Shohamy, 2001). High-stakes tests
are one-sided as they concentrate on local speaker standards
(Brown, 2004; Davies et al., 2003; Khan, 2009). There is a
solid feedback of high-stakes global English examinations,
(for example, IELTS and TOEFL).These tests are particular
to inward however mainly towards assortments of English
in the United Kingdom and the United Sates (Davies et al.,
2003). Davies et al. (2003) led a study to evaluate whether
high-stakes universal English examinations are one-sided
against non-local speakers of the language that are might
capable in utilizing English for global correspondence? Or
have not been presented to specific subtleties of an inward
hover assortment of English. These tests speak to the old pil-
grim Standard English of the UK, USA, and so forth. It is
a sort of English that is not known, or just mostly known,
to huge numbers of the individuals who have learnt English
as an extra language (e.g., India, Singapore and Malaysia)’
94
(2003:571). They estimated in the start of their article that
global English tests are one-sided, as they require a specific
sort of English from possibility to which they have not been
uncovered. The creators reported the vicinity of inclination
in global tests, for instance, TOEFL is one-sided against the
individuals who might be capable in utilizing English as a
worldwide language, and still they are not acquainted with
American English. They found few words in the TOEFL
test that have diverse implications in British, American and
Australian English. They likewise discovered words that are
socially particular to North American connections.
Brown (2004) recognized two particular levels of incli-
nation:
At the test thing level, and
At the tests score level.
Brown (2004) recommended that test predisposition
originates from different sources inside of the testing process
that includes organization methodology, test content, test in-
formation determination, testing strategy and rating or scor-
ing. He recorded eight classes that affected tests. He trusts
that a test is free from predisposition if every one of the eight
“Englishes” are the same as shown under: the English(es) of
the test-takers’ nearby group, the prevailing English of the
test taker, the English(es) of the test content, the English(es)
of the test delegate, the English(es) of the test scores, the
English(es) of the choice target group, the English(es) of the
choice target reason, and the English(es) of the leaders.
Khan’s study (2009) on TOEFL investigated inclination
against non-local speakers. She directed a contextual analy-
sis at a private school in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia where TOEFL
is utilized as a placement test. It focuses on (a) Perceptions
of educators and students and (b) Focus gathering along
with semi-organized meetings. Perspectives of the mem-
bers in Khan (2009) TOEFL is considered as a ‘conductor
to Americanisation’, TOEFL speaks to Americanisation in
Saudi Arabia, it was Preferred because of Multiple decision
inquiries. A part of the top administration considered in the
United Stated where TOEFL was the standard.
“The Educational Imperialism” (Phillipson, 1992) said
that the Policy Makers in instructive field keep up their solid
connections to inward circle nations and have a tendency to
advance the instructive philosophies of those nations, subse-
quently reinforcing the ‘authority towards internal circle na-
tions’ (2009:198). It is utilized by schools as an ‘advertising
ploy’ to inspire students and expansion enrolment. Students
felt that TOEFL not only is suitable for students as it uses
American English but is useful for cultural substance and
American English lingo.
WHY IS LANGUAGE TESTING SO CRITICAL?
Here are the reasons given by Elana Shohamy, why she
thinks the language test is critical.
Test as a Method for Control
Elana Shohamy (1998:332) has built up a structure known
as critical language testing (CLT) which manages the social
and political part of tests. She says that Testing is not neutral.
ALLS 9(5):92-95
Testing is not Neutral
According to Shohamy (1998:332), ‘tests are most capable as
they are frequently used as single pointers for deciding the fate
of people. As criteria for acknowledgment and dismissal, they
overwhelm other instructive gadgets, for example, educational
programs, course reading and educating’. Tests can have a gi-
gantic impact on the lives of test takers, as they make champs
and washouts, triumphs and disappointments, dismissals and
acknowledgments (Shohamy, 2001:16). It is because of these
inconvenient impacts, test-takers are frequently eager to do
anything as to accomplish the most extreme scores. Hence,
tests can be utilized as disciplinary apparatuses, for instance
test-takers can be compelled to change their conduct to meet
the requirements of the test. Tests influence a scope of part-
ners, for example, students, educators, folks, managers, gov-
ernment specialists, subsidizing associations and national
instructive bodies. These partners can be ordered into instruc-
tive, social, and political gatherings where every gathering has
an alternate sort of enthusiasm for, and expectation for, using
tests as a wellspring of force. The High Stakes Tests are the
Centralised instructive frameworks that forces specific infor-
mation. The discipline of Politics, decides by the given scores
about having a citizenship, control movement to a gate-keep-
er. She advocates ‘critical testing’ which elevates critical
procedures to research the utilizations and results of tests, to
screen the force of tests, to minimize their hindering strengths,
to uncover abuses and engage the test takers.
ASL Test in Israel
Shohamy (1993) researched the effect of ASL test in Isra-
el. In order to raise the notoriety of Arabic language among
Hebrew speakers, she found that the test affected educating
and learning exercises as the instructors supplanted reading
material with worksheets indistinguishable to test materials
that directed “test-like” exercises in class and arranged stu-
dents particularly for the test before its occurrence. Standard
of Arabic is not raised in view of low distinction.
EFL in Israel
“EFL oral capability test”
It is the test through which Teachers pay concentration
on oral language. Teachers invest impressive energy show-
ing oral language aptitudes. However it just utilized errands
and exercises that are indistinguishable to those incorporat-
ed into the test. According to Shohamy (1996) investigation
ASL sway went on for brief timeframe contrasted with EFL.
‘Washback can change after some time and that the effect
of tests is not as a matter of course steady’. It relies on upon
various variables, for example, language status, the motiva-
tion behind the test, the arrangement of the test, and the abil-
ities that are tested.
Moore’s Utilization of CLT (Critical Language Testing)
Moore et al. (2012) consider the IELTS test as restricted of
controlling and forcing particular information on students
The Critical Perspective of English Language Testing and Assessment within Framework of Elana Shohamy
and instructors. The IELTS test is controlled by western
foundations as an entryway keeping instrument for move-
ment. It is helpful as a passage into advanced education, in a
way the Cambodians are liable to the principles and regula-
tions forced by these organizations.
CONCLUSION
The English language which is utilized as a part of TOEFL
does not mirror the English (es) that has been utilized by the
worldwide speakers of English language (Khan, 2009:199).
It is so, as some of the idiomatic expressions which are par-
ticular to North American society are not understood by stu-
dents on the other edge of the World. It is by considering this
point, ‘English must not be the property of a single coun-
try; it should be internationalized more in the way that it is
taught and is tested’. The English language tests ought to
be designed by incorporating “nonpartisan” substances and
therefore must not benefit a particular society. According to
(Khan, 2003:203), the test takers do experiences the psycho-
logical submissive attitude with the standardized high stake
tests because it is troublesome, long and unseemly advances
one community onto other just like an American English:
within TOEFL is one-sided. Khan (2009:193) proposes that
the standardized test of TOEFL is not helpful test for second
and remote language connections in light of the fact that En-
glish, which is used as part of these neighbourhood settings
is more worldwide than American in every aspect. It was
Elana Shohamy’s valuable critical contribution towards test-
ing and assessment which has really helped the English ap-
plied linguists and teachers to modify the research mode of
language testing field and teaching strategies to better design
the test with nonpartisan attitude. It is only possible through
95
analysing the very social aspects that tend to portray lan-
guage test as an imperialistic design for its takers.
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 Advances in Language and Literary Studies
ISSN: 2203-4714
www.alls.aiac.org.au

An LFG Analysis of Gapping Constructions in Taif Arabic

Muhammad Swaileh A. Alzaidi*

Department of English Language and Literature, King Saud University, PO box 2456, Riyadh 11451, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Corresponding Author: Muhammad Swaileh A. Alzaidi, E‑mail: malzaidi1@ksu.edu.sa

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article history
Received: April 11, 2018
Accepted: August 26, 2018
Published: October 31, 2018
Volume: 9 Issue: 5
Advance access: August 2018
Conflicts of interest: None
Funding: None
We identify and propose an analysis in LFG of Gapping construction in Taif “Hijazi” Arabic (TA).
Gapping occurs in a coordination structure where the initial conjunct is syntactically complete
and the non‑initial conjunct is incomplete. To my knowledge, there is no previous description or
analysis of gapping in TA. There have been two competing analyses in the literature on gapping,
which view gapping as a result of a trace of movement and non‑constituent coordination. In this
paper, we show that none of these approaches succeeds to account for Gapping in TA, and hence,
they fail to capture the facts of gapping in this Arabic dialect. Instead, we adopts a function‑
spreading approach within Lexical‑Functional Grammar (LFG), and show how it is able to
account for the facts of gapping in TA, using mechanisms proposed independently for other
construction types.

Key words:
Gapping,
Coordination,
Ellipsis,
Remnant,
Lexical Functional Grammar

INTRODUCTION pseudogapping construction as in (3), the auxiliary is not

This paper is concerned with gapping constructions in Taif
“Hijazi” Arabic (TA) (a Hijazi Arabic variety spoken in Taif)
in which the initial conjunct is syntactically complete and
the non‑initial conjunct is missing the verb(s). This is exem‑
plified in English in the following example (missing materi‑
als appear in strike‑thu).
(1) {[a John drinks coffee] and [g Peter tea]}.
The verb of the non‑initial conjunct (e.g., g) is deleted un‑
der identity with that of the initial‑conjunct (e.g., a). There‑
fore, the non‑initial conjunct shares the missed elements that
are overtly spelt‑out in the initial conjunct. Following usual
terminology, we call the missing material the Gap, the initial
conjunct (e.g., a) the antecedent clause, the non‑initial con‑
junct (e.g., g) the gapped clause, and the remaining elements
in the gapped clause remnants.
Gapping has distinctive features that make it different
from other syntactic constructions. For example, Gapping
differs from Verb Phrase Ellipsis (VPE) and Pseudo‑gap‑
ping. In VPE constructions, the main predicate with its ar‑
gument are missing as in (2) below (Sag, 1976). Therefore,
VPE differs from gapping as illustrated in (1) above.
(2) John drinks cofcoffee, and Peter does drink coffee too.
Moreover, Gapping differs from Pseudogapping con‑
structions, as illustrated in (3) below (Levin, 1986). In
removed whereas the main verb is removed.
(3) John has drunk cofcoffee and Peter has tea.
To our knowledge, there is no previous description or
analysis of gapping in TA. However, there are many ap‑
proaches proposed to account for gapping in other languages
including English and Russian. One of the approaches within
a derivation approach (i.e., in Minimalism framework) is pro‑
posed by Johnson (2004) who claims that Gapping in English
(e.g. as in Some people speak to Sal and others to Henry)
is a result of A(cross)‑T(he)‑B(oard) movement of the verbs
from each member of a coordinate structure. In non‑deriva‑
tional approach as in LFG framework, Maxwell and Man‑
ning (1996) propose the use of F(inite)‑S(tate)‑A(utomata)
in a surface based approach to non‑constituent coordination,
suggesting that such an account might afford an analysis of
gapping as a case of non‑constituent coordination.1 However,
such approaches cannot be extended to cover TA data pre‑
sented in this structure. In other words, they cannot account
for the facts of gapping in TA presented in the current paper.
Therefore, this paper has three aims. First, it aims to
identify the gapping constructions in TA and its properties.
Second, it aims to show how previous approaches includ‑
ing Johnson (2004) and Maxwell and Manning (1996) fail
to account for TA gapping. Finally, it will provide analysis

Published by Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.

Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.5p.96
An LFG Analysis of Gapping Constructions in Taif Arabic 97

of TA gapping within LFG; framework adopting a function In TA, the following word patterns are possible (VO),
spreading approach and show how it is able to account for (VSO), (SVO), (VOS), (OVS), (OSV), as in (4) below (the
the facts of gapping in TA, using mechanisms proposed in‑ last two with an optional pronominal affix doubling the ob‑
dependently for other construction types. ject). Irrespective of its position, the verb displays full agree‑
This paper is structured as follows. Section 2 outlines the ment with the subject.
basic characteristics of TA including word order, simple and (4) a. ˀakal ar-ruz. (VO)
compound morphosyntactic tenses. Section 3 presents the is‑ eat.pfv.3sm the‑rice
sue and the properties of gapping in TA. Section 4 presents ‘He ate the rice.’
first a brief overview of two previous approaches (i.e., John‑ b. ˀakal ˤali ar-ruz. (VSO)
son’s (2004) transformational approach, and Maxwell and eat.pfv.3sm Ali the‑rice
Manning’s (1996) LFG approach) proposed to account for ‘Ali ate the rice.’
gapping in languages including English. Then, it shows how c. ˤali ˀakal ar-ruz. (SVO)
they fail to account for the gapping in TA. Section 5 intro‑ Ali eat.pfv.3sm the‑rice
duces the LFG approach to constituent coordination through ‘Ali ate the rice.’
discussion of sentential coordination patterns in TA. Then, it d. ˀakal ar-ruz ˤali. (VOS)
will present our function spreading approach to gapping in eat.pfv.3sm the‑rice Ali
TA and show how it is able to account for the facts presented ‘The rice, Ali ate.’
in Section 3. Section 6 concludes the paper. e. ar-ruz ˀakal-(uh) ˤali. (OVS)
the‑rice eat.pfv.3sm‑it.sm Ali
‘The rice, Ali ate (it).’
TAIF ARABIC (TA) f. ar-ruz ˤali ˀakal-(uh). (OSV)
Taif Arabic is a variety of Hijazi Arabic spoken in Taif city, the‑rice Ali eat.pfv.3sm‑it.sm
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as shown in Figure 1. The syn‑ ‘The rice, Ali ate (it).’
tax of this dialect receives little attention in the literature In the examples (5) and (6) below, the simple and com‑
(Alotaibi, 2014). TA, likes Arabic in general, is a head‑initial pound morphosyntactic tenses in TA are exemplified. Sen‑
language, albeit has a free pattern of word order. tence (5b) can be either simple present or present simple

Figure 1. Map: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Taif city)

98 ALLS 9(5):96-99

continuous. The interpretation of 6a) can be either past Third, gapping does not operate out of, or into, embedded
progressive or habitual progressive, yuku: n with an imper‑ conjuncts. An example from English is in (9) below.
fective form of the lexical verb yields a present progressive (9) *Amanda went to Santa Cruz, and Bill thinks that Claire
interpretation, as in (6b), and yuku: n with a perfective form to Monterrey. (Vicente, 2010: 209)
of the lexical verb yields a present perfect interpretation, as Fourth, gapping is subject to a parallelism constraint,
in (6d). excluding, for example, active/passive mismatches (unlike
(5) a. ˀakal ˤali ar-ruz. VPE). The examples in (10) below illustrate.
eat.pfv.3sm Ali the‑rice (10) a. *That should be explained to individual students by
‘Ali ate the rice.’ the TA, but the professor to the class in general.
b. sara ta‑drus kimya:. (Gapping Construction)
Sara 3f study.ipfv
3f‑ Chemistry b. That can all be explained, and the professor. (VPE
‘Sara studies/is studying Chemistry.’ Construction)
c. sara bi‑ta‑drus kimya:. Fifth, gapping is recursive in that the initial conjunct can
Sara fut‑3f‑
3f study.ipfv Chemistry be followed by any number of conjuncts which lack materials
‘Sara will study Chemistry.’ present in the initial conjunct as in (11) below (McShane, 2005).
(6) a. ˀaħmad ka: n yuktub qasˤidah. (11) Jane’s birthday is in May, John’s in June, and Rex’s in
Ahmad be.pfv.3sm write.ipfv.3sm poem July. (McShane, 2005: 138)
‘Ahmad was writing/used to write a poem.’ The final property of gapping is that across-the-board ex‑
(Alotaibi 2014:36) tractive (ATB) from coordinate structure is possible, as ex‑
b. ˀaħmad yuku: n yuktub qasˤidah. emplified in (12) below.
Ahmad be.pfv.3sm write.ipfv.3sm poem (12) What did Mary tell Jon and Peter Susan?
‘Ahmad is writing a poem.’ Similar effects can be shown for Taif Arabic. In the
c. *ˤali yuku: n yiˤiʃ fi ar-riyadˤ. following, we identify eleven properties of Gapping in this
Ali be. pfv.3sm in the‑Riyadh Arabic vernacular. First, TA gapping requires an overt syn‑
‘Ali is living in Riyadh.’ (Alotaibi 2014:39) tactic antecedent. That is, there is no backward anaphora as
d. ˀaħmad yuku: n katab qasˤidah. in VPE. An example is in (13) below.
Ahmad be.pfv.3sm write.pfv.3sm poem (13) a. {[ˤali ˀakal ar-ruz] w [xa: lid ˀakal
‘Ahmad has written a poem.’ al-laħam]}.
In this section, we presented the permissible word orders,
Ali eat.pfv.3sm the‑rice and Khaled eat.pfv.3sm
and the simple and compound morphosyntactic tenses in TA.
the‑meat
We noticed that verbs in TA agree with its subject in gender,
‘Ali ate the rice, Khaled the meat.’
number and person. In the following section, we will present
b. *{[ˤali ar-ruz] w [xa: lid ˀakal ˀal-
the issue and properties of gapping in TA.
laħam]}
Ali the‑rice and Khaled eat.pfv.3sm the‑
THE ISSUE AND PROPERTIES OF GAPPING IN meat
TA ‘Ali ate the rice, and Khaled ate the rice.’
The properties of gapping in many languages including En‑ Second, Gapping in TA does not occur with a subordinat‑
glish (Johnson, 2004), Russian (McShane, 2005), Chinese ing conjunction, as illustrated in (14) below.
(Paul, 1999), Korean (Kang, 1996), German (Repp, 2009) (14) *{[ˤali ˀi∫tara Ford] ˤa∫a: n [xa: lid Ford]}.
and Jordanian Arabic (Albulkhari, 2016) have been dis‑ Ali buy.pfv.3sm Ford because Khaled Ford
cussed in the literature. Based on these studies, the proper‑ Intended: ‘Ali bought Ford because Khaled bought Ford.’
ties of gapping in TA will be identified in this section. The third property of TA gapping is that it cannot occur in
First, Jackendoff (1971), Handkamer (1979), Moltmann a (symmetrical) comparative structure as shown in (15) below.
(1992), Lechner (2004), McShane (2005), Wynægrd (2007), (15) *{[ˤali ˀakal ar-ruz] ˀ a k θ a r m i n - m a
Johnson (2009), and among others notice that gapping op‑ [xa: lid ˀal-laħam]}.
erates in non‑initial conjuncts unlike verb phrase ellipsis Ali eat.pfv.3sm the‑rice more from‑that
(VPE), as in (7) below. Khaled the‑meat
(7) *Sue the lamb, but John will have the salmon. ‘Ali ate more rice than Khaled the meat.’
Second, gapping is restricted to symmetrical coordina‑ In TA, gapping into a conjunct embedded position is im‑
tion as in (8a) and may occur in (symmetrical) comparative possible. This is illustrated in (16) below.
structure as in (8b). In subordinating conjunctions and asym‑ (16) *{[ˤali ra:ħ jiddah] w [xa: lid
metric coordination, gapping is not possible as in (8c). ya-ˤtaqid
(8) a. John likes bananas, and Sally pears. (Wyngærd, Ali go.pfv.3sm Jeddah and
2007: 2) Khaled 3m‑think.ipfv.3plm
b. The old man looked at his dog like a lover at his ˀin faisal ra:ħ ar-riya: dˤ.]}.
beloved. (McShane, 2005: 136) that Faisal go.pfv.3sm the‑Riyadh
c. *Mary cooked dinner on Tuesday because Peter on Intended: ‘Ali went to Jeddah, and Khaled thinks that
Wednesday. (ibid.) Faisal went to Riyadh.’
An LFG Analysis of Gapping Constructions in Taif Arabic 99

In addition, TA gapping from a conjunct embedded po‑ ‘Ali ate the rice, and Khaled the meat.’
sition is impossible as exemplified in (17) below (see also f. {[ar-ruz ˤali ˀakal] w [ˀal-laħam
Albukhari (2016: 56‑57) for Jordanian Arabic). xa: lid]}.
(17) {[faisal qa: l ˤlali ˀakal ar-ruz,] w [xa: lid ˀal- O S V and O S
laħam]}. the‑rice Ali eat.pfv.3sm and t h e ‑ m e a t
Faisal say pfv.3sm Ali eat.pfv.3sm the‑rice and Khaled Khaled
the‑meat ‘Ali ate the rice, and Khaled the meat.’
Intended: ‘Faisal said that Ali ate the rice, and Khaled ate Another property is that gapping is possible with all the
the meat.’ available conjunctions w ‘and’, ˀaw ‘or’, bas/la: kin ‘but’,
In TA gapping, the initial conjunct can be followed by a ˀimma…walla ‘either.or’, and finally la….wala ‘neither…
number of conjuncts in which they lack material(s) overtly nor’. These are exemplified below.
spelt out in the initial conjunct. This is exemplified in the (21) a. xa: lid ra:ħ jiddah w sa: rah ar-ri‑
following example. ya: dˤ.
(18) {[ˤali ra:ħ jiddah] w [xa: lid ar-riya: dˤ] w Khaled go.pfv.3sm and S a r a h
[faisal the‑Riyadh
Ali go.pfv.3sm Jeddah] and Khaled ‘Khaled went to Jeddad, and Sara to Riyadh.’
the‑Riyadh and Faisal b. ˤali ya-lˤab ku: rah ˀaw xa: lid tennis.
ˀal-ba: aha] w [bader Makkah]. Ali 3m‑play‑ipfv football or Khaled tennis
the‑BahA and Bader Makkah ‘Ali plays/is playing football, or Khaled tennis.’
‘Ali went to Jeddah, and Khaled Riyadh, Faisal Baha, c. xa: lid ra:ħ jiddah b a s / l a : k i n
and Bader Makkah.’ sa: rah ar-riya: dˤ.
Like English, ATB extraction from the coordinate struc‑ Khaled go.pfv.3sm Jeddah but Sarah
ture is possible in TA gapping. This is shown clearly in (19) the‑Riyadh
below. ‘Khaled went to Jeddad, but Sara to Riyadh.’
(19) mata ˤali ra:ħ jiddah w xa: lid ar-riya: dˤ. d. ˀimmaxa: lid ra:ħ jiddah] b a s / l a : k i n
when Ali go.pfv.3sm Jeddah and Khaled sa: rah ar-riya: dˤ.
the‑Riyadh either Khaled go.pfv.3sm Jeddah but
‘When did Ali go to Makkah and when did Khaled go to Sarah the‑Riyadh
Riyadh?’ ‘Either Khaled went to Jeddad or Sara to Riyadh.’
Furthermore, gapping is possible in all possible orders in Moreover, in the gapping constructions the members of
the antecedent (conjunct) clause. This is demonstrated in the coordinate structure share temporal and aspectual properties.
following examples. This is illustrated in (22) below.
(20) a. {[ˀakal ar-ruz] w [xa: lid ˀal-laħam]}. (22) a. ˀal-ˀwla: d ħa-yu-drus-un kimya w ˀal-bana: t fi‑
V O and S O zya.
eat.pfv.3sm the‑rice and Khaled the‑meat the‑boys fut‑3m‑study‑ipfv‑pl‑ind Chemistry and
‘He ate the rice, and Khaled the meat.’ the‑boys Physics
b. {[ˀakal ˤali ar-ruz] w [xa: lid ‘The boys will study Chemistry, and the girls (will study)
ˀal-laħam]}. Physics.’
V S O and S O b. ˤali ka: n yuktub risa: lah w xa: lid q a ‑
eat.pfv.3sm Ali the‑rice and K h a l e d sˤidah.
the‑meat Ali be.pfv.3sgm write.ipfv.3sm letter and Khaled poem
‘Ali ate the rice, Khaled the meat.’ ‘Ali was writing/used to write a letter, and Khaled a poem.’
c. {[ˤali ˀakal ar-ruz] w [xa: lid ˀ a l - In (22a), the verb ħa-yu-drus-un ‘will-study’ is inflected
laħam]}. with future tense marker (ha‑), ), present tense ((yu‑) (i.e., imper‑
imper
S V O and S O fective), and indicative mood (‑un). This information spelt out
Ali eat.pfv.3sm the‑rice and K h a l e d in the first conjunct is as same as the information missed in the
the‑meat second conjunct. That is, tense and mood cannot be different in
‘Ali ate the rice, and Khaled the meat.’ both conjuncts (i.e., two events). In (22b), the auxiliary ka: n
d. {[ˀakal ar-ruz ˤali] w [xa: lid ˀ a l - is used with another verb yuktub (i.e., must be in imperfective
laħam]}. form) to express a various types of tense and mode (i.e., am‑
V O S and S O biguous between past progressive and habitual progressive).
eat.pfv.3sm the‑rice Ali and Khaled t h e ‑ The auxiliary ka: n with the verb yuktub spelt out in the first
meat conjunct is gapped in the second conjunct. If the gapped clause
‘Ali ate the rice, and Khaled the meat.’ in (22b) is completed, the structure should be as in (23) below.
e. {[ar-ruz ˀakal–uh ˤali] w [ˀal-laħam (23) ˤali ka: n yuktub risa: lah w xa: lid ka: n
xa: lid]}. Ali be.pfv.3sgm write.ipfv.3sm letter and
O V S and O S Khaled be.pfv.3sgm
the‑rice eat.pfv.3sm‑it.sm Ali and the‑ yuktub qasˤidah.
meat Khaled write.ipfv.3sm poem
99A ALLS 9(5):96-99

‘Ali was writing/used to write a letter, and Khaled was EXISTING APPROACHES TO GAPPING
writing/used to write a poem.’ To account for gapping constructions in languages including
TA example corresponding to English pseudo‑gapping English, approaches are proposed in the literature. One of
(as in sentence 3 above) is ungrammatical. This is illustrated the approaches within derivational framework is that gap‑
in the example below. ping is interpreted as a trace of ATB movement (Johnson,
(24) *ˤali ka: n y u k t u b 2004). This approach is adopted by Albulkhari (2016) to ac‑
risa: lah w xa: lid ka: n count for gapping constructions in Jordanian Arabic.
Ali be.pfv.3sgm write.ipfv.3sm letter and Khaled Following Johnson (2004), Albulkhari (2016) interprets
be.pfv.3sgm gapping in Jordanian Arabic as a result of a low‑coordination
qasˤidah. vP. He claims that the verb is moving Across the Board (ATB)
write.ipfv.3sm poem from both conjuncts into T thereabouts, as in (34b), roughly.
Intended: ‘Ali was writing/used to write a letter, and (27) a. ħassan ∫tara sajjara, w ˤumar be: t.
Khaled was writing/used to write a poem.’ Hassan buy.3sm.per car and Omar house
In (24), the verb yuktub ‘write’ preceding the auxiliary ‘Hasan bought a car, and Omar a house.’
ka: n is gapped in the non‑initial conjunct, and hence, it re‑ b. [TP ħassan1 [t ∫tara3 [predP [vp t 3 t 2]…[vP t1 [vP t3
sults in being ungrammatical. sajjara2]] w [vP ˤumar [vP t 3 t 2]] be: t2]]]
As for agreement properties, members of the coordinate It is not clear how this movement approach could account
structure do not necessarily share them. The examples below for the range of attested TA cases presented in Section 3,
illustrate. In (25a), the verbally incorporated subject in the including agreement and word order mismatches.
first conjunct is not shared into the gapped clause. If the ver‑ Within non‑derivational approach (i.e., LFG framework),
bally incorporated subject in the gapped clause is spelt out, it Maxwell and Manning (1996) propose the use of FSA‑based
should be as in (25b). Bing so, the morphological agreement rule factorization as an approach to non‑constituent coordi‑
displayed in the initial conjunct is not as same as the one in nation, and suggest that such an account might afford and
the non‑initial conjunct. analysis of gapping as a case of non‑constituent coordina‑
(25) a. xa: lid ra:ħ jiddah w sa: rah ar-ri‑ tion. They apply their ‘rule‑splitting’ approach to non‑con‑
ya: dˤ. stituent coordination such as (28).
Khaled go.pfv.3sm Jeddah and Sarah (28) a. John gambled in Sydney on Monday and in Monaco
the‑Riyadh on Thursday.
‘Khaled went to Jeddad, and Sara to Riyadh.’ b. c‑structure
b. xa: lidra:ħ jiddah w sa: rah ra:ħ-at ar-ri‑
ya: dˤ.
Khaled go.pfv.3sm and Sarah go.pfv‑3sf
the‑Riyadh
‘Khaled went to Jeddad, and Sara went to Riyadh.’
The final property of TA gapping is that the remnants
in the gapped clause do not necessarily follow the order of
their correspondents in the antecedent clause in the syntax as
wshown in (26) below.
(26) ˤali ˀakal ar-ruz w ˀal-laħam
xa: lid.
S V O and O S
Ali eat.pfv.3sm the‑rice and the‑meat
Khaled
‘Ali ate the rice, and Khaled the meat.’ c. ff‑structure
In (26), the complement of the missed verb ˀal-laħam
‘the‑meat’ is syntactically realized before the subject Khaled.
Khaled
This indicates that the word order exhibited in the non‑initial
conjunct(s) in TA gapping constructions is not necessarily
required to be as same as the word order exhibited in the
initial conjunct.
In this section, we demonstrate that some properties of
gapping in TA are similar to the properties of gapping in En‑
glish, and hence gapping as a syntactic construction exists
in TA. In addition, we discussed the properties and the issue
of the TA gapping. In the following section, we will discuss
previous approaches proposed to account for gapping in lan‑
guages including English and Jordanian Arabic. In this sec‑
tion, we will show that none of these approaches is about to
account for the facts of TA gapping presented in this section.
An LFG Analysis of Gapping Constructions in Taif Arabic 99B

Given the internal phrase structure independence of the Ali 3m‑play‑ipfv football and Khaled 3m‑play.ipfv
conjuncts, Maxwell and Manning’s (1996) approach would tennis
appear to be not an appropriate tool. This is because it will ‘Ali plays/is playing football and Khaled plays/is playing
interact incorrectly with distribution (29). An example illus‑ tennis.’
trating this point is in below (30). The analysis of coordinate structure such as the one in
(29) Distributivity and Non-Distributivity (32) is very straightforward in LFG. Coordinate structures
If a is a distributive feature and s is a set of ff‑structures, are treated
ed as sets at f‑
f structure due to the possibility that
then (s a)= v holds if and only if ((f a)= v for all ff‑structures f a coordinate structure can contain more than two members.
that are members of the set s. If a is a nondistributive feature, A general schema at c‑structure as (33) licenses coordinate
then ((f a)= v holds if and only if the pair < a, v> ∈ ff structure.
(30) {[ˤali ya-lˤab ku: rah] w [xa: lid (33) IP → IP CONJ IP
tennis]}. ↑∈↓ ↑=↓ ↑∈↓
Ali 3m‑play‑ipfv football and Khaled tennis In (33), the annotation ↑∈↓ on the daughters in the coor‑
‘Ali plays/is playing football, and Khaled tennis.’ dinate IP schema states that each conjunct is a member of the
In (30), ˤali and ya-lˤab will distribute into the f‑f structure set corresponding to the coordinate structure. Information
of the second conjunct, leading to inconsistency and hence associated with CONJ (↑=↓) is contributed directly to the set
failure to produce a complete and coherent ff‑structure (). itself. The c‑structure (34a) shows the corresponding to the
This violates the Wellformedness condition (31). coordination in (32), together with the functional annotation
(31) Wellformedness Conditions associated with the coordination schema.
(i) Completeness
‘An ff‑structure is locally complete if and only if it contains (34) a. c‑structure
all the governable grammatical functions that its predicate
governs. An ff‑structure is complete if and only if it and all
its subsidiary ff‑structures are locally complete’
(ii) Coherence
‘An ff‑structure is locally coherentent if and only if all the
governable grammatical functions that it contains are
governed by a local predicate. An f‑ f structure is coherent
if and only if it and all its subsidiary f‑ f structures are
locally coherent’
(iii) Consistency
‘In a given ff‑structure a particular attribute may have at
most one value’
(Dalrymple, 2001:37&39)
In order to avoid the problems that Albulkhari’s (2016)
and Maxwell and Manning’s (1996) approach face, we sug‑
gest that gapping should be modeled directly in terms of
f structure sharing or function spreading, rather than dis‑
f‑
tributing information associated with coordinate structure
b. ff‑structure
external c‑structure nodes. Our analysis of gapping in TA is
proposed in the following section.

LFG ANALYSIS
Before we provide an LFG analysis of gapping in TA, we
first need to show how sentential coordination in this dia‑
lect is explained. Having shown that, we then provide our
analysis of gapping. In Section 5.1, we will present a brief
overview of the various coordination patterns available in
TA, and shows how they are straightforwardly captures in
the LFG analysis of coordination. Section 5.2 will present
our LFG proposed analysis of gapping in TA.

LFG Analysis of Sentential Coordination in TA

As shown in the example below, it is possible to coordinate Functions introduced outside the coordination are de‑
complete IP clauses in TA. fined over the set itself, and hence distributed to all members
(32) {[ˤali ya-lˤab ku: rah] w [xa: lid y a - l ˤ a b of the set. This is defined formally in (29) above. An exam‑
tennis]}. ple illustrating is coordination at VP level as in (35) below.
99C ALLS 9(5):96-103

(35) a. ˤali w xa: lid yadˤakun (40) [ˤali ya-lˤab ku: rah] w [xa: lid tennis]}.
w yalˤabun. Ali 3m‑play‑ipfv football and Khaled tennis
Ali and Khaled laugh.ipfv.3pl and p l a y. ‘Ali plays/is playing football and Khaled tennis.’
ipfv.3pl (41) IP → IP Conj IP
‘Ali and Khaled are laughing and playing.’ ↑∈↓ ↑=↓ ↑∈↓
b. ff‑structure (↓ pred) = (↑ pred)
(↓ tense) = (↑ tense)
The gapping construction in (40) is licensed by the sche‑
ma in (41). The tree diagram in (44a) shows the correspond‑
ing to the coordination in (40), together with the functional
annotation association with the coordination schema.
(42) a. c‑structure

In (35b), the subject (“

(“Ali” and “Khaled”) is distributive,
and hence, it is distributed over the members of the coordi‑
nate structure as observed at ff‑structure (35b). In the section
below, we will present our proposed analysis of gapping in
TA within LFG framework.

b. ff‑structure
LFG Analysis of Gapping in TA
We build on Frank (2002) on Subject Gap in Finite construc‑
tion in German (1) and Sadler (2006) on Asymmetrical Sen‑
tential Coordination in Welsh (2).
(36) {[In den Wald ging der Jäger] und [fing einen Hasen]}
Into the forest went the junter and caught a rabitt
‘The hunter went into the forest and caught a rabbit.’
(Frank, 2002: 176)
(37) Aeth y f
ffermwr at y drws
a churo arno.
go.past.3sg the farmer to the door
a knock on‑3sm
‘The farmer went to the door and knocked on it.’
In these constructions, an element, which is realized
within a single conjunct, contributes information to other
conjuncts.
(38) IP → IP CONJ IP This proposed approach avoided many problems faced
↑∈↓ ↑=↓ ↑∈↓ by the previous approaches reviewed above. First, this ap‑
(↑subj) = (↓subj) proach, at the level of the sentential coordination schema,
(39) IP → IP Conj IP is in principle independent of the sentential word order, pre‑
↑∈↓ ↑=↓ ↑∈↓ dicting the possibility of non‑matching word order in the
(↓ subj) = (↑ subj) conjuncts, as displayed in the examples in (20) above. As a
(↓ tense) = (↑ tense) result, this approach solves the problems in Johnson’s (2004)
The hypothesis is that verbal features and grammati‑ and Albulkhari’s (2016) derivational approach.
cized discourse function (e.g., subj) are features, which Furthermore, the annotation on the initial conjunct ac‑
may spread. In our example in (40), the verb spelt out counts for the direction of gapping, and hence, it rules out
in the initial conjuncts contributes information (i.e., pred the possibility of having backward anaphora like VPE. In
and tense) to the non‑initial conjunct. This is formalized addition, the association of spread equation with the senten‑
in (41). tial coordination schema is independent of choice of coor‑
An LFG Analysis of Gapping Constructions in Taif Arabic
dinator. Therefore, this approach suggests that gapping is
possible regardless of the coordinator chosen.
Moreover, the spreading equations are single level, ac‑
counting for the lack of embedding under gapping. This
rules out the possibility for the gapping to operate out of
or into embedded conjuncts. Also, this approach accounts
for the recursive property of gapping. This is because it
proposes an account based on spreading equations and the
interaction of distributive features with coordination ac‑
counts.
Finally, this approach predicts the observed interaction
of ATB extraction with gapping; this is because the account
suggested is based on spreading equations, together with the
LFG analysis of coordination and unbounded dependency
constructions.
CONCLUSION
This paper has proposed analysis of gapping constructions
in TA, in which the verb is expressed only in the initial con‑
junct. Working in LFG as a constraint‑based framework, and
in particular using a spreading‑function approach, we show
how this approach allows us straightforwardly and accurate‑
ly to distribute the overtly spelt out element(s) in the ini‑
tial conjunct over the members of the coordinate structure,
yielding a well‑formed and well‑explained structure. We
show how the current approach avoids the problems of the
previous analyses proposed in approaches treating gapping
as a result of a trace of movement, and as a non‑constituent
coordination.
END NOTE
1. Approaches to gapping proposed in other languages (e.g., En‑
glish, Russian) exist such as gapping as a result of deletion
and linearization theory in HPSG. For space limit, we cannot
review all these previous approaches.
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 Advances in Language and Literary Studies
ISSN: 2203-4714
www.alls.aiac.org.au

An Intercultural Analysis of Personal Metadiscourse in English and Chinese Commencement

Speeches

Yuting Zhu*
School of Foreign Languages, Central China Normal University, No. 152, Luoyu Road, Hongshan District, Wuhan City, Hubei
Province, 430079, PR China
Corresponding Author: Yuting Zhu, E‑mail: yuting_zhu123@qq.com

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article history The existing metadiscourse studies on the comparison of English and Chinese language are
Received: April 08, 2018 relatively few, especially on spoken discourse. The present study examines the use of personal
Accepted: August 17, 2018 metadiscourse in English and Chinese commencement speeches based on Ädel’s reflexive
Published: October 31, 2018 model of metadiscourse and its adaption. The corpus for this study comprises 60 commencement
Volume: 9 Issue: 5 speeches – 30 Chinese and 30 English – delivered in prestigious American and Chinese
Advance access: August 2018 universities respectively. This study investigates (1) The similarities and differences in the use
of personal metadiscourse in English and Chinese commencement speeches; (2) the possible
reasons behind these similarities and differences. Qualitative and quantitative analysis indicates
Conflicts of interest: None that American speeches feature markedly more personal metadiscourse than Chinese speeches.
Funding: None Textual analysis further reveals some similarities and differences in the discourse functions of
personal metadiscourse between two sets of texts due to genre characteristics and social‑cultural
differences. The findings of this study provide some insight into the classification of Chinese
Key words: metadiscourse and the awareness of cross‑cultural communication.
Metadiscourse,
Commencement Speeches,
Personal Metadiscourse,
English Language,
Chinese Language,
Comparative Study,
Discourse Function

INTRODUCTION words, metadiscourse is context-specific, which means we

Metadiscourse has become the interest of academic research
since its first appearance in applied linguistics, driven by the
function of metadiscourse as a rhetorical resource in relating
language to its contexts of use (Hyland, 2017). Due to its con‑
ceptually rich and analytically powerful nature, metadiscourse
studies have come across difficulties and fuzziness in its defini‑
tion, classification and analysis. Generally, there are two defi‑
nitions formed in the study of metadiscourse: one which takes
a broad definition and approach, seeing textual interaction as
fundamental to the category, and one which uses a narrow defi‑
nition and approach, seeing discourse reflexivity as fundamen‑
tal to the category (Ädel & Mauranen, 2010). This study takes
the reflexive model and employs Ädel’s (2010) classification
of metadiscourse to examine the use of personal metadiscourse
in English and Chinese university commencement speeches.
Therefore, in this study, metadiscourse in defined as “discourse
about the evolving discourse, or the writer’s explicit commen‑
tary on her own ongoing text” (Ädel, 2006).
As mentioned above, metadiscourse reflects the rela‑
tionship between language and its contexts of use. In other
should put the study of metadiscourse in specific context
or discourse. So far, many scholars have investigated meta‑
discourse in different registers. For example, Zhang (2016)
undertook a comprehensive linguistic analysis of metadis‑
course markers in written registers. By using the Freiburg
update of the Lancaster‑Oslo/Bergen Corpus of British En‑
glish as database, the researcher examined register variation
of metadiscourse markers across the press, general prose,
academic prose and fiction. Following this study, Zhang
et al. (2017) conducted a similar research to examine regis‑
ter variation of metadiscourse markers in spoken language.
Some scholars examine the use of metadiscourse in specific
genre such as textbooks (Crismore, 1984; Hyland, 1999),
academic research articles (Abdi, 2002; Dahl, 2004; Hu
& Cao, 2011; Hyland, 1998; Jiang & Hyland, 2017; Kim
& Lim, 2013; Salas, 2015), college students’ essay (Ädel,
2006; Cheng & Steffensen, 1996; Crismore, Markkannen, &
Steffensen, 1993; Ho & Li, 2018; Intaraprawat & Steffensen,
1995; Lee & Deakin, 2016; Yoon, 2017), post‑graduate dis‑
sertation (Bunton, 1999) and casual conversation (Schiffrin,

Published by Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.

Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.5p.100
An Intercultural Analysis of Personal Metadiscourse in English and Chinese Commencement Speeches
1980). Among the existing studies on metadiscourse, re‑
searches in written discourse have been widely investigated,
especially in academic writing, while few studies have been
conducted to examine the use of metadiscourse in spoken
registers (Ädel, 2010, 2012; Amelia, Michela, & Giuseppe,
2006; Bu, 2014; Buttny & Hashim, 2015; Gordon & Luke,
2016; Guillem, 2009; Kelly, Cunningham, & Ricketts, 2017;
Lee & Subtirelu, 2015; Mai, 2016; Mauranen, 2003, 2010;
Tang, 2017; Thompson, 2003; Zare & Tavakoli, 2017).
It’s noticed that few studies on metadiscourse have been
conducted in spoken registers, let alone the comparative
study between English and Chinese languages. Therefore,
the present study undertakes a comparative study to investi‑
gate the use of personal metadiscourse in spoken discourse,
focusing on English and Chinese university commencement
speeches. As a specific genre, university commencement
speech gains society’s attention due to its important role
in student’s education and social life. To speak effectively,
commencement addressers need to take the audience into
consideration. The addressers should make the organization
of information in the speech clearly presented to the audi‑
ence and make their own values and advices accepted by the
audience. One way that writers can effectively reach their
audiences is through the features in a text that have been
labeled metadiscourse (Intaraprawat & Steffensen, 1995).
Therefore, metadiscourse is an important persuasive power
in commencement speech.
In response to the issues identified above, this study aims
to investigate cultural, language and genre-related influences
on the use of personal metadiscourse by comparing English
and Chinese commencement speeches delivered in Ameri‑
can and Chinese universities. More specifically, it seeks to
answer the following two questions:
(1) What are the similarities and differences in the frequency
and diversity of the use of personal metadiscourse and
its discourse functions in English and Chinese com‑
mencement speeches?
(2) What are the factors causing these similarities and dif‑dif
ferences?
LITERATURE REVIEW
The term metadiscourse was first put forward by Zelling
Harris in 1959 to offer a way of understanding language in
use, representing a writer’s or speaker’s attempts to guide a
receiver’s perception of a text.
Since its appearance in academic works, metadiscourse
has become a fuzzy item in terms of its definition, classifi‑
cation and pragmatic functions. Some analysts study both
the textual and interpersonal functions of metadiscourse
(Ädel, 2006; Cheng & Steffensen, 1996; Crismore et al.,
1993; Hyland, 1998, 2004), while other analysts have nar‑
rowed the focus of metadiscourse to features of textual orga‑
nization (Mauranen, 1993; Valero-Garcés, 1996) or explicit
illocutionary predicates (Beauvais, 1989). Therefore, it is an
important and necessary part to clearly define this term, and
set up a classification system for our own research.
101
The Classification of Metadiscourse Proposed by Ädel
In this study, we employ Ädel’s (2006) notion of metadis‑
course, seeing metadiscourse primarily as a form of linguistic
reflexivity. Metadiscourse serves metalinguistic, expressive
and directive functions of language, based on Roman Jakob‑
son’s model of six basic linguistic functions. According to
Ädel, metadiscourse is thus defined as “discourse about the
evolving discourse, or the writer’s explicit commentary on
her own ongoing text” (Ädel, 2006). This means that the
main components of metadiscourse include the discourse, or
text itself (the metalinguistic function) and also potentially
the writer/speaker persona (the expressive function) and the
real or imagined audience (the directive function). One im‑
portant point in Ädel’s model is that the referential function
is excluded, as it refers to entities in the ‘real world’, outside
of the world of discourse.
We focus on Ädel’s (2010) taxonomy of metadiscourse.
Drawing on the reflexive model, Ädel (2006) makes a dis‑
tinction between personal and impersonal metadiscourse.
Ädel (2006, p. 47) defines personal metadiscourse as in‑
stances of metadiscourse that make “direct reference to the
writer and/or reader of the current text, either by means of
pronouns (primarily I, we, you and their oblique and pos‑
sessive forms) or nouns (such as writer, author, and read‑
er).” Expressions such as “as I showed above” (Ädel, 2006,
p. 48), and “as you will see” (Ädel, 2006, p. 162) are exam‑
ples of personal metadiscourse. As Ädel (2006, p. 20) points
out, what is in focus in personal metadiscourse is “how writ‑
ers and readers relate to the world of discourse (or the text),
or how they relate to each other within that world.” Imper‑
sonal metadiscourse, however, refers to those instances of
metadiscourse that “does not make explicit reference to the
discourse participants” (Ädel, 2006, p. 14). Instead of using
pronominal and nominal references to the writer or the read‑
er, passive voice and other impersonal constructions maybe
used to avoid explicit self or other presentation in imper‑
sonal metadiscourse. Expressions such as “as shown above”
and “to conclude” are instances of impersonal metadiscourse
(Ädel, 2006, p. 48).
The above‑mentioned personal and impersonal metadis‑
course provides a superficial division of metadiscourse and
a searching method for potential metadiscourse in comput‑
er‑assisted discourse analysis. However, a more detailed and
deeper classification system is needed. Thus, Ädel’s (2010)
classification of metadiscourse based on different discourse
functions is employed in present study. Within the taxonomy,
a primary distinction is made between “Metatext”, which
is primarily oriented toward the code/discourse itself, and
“Audience interaction”, which is primarily oriented toward
the audience. Metatext is then divided into three different
groups: metalinguistic comments, discourse organisation,
and speech act labels; Audience interaction comprises one
category, called references to the audience. More specifical‑
ly, metalinguistic comments consist of discourse functions
of repairing, reformulating, commenting on linguistic form/
meaning, clarifying, and managing terminology. Repairing
refers to speaker or writer’s self or other‑initiated correct‑
ness of previous statement. Reformulating, different from
102
repairing, provides alternative terms or expressions for the
purpose of expansion. Commenting on linguistic form or
meaning engages making metalinguistic references to the
use of certain words and expressions. Clarifying is used
when addresser is trying to specify the intention and avoid
any misunderstanding. The last subcategory managing ter‑
minology is used when a new term or definition is given.
Discourse organization comprises discourse functions
dealing with topic management: introducing topic (used to
open the topic), delimiting topic (used to specify the con‑
straints of the topic), adding to topic (used when adding a
certain topic or subtopic), concluding topic (used to close
a topic) and marking asides (used to open or close a ‘topic
sidetrack’ or digression). Discourse organization also com‑
prises functions dealing with phorics management, which
are used when pointing to different locations and portions
in the current discourse. These category consists of enu‑
merating, endophoric marking, previewing, reviewing, and
contextualizing. Enumerating is used to order different parts
of the discourse. Endophoric marking is used to draw the
attention of the audience to specific location of the discourse.
For example, when the audience is instructed to look at a
table, or turn to a specific point in a handout. Previewing and
reviewing involve pointing forward and backward respec‑
tively in the discourse to inform what has been stated and
what is about to be stated. Finally, contextualizing is used
to comment on (the conditions of) the situation of writing or
speaking, thus containing the traces of the production of the
discourse.
The speech act labels category consists of arguing which
is used to stress the action of arguing for or against an is‑
sue, exemplifying which is used to give explicit examples,
and a general category of other speech act labelling for those
speech acts which are not frequently used (e.g., remind,
share, quote, offer, point out and list). With regard to the last
category reference to the audience, there are some specific
discourse functions included such as managing comprehen‑
sion/channel, managing audience discipline, anticipating the
audience’s response, managing the message, and imaging
scenarios. Managing comprehension or channel occurs when
the addresser wants to check the participants’ understanding
of the ongoing discourse. Managing audience discipline re‑
fers to directly addressing the participants and in some cases
complimenting or reprimanding them for their behavior. An‑
ticipating the audience’s response is used when the addresser
predicts probable reactions of the participants to what is said.
Managing the message requires emphasizing the main part
of the discussion for the audience to remember. Imagining
scenarios occurs when the audience are asked to suppose
something in the shared world of discourse.
The Modification of Ädel’s Classification
Based on Ädel’s classification, we slightly modify it and add
another three new subcategories or new discourse functions
into the original one (see figure 1). There are some reasons
for adding new categories. Firstly, it’s widely acknowledged
that metadiscourse is an open category. When we analyze
different texts of different registers, it’s natural to come
ALLS 9(5):100-110
across more new types of metadiscourse. Secondly, Ädel
also mentioned that “the taxonomy is likely to need further
revision, but it can be seen as a first attempt at creating a
comprehensive taxonomy” (Ädel, 2010). Ädel put forward
the classification system based on material from academ‑
ic lectures, but in our research, the data is university com‑
mencement speech which is different from Adel’s. Thirdly,
in the process of data analysis, other metadiscursive expres‑
sions are found with functions independent enough to stand
as a separate subcategory, so we add another three new dis‑
course functions to the original one.
The three new subcategories are connecting topic, saying
and calling for the audience attention to the following con‑
tent. Connecting topic is added to the discourse organization
part to manage topics. It is used to link topics and create
salient coherence relations in discourse. For example, in
(1) (2), you know and you see here don’t have a very concrete
meaning but just function as a discourse marker connecting
two topics, which makes the discourse more coherent.
(1) …took on the job, now it’s your turn, welcome. You
know I once had a friend, who had a rich uncle…
(2) It was not what I had expected. You see, when it came
to my career, in 1998, I was also adrift.
This subcategory usually contains the expressions you
know and you see. As discourse markers, the discourse func‑
tions of you know and you see have been studied by many
scholars (House, 2009; Li, 2009; Qiao, 2008; Ran, 2002;
Rintaniemi, 2017; Xu, 2008). In most cases, the two dis‑
course markers are regarded as linguistic elements that have
little or no semantic meaning but procedural meaning. As
House (2009) argues that the main function of you know is
highly speaker‑oriented: its purpose is to create salient coher‑
ence relations and help the speaker when he or she is having
difficulties in planning the utterance. In addition, Xu (2008)
points out that you know has some discourse functions as
repairing marker, addition marker, insufficiency marker and
turn government marker. As for the discourse marker you see,
Zhong (2013) argues that it contains pragmatic functions as
change marker, addition marker and repair marker. Through
these studies, we can draw a conclusion that as discourse
markers, the discourse functions of you see and you know
are very similar to each other. Whatever pragmatic functions
these two discourse markers possess such as repairing, add‑
ing and shifting topics, I summarize these functions to one
major function and call it connecting topic and classify this
discourse function to main category discourse organization.
In Chinese language, the corresponding expression with this
discourse function is in most cases the expression “ni zhi dao
(you know)”.
The second new subcategory in my study is saying which
involves general verba dicendi such as say, speak, talk or
write (Ädel, 2006, p. 63). I classify this discourse function
into the category speech act labels. The new subcategory is
borrowed from Ädel to indicate the action of saying whose
main function is “to remind the reader of the main topic
while bringing up some fact that is important to the argu‑
mentation.” The following are some examples in English
commencement speeches of this study:
An Intercultural Analysis of Personal Metadiscourse in English and Chinese Commencement Speeches
Figure 1. The modified taxonomy of metadiscourse based on Ädel (2010)
(3) first part of the test. But with the rest let me say up‑
front, and I mean this sincerely, there’s…
(4) all those geniuses who never get this chance? I’m
talking about the young people from right here.
(5) our community continue to make bad choices. And I
have to say, growing up, I made quite a few myself…
(6) hours that we can never get back? To this I say: you
can always trust that when you’re coming…
In most cases, this discourse function saying includes
some verbs like say, speak and talk about. In Chinese corpus,
this subcategory contains some expressions like “wo xiang
shuo”, “wo yao shuo” which mean “I want to say…”. Here
are some examples of this kind in Chinese corpus:
(7) 在 复 旦 学 习 的 东 西 很 多 都 是 看 似 无
用 的 ， 但 我 要 说 ， 很 可 能 复 旦 给 你
们 的 这 些 貌 似 无 用 的 东 西…
In Fudan University, many things you’ve learned seem to
be useless. But I have to say, it’s likely that these seemingly
useless things…
(8) 要 留 下 人 生 足 迹 ， 就 必 须 一 步 一 个
脚 印 。 我 更 想 说 ， 今 天 的 中 国 社 会
， 给 你 们 的 路 太 多…
103
If you want to leave your footprints in your life journey,
you must take one step at a time. I want to say that in today’s
society, you have too many choices…
(9) 同 学 们 ， 在 今 天 的 毕 业 典 礼 上 ， 我
要 说 ， 你 们 今 天 收 获 的 不 仅 仅 是 文
凭 ， 更 是 自 信…
My dear students, at the graduation ceremony today, I
have to say what you gain today is not just diploma, but also
self-confidence…
The last new subcategory added to Ädel’s model is call‑
ing for the audience attention to the following content. And it
belongs to the category reference to the audience. When an‑
alyzing two corpus of commencement speech, I came across
many metadiscursive expressions like “I will tell you…”,
“let me tell you…”, “I speak to you…”. It is a kind of inter‑
action with the audience, but I couldn’t find an appropriate
place to put them in Ädel’s classification for the functions of
“wo gao su ni (I tell you)” are mostly informing, reaffirm‑
ing, directing, warning and reminding. Dong argues that the
main function of this expression is emphasizing or calling
for the audience’s attention to the ongoing text. Although
Dong has put forward five discourse functions, I take our
104
research focus of metadiscourse into consideration and label
metadiscouse containing this kind of expression as calling
for the audience attention to the following content. There are
some examples in both corpus:
(10). like to plant a kiss on a life lived fully. And I can tell
you from experience that, once you under…
(11) as you want it to be. My job today is to tell you don’t
believe it. Because as tough as things…
(12) of choices every day. But I’m here to tell you, you can
find the balance between ambition and …
(13) 你 们 即 将 离 开 学 校 奔 赴 世 界 各 地 。
临 行 前 我 要 骄 傲 地 告 诉 大 家 ， 这 几
年 你 们 用 实 际 行 动…
You are leaving school and going to all parts of the world.
Before leaving, I would like to tell you proudly that in recent
years you have taken practical action…
(14) 进 入 大 学 只 是 真 正 学 习 的 开 始 。 今
天 ， 我 也 想 告 诉 你 们 ， 本 科 毕 业 只
是 事 业 成 功 的 开 始…
Entering university is the beginning of real learning. To‑
day, I also want to tell you that graduation is just the begin‑
ning of a successful career…
(15) 学 位 ， 是 知 识 学 习 层 次 的 标 度 。 我
想 告 诉 你 们 的 是 ， 这 种 量 度 和 标 度
是 一 时 的 …
Degree is the measurement of knowledge learning. What
I want to tell you is that such measurement is temporary…
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Two corpuses were built—English corpus and Chinese cor‑
pus, each of them containing 30 commencement speeches
respectively. The speeches were collected from the website
https://www.baidu.com/. All 60 speeches were delivered in
Chinese and American famous universities (eg., Harvard
university, Stanford university, Fudan university) from the
year of 2010 to 2017. All the materials are the transcription
of oral commencement speeches of the two languages. The
total number of words in English corpus is 91 838. And the
total number of words in Chinese corpus is 75 194.
AntConc 3.2.4 was used to process material. According
to Ädel (2006), personal metadiscoure includes pronouns
(primarily I, we, you and their oblique and possessive forms)
or nouns (such as writer, author, and reader). Considering the
linguistic features in spoken discourse, the following items
were searched in English corpus: I, we, you, me, my, your,
us, our, ourselves, everyone. As for the Chinese corpus, since
the transcription of Chinese speeches have been segmented
which means if we put in “我(I)” as keyword, we can get al.
lists of “我(I)”, “我们(we)”, “我的(my)”, “我们的(our)”. So
we only need to search few items as “我(I)”, “你(you)”, “
大家(everyone)”, “各位(everybody)”, “同学们 (students)”.
After searching these words, we need to manually identify
whether it is a metadisursive expression or not, and also to
identify the discourse functions of each personal metadis‑
coure.
As for identifying the metadiscursive expressions, ac‑
cording to Ädel (2010, p. 75), the three criteria for metadis‑
course are as follows: “explicitness”, “world of discourse”,
ALLS 9(5):100-110
“current discourse”, and—for personal types of metadis‑
course “speaker-writer qua speaker-writer” and “audience
qua audience”. The “explicitness” criterion refers to the
explicit commentary on the ongoing discourse. The “world
of discourse” criterion indicates that the action should take
place in the world of discourse rather than in the “real world”.
The “current text” criterion states the fact that metadiscourse
makes reference to the current text rather than other texts.
The same principle is applied to the current addresser and the
current addressee, with the requirement that they be talked
about or referred to in their roles as discourse participants or
in other words, in the world of discourse.
In this study, we only focus on personal metadiscourse
that means only expressions containing personal pronouns
that direct the audience’s attention to discourse and influence
their interpretation of the discourse qualify as metadiscourse.
The following examples are given for better understanding
the notion of metadiscourse, in which the metadiscursive ex‑
pressions are illustrated in italics.
(16) reviewing: isn’t dirty, you haven’t been in the game.
I spoke earlier about definitions of personal success…
(17) enumerating: And that actually brings me to the second
lesson I want to share about leading a rich life and…
(18) introducing topic: 在 这 个 讲 台 上 ， 我 的 心
情 也 很 不 平 静 ， 愿 意 与 大 家 分 享 一
点 自 己 的 时 间 印 记 。 我 和 我 的 同 龄
人…
introducing topic: On this stage, I am not in a quiet mood,
and I’d like to share with you some of my stories. My peers
and I…
(19) concluding topic: 而 且 也 是 我 们 应 该 坚 持
的 地 方 。所 以 我 想 总 结 我 们 复 旦 培
养 的 学 子 ， 不 仅 仅 不 是 匠 人…
concluding topic: and that’s what we should stick to.
Therefore, I’d like to draw a conclusion that our Fudan stu‑
dents are not just craftsman…
There still exists one job to do after identifying all the
metadiscourse. It is noticed that when we search for the items
“I” and “you” respectively, the metadiscourse markers “I”
and “you” co-occur in one sentence and are counted twice.
According to Ädel, metadiscourse markers signal meta‑
discourse, and metadiscourse is realized by metadiscourse
markers and their surrounding linguistic expressions which
may also be metadiscourse markers (Ädel, 2006, pp. 48‑52).
However, in this research, our focus is metadiscourse not
metadiscourse markers. Therefore, after collecting all meta‑
discourse expressions, we have to check them and delete the
same metadiscourse.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
As shown in table 1, the total number of metadiscourse found
in English commencement speeches were 211, and the Chi‑
nese speeches 62, which were the raw frequency of person‑
al metadiscourse. In order to get more accurate results, we
counted the normalized frequency of personal metadiscourse
in two corpuses. The results showed that on average there
were 23 personal metadiscourse per 10 000 words in English
speeches and 8 in Chinese speeches. Apparently, personal
An Intercultural Analysis of Personal Metadiscourse in English and Chinese Commencement Speeches 105

metadiscourse used in English speeches was far more fre‑
quent than that of Chinese speeches.
Personal metadiscourse focuses on “how writers and
readers relate to the world of discourse (or the text), or how
they relate to each other within that world.” Commencement
speech as a kind of spoken communication involves inter‑
action between addressers and addressees. In this respect,
the use of personal metadiscourse is an effective means for
speakers to establish harmonious relationship with the audi‑
ence and achieve their goals of delivering the speech.
However, as a whole, personal metadiscourse was more
frequently used in English commencement speeches than in
Chinese. The reason is that apparently there were far more
personal pronouns in English than in Chinese (see Table 1).
Chinese is a parataxis language which means it uses less
linguistic forms to achieve coherence. In addition, Chinese
language is more loose in structure and has many no‑subject
sentence. What’s more, under the influence of Confucianism,
Chinese people are more implicit and indirect in showing
their views and thinking, while to some extent, English ad‑
dresser are opposite. English is a hypotaxis language which
needs overt linguistic forms to connect phrases or sentences
and to present logic meanings. Therefore, in Chinese speech‑
es, the number of personal pronouns mainly serving as the
subject of an utterance is significantly less than in English
speeches.
As for the distribution of personal metadiscourse with
different functions, we can see from table 2 that in both
speeches, the category metatext was more frequently used
than audience interaction. This is due to genre‑related factor.
Table 1. Description of the data
English Chinese
corpus corpus
Total number of words 91838 75194
Average number of words per text 3061 2506
Total number of pronouns (personal
I, we, you, and their oblique and 7897 2689
possessive forms) and nouns (such as
the graduates, everyone, etc.)
Total number of personal 211 62
metadiscourse (raw frequency)
Normalized frequency (per 10000) 23 8 the speakers’ identities are different, Chinese commence‑
Commencement speech actually can be regarded as a kind
of monologue, in which addressers pay much attention to the
organization of the discourse to guide the audience toward
the flow of discourse. Therefore, in both languages, meta‑
text was used more frequently. In English commencement
speeches, the three subtypes of reference to audience, speech
act labels and discourse organization accounted for nearly
the same percentage and they were the main discourse func‑
tions which metadiscourse served in English commence‑
ment speeches. In Chinese speeches, discourse organization
was the most frequently used type of metadiscourse, which
took up to nearly half of all those metadiscourse, and then
the speech act labels and reference to the audience took up
the rest of all metadiscourse. The subtype metalinguistic
comments didn’t occur in Chinese speeches.
Metalinguistic Comments
As shown in table 3, metalinguistic comments didn’t occur
in Chinese speeches, and this subtype accounted for small‑
est proportion in English speeches. This can be attributed to
genre difference. The subtype repairing does not occur both
in Chinese and English speeches, which is different from
what Ädel (2010) and Mauranen (2012) discover about the
use of repairing in their research. Repairing, as mentioned
above, refers to self or other‑initiated correctness of previ‑
ous statement (Ädel, 2010). Ädel (2010) attributes the com‑
mon presence of repairing to lack of time for planning and
revision in real‑time discourse. Although this is natural in
speech, the absence of repairing in both English and Chinese
speeches may due to the preparation of the addressers before
delivery, the master of language for native speakers. What’
more, university commencement speech is a kind of mono‑
logue which shows the presentation of addressers’ views to
the audience. Therefore, it’s reasonable that repairing is ab‑
sent in both sets of corpus. Similarly, the disappearing of
managing terminology is also due to genre difference. The
speeches selected in this study are delivered by famous peo‑
ple to university students, so the main aim is to help students
develop excellent values and believes toward their future ca‑
reer and life. Therefore, these speeches are not concerning
with some specialized terms which need to be defined.
In English commencement speeches, reformulating
and clarifying are more often used than in Chinese. Since

Table 2. Distribution analysis of metadiscourse subtypes

Metadiscourse subtypes English corpus Chinese corpus

Raw Percentage Normalized Raw Percentage Normalized
no. frequency no. frequency
Metatext
Metalinguistic comments 26 12.3% 2.8 0 0 0
Discourse organization 58 27.5% 6.3 28 45.2% 3.7
Speech act labels 63 29.9% 6.9 20 32.2% 2.5
Audience interaction
Reference to audience 64 30.3% 7.0 14 22.6% 1.8
Total 211 100% 23 62 100% 8
106 ALLS 9(5):100-110

ment speakers are presidents of university, while American
university commencement speakers are famous people in
various fields. The main content and the purposes of deliv‑
ering the speeches are quite different. In China, the universi‑
ty presidents often provide their advices or expectations for
graduates, then give some explanations. However, in English
commencement speeches, the speakers with different careers
and identities often share their personal stories or experienc‑
es with graduates and then put forward their suggestions
and expectations. Chinese speaker don’t need to reformu‑
late something or clarify themselves. In English speeches,
the function of clarifying which was used to spell out the
addresser’s intentions in order to avoid misinterpretation
occurred most frequently. And then followed the function
of reformulating. The rest discourse functions didn’t occur
in English speeches. The situation was different in Chinese
corpus. Specially, all the discourse functions of this subtype
didn’t appear.
Discourse Organization
Table 4 displays the results of the distribution analysis of
discourse organization functions. The category discourse or‑
ganization is considered as a metatext metadiscourse that is
primarily oriented toward the discourse dealing with topic
and phorics management (Ädel, 2010). As can be seen, the
distribution of different discourse functions in this subtype
is very similar in English and Chinese speeches. Introduc‑
ing topic, concluding topic and enumerating were both fre‑
quently used in two languages, which can be attributed to the
organization of information before presentation. In English
and Chinese speeches, introducing topic often occur at the
beginning to catch audience attention and indicate what is
going on in the following; enumerating shows the relation
between a specific part with other parts of the spoken dis‑
course, which can make the delivery more cohesive and co‑
herent; concluding topic often occur at the end of a speech to
make a summery. All these types show the clear organization
of speeches and make the delivery more clearly presented to
audience. On the contrary, the discourse functions delimiting
topic, adding to topic, marking asides were absent in both
speeches, which can be attributed to the well organization of
information and the preparation of speech before delivery.
What’s more, since there were no handouts or slides for the
audience when listening, endophoric marking didn’t occur
in both modes.
The major difference between two modes was the more
frequent use of discourse organization function in Chinese
speeches, which accounted for the largest proportion among
four subtypes of metadiscourse. What’s more, the subtype
introducing topic is the most frequently used metadiscourse
in Chinese commencement speeches. As can be seen in the
following examples, in Chinese speeches, the structure of
the commencement speeches is more fixed as advices plus

Table 3. Distribution analysis of metalinguistic comments

Metalinguistic comments English corpus Chinese speeches
Raw no. Percentage Raw no. Percentage
Repairing 0 0 0 0
Reformulating 11 5.2% 0 0
Commenting on linguistic form/meaning 0 0 0 0
Clarifying 15 7.1% 0 0
Managing terminology 0 0 0 0
Total 26 12.3% 0 0

Table 4. Distribution analysis of discourse organization

Discourse organization English speeches Chinese speeches
Raw no. Percentage Raw no. Percentage
Introducing topic 16 7.6% 14 22.6%
Delimiting topic 0 0 0 0
Adding to topic 0 0 0 0
Concluding topic 5 2.4% 6 9.7%
Connecting topic 15 7.1% 0 0
Marking asides 0 0 0 0
Enumerating 14 6.6% 5 8.1%
Endophoria marking 0 0 0 0
Previewing 1 0.5% 1 1.6%
Reviewing 7 3.3% 2 3.2%
Contextualizing 0 0 0 0
Total 58 27.5% 28 45.2%
An Intercultural Analysis of Personal Metadiscourse in English and Chinese Commencement Speeches
explanations, the addresser pays more attention to the flow
of the whole speech. Thus, the discourse organization were
most frequently used in Chinese speeches, which didn’t
mean discourse organization were not frequent in English
speeches. Actually, the normalized frequency of discourse
organization in English mode was higher than in Chinese.
(20) introducing topic: 说 得 真 好 ！ 我 为 你 们 骄
傲 ， 你 们 成 熟 了 ， 但 是 我 还 是 想 多
说 几 句 关 于 你 们 未 来 的 叮 咛 。
introducing topic: good job! I’m so proud of you. You are
mature, but I still want to say a few words about your future.
(21) introducing topic: 默 哀 一 分 钟 。 默 哀 毕 ，
请 坐 下 。 请 原 谅 我 用 如 此 伤 感 的 这
段 引 言 来 开 始 我 的 讲 话 。
introducing topic: stand in silent tribute for one minute.
End the silence, then sit down. Please forgive me for starting
my speech with such a sad introduction.
(22) concluding topic: 做 一 个 战 士 中 的 几 句 话
作 为 结 束 语 ， 与 大 家 共 勉 。在 这 个
时 代 ， 战 士 是 最 需 要.
concluding topic: share with you a few words from To Be
a Soldier as concluding remarks. In this age, what is most
needed for soldiers…
(23) enumerating: 愧 于 这 个 伟 大 的 时 代 ？ 在
这 依 依 惜 别 的 时 刻 ， 我 想 对 同 学 们
提 出 三 点 希 望 ： 一 、 博 学 而 笃…
enumerating: feel guilty of the great age? At this moment
of parting, I’d like to put forward three expectations for my
students: first, to be erudite and…
Another difference in this subcategory discourse organiza‑
tion between English and Chinese commencement speeches
is the discourse function connecting topic. In English corpus,
connecting topic accounted for the second largest proportion
in this subcategory, while it didn’t occur in Chinese corpus.
The main cause for this phenomenon is that the focus of this
study is personal metadiscourse. The metadiscursive expres‑
sions you know and you see frequently occurred in English
discourse functioning as connecting topics. While in Chinese
discourse, the equivalent metadiscourses “ni zhi dao” and
“ni kan” didn’t occur. Other expressions such as connectives
which function as connecting topic in Chinese commence‑
ment speeches didn’t contain personal pronouns, which made
them excluded in Chinese personal metadiscourse.
Speech Act Labels
As for the speech act labels functions (see Table 5), arguing
and exemplifying rarely occur in both speeches, which may
Table 5. Distribution analysis of speech act labels
Speech act labels English speeches
Raw no
Arguing 0 0
Exemplifying 2 1%
Saying 30
Other speech act labelling 31
Total 63
107
be attributed to the limited material and too specific kind
of speech act. What’s more, the absence of arguing in both
speeches is more likely to be genre‑related, because argu‑
ing is more common in written mode where writers need to
argue for or against a point that is crucial to their research,
whereas speech generally presents or cites data and facts.
The newly added subcategory saying was frequently used
in both English and Chinese speeches. From example (24)
to (27), it can be seen that speakers often use the words say
or talk to remind readers of the main topic while bringing up
some facts that are important to the argumentation.
(24) 同 学 们 ， 在 今 天 的 毕 业 典 礼 上 ， 我
要 说 ， 你 们 今 天 收 获 的 不 仅 仅 是 文
凭 ， 更 是 自 信…
My dear students, at the graduation ceremony today, I
have to say what you gain today is not just diploma, but also
self-confidence…
(25) 在 复 旦 学 习 的 东 西 很 多 都 是 看 似 无
用 的 ， 但 我 要 说 ， 很 可能 复 旦 给 你
们 的 这 些 貌 似 无 用 的 东 西
In Fudan University, many things you’ve learned seem to
be useless. But I have to say, it’s likely that these seemingly
useless things…
(26) gift than to see all of these folks graduate. I have to
say, though, whenever I come to these
(27) all those geniuses who never get this chance? I’m
talking about the young people from right here.
It is also noted that among the other speech act labeling
subtype, English speeches employ more diverse speech acts
such as call, say, suggest, mention, suppose, offer and so on.
However, in Chinese speeches, these kinds of speech act la‑
bels were quite limited such as “回顾(look back)”, “回忆
(recall)”, “形容(describe)”.
References to the Audience
As for the second type of metadiscourse references to the au‑
dience (see Table 6), which focuses on audience interaction,
managing comprehension, managing the audience discipline
and imaging scenarios were less used in both languages.
Commencement speech is more like a prepared presentation
not dialogue between people and the content of the selected
speeches are mainly related to values or believes in life not
academic one, so the addresser seldom uses metadiscursive
expressions to make sure the audience are with him. In terms
of the discourse function managing the message which is
typically used to emphasis the core message in what is be‑
ing conveyed, or at least state what the addresser wishes the
Chinese speeches
Percentage Raw no Percentage
0 0
4 6.4%
14.2% 11 17.7%
14.7% 5 8.1%
29.9% 20 32.2%
108
Table 6. Distribution analysis of references to the audience
References to the audience
Raw no
Managing comprehension/channel
Managing audience discipline
Anticipating the audience’s response
Managing the message
Imagining scenarios
Calling the audience attention to the following content
Total
audience to remember or experience based on the discourse
(Ädel, 2010), both English and Chinese corpus employed
such type of discourse function at the end of discourse to
highlight the core message.
In both Chinese and English commencement speeches,
the subtype calling the audience attention to the following
content was frequently used. In example (28) (29), the ex‑
pression “I tell you” is often used by addressers to call the
audience attention and emphasize the following content.
(28) and I’m going to speak the truth of it! So I’m here
today to tell you I have turned that netwo…
(29) 可 能 就 业 的 情 况 与 自 己 的 期 望 值 差
距 比 较 大 ， 我 要 告 诉 大 家 的 是 不 要
气 馁 ， 要 受 得 住 磨 练
Maybe you are not satisfied with your current job, but
what I want to tell you is not to be discouraged, but with‑
stand the difficulty…
Due to the cultural difference that English is reader‑ori‑
ented and Chinese is writer‑oriented (Hinds, 1987), English
addressers are more likely to interact with the audience, but
Chinese addressers tend to speak indirectly and let the audi‑
ence think by themselves. Therefore, reference to audience
was more frequently used in English speeches than in Chi‑
nese speeches. In summary, English addressers use more
personal metadiscourse in their speeches compared with that
in Chinese, which may be attributed to the difference in lan‑
guage and culture.
CONCLUSION
In this study, a comparative analysis was conducted to ex‑
amine the similarities and differences in the use of personal
metadiscourse between Chinese and English commence‑
ment speeches. Also an attempt was made to explore the
cultural, language and genre-based influences on the use of
personal metadiscourse. Through data analysis, the results
indicated some similarities and differences in two data sets.
As for the similarities, both English and Chinese commence‑
ment speeches use metadiscourse as an effective resource to
help the audience organize and interpret the ongoing text.
And the addressers of both languages adopt more metatext
metadiscourse than audience interaction, which reflects the
monologic character of commencement speech. What’s
more, some discourse functions didn’t occur in both modes
such as repairing, commenting on linguistic form/meaning,
ALLS 9(5):100-110
English speeches Chinese speeches
percentage Raw.no percentage
3 1.4% 0 0
0 0 0 0
16 7.6% 2 3.2%
13 6.1% 6 9.7%
1 0.5% 0 0
31 14.7% 6 9.7%
64 30.3% 14 22.6%
delimiting topic, adding to topic, marking asides, endophoria
marking and contextualizing due to genre difference.
With respect to the differences in two data sets, person‑
al metadiscourse was more frequently performed in English
speeches, especially the discourse function of references to
the audience. These differences can be attributed to cultur‑
al and linguistic differences. English is reader‑oriented and
Chinese is writer‑oriented (Hinds, 1987). English addressers
are more likely to interact with the audience, but Chinese ad‑
dressers tend to speak more indirectly and implicitly, which
lead to the less use of personal metadiscursive expressions
in Chinese speeches. In addition, Chinese is a parataxis lan‑
guage which means it needn’t use linguistic forms to achieve
coherence, and Chinese language is more loose in structure
and has many no‑subject sentences. On the contrary, English
is a hypotaxis language which needs overt linguistic forms
to connect phrases or sentences and to present logic mean‑
ings. Therefore, there were more metatext metadiscourse
in English speeches than in Chinese speeches. As for Chi‑
nese commencement speeches, the structure is more fixed
as advices or expectations plus relevant explanations, and
the speaker are the president of the university, so the dis‑
course organization metadiscourse such as introducing topic
and concluding topic is more often used compared with oth‑
er types of metadiscourse. Therefore, cultural, language and
genre-based factors influence the use of personal metadis‑
course in both English and Chinese commencement speech‑
es. Specifically, genre features lead to some similarities in
the use of English and Chinese personal metadiscourse,
while cultural and linguistic factors lead to most differences
in the two data sets.
This study has provided a descriptive and empirical
study of persuasive function of metadiscourse in a single
domain. Meanwhile, it also provides a way of studying Chi‑
nese metadiscourse based on corpus by employing Ädel’s
(2010) taxonomy of metadiscourse. Although many at‑
tempts have been made to provide reliable findings, more
comprehensive studies examining larger bodies of data are
needed. In order to develop a more comprehensive under‑
standing of metadiscourse, it is desirable to investigate im‑
personal types of metadiscourse functions. This study can
help public speakers build up knowledge about cross‑cul‑
tural communication and adjust their persuasive strategies
according to the expectation of the audience in English lan‑
guage cultural context.
An Intercultural Analysis of Personal Metadiscourse in English and Chinese Commencement Speeches
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 Advances in Language and Literary Studies
ISSN: 2203-4714
www.alls.aiac.org.au

The Role of Anxiety in Learning and Performing English in the Cadet College
Classes: Bangladesh Perspective

Zakeya Sultana*
Department of English, ASA University Bangladesh, Bangladesh
Corresponding Author: Zakeya Sultana, E‑mail: zakeyarumu@gmail.com

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article history Feeling of anxiety is exceedingly experienced by the English language learners throughout the
Received: April 13, 2018 world. Though the impact of anxiety on learning and performing in English has been widely
Accepted: August 14, 2018 studied in United States, Canada, Japan, Taiwan and many other countries; this present study, in
Published: October 31, 2018 contrast, tries to find out the reasons of anxiety in learning and performing English in the classes
Volume: 9 Issue: 5 among the Bangladeshi cadet college students. Data has been collected through questionnaire
Advance access: August 2018 from 30 participants from different cadet colleges in Bangladesh. Finally 10 students (one
third of the total participants) were interviewed to get supportive data on their responses. An
analysis of their responses indicate that preoccupied fear, peers’ parents’ and teachers’ reactions
Conflicts of interest: None (sometimes)hold the participants back to flourish and express themselves properly. The responses
Funding: None of the participants quite clearly show that peers’, parents’ as well as preceptors’ amiable attitude
towards the learners can pave the way for anxiety free learning and performance. So the findings
can clearly facilitate both the students and the teachers in this respect.
Key words:
Anxiety,
English Language,
Pedagogy,
Cadet College Students,
Bangladesh.

INTRODUCTION As students have to study only in a fixed time, they get

Cadet colleges are special educational institutions which
aim to produce capable students to lead the country and
also act as skilled army officers. Students enter into cadet
college in order to lead a perfectly disciplined life. Parents
also want their children to be disciplined. But in most of the
cases students experience a situational shock because life
starts to seem a lot more different than their presupposed
ideas. Students need to follow a very strict time table to do
regular work. There are also some specific hours for study‑
ing. Students are not allowed to read outside of that hours.
Along with that students need to adapt themselves in almost
English only environment. The medium of instruction and
communication in classroom is English where except Ban‑
gla, all classed are held in English. Generally, students from
two different streams enter in cadet college. One stream
comes from Bangla medium background and another
stream comes from English medium background. So stu‑
dents from English medium background face less difficul‑
ties in adapting with the situation, learning, understanding
and performing in English than Bangla medium background
students. Language itself becomes their valid weapon to
fight whereas Bangla medium background students need
extra time to get habituated in English only environment.
comparatively less study time than the students of general
educational institutions. Moreover, apparently it seems that
the students, who come from Bangla medium background,
struggle because they need to prepare the study in English
within such a short period of time. Understanding each and
every topic in English, study those and take preparation
for the examination are of course time consuming matters.
Anxiety intrudes here at this point. Horwitz, Horwitz and
Cope (1991) identified foreign language anxiety as a multi‑
plex set of self
self‑perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors
related to classroom language learning which emerge from
the distinctiveness of the language learning process. Chang
(2010) also agreed that anxiety plays a major role in how
students acquire an L2. For that reason, Noormohammadi
(2009) proclaimed that anxiety is not just an internal, pri‑
vate phenomenon precipitated by individual student alone,
rather anxiety may be affected by external factors, such as
teaching and test practices, peer interaction, overall task re‑
quirements and the instructional environment.
This research will cast light on the impact of anxiety
upon learning and performing in English among cadet col‑
lege students. It will also focus in which areas anxiety works
and how.

Published by Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.

Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.5p.111
112
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
My research is based on three research questions and they
are:
i. Is there any impact of anxiety upon leaning and per‑
forming in English among cadet college students?
ii. If yes, in which areas the anxiety works and how?
iii. What should be the pedagogic practices for reducing
anxiety?
LITERATURE REVIEW
Anxiety is a very common phenomenon in the field of learn‑
ing anything new, irrespective of the topics. According to
Spielberger, “Anxiety is the subjective feelings of tension,
apprehension, nervousness and worry associated with an
arousal of the automatic nervous system” (1983: p1). It is
one of the affective factors which plays a predominant role
in L2 acquisition and performance (Ellis, 1994). As reported
by Scovel (cited in Ellis, 1994) there are three types of anx‑
iety. These different types anxiety are experienced by differ‑
ent types of learners. These three anxiety are: trait anxiety,
situation-specific anxiety and state anxiety. Trait anxiety is a
perennial disposition to be anxious and is an aspect of per‑
sonality. Zheng (2008) also perceived that language anxiety
is not merely an extra element that can be forsaken in L2 ac‑
quisition. On the contrary, it is a central emotional construct
that is essential in regulating second language learning. So,
this very natural and spontaneous that if students are unable
to cope up with their anxiety, there is a possibility that their
performance and desire to learn may be hampered. The next
type of anxiety is situation-specific anxiety and it is aroused
by a specific type of situation or event such as public speak‑
ing, examination and class room participation. Besides these
two types of anxiety there is also state anxiety and it happens
at a particular time concerning a definite situation. It is a
combination of trait and situation-specific anxiety (Scovel,
cited in Ellis, 1994).
Scovel (cited in Ellis, 1994) mentioned that the cause of
state or situational anxiety is learner’s competitive nature.
Moreover, learners can also encounter anxiety as a result of
fear or experience of losing oneself in the target culture and
this is closely related to the idea of “culture shock” (Oxford,
1999). She mentioned that emotional regression, panic, selfself‑
pity, indecision, sadness, alienation etc. affective states as‑
sociated with the source of anxiety. MacIntyre, Noels and
Clement (1997) found through their research that there is a
distinct relationship between language anxiety and their stu‑
dents’ measure of achievement. But the relationship between
anxiety and achievement is probably not a simple linear one.
Group dynamics is a very important matter in classroom.
Baily (cited in Ellis, 1985) notified that some students make
apparent comparisons among each other and it helps them
to get a self
self‑image. Because, learner’ss self‑
self image in com‑
parisons with other l2 learners can impair or enhance SLA
learning. Where a learner gets unsuccessful self self‑image by
the comparison, there may be debilitating or facilitating anx‑
iety. If the learners experience debilitating anxiety, they can
quit the effort of learning. But, if the learners increase their
ALLS 9(5):111-120
efforts in order to compare themselves more positively with
other learners, learning is enhanced (Figure 1).
In sync with the model of Baily (cited in Ellis, 1985), Yan
and Horwitz (2008) mentioned second language learning as
a matter of personal and ego involving endeavor where per‑
sonal feelings expressly influence learners’ anxiety.
Palacios (1998) scrutinized the impact of classroom envi‑
ronment on students’ levels of foreign language anxiety and
discovered that various constituents of classroom environ‑
ment were connected with higher and lower levels of anx‑
iety. Teacher’s support has been considered here the most
important matter. Teachers’ sincere help and support toward
students may help the learners to reduce the anxiety.
Cheng, Horwitz and Schallert (1999) recommended that
there is a link between low self self‑esteem and anxiety. This
low self
self‑esteem and anxiety can be reduced by creating
non‑threatening and supportive instructional environments
so that a heightened level of learners’ self-confidence occur.
Aydin (2000) discovered that students’ anxiety is engendered
by personal concerns such as negative selfself‑assessment of lan‑
guage learning ability. In order to remove the negative percep‑
tion, the students start to over use monitor to be perfect and it
can be harmful for the learners. Krashen (1982) in his monitor
model hypothesis argued that leaners use monitor to polish up.
Monitor over‑users attempt to monitor all the time and may
speak hesitantly. They also try to rectify their mistakes in the
middle of utterance. They are so concerned with correctness
that they cannot speak with any real fluency. When students
over use monitor a kind of anxiety works in them to be perfect.
That thought inhibits learning and performance. Von Worde
(2003) also found out that the consistent anxiety about the for‑
for
eign language production and achievement impedes learning.
Monitor under users are those who have not learnt any
conscious knowledge or if they have learnt it, they prefer not
to use it even when situation permits. The best type of moni‑
tor users are the optimal monitor users. They do not use their
conscious knowledge of grammar, where it might interfere.
But if they get enough time, they will typically make the cor‑
rections to raise the accuracy of their output (Krashen, 1982).
Casado and Dereshiwsky (2001) mentioned in their research
that schools should adopt unconventional procedures to min‑
imize anxiety and maximize students’ achievement.
METHODOLOGY
I applied mixed method in my research because I wanted
to get an outright and painstaking outcome of my research.
The respondents of the study were thirty students (aged
12‑16) from different cadet colleges of different classes in
Bangladesh. The participants were requested to complete a
questionnaire. After that the respondents were asked some
specified questions along with some questions from ques‑
tionnaire which needed to be explained further in order to
get clear conception.
Limitations of the Research
I conducted the survey and interview for this research among
thirty students and also all cadet colleges had not been in‑
The Role of Anxiety in Learning and Performing English in the Cadet College Classes: Bangladesh Perspective
Figure 1. Competitiveness and the second language learner. (Baily, 1983, cited in Ellis, 1985:102)
cluded. It was really difficult to delineate the overall causes
of anxiety experienced by the all students from all the cadet
colleges in Bangladesh. Excluding the drawbacks, I tried to
find ways to help the teachers, parents and students to lessen
the anxiety level in order to enhance leaning and the quality
of the performance.
Findings and Analysis
The ideas provoked from the questionnaire and interviews
have been analyzed in relation to the following areas:
a. The fear of receiving negative evaluation.
b. The impact of communication with unknown audience.
c. Competitive mentality of parents creates anxiety among
the students.
d. The influence of restricted lifestyle on learning.
e. The impact of feedback to improve their English.
f. The impact of abrupt shift towards English only environ‑
ment.
g. The pedagogic implication of reducing anxiety.
Quantitative Data Analysis
The fear of receiving negative evaluation
31% respondents strongly agreed and 57% respondents
agreed with the statement that I am afraid that the other stu-
dents will laugh at me when I speak wrong English. Other
respondents strongly disagreed (3%) and disagreed (3%)
with the same statement. 21% respondents strongly agreed
and 57% respondents agreed that they are afraid of the mat‑
ter that their teacher is ready to correct every mistake they
make while speaking and writing. Negative self self‑perception
erupts from negative evaluation and for this reason most of
113
the students are afraid of it. 33% respondents strongly agreed
and 44% respondents agreed that the other students are bet‑
ter at writing English than they are. The same has happened
in case of speaking where 28% respondents strongly agreed
and 58% agreed that they always feel the other students
speak English better than they do. In the same way more
than half of the respondents expressed their fear of making
mistakes. 20% respondents strongly disagreed and 40% re‑
spondents disagreed with the statement that I don’t worry
about making mistakes in class especially when the medium
of instruction and communication is English. Though 40%
respondent agreed with the similar statements (Figure 2).
The impact of speaking in front of the audience
25% respondents strongly agreed and 35% respondents
agreed with the statement that It is difficult to speak in front
of the classmates, while 10% respondents strongly disagreed
and 30% respondents disagreed with the same statement.
When the point of unknown audience came, the response
was, to some extent, similar. 15% respondents strongly
agreed and 45% respondents agreed with the statement that It
is difficult to speak in front of the unknown audience. Though
12% respondents strongly disagreed and 25% respondents
disagreed. Sometimes they are supposed to speak without
preparation and they think it is quite a problem. 34% re‑
spondents strongly agreed and 31% respondents agreed with
the statement that I start to freak out when I have to speak
without preparation in class while 6% respondents strongly
disagreed and 23% respondents disagreed. Khan and Zafar
(2010) also discovered that all of the students experienced
high level anxiety when they are asked to respond orally.
Speaking in class in one’s native tongue can often times be a
daunting task, so it is easy to understand how daunting to do
114 ALLS 9(5):111-120

so in a language specially when a student is not entirely com‑
fortable with and accustomed to that language (Figure 3).
Competitive mentality of parents on the students
40% respondents strongly agreed and 30% respondents
agreed that their parents’ expectations make them stressed
out while 5% respondents strongly disagreed and 25% re‑
spondents disagreed with the same fact. The main reason
of high expectation is direct comparison with the other
classmates. 40% respondents strongly agreed and 30% re‑
spondent agreed with the statement that My parents never
compare me with other students while other respondents dis‑
agreed the matter by strongly disagreeing (5%) and disagree‑
ing (25%) (Figure 4).
The influence of restricted lifestyle on learning
43% respondents strongly agreed and 57% respondents
agreed with the statement that I get anxious when I don’t
understand the topic the teacher discusses. 26% respon‑
dents strongly disagreed and 61% respondents disagreed
with the statement that I don’t feel pressure to prepare
very well for class while 10% respondents agreed and 3%
respondents strongly agreed with the statement. So, this
proves that understanding and taking preparation some‑
times get hampered because of the English only environ‑
ment (Figure 5).
The impact of feedback to improve their English
21% respondents strongly agreed and 67% respondents
agreed with the statement that I feel overwhelmed by the
number of rules I need to learn to speak and write accu-
rate English while 3% respondents strongly disagreed, 3%
respondents disagreed and 6% responded neither agreed nor
disagreed. 90 % respondents strongly agreed and 10% re‑
spondents agreed with the statement that I get upset when
I don’t understand what mistake the teacher is correcting
(Figure 6).

Figure 2. The fear of receiving negative evaluation

Figure 3. The impact of speaking in front of the audience

Figure 4. Competitive mentality of parents on the students

The Role of Anxiety in Learning and Performing English in the Cadet College Classes: Bangladesh Perspective 115

The impact of abrupt shift towards English only
environment.
31% respondents strongly agreed and 57% respondents
agreed with the statement that It scares me when I don’t un-
derstand what the teacher is saying in English. Though 3%
respondents strongly disagreed, 3% respondents disagreed
and 6% responded neither agreed nor disagreed.
44% respondents strongly agreed and 16% respondents
agreed with the statement that I feel very sure and relaxed
in the English only environment while 40% respondents dis‑
agreed with the statement.13% respondents strongly agreed
and 65% respondents agreed with the statement that Classes
(of English only environment) move so quickly that I worry
about getting left behind. Though 6% respondents strongly
disagreed and 16% respondents disagreed with the state‑
ment. 27% respondents strongly disagreed and 67% respon‑
dents disagreed with the statement that I usually stay relaxed
during tests when I have to write in English while 3% re‑
spondents strongly agreed and 3% respondents agreed with
the statement.76% respondents agreed and 24% respondents
disagreed with the statement that In class when the medi-
um of instruction is English, I get so nervous that I forget
things I know. 66% respondents agreed and 34% respondents
disagreed with the statement Even if I am well prepared for
class, I feel anxious about it (Figure 7).
Qualitative Data Analysis
Some students have mentioned that often they take notes in
a hurry but eventually understand their mistakes somehow.
Sometimes they themselves are able to identify the mistakes
or their friends help them to identify. As the medium of
teaching is English, so any conceptual or grammatical mis‑

Figure 5. The influence of restricted lifestyle on learning

Figure 6. The impact of feedback to improve their English

Figure 7. The impact of abrupt shift towards English only environment

116
takes can happen. Some of the respondents also mentioned
that teachers are generally very supportive. They try their
best to clarify whatever students need to know. But this is not
enough for some students. Some students feel hesitated or
more specifically anxious to communicate with their teacher.
Because they think teachers are the authoritative figure and
they try to avoid contact. These students believe that there is
always a gap between the students and the teachers.
Most of the students believe that all the students are very
much talented. Some of them may come from Bangla medi‑
um background but they are talented. Moreover, they have
the capabilities to cope up with this new environment. All
the students are selected here are the cream of the crops and
are of very good standard. So, there is no way to experience
superiority complex or inferiority complex. But another mi‑
nor group of students still think that there are some students
who are better than them in English and get good marks in the
exam. They have very enriched vocabulary which help them
to express themselves more clearly. The less efficient students
feel anxious about this matter and a sense of comparison and
competition grow among them even if they do not want to
have it. Almost all the respondents feel that exam is not an
anxiety free phenomenon. Even the best of the students feel
anxious when they sit for the exam irrespective of the lan‑
guage they are using in it. But a group of students convey that
they feel twofold anxiety while they are attending in an exam.
One part of anxiety occurs for the test itself and the another
is derived from the thought of language. The valid ground for
experiencing anxiety is whether they can write mistake free
grammar or not, whether they can remember correct word
according to situational need or not. Most of the respondents
also convey their view that they freak out when they are asked
to speak without preparation in the class. Even the students
who have come from English medium background they also
experience so. Because, it is a matter of mental arrangement.
It needs time to mentally organize the ideas before presenting
it. Along with this fact, Bangla medium background students
need to think the proper English words. Some of the students
have also informed that though at the outset they used to freak
out but they become quite habituated with this practice by the
passage of time. Some respondents have compared their flu‑
ency and word stock with their other classmates and found
that that they are not that expert. So, definitely, from a sense
of comparison anxiety erupts.
To some respondents, classes seem to pass very quick‑
ly because they need extra explanation (which they often
ask for) to understand the topic. That dissatisfaction creates
anxiety among some of the students. But the other respon‑
dents’ introspection was that the teachers are really helpful
all the time. If they do not understand anything in the class,
the teachers are always there for them. There is no point of
getting anxious in this ground.
Some of the respondents who have came from English
medium background have expressed that they rather feel
tensed in Bangla only environment. It is a privilege for them
to speak, write and think in English. Whereas the respon‑
dents came from Bangla medium background think that it
is a matter of pressure (in some cases) to speak, write and
ALLS 9(5):111-120
think in English all the time. And things get difficult to ex‑
press in English (both, writing and speaking) because some
of the respondents believe that it is not comfor
comfortable to express
their understanding in English. It is almost foreign language
for them. Here in cadet college it gets the status of the sec‑
ond language all on a sudden. So, this almost abrupt shift of
the role of English language discomforts them and creates a
sense of anxiety. But some respondents from senior classes
have mentioned that after passing one or two years they have
got habituated with English only environment, even with ev‑
ery rule and regulation that used to generate anxiety and used
to affect their learning and performing in English only envi‑
ronment. Though it was not education related anxiety but that
had very guaranteed effect on their learning and performance.
The respondents from English medium background
feel that learning rules and applying them in the sentences
is the most tiresome and confusing task. This has to be a
spontaneous work. On the contrary, the respondents from
Bangla medium background infers that learning rules is
absolutely important. Otherwise, their English can never
be the refined English. At the same time, it seems difficult
to remember so many rules and apply them in the correct
situation. Because if any mishap happens in applying those
rules properly their English appears to be wrong. That will
be the cause of getting low marks and consequently it will
also make them anxious and lead to have a low notion of
self-efficacy.
One respondent has mentioned that there is no point of
laughing at each other’s fault. The environment is so friend‑
ly. There is very strong bondage among the students. They
all become their sisters and they are very supportive of each
other. Instead of laughing at, they rather help each other. An‑
other respondent has conveyed that in cadet college all the
students are equally qualified. But there are some mistakes
that may appear to be very funny. In that case they laugh. But
they really laugh at the mistake not at the person who has
made it. On the other hand, one respondent has expressed
that sometimes his classmates harp on the same string. May‑
be at one point he made a mistake, they keep telling that.
Once or twice it is fine. But the repeated action may create
anxiety in that specific person and that anxiety helps him
to form a hypothesis that his English is less efficient than
others.
Most of the students have reported that teachers do not
interrupt to rectify their mistakes when they speak. But if
the number of mistakes is high then they try to correct the
mistakes along with the students’ continuation. But this type
of case is very rare. In writing the teachers correct every mis‑
take and the most of the respondents believe that it is very
helpful for them. While some respondents have expressed
their fright about being corrected by their teachers. Because
correcting the mistakes is also associated with getting less
marks in the exam, parents’ disappointments etc. So, beyond
doubt, it creates anxiety among some of the respondents.
Most of the respondents have acknowledged that they get
less time for exam preparation. This restricted time always
assemble anxiety in various levels. For example: anxiety
based on getting good marks, covering all the topics, having
The Role of Anxiety in Learning and Performing English in the Cadet College Classes: Bangladesh Perspective
a clear conception on all the topics within such a short pe‑
riod of time. Moreover, for the Bangla medium background
students, the supplementary anxiety regarding English lan‑
guage is always there.
Most of the students are aware of their parents’ expecta‑
tions. They believe that parents always want the best from
their children without trying to understand that it could be
an extra pressure for them. Some students also have men‑
tioned that though parents do not say anything directly but
their indirect behavior make them understand what they are
actually looking for. Some parents also rebuke their children
due to the poor performance in the exam. All these parental
attitudes cause anxiety among students. Though a very small
percentage of the students have expressed about the friendly
bonding between them and their parents and from this side
they do not experience any sort of anxiety.
Pedagogic implication to reduce anxiety
Overt comparison among students should be minimized.
Parents should be more supportive towards their children.
Teachers should create such environments where the intro‑
vert students feel free to talk to their teachers. Cooperative
learning should be ensured. Anxiety is not impeding as long
as it is not debilitating anxiety. Teachers should create the en‑
vironment of facilitative anxiety where students are invited to
have a healthy competition. If possible, preparation hour can
be increased so that students do not feel that they are running
out of time. Each and every student should be ensured that
their mistakes would not be a matter of joke for others. Guid‑
ed speaking practice can be introduced in the class.
CONCLUSION
Discipline is always appreciated. But it needs to be con‑
cerned that there should not be any negative by product of
discipline. Special care should be provided to the students
who experience a sudden situation shift. All they need is sup‑
portive mates, teachers and parents who will support them to
enhance learning. A tone of caring needs to be there when
any sort of comparison is made. Technical as well as behav‑
ioral changes are necessary to remove anxiety from the mind
of the cadet college students.
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Palacios, Lisa Marie. (1998), Foreign language anxiety and
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sity of Texax, Austin.
Von Worde, R. (2003), “Students’ Perspectives on Foreign
Language Anxiety.” Inquiry, 8(1), n1.
Yan, J., and Elaine K. (2008), “Learners’ perceptions of how
anxiety interacts with personal and instructional factors
to influence their achievement in English: A qualitative
analysis of EFL learners in China.”Language Learn- Learn
ing, 58(1), 151‑183.
Spielberger, Ch. D. (1983), “Manual for the State‑Trait Anx‑
iety Inventory STAI (form Y)(“ self self‑evaluation ques‑
tionnaire”).
Zheng, Y. (2008), “Anxiety and second/foreign language
learning revisited”. CJNESE/RCJCE 1(1).
118 ALLS 9(5):111-120

APPENDIXS

Appendix‑1. Questionnaire
Questionnaire for respondents
Class:………… Name of the Cadet College: ………………………………………….……
Serial No. Questions A B C D E
01 I don’t worry about Strongly Disagree (40%) Neither Agree (40%) Strongly
making mistakes in class disagree (20%) agree nor agree (0%)
especially when the disagree (0%)
medium of instruction and
communication is English.
02 It scares me when I don’t Strongly Disagree (03%) Neither Agree (57%) Strongly
understand what the teacher is disagree (3%) agrees n]or agree (31%)
saying in English. disagree (6%)
03 I get anxious when I don’t Strongly Disagree (0%) Neither Agree (57%) Strongly
understand the topic the disagree (0%) agree nor agree (43%)
teacher discusses. disagree (0%)
04 I keep thinking that the other Strongly Disagree (8%) Neither Agree (44%) Strongly
students are better at writing disagree (5%) agrees nor agree (33%)
English than I am. disagree (10%)
05 I always feel that the other Strongly Disagree (14%) Neither Agree (58%) Strongly
students speak English better disagree (0%) agree nor agree (28%)
than I do. disagree (0%)
06 I usually stay relaxed during Strongly Disagree (67%) Neither Agree (3%) Strongly
tests when I have to write in disagree (27%) agrees nor agree (3%)
English. disagree (0%)
07 I start to freak out when Strongly Disagree (23%) Neither Agree (31%) Strongly
I have to speak without disagree (6%) agrees nor agree (34%)
preparation in class. disagree (6%)
08 Classes (of English only Strongly Disagree (16%) Neither Agree (65%) Strongly
environment) move so disagree (6%) agree nor agree (13%)
quickly that I worry about disagree (0%)
getting left behind.
09 I feel very sure and relaxed in Strongly Disagree (40%) Neither agree Agree (16%) Strongly
the English only environment. disagree (0%) nor disagree Agree (44%)
(0%)
10 In class when the medium of Strongly Disagree 24% Neither agree Agree 76% Strongly
instruction is English, I get so disagree 0% nor disagree 0% agree 0%
nervous that I forget things I
know.
11 I feel overwhelmed by the Strongly Disagree (03%) Neither Agree (67%) Strongly
number of rules I need to disagree (3%) agree nor agree (21%)
learn to speak and write disagree (6%)
accurate English.
12 I am afraid that the other Strongly Disagree (03%) Neither Agree (57%) Strongly
students will laugh at me disagree (3%) agrees nor agree (31%)
when I speak wrong English. disagree (6%)
13 I am afraid that my teacher Strongly Disagree (03%) Neither Agree (57%) Strongly
is ready to correct every disagree (13%) agrees nor agree (21%)
mistakes I make while disagree (6%)
speaking and writing.
14 I get upset when I don’t Strongly Disagree (0%) Neither agree Agree (10%) Strongly
understand what mistake the disagree (0%) nor disagree agree (90%)
teacher is correcting. (0%)
15 I don’t feel pressure to Strongly Disagree (61%) Neither Agree (10%) Strongly
prepare very well for class. disagree (26%) agree nor agree (3%)
disagree (0%)
16 Even if I am well prepared for Strongly Disagree (34%) Neither Agree (66%) Strongly
class, I feel anxious about it. disagree (0%) agree nor agree (0%)
disagree (0%)

(Contd...)
The Role of Anxiety in Learning and Performing English in the Cadet College Classes: Bangladesh Perspective 119

Appendix‑1. (Continued)
Serial No. Questions A B C D E
17 My Parents’ expectations Strongly Disagree (25%) Neither agree Agree (30%) Strongly
make me stressed out. disagree (5%) nor disagree agree (40%)
(0%)
18 My parents never compare me Strongly Disagree (25%) Neither agree Agree (30%) Strongly
with other students. disagree (5%) nor disagree agree (40%)
(0%)
19 It is difficult to speak in front Strongly Disagree (30%) Neither Agree (35%) Strongly
of my classmates. disagree (10%) agree nor agree (25%)
disagree(0%)
20 It is difficult to speak in front Strongly Disagree (28%) Neither agree Agree(45%) Strongly
of the unknown audience. disagree (12%) nor disagree agree (15%)
(0%)

APPENDIX 2: RESPONDENTS’ INTERVIEW Student-3

Interview questions
1. Do you think anxiety is a personal trait? Or, it comes
along with the situation?
2. Why do you think so?
3. Predominantly what factors make you anxious?
4. Is there any roles of parents to help you to decrease your
anxiety? If yes, how?
5. What could be the role of teachers to decrease your anx‑
iety?
Transcription of the Respondents’ Interview
Student-1
I think to me it comes along with situation in some cases
like public speaking. Anxiety comes from the sudden flow
of rules and regulations. I should say that the environment
here is favourable to learn English. Formally informally we
always need to use English. Sometimes we need to use them
without knowing their meaning. For example, “escort”. We
did not know the meaning when we first used it. But by us‑
ing it we know the meaning from action. In learning I think
I do not get the proper time that I need. I am from Bangla
medium background. So, I think this subject needs extra care
from me. There anxiety comes. But the classroom environ‑
ment is friendly. So we don’t be anxious there. My parents
are very supportive. I have no complain about my parents.
Student 2
I think anxiety is a personal trait. It is in my nature. I feel
anxiety during exam, public speaking and sometimes during
class. I think there are so many pressure in this environment.
It is so difficult to perform each and every task almost every
day. Being an introvert I try to avoid contact with my teach‑
ers as much as I can do. English only environment creates
anxiety in me. Sometimes I do not understand lectures. I be‑
come anxious then. I discuss it with my friends. I think, my
parents expect something good from me. I try to do well but
I think they want more than that. That also creates anxiety.
They should be understanding.
I think anxiety can be experienced in both ways. It is a per‑
sonal trait and sometimes situation also allows students to
experience anxiety. But I also think it becomes all right by
the passage of time. Students sometimes think they cannot
bear the pressure of rules and regulations along with En‑
glish only environment. But I have experienced, most of the
students get accustomed to the environment. I have found
my teachers very helpful. They help us whenever we need.
There are some good students from English medium back‑
ground and I try to compete with them. It helps when I want
to really learn something. But it is true that the time we get
to study is comparatively less than the students of other insti‑
tutions. It sometimes creates anxiety among us. Sometimes
parents are not satisfied with our achievements. They com‑
pare us in a negative way with other students no matter how
much we try. It seems that we will never actually be able to
satisfy them.
Student-4
I think it is both. I feel very anxious when I compare myself
with other students. It is natural because it is very prominent
that some students are better than me in English reading,
writing, speaking and listening. They have very enriched
vocabulary. They always get good mark. The medium of in‑
struction becomes their plus point when I need to struggle to
understand the subject matter because of it. Some teachers
are not efficient to make us understand easily and the ob‑
scurity regarding subject matter makes me anxious. Parents’
mentality to compare with other students also make me anx‑
ious because I am already trying to improve myself. They do
not understand it. They do not see the good part.
Student- 5
To me anxiety is the combination of both. I feel anxious
when I have to prepare my lesson within a short period of
time. I am from Bangla medium background. It takes time to
understand the topic in English and then form the idea which
is being discussed in the class. For examination, I need to
take preparation in English. Sometimes I think in Bangla to
120
understand the topic. Then I translate it into English. It is a
time consuming matter. I do not get that much time. This is a
matter of anxiety for me. Sometimes if I make any mistake,
my mates repeatedly mention it to make fun. It hurts because
they try to point out my vulnerability. This surely creates
anxiety. I think teachers are very friendly. I also get good
support from my parents.
Student-6
I think Anxiety comes from situation. For example, I always
become anxious because I do not get enough time to study.
There is always a rush to complete the next task. But I think
my mates are very friendly and supportive. There is a strong
bondage among us. We always help each other to be better.
Sometimes my friends laugh at my mistakes which seems
to be funny. But I understand that they are laughing at my
mistake not at me. Some items seem to be very difficult to
understand. We ask teachers about that. Yet, sometimes, they
cannot make us understand easily. I think sometimes if they
make the topic easy it would be better for us. Parents need
to be supportive and understand the state of mind of their
children rather complaining about the progress.
Student-7
According to me anxiety derives from situation. I have come
from Bangla medium background. Now I am studying in
English only environment. I am not accustomed to listen
to English all the time. There is a sudden shift. This shift
is enough to create anxiety. Moreover, when there is oral
performance in front of the whole class I feel very anxious.
Even if I have preparation on that it is tough for me. I be‑
come blank. Sometimes receiving negative evaluation from
teachers creates anxiety. When teachers mark the mistakes
ALLS 9(5):111-120
in exam script is also a matter of anxiety. Because those
mistakes will decrease the mark. Parents will be hurt if the
performance in exam is poor. Experiencing anxiety is an ac‑
cumulative process. I think teachers and parents both should
be encouraging.
Student-8
Anxiety is originated in a specific situation. For example:
test. During test we actually get anxious. I have come from
Bangla medium background. During test I always face two‑
fold anxiety. Test itself is enough to create anxiety among
students. Moreover, I have to write all the questions in all
subjects in English except Bangla. So, whether I can use the
correct word according to the situation or not, whether I can
apply the correct term or not, whether I will be able to ex‑
press my thoughts and ideas clearly or not create anxiety in
me. I think teachers are really very cooperative so are my
parents.
Student-9
I think anxiety is a personal trait. But it can be overcome.
I have come here from Bangla medium background. At first
I used to freak out at almost everything. But I have become
habituated to those facts. When I look back I understand that
encountering those situations more helped me to be anxiety
free. My teachers and parents both are very supportive.
Student-10
I think anxiety comes from a specific situation. I have come
here from English medium background. I do not think apart
from exam there is any source of anxiety. My teachers are
very caring and my parents are also.
 Advances in Language and Literary Studies
ISSN: 2203-4714
www.alls.aiac.org.au

Teaching Phrasal Verbs More Efficiently: Using Corpus Studies and Cognitive Linguistics to
Create a Particle List

Ryan Spring*
Tohoku University, Sendai City, Aoba-ku, Kawauchi 41, Japan
Corresponding Author: Ryan Spring, E‑mail: spring.ryan.edward.c4@tohoku.ac.jp
The research is financed by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, project number 16K16868

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article history
Received: May 10, 2018
Accepted: August 26, 2018
Published: October 31, 2018
Volume: 9 Issue: 5
Advance access: August 2018
Conflicts of interest: None
Funding: JSPS
Key words:
Phrasal Verbs,
Cognitive Linguistics,
Corpus,
Instruction Materials,
TEFL,
Second Language Acquisition
Phrasal verbs are important for EFL and ESL education because of their high frequency, but
can be difficult for learners because of their number and polysemy. While there are a number
of studies on phrasal verbs, the widening focus of such studies has left a gap between theory
and practical instruction. This study improves upon previous studies related to teaching phrasal
verbs through cognitive linguistics by combining the theory of event conflation with corpus-
based research to create a list of phrasal verb particles and meanings that is concise and yet
comprehensive enough to account for approximately 95% of common phrasal verb meanings. It
also reports the results of an experiment in which learners taught with this particle list improved
more on pre‑/post‑tests of phrasal verbs than learners that studied a list of the most common
phrasal verbs as whole entities (p( <0.001, dd=1.34). Quantitative and qualitative data presented
in this study also indicate that learners taught with the particle list improved their ability to
conjecture the meanings of novel phrasal verbs more effectively than learners who studied
common phrasal verbs as whole units.

INTRODUCTION learn the PVs by memorizing them as whole units. However,

Though phrasal verbs1 (henceforth PVs) are important for
EFL and ESL learners because of their high frequency, they
are notoriously difficulty to learn, which often causes learn‑
ers to avoid studying and using them (Liao and Fukuya,
2004; Jahedi and Mukundan, 2015; etc.). There have been
many studies conducted on PV education, and can be gen‑
erally categorized as: analysis of the syntactic and semantic
properties of PVs, comparative analysis of non‑native learn‑
ers’ avoidance of PVs, analysis of ESL learner corpora in
comparison with native learner corpora, and corpus‑based
analysis of PVs in language teaching materials (Jahedi and
Mukundan, 2015: 161)2. However, there are few studies that
attempt to straddle these different areas of research to offer
a wider, more beneficial guide to PVs for learners and ed‑
ucators. For example, studies such as Gardner and Davies
(2007) and Garnier and Schmitt (2015) offer learners and
instructors lists of the most common PVs, which are surely
important as a guide for which PVs to study first, but teach‑
ing methods and instruction are outside of the scope of their
work. Thus, even if a learner were to obtain such a list, there
is the strong possibility that they would simply attempt to
as pointed out by Side (1990) and Lee (2012), studying PVs
in parts, focusing on the particles, seems to be a more effec‑
tive way to learn them. Though Side (1990) and Lee (2012)
are promising studies, both studies only focused on three
PV particles, which covers a very limited number of PVs.
This paper thus attempts to advance the ideas of Side (1990)
and Lee (2012) by using corpus studies, such as Garnier and
Schmitt (2015), and cognitive linguistic theory to create a
comprehensive list of PV particles that learners can utilize
to study a wide range of PVs more effectively. It focuses
on the following research questions: (1) Can cognitive lin‑
guistic research be combined with corpus studies of PVs to
create a concise and comprehensive list of PV particles and
their meanings? (2) Is studying PVs through a list of particle
meanings more effective than learning PVs as whole units?
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
While much of the research surrounding PVs focuses on anal‑
yses of PVs themselves (Jahedi and Mukandan, 2015), other
researchers have more recently attempted to offer insight into

Published by Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.

Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.5p.121
122
how PVs and their meanings are constructed to make them
easier for learners to remember (Side, 1990; Lee, 2012; Yasu‑
da, 2010; etc.). However, many of these studies generally focus
on specific PVs and are not aimed at addressing the whole of
PVs. For example, Side (1990) indicates that there are prob‑
lems with memorizing PVs as whole units, such as the fact that
most PVs have multiple meanings and the particles seem to be
random, and then suggests that many PVs are formed by anal‑
ogy with existing PVs. However, his research only covers three
particles and does not offer any theoretical reasons as to why
the particles have the meanings that they do. Other notable at‑
tempts to explain PV formation in a way that is more beneficial
to learners include Yasuda (2010) and Lee (2012). Lee’s (2012)
study provided quantitative and qualitative data suggesting that
cognitive‑linguistic inspired instruction of PV particles helped
to improve the learning of PVs, but focused only on PVs con‑
taining the particles up, out and over. Yasuda (2010) reported
on lessons that utilized cognitive linguistics (i.e. metaphor the‑
ory) to help explain PVs to Japanese EFL learners, offering
qualitative and quantitative data to suggest that their learning
was enhanced through such explanations. Her study mostly fo‑
cused on metaphoric extension and the idiomatic expression of
PVs, which have been shown to enhance vocabulary retention
(Boers, 2000), and offers promising results, but was similarly
limited in that it only focuses on twenty PVs.
The aforementioned studies suggest that teaching PVs
through cognitive linguistic theory and by focusing on par‑
ticle meaning aids learners, but do not cover a wide range
of PVs and thus can potentially be expanded upon by be‑
ing combined with corpus studies of the most common PVs
(e.g. Garnier & Schmitt, 2015; etc.) to create a PV particle
list that can be used to teach a wider range of PVs while
focusing on particle meaning. The list would need to not
only include the particles, but also provide a wide variety of
meanings for each without being so verbose that it becomes
cumbersome for learners. To this end, this study utilizes
Talmy’s (1985) cognitive linguistic theory of event confla-
tion to create the list of meanings for PV particles because of
its range, explanatory power, and the large number of SLA
studies that suggest its importance in EFL/ESL education.
Event conflation has a very large scope and can thus be
used to explain a wide range of PVs. The theory suggests
that two events can be thought of and expressed as a single
event. For example, the sentence ‘Jack skipped across the
park’ contains both the information that (i) Jack was skip‑ skip
ping and that (ii) Jack travelled from one end of the park to
the other, but these two actions are introduced as one single
event. According to Talmy (1985), this phenomenon occurs
in every language, but in different ways. In English, it is
generally done through the use of a verb that tells the co‑
event, i.e. what is happening or why/how it is happening,
and a satellite3 that tells the main‑event, i.e. the change or
final result of the action. In the example sentence, the fact
that Jack was skipping is communicated through the verb
skip, and the change from one location to another is com‑
municated through the satellite across. While Talmy (1985,
2000, 2009) argues that satellites can be prepositions, par‑
ticles, or adjectives in English, and thus the total scope of
ALLS 9(5):121-135
event conflation is beyond that of PVs, the example sen‑
tence given indicates that PVs are indeed contained within
this theoretical construct (i.e. the two events are conflated
into the PV skip across), and this wide scope allows it to be
used to explain many different PV particles. PVs can then
be explained as being a combination of two separate mean‑
ings – one coming from the meaning of the verb (i.e. the
co‑event) and one coming from the particle (i.e. the main
event). This can be applied to a wide variety of both com‑
mon and uncommon PVs. For example, considering the fact
that the word out can have the meaning of ‘to exit’, a large
number of PVs that contain out can be easily explained, such
as: walk out, run out, sprint out, fly out, whoosh out, etc. In
each of these PVs, the word out retains its meaning of ‘to
exit’ and the verb simply gives detailed information as to
how the object was exiting (or what it was doing while exit‑
ing). As there are many manner of motion verbs in English
(e.g. walk, run, sprint, dash, whoosh, zoom) and they can
generally combine with out to create a similar meaning, it
would seem that many generative PVs follow this pattern.
For this reason, event conflation could also help such learn‑
ers to conjecture the meanings of novel PVs. As Side (1990)
points out, native English speakers are able to understand
most novel PVs, and thus there must be some mechanism
by which they conjecture the meanings from knowledge of
PV particles and how they combine with verbs to create new
meanings. The theory of event conflation can aide learners
in this respect by offering them an explanation that can help
them to foster a similar mechanism and consequently im‑
prove their ability to conjecture the meanings of novel PVs
much in the same way.
The theory of event conflation can also explain much of
the polysemy found in PVs. Talmy (1985, 2000) suggests that
there are 5 types of events in which conflation occurs: motion,
change of state, realization of goals, aspect and correlation of
actions. Examples of PVs fulfilling these roles in English can
be found below (with italics to emphasize the PVs):
1. Motion: Jack skipped across the park.
2. Change of state: Jack tied together the boxes.
3. Realization of goals: Jack chased down the criminal.
4. Aspect: Jack ran on, even though he was tired and wanted
to quit.
5. Correlation of actions: Jack sang along with the radio.
Though PVs often have a number of meanings, this can
be explained by the fact that the particles themselves have
several meanings, i.e. those posited by the theory of event
conflation, exemplified above. For example, the two most
common meanings of look up are ‘to physically look upward’
and ‘to research or investigate’. The former meaning can be
explained as a motion event in which the verb, look, tells
how or what it is that is moving (i.e. one’s line of vision),
and up indicates in which direction. The latter meaning can
be explained as a realization of goal event in which, the verb,
look, tells what is happening, and up indicates that the goal
of the verb look (i.e. finding what one is looking for) is being
realized. In this case, look up takes the meaning of to ‘look
until completion’ or to ‘look to a proper degree’ ee’ (i.e. until
one has the information one desires).
Teaching Phrasal Verbs More Efficiently: Using Corpus Studies And Cognitive Linguistics To Create A Particle List
Teaching PVs through event conflation also has sever‑
al pedagogical benefits. For example, it allows for multiple
particle meanings to be explained through metaphoric ex‑
tensions of their other meanings, which has been noted to
aide in memorization (Yasuda, 2010; Boers, 2000). One such
metaphoric extension comes from the inherent connection
between motion and change of state events (the first two
event types given above). As noted by Talmy (1985, 2000),
both are types of transitions: change being a transition from
one state of being to another, and motion being a transition
from one location to another. For example, back has both a
motion and a change meaning, the former being to return to
the original place and the latter being to return to the original
state of being. For a more complex example, let us consider
the various meanings of out, which has a motion meaning of
‘to exit’, and a general change meaning of ‘to disappear’.
While the two might seem unrelated at first glance, the
change meaning can be explained with the metaphor out of
sight, out of mind
mind. If something moves to a location where it
can no longer be seen (e.g. outside or out of view), it has for
all intents and purposes disappeared. Interestingly, out can
also exhibit the opposite meaning (to appear) depending on
the verb that it is coupled with. Though this might seem like
a contradiction, it is not if we consider the inherent relation‑
ship between the speaker and the object in motion or tran‑
sition. For example, the word go indicates that something
is moving further away from the speaker, and thus in the
example of go out, the object would exit, leaving the speaker
behind where they could no longer see it. Thus, when go out
takes a change meaning, it becomes ‘to disappear’, as in ‘the
lights went out’. Conversely, the word come indicates that
something is moving closer to the speaker. In a motion event,
something that comes out would thus be moving towards the
speaker, initially invisible to the speaker (as initially the ex‑
iting entity would have to be inside, while the speaker would
have to be outside) and would then become visible as it exits
and joins the speaker outside. Since an object that is com‑
ing out would thus move from an invisible (and thus out of
mind) area to a visible one, the change meanings of come out
becomes ‘to appear’, as in ‘his secret came out’. Out also
provides a good example of how its other meaning (realiza‑
tion of goals, as per Talmy, 2000) is a metaphoric extension
of its change meaning. This is because when out takes this
meaning, it generally indicates that something has disap‑
peared as a result of the realization. For example, in miss
out, someone has missed something completely, and there
are no more chances, and in sell out, something has been
sold completely, and there is no more of the item available.
Finally, several SLA studies have pointed to the fact that
Talmy (2000) claims that a typology is possible based on how
languages generally conflate events, and have shown that
learners with L1s such as Japanese (verb‑framed languag‑
es) tend to have extreme difficulty acquiring the patterns
of L2s of a different type (satellite‑framed languages) such
as English (Inagaki, 2002; Spring & Horie, 2013; Spring,
2015; etc.). For example, Inagaki (2002) showed that L1
Japanese learners of English often confuse motion expres‑
sions for location expressions in L2 English. Furthermore,
123
Spring and Horie (2013) showed that L1 Japanese learners
of English are generally unable to combine manner of mo‑
tion verbs with particles to create motion expressions, and
Spring (2015) showed that L1 Japanese learners of English
have similar difficulties in understanding and producing
change of state expressions in L2 English. These studies
all suggest that teaching L1 Japanese learners motion and
change of state events expressions through event conflation
might be helpful for them, although the scope of such studies
rests solely in showing the differences and difficulties such
learners have.
Given the adaptability, explanatory power and pedagog‑
ical implications of using event conflation to teach PVs, as
described above, it follows that it could be combined with
PV list studies (e.g. Garnier and Schmitt, 2015; Liu, 2011;
etc.) to create a comprehensive list of PV particles and their
meanings that would be useful for learners.
CREATING A PV PARTICLE LIST
In order to create a list of PV particles and their meanings
based on Talmy’s (1985, 2000) theory of event conflation
and corpus research, I first extracted a list of all of the par‑
ticles that appear in Garnier and Schmitt’s (2015) list of
the most common 150 PVs. The meaning senses of these
particles were then created utilizing the theory of event con‑
flation, such as with the example of out, given in the pre‑
vious section. This process was repeated for each extracted
particle, and then condensed for conciseness. In creating the
list, I found that most particle meanings correspond to either
motion or change of state events, and that of the particles that
appear in PVs in Garnier and Schmitt’s (2015) list, only three
take realization of goals event meanings (up, down and out),
only one takes an aspect event meaning (on) and only one
takes a correlation of action event meaning (along). Since
there is no overlap amongst the particles in the final three
categories, I combined them into one all‑encompassing cat‑
time-related). The final list
egory for conciseness (renamed time-related
of particle meanings is shown in Table 1, with representative
examples of PVs for each. It is concise enough to contain
only 17 particles (15 with motion meanings, ten with change
meanings, and five with other types of meanings), while
being comprehensive enough to be able to explain approxi‑
mately 95% of the two most common meanings of the 150
most common PVs as given by Garnier and Schmitt (2015)4.
As indicated in the previous section, studies such as Side
(1990) and Lee (2012) suggest that learning PVs in parts,
focusing on particle meaning, is more effective than learn‑
ing them as whole units. Therefore, it follows that using
the comprehensive PV particle list given in Table 1 to learn
PVs would be more effective than learning them as whole
units from a PV list. Though the list does not account for
all meanings of all PVs, it does account for a large major‑
ity of them (see Note 4) while having far fewer meaning
tokens to remember than a list of common PVs (there are
only 30 meaning tokens to remember versus several hundred
for Garnier & Schmitt’s PHaVE list). Furthermore, studies
such as Spring and Horie (2013), Inagaki (2002) and Spring
(2015) suggest that since the list given in Table 1 was created
124 ALLS 9(5):121-135

Table 1. List of particle meanings condensed into three categories

Particle Motion Meaning Change Meaning Time-Related
up Move from a low position to a higher Become higher/ better/more Do completely, properly, 100%
position (jump up, stand up, fly up) (go up, pile up, work up) ‑ generally with a positive
meaning (clean up, dress up,
charge up)
down Move from a high position to a lower Become lower/bad/ worse/ Finish, achieve a goal – often
position (sit down, lay down, fall down) less (let down, come down, with a negative meaning or
run down) downward image (break down,
close down, hunt down)
in Enter (go in, come in, walk in)
out Exit (go out, walk out, fly out) (1) Disappear (go out, turn Do completely – and something
out, burn out) has disappeared (sell out, miss
(2) Appear (come out, jump out, find out)
out)
on Move to a position of touching – usually Become attached (stick on, Continue (move on, hold on,
atop (jump on, land on, fall on) clip on, tie on, put on) talk on)
off Move to a position of not touching (jump Become unattached (take off,
off, fly off, set off) come off, pull off)
back (1) Return to original position (go back, Return to original state (put
come back, run back) back, steal back, get back)
(2) Move backwards (step back)
away Move to a far(ther) location (run away, Disappear
fly away, get away) (fade away, wish away, wash
away)
after To follow or chase (run after, go after,
swim after)
under (below) Move to a position lower than something
else (crawl under, walk under, go under)
over Move to a position higher than something (1) Reverse 180 degrees on
else – or to traverse it (fly over, jump a vertical axis (flip over, turn
over, go over) over)
(2) Change from standing to
no longer standing (knock
over, push over)
across Move from one side of something to the
other side (walk across, swim across,
drive across)
along Move on the same path as something Do something together/at the
(drive along, float along, go along) same time (sing along, read
along, play along)
about/ around* Move in a circle or to various places
within (walk around, look around, go
around)
through Move in one side and then out of the
other (drive through, pass through, go
through)
apart For a whole to become many
parts (come apart, pull apart,
rip apart)
together For many pieces to become
one whole (put together, tie
together, come together)
*About is more common in British PVs, and around is more common in American PVs (Liu, 2011; Garnier & Schmitt, 2015)

using the theory of event conflation, there is a possibility that the effectiveness of the list as an educational tool, I designed
learners with L1s typologically different from English, such an experiment to see if L1 Japanese PV learners who utilize
as Japanese, will benefit the most from it. Therefore, to test event conflation and the list of PV particles in Table 1 to
Teaching Phrasal Verbs More Efficiently: Using Corpus Studies And Cognitive Linguistics To Create A Particle List
study PVs improve their general PV proficiency more than
L1 Japanese PV learners who utilize a whole‑unit memori‑
zation strategy and a list of common PVs.
METHOD
Materials
The educational experiment reported in this paper utilized
pre‑ and post‑tests of phrasal verbs for quantitative data and
a post‑treatment survey for qualitative data. First, I created
two pedagogically similar three‑hour lessons to teach PVs,
so that the learner outcomes of these lessons could be com‑
pared with minimized risk of teaching style being an influ‑
ential factor. The two lessons were created with the same
types of activities, worksheets, and materials, and were
taught by the same instructor (see Appendix for the mate‑
rials given to students and descriptions of the activities).
The only major factor that changed between the lessons was
whether PVs were introduced in parts, utilizing the list giv‑
en in Table 1 and an explanation of event conflation, or as
whole units. This resulted in the creation of one lesson with
a focus on particle meanings based on the account of teach‑
ing PVs through event conflation detailed above (hence‑
forth conflation method
method), and one lesson in which PVs
were taught as whole units based on Garnier and Schmitt’s
(2015) PHaVE list (henceforth whole-unit methodmethod). Each
lesson consisted of one hour of group work, one hour of
lecture, and one hour of practice to promote retention. Both
lessons had students guess meanings based on PVs that they
knew and compare their answers with classmates, but in the
conflation method lesson, students guessed the meanings of
particles (see Appendix 1) whereas in the whole‑unit lesson,
students guessed various meanings of whole unit PVs (see
Appendix 2). Lecture for both lessons consisted of the in‑
structor correcting and amending student guesses, with the
conflation method group also being instructed that various
verbs could combine with the particles and would generally
retain their original meanings, while the whole‑unit method
lesson students were instructed about the polysemy of PVs
without explanation of event conflation. Both lessons had
students participate in a charades game for 30 minutes and
complete practice worksheets for 30 minutes, although stu‑
dents were given particles and verbs and asked to combine
them into PVs for the game and worksheets in the conflation
method lesson, whereas students were given PVs as whole
units for the game and worksheets in the whole‑unit method
(see Appendix 3).
Pre‑ and post‑tests were created to gauge participants’
knowledge of PVs before and after their lessons. The
pre‑ and post‑tests both consisted of 60 multiple choice‑
style fill in the blank questions, with five possible answers.
30 of the questions from each test came from the 100 most
common PVs (as per Garnier & Schmitt, 2015 – henceforth
common PVs), with the meaning of the PV used for the
question selected at random. The remaining 30 questions
were created from PVs selected at random from the Corpus
of Contemporary American English that did not fall in the
top 100 PVs (henceforth uncommon PVs). The difficulty of
125
the tests was measured through the results of 18 L1 Japa‑
nese learners of English from Tohoku University (the same
university as the main participants of this study), who took
the tests simultaneously prior to the main study, and did not
receive instruction or participate in the main study. The tests
were calibrated by exchanging highly missed questions and
rarely missed questions between them to create two tests
of balanced difficulty. The results of the calibrated tests are
shown in Table 2. Paired t‑tests of these results revealed
that neither the pre- nor post- test was significantly more
difficult overall (t(17)=‑0.86, p=0.4 ns), for common PVs
(t(17)=‑0.38, p=0.71 ns) or for uncommon PVs (t(17)=‑
0.61, p=0.55 ns).
A questionnaire was also created to gauge learners’ at‑
titudes towards the lessons. It consisted of five Likert-scale
questions and one open‑ended response question. Four of
the Likert‑scale questions asked participants to rate a state‑
ment from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) and
the statements were: ‘I enjoyed the lesson’, ‘I gained new
knowledge from the lesson’, ‘The lesson was an appropriate
way to teach PVs’, and ‘The lesson helped me’. The final
Likert‑scale question asked participants how they would rate
the lesson overall from 1 (very bad) to 5 (very good). The
open‑ended response question simply asked the participants
for any other general comments or suggestions they had re‑
garding the lesson, and participants were asked to give at
least one comment.
Participants
75 L1 Japanese learners of English who were students at To‑
hoku University were selected for participation in this study.
They ranged from 1st to 4th year University students, and had
all received a total of either 7 or 8 years of English education.
This study was conducted after the end of the school year,
during which time all participants were on academic break.
Thus, no participants were participating in any other En‑
glish study outside of the lessons given as part of this study.
Participants had all recently taken the TOEFL‑ITP test, and
were asked to take the PV pre‑test detailed in the previous
section. The participants were then randomly divided into
two groups: one that would receive the whole‑unit method
lesson and one that would receive the conflation method les‑
son. The data for the participants is shown in Table 3, and
unpaired t-tests revealed that there was no significant dif dif‑
ferences in participants’ TOEFL scores (t(74)=0.28, p=0.39
ns), overall pre‑test scores (t(74)=‑0.44, p=0.33 ns), pre‑test
common PV scores (t(74)=‑0.01, p=0.49 ns) or pre‑test un‑
common PV scores (t(74)=0.79, p=0.22 ns).
Table 2. Results of the calibrated PV pre‑ and post‑tests
Category Average pre-test Average post-test
score (SD) score (SD)
Overall 0.58 (0.13)±0.057 0.57 (0.1) ±0.044
Common PVs 0.6 (0.13)±0.057 0.6 (0.12) ±0.053
Uncommon PVs 0.55 (0.15)±0.066 0.53 (0.1) ±0.044
*Confidence intervals calculated at the 95% confidence level
126 ALLS 9(5):121-135

Table 3. Participant data

Lesson N TOEFL Score Pre-test Average Pre-test Common Pre-test Uncommon
Style (SD) (SD) PV Average (SD) PV Average (SD)
Whole-unit 36 514.6 (49.2)±16 0.65 (0.12)±0.039 0.65 (0.14)±0.046 0.66 (0.12)±0.039
Method
Conflation 39 517.6 (39.1)±12 0.64 (0.1)±0.031 0.65 (0.11)±0.035 0.64 (0.11)±0.035
Method
*Confidence intervals calculated at the 95% confidence level

Procedure
Participants in each group were taught their corresponding
lesson by the same instructor, exactly one week after imple‑
mentation of the pre‑test. All participants were given their les‑
sons in two 90 minute blocks, with a 10 minute break between
blocks. The instructor took care that none of the 60 PVs that
were on the post-test would appear in the conflation method
lesson, and the games, practice problems and instruction were
created in order to ensure learners of the conflation method
lesson would not encounter any of them during their study
session. In contrast, learners in the whole‑unit method lesson
were taught all 100 common PVs, and thus, participants en‑ Figure 1. Conflation method lesson group’s pre- and post-test
countered 30 of the PVs that would appear on the post‑test scores
in their lesson. Participants were then given the post‑test 24
hours after instruction, and the questionnaire thereafter.
Learner improvement was evaluated within groups by
comparing pre‑ and post‑test scores with paired t‑tests. Two‑
way ANOVA tests with one independent variable (lesson
style) and one dependent variable (time; i.e. pre‑ and post‑
test scores) were used to check for significant interaction be‑
tween lesson style and improvement. These tests were cho‑
sen because the sample sizes were adequately large and the
collected data were found to be parabolic. Cohen’s D was
calculated as a measure of effect size. Confidence intervals
were calculated at the 95% confidence level. Learner’s atti‑
tudes towards the lessons were analyzed qualitatively based
Figure 2. Whole-unit method lesson group’s pre- and post-test
on their answers to the questionnaire.
scores

RESULTS
Analysis of Quantitative Data
The results of the pre‑ and post‑test scores for participants in
the conflation method lesson group are shown in Figure 1,
and the same results for participants in the whole‑unit meth‑
od lesson group are shown in Figure 2.
M
A paired t‑test of the pre‑test (M=0.64, SD=0.1, ±0.031)
M
and post‑test (M=0.73, SD=0.07, ±0.022) scores of partic‑
ipants that received the conflation method lesson indicated
that they improved significantly; t(38)=6.96, p<0.001, d=1.6.
d 149)=0.00, p=1.
M
However, a comparison of the pre‑test (M=0.65, SD=0.12,
M
±0.039) and post‑test (M=0.66, SD=0.09, ±0.029) scores of
participants that received the whole‑unit method lesson did
not yield a significant difference; t(35)=0.74, p=0.46 ns. Fur‑
thermore, a two-way ANOVA indicated a significant inter‑
action between lesson style and overall improvement on the
PV test; F
F(1, 149) > 99, p<0.001, d=0.95.
d M
Similar statistical tests were performed on participant’s
scores for both common PVs and uncommon PVs. A paired
M
t‑test of the pre‑test (M=0.65, SD=0.11, ±0.035) and post‑test
M
(M=0.76, SD=0.09, ±0.028) common PV scores of partic‑
ipants that received the conflation method lesson indicat‑
ed that they improved significantly; t(38)=6.27, p<0.001,
M
dd=1.4. A comparison of the pre‑test (M=0.65, SD=0.14,
M
±0.046) and post‑test (M=0.74, SD=0.09, ±0.029) common
PV scores of participants that received the whole‑unit meth‑
od lesson also yielded a significant difference; t(35)=4.06,
p<0.001, dd=0.96. No significant interaction was found be‑
tween lesson style and improvement on common PVs; F(1, F
With regards to uncommon PVs, paired t-tests of the
M
pre‑test (M=0.64, M
SD=0.11, ±0.035) and post‑test (M=0.7,
SD=0.08, ±0.025) scores of participants in the conflation
method lesson group indicated that they improved signifi‑
cantly; t(38)=3.71, p<0.001, dd=0.84. However, a compari‑
M
son of the pre‑test (M=0.66, SD=0.12, ±0.039) and post‑test
(M=0.59, SD=0.11, ±0.036) scores of participants in the
whole‑unit method lesson group seemed to indicate a sig‑
nificant decrease in uncommon PV knowledge; t(35)=‑4.58,
Teaching Phrasal Verbs More Efficiently: Using Corpus Studies And Cognitive Linguistics To Create A Particle List
p<0.001, dd=-1.08. A significant interaction between lesson
style and improvement on uncommon PVs was found; F(1, F
149) > 99, p<0.001, d=1.34.
d wished they had some sort of explanation about how PVs
5.2 Analysis of Qualitative Data
The results of the Likert‑scale questions given to participants
are represented in Figure 3. Strongly agree or very good is
noted as a score of five in Figure 3, and strongly disagree or
very bad is noted as a score of one.
There did not seem to be a large difference in whether or
not participants in each group enjoyed the lesson (question
1; M=4.41
M SD=0.55 for conflation method, M=4.39
M SD=0.6
for whole‑unit method). However, much larger differences
were found in other opinions. Participants in the confla‑
tion method group scored their lesson higher than partici‑
pants in the whole‑unit group with regards to feeling that
M
they had gained knowledge (M=4.67, SD=0.48 vs M=4.17,
M a list of PV particles and their meanings based on the theory
M
SD=0.56), the lesson being helpful (M=4.64, SD=0.49 vs
M
M=4.19, SD=0.52) and their overall rating of the lesson
M
(M=4.56, SD=0.5 vs M=4.03,
M SD=0.45). However, the most
pronounced difference in opinion occurred with regard to
whether or not the learners found their lessons to be an ap‑
propriate method for teaching PVs, with participants in the
conflation method group scoring their lesson 4.59 on aver‑
age (SD=0.5) while participants in the whole‑unit method
group scored their lesson 3.61 on average (SD=0.77).
With regards to the open-ended response style ques‑
tion, of the 39 participants in the conflation method group,
26 (67%) made comments indicating that the relation be‑
tween event conflation and PVs was new information to them
and learning about it helped them to remember and guess the
meanings of PVs. Representative responses include “break‑
ing the [particles] into ‘motion’, ‘change’, etc. made it easy
to understand that particles have several different meanings”
and “I had learned [the] meanings of prepositions before, but
never how they can combine with verbs to make PVs – this
was easy to understand and helpful”. Furthermore, 10 par‑
ticipants (26%) in the conflation method group mentioned
that the lesson made PVs easier to remember. Representative
comments include “I got a better image for PVs and it made
them easier to remember” and “I had only ever studied PVs
as a one unit set – this way was better and helped make them
Figure 3. Results of Likert‑scale questions in post‑instruction
questionnaire
127
easier to remember”. Conversely, of the 36 participants in
the whole‑unit method group, 9 (24%) commented that they
are formed. Representative comments include “I wanted
to know the meanings of the individual parts of PVs” and
“there was no detailed explanation of how PVs were put
together, so I couldn’t learn them so well”. Furthermore, 7
participants (19%) of this group indicated that it was difficult
to remember the PVs – a comment that was not received at
all from members of the conflation method group. Repre‑
sentative comments include “there wasn’t enough time, so I
couldn’t remember the PVs so well” and “the class was fun,
but having so many PVs is hard to remember”.
DISCUSSION
The results of this study indicate that it is possible to make
of event conflation and that the list can be used to effective‑
ly teach PVs to L1 Japanese learners of English. First, the
list presented in Table 1 was created by grouping particle
meanings according to the theory of event conflation, which
allowed it to be concise enough to contain only three catego‑
ries, but comprehensive enough to cover approximately 95%
of PV meanings. Second, both the quantitative and qualita‑
tive data taken from the educational experiment reported in
Section 5 suggest that the lesson was helpful to L1 Japanese
learners of English. The quantitative data showed that par‑
ticipants in the conflation method group outperformed those
in the whole-unit method group significantly in overall PV
knowledge based on their post‑tests, although they demon‑
strated equivalent PV knowledge on the pre‑tests. These
results seem to be congruent with previous studies such as
Side (1990) and Lee (2012) that suggest focusing on parti‑
cle meanings can be a more efficient way to study PVs. The
qualitative data corroborated these results, with learners in
the conflation method group, scoring their lesson as having
been more helpful and a more appropriate way of learning
PVs than the learners in the whole‑unit method group. Fur‑
thermore, the fact that learners in both groups spent the same
amount of time studying PVs suggests that utilizing the list
given in Table 1 to teach PVs through event conflation, as
described in this paper, is more efficient (more gains in PV
knowledge were made by the conflation method group for
the same amount of study). This was further supported by
the responses in the free answer section of the survey by the
learners in the whole‑unit group who expressed that they felt
there wasn’t enough time to remember all of the PVs and
that there were too many to try to remember. However, this
result is not particularly surprising, because the particle list
in Table 1 requires learners to remember far fewer meaning
tokens than a list of PVs.
It should be noted that although both groups’ scores for
common PVs improved about the same amount, the confla‑
tion method group far out‑performed their whole‑unit meth‑
od counterparts with regards to uncommon PVs. It is not
surprising that learners in the whole‑unit group improved
their scores on the common PVs because they studied these
PVs specifically and were then tested on them in the post-
128
test. However, it is interesting that the event conflation group
improved on common PVs at about the same amount. Since
both Yasuda (2010) and Lee (2012) suggested that use of
cognitive linguistics, such as metaphoric extension, aid in
the memorization of PVs, and since the conflation meth‑
od also made use of metaphoric extension, it may be that
learners benefitted from this knowledge and were able to
improve their common PV knowledge to a similar amount
as the whole‑unit group. However, as suggested in Section
3, 95% of the two most common meanings for the top 20
PVs are covered by event conflation, and so perhaps learn‑
ers in the event conflation group were not hindered much
by the fact that they did not study any of these meanings
explicitly. The fact that the conflation method group outper‑
formed the whole‑unit method group on uncommon PVs is
congruent with Side (1990), who suggested that learning
common meaning senses of particles could aid learners in
being able to conjecture the meaning of novel PVs. Learners
in the whole‑unit method group were not explicitly given
any strategies to guess the meanings of novel PVs, but learn‑
ers in the event conflation group were; which seems to have
made a large difference and empirically supports the claims
of both Side (1990) and Sections 2 and 3 of this paper. This
result was corroborated by the qualitative data, as learners
in the conflation method group noted in the free response
section that the lesson helped them to remember PVs more
easily and guess their meanings. These results suggest that
while learning PVs as whole‑units can be effective (i.e. abil‑
ity improves for tokens studied), learning through event
conflation and the particle list given in Table 1 is not only
equally effective for learning common PVs, it is it also aides
in the ability to conjecture the meanings of novel PVs. This
results in greater gains in overall PV knowledge for the same
amount of study time.
While the results of this study are promising, it should be
noted here that it does have some limitations. For example,
the PV pre- and post-tests were designed to be equally diffi‑
cult for L1 Japanese learners at Tohoku University, and were
calibrated with non‑participants. This allowed me to ensure
that the questions for both the common and uncommon PVs
were balanced for difficulty on these tests, but it does not give
any indication about which PVs participants already knew
on the post‑test. However, given the low pre‑test scores and
the fact that both groups of learners improved from pre‑ to
post‑test in at least one area while the non‑participant test
collaborators didn’t suggests that it is reasonable to assume
that though the participants may have known some of the
PVs on the post‑test, they likely did not know any more on
the post‑test than they did on the pre‑test. Therefore, it is
reasonable to assume that improvement shown from the pre‑
test to the post‑test indicated improved knowledge of PVs
(or at least improved ability to conjecture their meanings).
Another limitation of this research is that it had very little
qualitative data. Though the quantitative data was sufficient
to show a difference in how much learners improved their
PV knowledge between the two groups, and the qualitative
data could help corroborate the results, taking more quali‑
tative data from more in-depth surveys or reflection papers
ALLS 9(5):121-135
could help to pinpoint the exact reasons why the learners felt
the lessons were helpful. Finally, this study was conducted
on L1 Japanese learners of English, for whom motion and
change expressions in English are known to be particularly
challenging (Spring & Horie, 2013; Spring, 2015; Inagaki,
2002; etc.). Therefore, it is unclear how beneficial these ma‑
terials would be for ESL learners with other native languag‑
es, particularly with L1s of the same type as English (i.e. sat‑
ellite‑framed languages). Thus, future studies should be done
to verify the results of this paper with more qualitative data,
other PV testing methods and with ESL learners with various
other L1s (especially with other verb‑framed languages such
as French, Spanish and Korean).
CONCLUSION
This paper showed that it is possible to create a comprehen‑
sive, yet concise list of PV particles and their meanings by
utilizing PV corpus studies and the cognitive linguistic theory
of event conflation. Furthermore, it showed that this list can
be used to teach PVs to L1 Japanese learners of English more
effectively than by teaching PVs as whole units through a PV
list. It is therefore able to suggest that the materials shown in
Appendix 1 can be an effective and innovative tool for PV
instruction. Hopefully the results of this study and the list
provided herein can aid other EFL/ESL educators who are
teaching PVs and can benefit researchers in the future as well.
NOTES
Note 1. Some linguists make a distinction between true PVs
and ‘prepositional’ verbs, but this paper refers to both
as PVs following the research of Garnier and Schmitt
(2015), Liu (2011), etc.
Note 2. For a more complete overview of the research in
each of these sections, see Jahedi and Mukundan (2015),
a review of recent PV research.
Note 3. Talmy (2000) defines a satellite as “the grammatical
category of any constituent other than a noun‑phrase or
prepositional‑phrase complement that is in a sister rela‑
tion to the verb root” (p. 102), which includes preposi‑
tions (Talmy, 2009), particles and adjectives.
Note 4: The two most common meanings of the first 20 verbs
in Garnier and Schmitt’s (2015) were checked against
the particle list in Table 1, and all meanings were found
to be contained in the table except for the meaning of
‘to occur’ for come up, and the meaning of ‘to place or
rank (as in a race)’ for come in. Thus, 38 of the most
commonly occurring 40 PV meanings were found to be
explainable with the list in Table 1, and the approxima‑
tion of 95% was reached.
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APPENDIX

Appendix 1 – Instructional Materials for Conflation Method Group

Students were initially given the list of 17 particles with the meanings blank. After guessing meanings, the instructor
provided the examples and explanations shown below. The instructor suggested that verbs retained their basic meanings, as
did particles, and thus jump up meant ‘to move from low to high by jumping’, while fly up meant ‘to move from low to high
by flying’

Word Motion Meaning Change Meaning Aspect Meaning

up Moving from low to high** Become good/better/more* Complete / 100%**

He went up in the company.

go up, come up, shoot up clean up, dress up, charge up
The circle moves up.
jump up, stand up, fly up
down Moving from a high to low ** Become bad/worse/less* Finish, Achieve**

The player let his team down.

let down, come down, fall down break down, hunt down, calm down
The circle moves down.
sit down, lay down, fall down

(Contd...)
130
Appendix 1. (Continued)
Word Motion Meaning
in Enter
The circle moves in the square.
go in, come in, walk in
out Exit, move outside (*of
something)
The circle moves out (of the
square).
go out, walk out, fly out
on Moving from not touching place
to touching (usually higher)**
The circle moves on the square.
jump on, land on, fall on
off
back (1) Moving backward
(2) Return to original position
The circle moves back.
step back, go back, run back
away Moving farther (*from
something)
The circle moves away (from the
square).
run away, go away, fly away
ALLS 9(5):121-135
Change Meaning Aspect Meaning
(1) Appear Completely**
(2) Disappear
The ball came out (from hiding) find out, figure out, fill out
The ball went out (from sight)
come out, go out, turn out
Become touching / attached** Continue
He stuck the circle on the square. walk on, keep on, hold on
put on, clip on, stick on
Become not-touching /
unattached** (*of something)
The circle came off (of the
square).
take off, come off, pull off
Return to original state
His arm healed back.
get back, put back, steal back
Disappear
The circle went away.
go away, blow away, wish away
(Contd...)
Teaching Phrasal Verbs More Efficiently: Using Corpus Studies And Cognitive Linguistics To Create A Particle List 131

Appendix 1. (Continued)
Word Motion Meaning Change Meaning Aspect Meaning
after Following something

The circle moves after the square.

run after, go after, swim after
under Moving to lower than something
(below) else **

The circle moves under the square.

go under, fly under, walk under
over Moving to higher than (1) Reverse 180°vertically
(above) something else ** (2) Off of the base

The circle moves over the square.

fly over, jump over, go over The rectangle turned over.
turn over, flip over, fall over
across Moving from one side of
something to the other side

The circle moves across the box.

go across, walk across, swim
across
along Moving on the path of Do something at the same time
something (* with something/ someone else)

read along, play along

The circle moves along the line.
walk along, go along, float along
apart Become many pieces**

The square came apart.

fall apart, come apart, pull apart
together Become one unit**

The circles were pushed together.

put together, come together,
tie together
(Contd...)
132 ALLS 9(5):121-135

Appendix 1. (Continued)

Word Motion Meaning Change Meaning Aspect Meaning

around Moving in a circle, or to various
(about) places

The circle moves around the

square.
walk around, look around, go
around
through Moving in and then out of
something

The circle moves through the

square.
go through, pass through, drive
through

Appendix 2 – Instructional Materials for Whole-unit Method Group

Students were initially given the list of 100 PVs with the meanings blank. After guessing meanings and sharing with their
groups, the instructor amended their guesses with any of the meanings shown below that were missing. The instructor
suggested some PVs had similar meanings because they had similar parts (such as go in and come in), but did not provide
an explanation of event conflation, the meanings of particles themselves, or how verbs and particles combined to form new
meanings. Explanation of metaphorical extension of meanings was also offered where applicable (e.g. go back and come
back
back)
Phrasal Verb Meaning 1 Meaning 2 Meaning 3
1. Go on Move onto or get aboard Continue Occur
2. Pick up To put into one’s hand To improve or increase
3. Come back To return to a place To return to a state
4. Come up To rise To occur For a problem to arise
5. Go back To return To return to a state
6. Find out Discover knowledge
7. Come out Exit Be released or appear
8. Go out Exit Disappear
9. Point out Indicate
10. Grow up Progress towards maturity Develop
11. Set up Make upright Build or construct Plan
12. Turn out Turn off lights/power Show up Make to leave
13. Get out Exit To become known
14. Come in Enter Place or rank (as in a race)
15. Take on To be responsible for To acquire
16. Give up To forfeit To stop or desist
17. Make up Consist of Create a story or falsehood
18. End up Arrive at some state
19. Get back Have something returned Take revenge on someone
to you

(Contd...)
Teaching Phrasal Verbs More Efficiently: Using Corpus Studies And Cognitive Linguistics To Create A Particle List 133

Appendix 2. (Continued)
Phrasal Verb Meaning 1 Meaning 2 Meaning 3
20. Look up To look upwards To research
21. Figure out To gain knowledge by your To calculate
own accord
22. Sit down To move to a seated position
23. Get up To stand up Awaken
24. Take out To remove To accompany someone on
an outing
25. Come on To start to happen or work Encouraging words For an illness to begin
26. Go down To descend To reduce in value/amount
27. Show up To arrive somewhere To appear or be seen
28. Take off To remove To leave the area To suddenly become
popular or successful
29. Work out To exercise To develop with a certain To be the result of a
ending calculation
30. Stand up To upright yourself To fight for something
31. Come down To fall or descend To become less
32. Go ahead Proceed Start to do something
33. Go up To ascend To suddenly explode or To rise or be built
burn
34. Look back To look behind oneself To think of the past
35. Wake up To awaken To realize
36. Carry out To take outside To execute or do
37. Take over To gain control of To replace someone in a
something task
38. Hold up To be delayed To remain strong or To rob
successful
39. Pull out To remove To stop being involved
40. Turn around To spin 180 degrees To change courses
41. Take up Lift Begin doing something
42. Look down Look downwards To think yourself better
than another
43. Put up To accept or continue Let someone stay
something unpleasant
44. Bring back Return from somewhere To do something that was
with something done in the past
45. Bring up To raise To begin talking about a
subject
46. Look out To be careful To watch for danger
47. Bring in To take in from outside To earn
48. Open up To open a door (etc.) To talk about your feelings
49. Check out To check facts (etc.) To pay and leave
50. Move on To continue To start a new job or
activity
51. Put out To make to leave produce
52. Look around To look at the things in a
place or area
53. Catch up Reach the same place, To learn the latest news
speed, quality (etc.)
54. Go in Enter

(Contd...)
134 ALLS 9(5):121-135

Appendix 2. (Continued)
Phrasal Verb Meaning 1 Meaning 2 Meaning 3
55. Break down To stop working To become smaller parts To become emotionally
unstable
56. Get off To leave a place To finish work (etc.)
57. Keep up Maintain a pace (etc.) To have the knowledge of
something recent
58. Put down To release downwards To insult
59. Reach out Extend arm/hand/etc. Offer help to someone
60. Go off To leave To happen in a way To explode, ring, etc.
61. Cut off To remove by cutting To stop (especially a flow)
62. Turn back To return to the direction
one came from
63. Pull up To raise something with a To get information
pull
64. Set out To start an activity or To put in a visible position
journey
65. Clean up To make something clean
66. Shut down To stop operating
67. Turn over To flip 180 degrees To give control to another
68. Slow down To decrease speed
69. Wind up To end in a specific To turn something to give
situation it power
70. Turn up To increase (esp. volume) To show up or arrive
71. Line up To make a line
72. Take back To get something again that To admit what you said was
was originally yours wrong
73. Lay out To put something in a To design
visible position
74. Go over To review To move above something
75. Hang up To end a phone call To put something in a high,
hanging position
76. Go through Move in one end, out of the Experience
other
77. Hold on To wait To manage or survive
78. Pay off To pay a loan (etc.) To result in success
completely
79. Hold out Continue in a difficult To not give information to To extend outwards
situation others
80. Break up Breaking or dividing into To end a relationship
smaller pieces
81. Bring out Take something outwards To make a detail or quality
noticeable
82. Pull back To pull backwards To stop supporting or doing
something
83. Hang on To wait To continue to hold
something
84. Build up To increase To create or construct
85. Throw out Get rid of Reject or refuse something
86. Hang out To spend time with
someone
87. Put on To wear To place on top of

(Contd...)
Teaching Phrasal Verbs More Efficiently: Using Corpus Studies And Cognitive Linguistics To Create A Particle List 135

Appendix 2. (Continued)

Phrasal Verb Meaning 1 Meaning 2 Meaning 3

88. Get down Move downwards
89. Come over To come to someone’s
location
90. Move in Change locations or abodes Enter
91. Start out Begin something such as a
job or part of life
92. Call out Summon to a place Recognize or appoint
someone
93. Sit up To sit with a straight back
94. Turn down Make lower (especially Reject
volume)
95. Back up Move backwards Support
96. Put back Return something to its Return something to its
original location original state
97. Send out To make something move
so that it spreads from the
original point
98. Get in To enter To arrive
99. Blow up To explode To argue To fill with air
100. Carry on To continue to do something To bring on to something To behave in an
else uncontrolled or excited
manner

APPENDIX 3 – DESCRIPTION OF CHARADES GAMES FOR BOTH GROUPS

Students in the conflation method lesson were asked to play a gesture game by having one student in a group become and
actor and choose one of the particles that contains a motion meaning, and one of a set of verbs (walk, jump, swim, jog, fly) and
then act out what the meaning would become. Other students were asked to guess the phrasal verb the actor had thought of by
guessing which verb and which particle the actor had selected. The game was performed for motion meanings for 15 minutes
and for change meanings for 15 minutes with actors selecting one of the particles that contains a change meaning, and one
of a set of verbs (bite, fall, burn, break, cut).
Students in the whole‑unit method lesson were asked to play a gesture game in which one student in a group became an
actor and acted out one of the meanings of a set of 10 phrasal verbs (pre‑selected by the students) with other group members
guessing which phrasal verb the actor had selected. This was repeated with students changing groups multiple times for
30 minutes.
 Advances in Language and Literary Studies
ISSN: 2203-4714
www.alls.aiac.org.au

Social Values in Charles Dickens’s Novel “Oliver Twist”

Sylvia Irene Persulessy1*, Emzir2, AcengRahmat2

1
A Doctoral Student of Applied Linguistic, Postgraduate of Universitas Negeri Jakarta, Indonesia
2
Applied Linguistic, Postgraduate of UniversitasNegeri Jakarta, Indonesia
Corresponding Author: Sylvia Irene Persulessy, E‑mail: sipersulessy74@gmail.com

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article history
Received: May 27, 2018
Accepted: August 29, 2018
Published: October 31, 2018
Volume: 9 Issue: 5
Advance access: August 2018
Conflicts of interest: None
Funding: None
The objective of this research is to acquire deep understanding about social values in the novels
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. The type of research was qualitative by using content analysis
method. The data collected through document study and data observation about social values
in the novel. The result of this research revealed that social values found and described in the
novel Oliver Twist
wist were love values consist of love and affection, dedication, mutual help,
kinship, concern, and loyalty. Responsible values consist of sense of acceptance and belonging,
obligations and discipline. Harmony of life values consist of justice, tolerance, cooperation, and
democracy. The values were found and described through generic structure of the novel by the
text quotations. Those results led to implication that Indonesian literature educators can apply
Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist
wist directly in the teaching process and motivate the students to
analyze the novels.

Key words:
Social Values,
Generic Structure Approach,
Novel

INTRODUCTION of the everyday society. The novel presented a much more

In this era of instant technology and information, the practi‑
cal attitude of the majority of society resulted in the erosion
of the noble values of the nation’s culture. Violent culture
and social anarchism also exacerbate socio‑cultural condi‑
tions of the nation. The values of local wisdom were polite,
friendly, respectful, wise, and religious as if they were eroded
and reduced by instant and modern lifestyle, which is called
as social problems. Therefore, it becomes the researcher’s
reason for conducting the research about the social values
relating to literature aspect.
Social problems caused by the lack of recognition of the
values of community life occur easily like social gap, social
violence, and the lack of tolerance to others (MimarTűrk‑
kahraman, 2013: 635). One solution to solve the problem
is to provide effective literary learning about social values,
because literaturee as a means of self‑
self expression can be treat‑
ed as one of the media or means of psychiatric education.
Literature contains ethical and moral values relating to dai‑
ly life including human problems. Literature does not only
speak of itself, but it also deals with God, the universe, and
society. Literature is able to reveal many things from various
facts because it has many literary genres that can be used as
a source of character formation.
The novel is a literary work in which many human prob‑
lems are discussed as a description of the deeds or social life
realistic picture of social life (Faruk, 2016: 45‑46). This is
because the scope of the novel is very possible to describe
the situation through events that are woven by the author
through his characters.
Learning about social values is very important and be
function as an example to see which is good and bad things.
It is also a difficult challenge for educators today, to help
learners to use their free time by doing activities that are use‑
ful for the development of self
self‑learners to become a superior
resource.
Learning appreciation novel have an important role in
helping the younger generation to develop themselves fur‑
ther into a subtle personality. In line with that statement, the
researcher encouraged that by studying and appreciating the
literature, the learners will be able to achieve good results in
the teaching of language and literature (Sumardi, 2012: 10).
Thus, it can be concluded that through the appreciation of
literature, the learners will learn the values of good and bad
life then they will appreciate the stories in the literary works
and make the values contained therein as an example and
role model in the life of society.
The focus of the research is analyzing social values in
Charles Dickens’s novel Oliver Twist through generic struc‑
ture approach. From the focus, the researcher formulate
the following research question is how the social values in

Published by Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.

Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.5p.136
Social Values in Charles Dickens’s Novel “Oliver Twist”
Charles Dickens novel reviewed through generic structure of
the novel? Based on the research question, it had be known
that the objective of this research was to get deeply mean‑
ing about the social values in Charles Dickens novel through
generic structure approach. Those results led to implication
that Indonesian literature educator can apply Charles Dick‑
ens novel Oliver Twist
wist directly in the teaching process and
motivate the students to analyze the novels.
LITERATURE REVIEW
This article concerned on the importance of assessing the
social value in the novel is due to the appropriate function
of literature to stimulate the reader to recognize, inspire,
analyze and formulate the values through the character in
the novel. So, the values in literary works can be an exam‑
ple, motivation and made the personality and behavior of its
readers more refined.
Novels are best known as fiction. It supported by Eagleton
(1996:2) said that literature includes much factual writing, it
also excludes quite a lot of fiction. Stanton (2007:8) said that
novels can show human experiences. Endraswara (2008:7‑8)
said that quality literary work is a literary work depicting
the soul, the author’s thought, describes the author’s ability
to organize the story, contains understandable language, to
be able to describe the human mind. Bakthin and Pattrick
in Hoffman (1988:230)said that novel is a type of fictional
prose that does not have a single plot, characters and settings
like those of a short story, but the novel has complex plots,
characters, conflicts and character developmentis a fiction.
Kalven in Sutarjo (2012:56) said that value is an enduring
preference for mode of conduct (e.g., honesty) or a state of
existence (e.g., inner peace). Suyitno (1986:3) said that liter‑
ature as a product of life contains social values, philosophy
and religion derived from the revelation or who have for‑
ward a new concept. Literature not talks about personal life
values, but also the values of human life in the total sense.
Social values can be benchmarks and beliefs held by most
members in a particular society about what is right, proper,
noble, and good to practice. Wicaksono (2014:323) said that
social value refers to the relationship of the individual to the
other individual in a society. How one should behave, how
they solve problems and deal with certain situations are also
included in social values. It can be concluded that in a very
diverse society,, self
self‑control is a very important attitude to
maintain the balance of society. In line with this, social val‑
ue can be interpreted as a foundation for the community to
formulate what is true and important, and plays an important
role to encourage and direct individuals to act according to
the norms that apply.
Literature and values are two complementary social phe‑
nomena in their essence as existential. Literature as a prod‑
uct of life contains social values, philosophy, religion, and
so forth both from the revealing and one who have a new
concept. Literature enters not only the space and values of
personal life, but also the values of human life in the total
sense. In essence, a value serves to direct the consideration
or behavior of a person so that the guidelines in community
life. Human life is patterned on social values. Social values
137
can be said benchmarks, benchmarks, assumptions, and be‑
liefs held by most members in a particular society about the
right, proper, noble and good to be practiced.
Jan Luxemburg (1992:24) said that literature presents
the image of life itself, largely composed of social reality. In
this sense life involves interpersonal relationships with peo‑
ple, between people, between events that occur within one’s
mind. Wicaksono (2014:323) said that social values refer to
individual relationships with other individuals in a society.
How one should behave, how they solve problems, and deal
with certain situations are also included in social values. It
can be concluded that in a very diverse society the pattern,
self control is something that is very important to maintain
self‑
the balance of society. In the same way, social values can
be interpreted as the basis for society to formulate what is
true and important, has its own characteristics, and plays an
important role to encourage and direct individuals to act ac‑
cording to the norms that apply.
Social Values in The Novel
According to D.A. WilaHuky in Basrowi(2014:81) said
that the characteristics of social values are: (1) Value is a
community construction that is created through interaction
among members of the community, (2) Social value is trans‑
mitted, (3) Values studied, (4) The value of satisfying human
beings and taking part in the fulfillment of social needs, (5)
Values are abstract assumptions in which there is social con‑
sensus about the relative prices of objects in society, (6) Val‑
ues tend to relate to one another communally to form patterns
and value systems in society, (7) Social value helps people
determine priorities in their lives, (8) Social values almost
always involve emotions, (9) Values can affect the devel‑
opment of individual personalities in society, (10) Cultural
diversity with different forms and functions will produce the
different value systems.
According to Zubaedi (2012:13) stated that the shapes of
social values are: (a) Love Value is a genuine feeling present
from the heart and contains a desire to give, to love and to
be happy. Love values consist of love and affection, dedi‑
cation, mutual help, kinship, concern, and loyalty, (b) Re‑
sponsibility Values is one of the traits of our character which
means that a person is able to respond for his actions, is
able to take some duties and to face certain consequences
of the actions that may occur. Responsible values consist
of sense of acceptance and belonging, obligations and dis‑
cipline. Harmony of life values consist of justice, tolerance,
cooperation, and democracy, (c) Life Harmony Values is a
human being as a social creature (homo socialist) because
it always interacts with other humans in performing daily
activities of life, in social life there must be norms that are
mutually agreed in order to live in harmony, balanced and
harmonious. Harmony of life values consist of justice, tol‑
erance, cooperation, and democracy. By looking at the sub
values contained in social values above it can be concluded
that, social values are very important in social life if applied
properly and correctly, and when associated with the deep‑
ening of a literary work can be a valuable learning about
life, especially social life.
138
The novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens draws
many parallels to the Victorian Era. Charles Dickens was
one of the main writers to emerge from the Victorian Era.
Dickens style and understanding of the period allow peo‑
ple to believe that he is “Victorians king of literature”. In
Oliver Twist, young Oliver is an illustration of the harsh‑
ness that is evident during the time. The treatment of ad‑
olescence, child labor, British Laws, and British society
all are examples of the Victorian Era that Dickens makes
reference in Oliver Twist even through the reality to the
time, Oliver is still able to find happiness. In this story,
Oliver and some of characters proved that even though
they lived in a chaotic world, there were still connect‑
ing with the goodness, worthiness, and nobility happened
around them.
Research on the Social Value in the Novel
Rr. Dwi Astuti did research to discusses the social value
based on Prof. Dr. Notonegoro’s theory with three deepening
of material value, vital value and spiritual value in the novel
Gadis Pantai by Pramoedya Ananta Toer. The conclusions
of these three forms of social value have a very close rela‑
tionship with the background of the coastal community life
at that time. The social class gap at that time has been seen
and greatly detrimental to the lower classes because they are
always be oppressed by the upper classes.
Wahyu Saputra did research about types and functions
of social value which reflection from novel Bukan Pasar
Malam by Pramoedya Ananta Toer. The conclusions are
helping, love, understanding, care, togetherness, and also
the functions of moral value as level of social, motiva‑
tion, guideline, and monitoring social person reflected in
the novel.
Joan ST. Germain did research speaks of good and bad
behavior in Charles Dickens’s novel Oliver Twist. Joan con‑
nects bad behavior with the background of time that Dickens
always uses: darkness, night and death. According to him
it is related to human behavior that tends to be in darkness.
While starlight, the morning and the sun is the embodiment
of the positive cycle.
Vladimir Trendafilov did research discusses the aesthet‑
ics in the narrative of several novels by Charles Dickens
containing social values, be they economic, moral, com‑
munication or more precisely to have moral messages of
good and evil, it further deepens the power of narration or
storyline.
METHODOLOGY
This research used qualitative approach with content analy‑
sis method. Besides, the generic structure approach chose to
analyze about the social values. The data were then collect‑
ed through literature review, observing things related to so‑
cial values in novels. Therefore, there are two kinds of data,
namely primary and secondary data. The novel Oliver Twist
is used as primary data sources. Whereas, the secondary data
consist of biography of the author and articles related to
Charles Dickens’s novel Oliver Twist.
ALLS 9(5):136-142
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Social Values in Charles Dickens Novel “Oliver Twist”
Love value
Love and affection
A feeling of love is an emotion of strong affection and per‑
sonal interest. Love is a good trait that inherits a kindness,
a feeling of compassion and affection. Social values of love
and affection in the Oliver Twist
wist described when Agnes (Ol‑ (Ol
iver’s Mom) risking her life to give birth to her beloved son
Oliver. The love value contained in the following quotation
text:
The pale face of a young woman was raised feebly from
the pillow; and a faint voice imperfectly articulated the
words, ‘Let me see the child and die.’
(Dickens, 1992:4)
The text quote above depicts the longing of a mother’s
heart who wants to see the newborn child as if to embrace
him but the pain she feels makes her unable to, so she only
wants to see her child one last time before she dies.
‘There is no pursuit more worthy of me, more worthy of
the highest nature that exists, than the struggle to win such
a heart as yours,’ said the young man, taking her hand.
‘Rose, my own dear Rose! For years – for years – I have
loved you; hoping to win my way to fame, and then come
proudly home and tell you it had been pursued only for
you to share; thinking, in my day‑dreams, how I would re‑
mind you, in that happy moment, of the many silent tokens
I had given of a boy’s attachment; (Dickens, 1992:228)
The above quotation describes the value of love from a
man named Harry Maylie. Harry has loved Rose Maylie his
adopted sister for a long time but Rose always rejects him
because she embarrassed of her bad past. Harry tried to con‑
vince her but still failed.
Devotion
The devotion in Oliver Twist wist was shown by Oliver when
Rose was in severe pain. Oliver was asked by Mrs. Maylie
to deliver a letter to the city market that was six in half miles
away.
Swiftly he ran across the fields, and down the little lanes
which sometimes divided them, now almost hidden by
the high corn on either side, and now emerging in an
open field, where the mowers and haymakers were busy
at their work; nor did he stop once, save now and the for
a few seconds, to recover breath until he came, in a great
heat, and covered with dust, on the little market‑place of
the market town. (Dickens, 1992:212)
From the above quotation it can be concluded that Oliver
is very dedicated to the Maylie family, as he ran the distanc‑
es, without complaining in order to deliver the letter on time.
The value of devotion can also be seen when Nancy re‑
fuses Mr. Brownlow’s offer to hand Fagin and Bill Sikes to
arrest. It can be seen in the following quotation:
‘For one reason,’ rejoined the girl firmly--- ‘for one rea‑
son, that the lady knows and will stand by me in. I know
Social Values in Charles Dickens’s Novel “Oliver Twist”
she will, for I have her promise; and for this other rea‑
son, besides, that, bad life as he has led, I have led a bad
life too. There are many of us who have kept the same
courses together, and I’ll not turn upon them, who might
– any of them – have turned upon me, but didn’t, bad as
they are.’ (Dickens, 1992:304‑305)
From the quotation above it can be concluded that, Nancy
is very devoted to her friends. Despite the nightmare they
put her through since she was twelve‑year old, but it will not
change her decision to abandon them.
Mutual help
The value of mutual help in the novel Oliver Twist is illus‑
trated when Oliver is helped by Mr. Brownlow after the trial
of the burglar case. It can be seen in the following quotation:
Little Oliver Twist lay on his back on the pavement,
with his shirt unbuttoned, and his temples bathed with
water; his face a deadly white, and a cold tremble con‑
vulsing his whole frame.
‘Poor boy, poor boy!’ said Mr. Brownlow, bending over
him.
‘Call a coach, somebody, pray, directly.’
A coach was obtained, and Oliver, having been carefully
laid on one seat, the old gentleman got in and sat himself
on the other. (Dickens, 1992:69)
From the quotation above it can be concluded that, de‑
spite being a victim of robbery, Mr. Brownlow has a great
heart and wants to help Oliver, who he previously thought
was a pickpocket.
The testimony of the bookstore owner frees Oliver from
the punishment of 3 years in prison for allegedly stealing.
‘This,’ said the man: ‘I saw three boys – two others and the
prisoner here – loitering on the opposite side of the way,
when this gentleman was reading. The robbery was com‑
mitted by another boy. I saw it done; and I saw this boy
was perfectly amazed and stupefied by it.’ Having by this
time recovered a little breath, the worthy book‑stall keeper
proceeded to relate, in a more coherent manner, the exact
circumstances of the robbery. (Dickens, 1992:68)
This value is an example to the reader of our obligation
to help others, the need to tell the truth, and be empathetic to
love our fellow human beings.
Kinship
The familial values in Oliver Twist
wist are illustrated in the fol‑
fol
lowing text.
The young lady would sit down to the piano, and play
some pleasant air, or sing, in a low and gentle voice,
some old song which it pleased her aunt to hear. There
would be no candles lighted at such times as these; and
Oliver would sit by one of the windows, listening to the
sweet music, in a perfect rapture.(Dickens, 1992:208)
The value is very much reflected in the family atmo‑
sphere created in the Maylie family’s home. There is no visi‑
ble social class distinction between the richer and the poorer
in the treatment between Oliver and his employer. They are
happy together with lots of love and sharing.
139
The value is also seen when Rose gives mental en‑
couragement to Oliver, when he reminds his best friend
Dick when they through the rough days in the workhouse.
Oliver feels so sad and hopes that he will meet Dick again
someday and share the happiness that he feels at that mo‑
ment.
‘You will see him soon,’ replied Rose, gently taking his
folded hands between her own. ‘You shall tell him how
happy you are, and how rich you have grown, and that in
all your happiness you have none so great as the coming
back to make him happy too.’
(Dickens, 1992:340)
Concern
The concern value in Oliver Twist wist is described in the follow‑
follow
ing quotation:
There was fresh groundsel, too, for Miss Maylie’s birds,
with which Oliver, who had been studying the subject
under the able tuition of the village clerk, would dec‑
orate the cages in the most approved taste. When the
birds were made all spruce and smart for the day, there
was usually some little commission of charity to exe‑
cute in the village; or, failing that, there was rare crick‑
et‑playing sometimes on the green; or, failing that, there
was always something to do in the garden, or about the
plants. (Dickens, 1992:208‑209)
From the quotation above it can concluded that, Oliver’s
behavior is the realization of the value of the environment
around him. Besides that Oliver’s concern for the animals is
also to please Rose Maylie who is the owner of the environ‑
ment. Rose feels so happy and gives compliments to Oliver
because Oliver is a diligent boy and is always willing to try
to become a better person.
Rose also showed great concern towards Nancy. She
wants Nancy to get away from her bad past and change her
life for the better. The way Rose pleased her is a manifesta‑
tion of carrying values between each other beings.
‘Do not turn a deaf ear to the entreaties of one of your
own sex; the first – the first, I do believe, whoever
appealed to you in the voice of pity and compassion.
Do hear my words, and let me save you yet for better
things.’ (Dickens, 1992:265)
Loyalty
The loyalty value in the Oliver Twist
wist is illustrated in the fol‑
fol
lowing quotation:
‘It is because I was your father’s oldest friend, young
man,’ returned Mr. Brownlow;‘It is because the hopes
and wishes of young and happy years were bound up
with him and that fair creature of his blood and kin‑
dred who rejoined her God in youth, and left me here a
solitary, lonely man; it is because he knelt with me be‑
side his only sister’s death‑bed when he was yet a boy,
(Dickens, 1992:323)
The friendship between Mr. Brownlow and Monk’s fa‑
ther Mr. Leeford is a sincere friendship. They go through
hard times and happy times together as a form of the loyalty
140
of friendship and fraternity. The power of friendships make
Mr. Brownlow wants to change Monk’s attitude so he can
have a better life. This value is a positive value that is essen‑
tial and can be an example for the readers to apply to their
own life.
Responsibility values
Sense of accepting and belonging
This value in Oliver Twist is illustrated in the following quo‑
tation:
Every morning he went to a white‑headed old gentle‑
man who lived near the little church, who taught him to
read better, and to write; and spoke so kindly, and took
such pains, that Oliver could never try enough to please
him. (Dickens, 1992:208)
From the above quotation we can conclude that, the value
sense of accepting and belonging is described when Oliver
learns read and writing. The happiness that he accepted from
the Maylie’s family gives Oliver the chance to change him‑
self for the better.
Obligations
This value in Oliver Twist
wist is illustrated in the following quo‑
quo
tations:
‘Hush!’ said Mrs. Maylie, laying her hand on Oliver’s
head. ‘You think like a child, poor boy! But you teach
me my duty, notwithstanding. I had forgotten it for a
moment, Oliver; but I hope I may be pardoned, for I am
old, and have seen enough of illness and death to know
the agony of separation from the objects of our love.’
(Dickens, 1992:211)
From the above quotation text it can be concluded that
Oliver has unknowingly prompts Mrs. Maylie to realize the
meaning of responsibility and the need to be strong to sur‑
vive a tough life. Thus, the value of obligations and respon‑
sibilities are related to each other.
He was still more astonished to find that this firmness
lasted, and that, under all the care and watching which
ensued, Mrs.Maylie was ever ready and collected, per‑
forming all the duties which devolved upon her steadi‑
ly, and, and to all external appearance, even cheerfully.
But he was young, and did not know what strong minds
are capable of under trying circumstances. (Dickens,
1992:211)
From the above quotation it can be concluded that the
value of duty can be applied by Mrs.Maylie in her serving
at Rose, although with a very sad heart and unable to see the
suffering of Rose, Mrs. Maylie still carries out her obliga‑
tions as a mother to her son.
Discipline
This value in Oliver Twist
wist is illustrated in the following quo‑
quo
tation:
Then he would walk with Mrs.Maylie and Rose, and
hear them talk of books; or perhaps sit near them in
ALLS 9(5):136-142
some shady place, and listen whilst the young lady
read, which he could have done until it grew too dark
to see the letters. Then he had his own lessons for the
next day to prepare, and at this he would work hard, in
a little room which looked into the garden. (Dickens,
1992:208)
Oliver disciplined himself by abiding to a daily sched‑
ule. In addition to being responsible for accompanying Mrs.
Maylie and Rose on a walk, Oliver also has a separate time
to develop by learning and reading. In order for all things
to go smoothly, Oliver strives to complete these tasks well
so it can be argued that, what Oliver is doing is a form of
disciplinary value.
The situation when Monks met with Oliver and Rose to
tell all the real stories that had happened. The statements
made by Monks must be accounted for and Mr. Brownlow
strongly emphasizes this. Mr. Brownlow’s actions are a man‑
ifestation of the value of self
self‑discipline.
This is painful task,’ said he, ‘but these declarations,
which have been signed in London before many gen‑
tlemen, must be in substance repeated here. I would
have spared you the degradation, but we must hear them
from your own lips before we part, and you know why.’
(Dickens, 1992:208)
Thus, the value of discipline is closely related to the val‑
ue of responsibility. The value of discipline in literature is
one of the moral messages intended for the reader, that if we
discipline ourselves first, then all the things we do or plan
will run well.
Harmony of life values
Justice
The Value of Justice in Oliver Twist is included in the fol‑
lowing quotation:
‘And left you and your mother each an annuity of eight
hundred pounds. The bulk of his property he divided
into two equal portions – one for Agnes Fleming, and
the other for their child, if it should be born alive and
ever come of age. (Dickens, 1992:342)
The above quote illustrates that prior to his death Mr.
Leeford had prepared a will containing the division of his
prophets to his family. In the letter, not only Monks and his‑
mother got the inheritance, but also listed the name of Agnes
Fleming, Oliver’s mother, and the baby of their relation‑
ship ‑ Oliver.Thus it can be concluded that Mr. Leeford exer‑
cised justice by dividing his prophets between all his family,
as well as his beloved Agnes and the baby which is the result
of their love affair.
By the provisions of his father’s will, Oliver would have
been entitled to the whole; but Mr. Brownlow, unwill‑
ing to deprive the elder son of the opportunity of re‑
trieving his former vices, and pursuing an honest career,
proposed this mode of distribution, to which his young
charge joyfully acceded. (Dickens, 1992:357)
From the above quotation clearly shows the value of jus‑
tice made by Mr. Brownlow. The inheritance of their fathers
is equally divided between Oliver and Monks Mr. Brownlow
Social Values in Charles Dickens’s Novel “Oliver Twist”
hope that Monks may change for the better, and live side by
side with his half
half‑brother Oliver in happiness and harmony;
this is the embodiment of the value of harmony in life.
Tolerance
The tolerance values in the Oliver Twist novel are contained
in the following quotation text:
The poor people were so neat and clean, and knelt so
reverently in prayer, that it seemed a pleasure, not a te‑
dious duty, their assembling there together; and through
the singing might be rude, it was real, and sounded more
musical (to Oliver’s ears at least) than any he had ever
heard in church before. (Dickens, 1992:208)
From the above quotation it is clear that the social life at
theMaylie family environment meant that, they blend togeth‑
er with the workers in the house of worship, they allied and
sang also prayed. At times like this there is no difference be‑
tween the rich and the poor, the upper and lower classes, their
purpose is to worship and seek joy.Thus it can be concluded
that, the higher the value of tolerance among humankind, the
more secure the happiness and prosperity of a country.
‘No,’ said the old lady, with a trembling lip. ‘My days
are drawing to their close; and may mercy be shown to
me as I show it to others! What can I do to save him,
sir?’ (Dickens, 1992:189)
The quote above is from Rose, Mrs. Maylie and Doctor
Losberne. Rose asks Mrs. Maylie not to hand Oliver to the
police because Rose believes Oliver is innocent. Mrs. May‑
lie granted Rose’s wish because she loved Rose so much and
wanted to make her happy even though they were still aware
of Oliver’s situation. The form of tolerance that is shown
by MrsMaylie’s attitude by forgiving Oliver and accepting
it and treating it is a reflection of the values of responsibility
as human beings who have noble character and have a high
social spirit.
Cooperation
The value of cooperation in Oliver Twistwist is contained in the
following quotation:
‘It was the partial disclosure of your secrets,’ replied Mr
Brownlow.
‘Will you disclose the whole?’
‘Yes, I will’
‘Set your hand a statement of truth and facts, and repeat
it before witnesses?’
‘That I promise, too.’ (Dickens, 1992:327)
The statement letter is a manifestation of the value of
cooperation, in which Mr. Brownlow asked Monks to work
with him to reveal the great secrets that have been kept hid‑
den that the secrets be immediately disclosed so that every‑
thing becomes clear.
‘I have spoken to the men who are charged with his cap‑
ture, and they tell me he can never escape. A reward of a
hundred pounds is proclaimed by Government tonight.’
‘I will give fifty more,’ said Mr. Brownlow, ‘and pro‑
claim it with my own lips upon the spot, if I can reach it.
Where is Mr.Maylie?’ (Dickens, 1992:328)
141
Mr. Brownlow wants to work with the government by
adding to the prize money a total of one hundred and fifty
pounds.Thus it can be concluded that Mr. Brownlow’s ac‑
tions are a manifestation of the value of cooperation, cooper‑
ation to assist the government in combating crime in order to
make life more secure and peaceful.
Democracy
The value of democracy in Oliver Twist’s novel is contained
in the following quotation:
We refuse to sanction these indentures,’ said the old
gentleman, tossing aside the piece of parchment as he
spoke.
‘I hope,’ stammered Mr.Limbkins – ‘I hope the magis‑
trates will not form the opinion that the authorities have
been guilty of any improper conduct, on the unsupport‑
ed testimony of a mere child.’
‘The magistrates are not called upon to pronounce any
opinion on the matter,’ said the second old gentleman
sharply.
‘Take the boy back to the workhouse, and treat him
kindly. He seems to want it.’ (Dickens, 1992:21‑22)
The above quotation describes the situation where it is
decided that Oliver will be an apprentice to one of Gam‑
field’s smoke carriage houses. After a long process of delib‑
eration, the judges decided to cancel it because Oliver finally
spoke frankly and asked not to be sent there.
Thus it can be concluded that, the decision the judge
board has made is a demonstration of democratic valuesto
not just hear one‑sided only. In the end the value of democra‑
cy Oliver was saved from the apprenticeship that endangered
his life.
All that I could hope to do, and even more. Coupling
the poor girl’s intelligence with my previous knowl‑
edge, and the result of our good friend’s inquiries on
the spot, I left him no loophole of escape, and laid bare
the whole villainy which by these lights became plain
as day. Write and appoint the evening after tomorrow, at
seven, for the meeting. (Dickens, 1992:328)
The above quote describes Mr. Brownlow’s decision to
gather all the witnesses to meet directly with Monks, Oliver
and Rose. The goal is to uncover all the secrets that have
been concealed, as well as reveal all the crimes planned by
Monks.Thus from this quotation it be concluded that there is
an effort from Mr. Brownlow to act on a democratic value
to uphold truth and justice in a problem that is the source of
conflict.
CONCLUSION
Social values in terms of the value of love, the value of
responsibility and the value of harmony in the life of Ol-
iver Twist by Charles Dickens are clearly visible in the
contents of the novel. The description of the social val‑
ues in the story illustrates the value of community life is
about the relationship between human and daily life. The
value of social values can be adopted by certain societies
about what is true, worthy, sublime, and good to prac‑
142
tice in real life. These values are the values of love and
affection, the value of service, the value of helping, the
values of kinship, the value of caring, the value of loyal‑
ty, the value on a sense of acceptance and belonging, the
value of obligation, the value of discipline, the value of
justice, the value of tolerance, the value of cooperation
and the value of democracy. The overall values are com‑
bined within the story’s structure inOliver Twist novel by
Charles Dickens.
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Garudawhaca, 2014), h. 323.
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sworth Classics, 1992)
Faruk, Pengantar Sosiologi Sastra. Yogyakarta: Pustaka Pe‑
lajar, 2016.
Jan van Luxemburg et al, Pengantar Ilmu Sastra. Jakarta:
Gramedia, 1992.
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siswa. Jakarta: UHAMKA Press, 2012.
SutarjoAdisusilo, Pembelajaran Nilai karakter (Jakarta: Ra‑ Ra
jawali Press, 2012)
Suwardi Endraswara, Metode Penelitian Psikologi Sastra:
Teori, Langkah, dan Penerapannya. Yogyakarta: Med‑
Press, 2008.
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taka Pelajar, 2012)
 Advances in Language and Literary Studies
ISSN: 2203-4714
www.alls.aiac.org.au

Applying Labelling Theory to Selected Short Stories by James T. Farrell

Afra S. Alshiban*
Al Imam University, Saudi Arabia
Corresponding Author: Afra S. Alshiban, E‑mail: afraalshiban@yahoo.com

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article history For decades, “societal reaction theory” or “labelling theory” has provided the most significant
Received: May 21, 2018 explanation for deviant behaviour, particularly in the case of juveniles. The theory argues that
Accepted: August 25, 2018 once a stigma is attached to an individual, an irreversible process occurs whereby the labelled
Published: October 31, 2018 individual begins to identify as deviant and to embark on a deviant career. Hence, rather than
Volume: 9 Issue: 5 deter bad behaviour, stigmatisation and shaming serve only to amplify it. Although the labelling
Advance access: August 2018 perspective is rooted in sociology, we find proponents of some version of labelling theory in other
disciplines, even in literature. The present study posits that in the short stories of Irish‑American
writer James Thomas Farrell entitled “Big Jeff,” “The Fastest Runner on Sixty‑First Street,”
Conflicts of interest: None “Young Convicts,” and “The Scarecrow,” labelling processes emerge as essential elements in a
Funding: None comprehensive understanding of each story. All four stories are the least critically acknowledged
works by the author even though they demonstrate the author’s remarkable talent for illuminating
the social and psychological factors associated with deviant behaviour among juveniles.
Key words:
James Farrell,
Labelling Theory,
American Fiction,
Interdisciplinary

INTRODUCTION picture of American life as experienced by Irish‑American

James Thomas Farrell (1904-1979) was a prolific writer,
producing more than 250 short stories and 25 novels. He
also lectured, travelled, and received honorary doctorates.
His scholarly output expanded to nonfiction, including his‑
torical and critical
al writing ((A Note on Literary Criticism in
1936, The League of Frightened Philistines in 1945, Liter-Liter
ature and Morality in 1947, Reflections at Fifty in 1954),
and essays on social criticism. Despite his impressive oeu‑
vre, he is remembered today, if at all, for his Studs Lonigan
trilogy, often called “Farrell’s best works” (Branch 16) and
“acclaimed as modern classics” (Landers Inner Cover Page).
This emphasis on Farrell’s trilogy of novels about a troubled
youth from Chicago’s South Side does little justice to the
author of The Silence of History (1963) and A Brand New
Life (1968). More importantly, a focus on the Studs Lonigan
trilogy, according to critic Jack Robbins, “may have had the
effect of discouraging serious critics of literature from pay‑
ing sufficient attention to [other] novels and stories” (ix).
Farrell was a genius, a literary giant, equal in calibre to
Dos Passos, Hemingway, and Faulkner. His naturalistic fic‑
tion introduced characters professed by critic Joseph Warren
Beach in 1941 to be “among the memorable people in En‑
glish fiction” (qtd. in Landers ix). Farrell’s novels provide
the reader not only with life‑like characters, but also a clear
immigrants of the working class in the early twentieth cen‑
tury. It has often been said of Farrell’s fictitious works in
general that “they were ‘sociology’ as much as art” (Landers
ix). His biographer, Robert Landers, claims that his sense of
realism “was such that it almost seems as if he must have
been there” (180). When Young Lonigan: A Boyhood in Chi-
cago Streets was first published in 1932, the cover cautioned
readers:
This novel is issued in a special edition, the sale of
which is limited to physicians, surgeons, psychologists,
psychiatrists, sociologists, social workers, teachers, and
other persons having a professional interest in the psy‑
chology of adolescents. (Farrell Young Lonigan Book
Cover)
The story about Chicago’s seedy South Side with its ex‑
tensive use of slang, racial slurs, and sexual frankness was
considered too raw for the reading public. One reviewer re‑
marked that “it might be of interest to social scientists who
like their case histories fictionized” (Landers 110). The fact
that the introduction was written by Farrell’s friend, the
sociologist Frederic M. Thrasher, an authority on gang be‑
haviour, only confirmed the warnings.
The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan (1934), the second
of the Studs Lonigan trilogy, was also cautioned against for
its hardboiled realism. Lewis Gannett of the Herald Tribune

Published by Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.

Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.5p.143
144
called it “A Gangster’s Boyhood,” adding that “the book is
rough, tough, and foul‑mouthed, like the slum boy it pictures,
and sex‑obsessed but disgustingly convincing. It is rather a
clinical portrait than a work of art.” Gannett’s remark did
not go unnoticed, and the following day, John Chamberlain
wrote a reply in his column in the New York Times defending
the novel: “The adjective ‘clinical’ is usually applied in a
derogatory sense, as if to say, ‘This is not art.’ However, if a
work of art consists of presenting material in its most effec‑
tive—i.e., its most artistic—form, then ‘The Young Manhood
of Studs Lonigan’ is a work of art” (qtd. in Landers 124).
Most critics shared Chamberlain’s opinion, calling Farrell’s
work “accurate and convincing,” especially since it ad‑
dressed topics seldom approached in fiction (Landers 125).
Literary critic Ellen Skerrett praises the author’s fidelity to
facts, commenting: “With his interest in human character
and behavior, his eye for detail, and his intimate knowledge
of city life, Farrell could have been one of the University of
Chicago’s great sociologists” (128).
Farrell’s reputation soared during the Depression when
realism was highly valued. However, interest waned as the
1930s ended. He began to be viewed as “a pessimistic deter‑
minist, negative and unwholesome” (Branch 10). Some crit‑
ics even remarked that he was trapped in his boyhood, while
others perceived his writing as repetitious and graceless.
Still others called him “a notebook writer, a photographic
realist who literally reports facts or case histories” (Branch
10). Robert Fyne claims that when realism went out of fash‑
ion, so did Farrell, “as different forms of fiction quickly
emerged” (90). Alan Wald similarly maintains that Farrell’s
reputation plummeted when critics began to view him as “a
prisoner of naturalism” (260).
Farrell biographers, Edgar Branch and Robert Landers,
suggest that the writer’s political views in the 1930s also
contributed to his unpopularity. Although Farrell was active‑
ly involved in the politics of his times, he opposed the Com‑
munist Party USA and attacked the communist‑dominated
League of American Writers (Branch 7). In A Note on LiterLiter-
ary Criticism, Farrell defends the integrity of art against the
corruption of political propaganda, an attitude that:
... made several enemies who established an unjust and
unfounded literary party‑line about his work. Studs Lo-
nigan was characterized as credible but limited fiction...
and Farrell’s subsequent books were often dismissed as
obsessive and clumsy reworkings of the same materi‑
als. some of these critics went on to become respected
shapers of literary reputation in the 1940s and 1950s.
who came to embrace a high modernist/New Critical
aesthetic. (Landers 125)
Charles Fanning agrees with Branch and Landers, re‑
marking that no American writer to date “has been worse
served by the critics than James T. Farrell” (3). It was not
until the late 1970s that Farrell gained some recognition
when he received honorary doctorate degrees from multiple
universities. He was also awarded $7,500 from the Nation‑
al Endowment for the Arts and received the University of
Chicago Alumni Association’s Professional Achievement
Award in 1979. Fanning calls for a reconsideration of his
ALLS 9(5):143-151
work, especially the O’Neil-O’Flaherty pentalogy, “which
bore the brunt of critical ostracism and misreading” (“Re‑
discovering James T. Farrell” 3‑4). Equally important, as the
current study argues, are his short stories, which received
relatively little attention, even though the Studs Lonigan
trilogy and the O’Neil-O’Flaherty pentalogy both evolved
from short stories, “Studs” (1929) and “Jim O’Neill” (1932),
respectively. Farrell, in fact, valued the short story so much
that he credited this particular genre for his career in fiction,
confessing:
I began not as a novelist, but as a short story writer. For
more than two years after I had decided to become a
writer, I worked to write publishable short stories. Long
before I had completed the first volume of the Studs Lo-
nigan trilogy, my short stories had received recognition.
Ezra Pound tried to get me a publisher for four of my
stories which he himself selected. Had he succeeded,
Young Lonigan [1932] would not have been my first
book. (Farrell “Preface” xiii)
In his Preface to The Short Stories of James T. Farrell,
Farrell applauds realist writers who began to articulate the
experience of ordinary people in American society, namely,
immigrant groups, the poor, and the working class who “had
hitherto received false and patronizing treatment, or no at‑
tention at all” (xix-xx). Farrell admired this approach to fic‑
tion and, in a manner similar to his predecessors, produced
250 realistic short stories that “embody scientific methods”
and “treat character as the product of environment” (Farrell
“Preface” xx). Literary critic Jack Robbins commends the
stories’ subject matter, narrative style, characterisation, and
“depth of understanding of concrete situations in the human
condition” (viii). Robert Lovett, another critic, also praises
the stories, viewing them as remarkable “sketches of charac‑
ters and episodes” (“Introduction” xxxii), and Fanning calls
them “strong” (“Introduction” xxi).
Despite the positive reviews, the short stories have sel‑
dom been considered seriously, even though they offer the
reader a rare glimpse into the psychology of adolescent boys
and girls. In An Honest Writer, Landers quotes Farrell as say‑
ing of his own fiction in general:
In my fiction. I am concerned with the concrete process‑
es whereby society, through the instrumentality of social
institutions, forms and molds characters, giving to the
individual the very content of his consciousness. Insofar
as my stories deal with boys growing up, the exploration
of the psychology of boyhood affords me a better oppor‑
tunity to reveal these processes concretely than does the
depiction of adults. (qtd. in Landers 245)
Farrell was by no means exaggerating. Wald explains that
the author was profoundly influenced by the Freudian psy‑
chiatrist Paul Schilder, especially his conviction that “human
character is a social product” (252). Another, more prom‑
inent, influence on the writer was the sociologist Frederic
M. Thrasher, who did extensive research on juvenile delin‑
quency (more on Thrasher later). It is for this reason that
the bulk of Farrell’s fiction, particularly his short stories,
centre on the experiences of adolescents in their daily envi‑
ronments (Wald 252). To demonstrate this point, the present
Applying Labelling Theory to Selected Short Stories by James T. Farrell
study examines four of Farrell’s short stories entitled “Big
Jeff,” “The Fastest Runner on Sixty‑First Street,” “Young
Convicts,” and “The Scarecrow” in two particular short sto‑
ry collections: Chicago Stories (1934) and The Short Stories
of James T. Farrell (1945). The choice fell on these works
in particular because in all four the author showcases the
consequences of stigmatisation and shaming on juveniles.
Thus, he proves that deviant behaviour is socially created.
In “Big Jeff,” for example, an overweight Jewish boy takes
to robbing, hustling, and pimping because he is perceived
as “innately immoral, devious, and fundamentally different
from other people” (Bernburg 189). In “The Fastest Run‑
ner on Sixty‑First Street,” the son of Polish immigrants is
stereotyped as possessing undesirable traits associated with
Polish people, leading him to project his feelings of inade‑
quacy onto African‑American youths, whom he considers to
be lower on the social scale. Farrell’s adolescents in “Young
Convicts” also experience stigmatisation. Even though their
behaviour consistently falls short of any serious crime, the
attachment of the delinquent label has profound implications
in the classroom, at home, and on the streets. The shamed
individuals in these three stories are teenage boys, while in
“The Scarecrow” the consequences of branding a teenage
girl suggest that even females are not exempt from the power
of words. These four short stories are Farrell’s least criti‑
cally acknowledged works, even though they demonstrate
the author’s remarkable talent for illuminating the social and
psychological factors related to juvenile deviant behaviour.
In selecting the four stories for discussion, I have been
guided primarily by the sociological theory termed “societal
reaction theory,” better known as “labelling theory,” which
postulates that once an individual is labelled as a deviant,
he/she can never escape the deviant role. That is, one drinks
because one is labelled an alcoholic; one acts crazy because
one is designated a psychotic; one steals because one is la‑
belled a thief; one acts as a sexual deviant because one is
labelled promiscuous. Hence, shaming or labelling individ‑
uals encourages the very behaviour being specified in the
label. Sociologist and anthropologist Walter Gove explains
this as “a profound and frequently irreversible socialization
process” whereby the labelled individual acquires an infe‑
rior status and develops a deviant worldview (7). The new
self concept, according to criminologist Johannes Knutsson,
self‑
gives “rise to deviant careers in which the individual. little
by little. develops a deviant identity. He has become what
people have said he was from the start” (10). Although this
labelling perspective is rooted in sociology, we find support‑
ers in psychology, psychiatry, anthropology, criminology,
and even the literary field. Hence, this interdisciplinary study
applies the labelling viewpoint to Farrell’s fiction to provide
a better understanding of each story. Farrell’s fictional juve‑
niles are all social products. Their self
self‑concepts are based
entirely on how others view them, thereby making these in‑
dividuals extremely vulnerable to labelling.
The Labelling Perspective
The labelling perspective on deviant behaviour centres on
the association between social stigma and delinquency.
145
Social scientist Charles Horton Cooley is credited with lay‑
ing the groundwork for the theory in 1902 when he theo‑
rised that a person’s self-image is a reflection of other peo‑
ple’s opinion of him/her, as revealed in the person’s daily
interactions. Cooley called this concept the “looking‑glass
self” (152). Thrasher expanded on the idea in his epic work
on gang behaviour entitled The Gang (1927), which exam‑ exam
ined the negative effects of labelling on young juveniles.
Thrasher believed that gang formation was due to collective
commonalities shared by the members, specifically, similar
cultural and religious backgrounds and also being branded
with official labels. Coincidently, it was Thrasher who wrote
the introduction to Farrell’s Studs Lonigan, as noted earlier,
and then confirmed by sociologist James Carey, who calls
Thrasher “Farrell’s friend” (190).
In 1934, philosopher, sociologist, and psychologist
George Herbert Mead advanced the labelling perspective
further by introducing a field of inquiry called “symbolic
interactionism.” This field assumes that self-understanding
occurs in the individual through an interchange between the
person and his environment. Hence, an individual develops
his/her self
self‑concept through countless interactions with oth‑
ers (Mead 5). Austrian‑American sociologist and criminol‑
ogist Frank Tannenbaum supported Mead’s view and, four
years later, examined it in light of deviant labels. Tannen‑
baum noted that when community members begin to iden‑
tify an individual as troublesome, they give that person a
negative label, “a definition that [he/she] is evil,” even if the
person’s peers engaged in similar activities. Over time, the
individual will assume the given label and act accordingly:
The person becomes the thing he is described as be‑
ing. Nor does it seem to matter whether the valuation
is made by those who would punish or by those who
would reform. In either case the emphasis is upon the
conduct that is disapproved of. The parents or police‑
man, the older brother or the court, the probation officer
or the juvenile institution. Their very enthusiasm defeats
their aim. The harder they work to reform the evil, the
greater the evil grows under their hands. The way out
is through a refusal to dramatize the evil. The less said
about it the better. (Tannenbaum 20)
Tannebaum’s “dramatization of evil” thus became the
best explanation for deviance in sociological textbooks and
the basis for what officially came to be known as “labelling
theory.” Fundamental to this theory is the assumption that
societal factors are responsible for encouraging delinquent
behaviour (mostly among adolescents); therefore, an indi‑
vidual is considered deviant only when community members
label him and his behaviour as “evil” (Tannenbaum 21).
In 1967, criminologist Edwin Lemert expanded on the
labelling perspective by identifying two primary stages of
deviance central to the recent work of labelling analysts—
primary deviance and secondary deviance. Primary devi‑
ance, according to Lemert, is an act of misconduct commit‑
ted by most juveniles when they reach a rebellious age and
therefore has little or no influence on self-image. In contrast,
secondary deviance manifests in the offender when society
reacts to his misconduct by labelling him a deviant, produc‑
146
ing an altered self
self‑image (Lemert 273). Hence, it is via sec‑
ondary deviance that identity problems emerge.
Social psychologist Howard Becker viewed the entire la‑
belling process as selective, noting that targets are almost al‑
ways the social and political “undesirables” in society (10).
In his Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance, he
maintains that “social groups create deviance by. labeling
[particular people] as outsiders.” Consequently, “deviant be‑
havior is behavior that people so label” (Becker 9).
Simply put, “the labelled” individuals act out role labels
assigned to them by “the labellers,” whom American so‑
ciologist Kai Erikson identified as the “audience.” Erikson
believed that the social audience (labellers) play a pivotal
role in promoting deviant behaviour “since it is the audience
which eventually determines whether or not any episode of
behavior or any class of episodes is labelled deviant” (Erik‑
son 311). This perspective is noteworthy as it shifts key at‑
tention away from the deviator to the reactors, blaming them
for the individual’s misconduct. Erikson’s viewpoint was
advanced in 1971 by American sociologist and criminologist
Edwin Schur, who divided the “audience” into three catego‑
ries. The first is society at large, “from which emerge general
reactions to (and therefore labelings of) various forms of be‑
havior.” The second consists of a person’s peers “by whom
he is constantly ‘labelled’ in numerous ways,” and the third,
“audience,” comprises government officials and organisa‑
tional agents of control (Schur 12‑13).
Today, only two forms of labelling are acknowledged
by labelling theorists—formal and informal labelling (Ad‑
ams 171). The first alludes to labelling delivered by figures
of authority like court officials, judges, and/or the American
Criminal Justice System; the second refers to labels given
by “significant others,” namely, parents, teachers, and peers
(Schur 12). Both will influence behaviour.
In the 1960s and 1970s, labelling theory gained consid‑
erable ground and became the best approach to understand‑
ing deviant behaviour. However, in the 1980s, the theory
lost credibility when “empirical tests had failed to provide
consistent support for the proposition that labeling reinforc‑
es deviant behavior” (Bernburg 187). The theory was also
criticised for failing to recognise different personality traits.
Some called the approach “too narrow,” arguing that label‑
ling analysts “are so preoccupied with the social psychology
of deviant identity and with the impact of labeling upon the
individual deviator that they unwisely neglect structural and
systemic ‘causes’ of deviance” (Schur 17). Moreover, many
argued that “since the deviant’s behavior is caused by the
reaction of his environment, he is without responsibility for
it” (Knutsson 13). In recent years, though, theoretical devel‑
opments relating to the “criminogenic effects of labeling”
have helped the theory make a comeback (Bernburg 188).
Farrell’s Short Fiction and the Labelling Perspective
The labelling school’s social‑psychological focus emerges
with exceptional accuracy in Farrell’s “Big Jeff,” “The Fast‑
est Runner on Sixty‑First Street,” “Young Convicts,” and
“The Scarecrow,” where a third‑person omniscient narrative
is employed to chronicle the influence of labelling on teen‑
ALLS 9(5):143-151
agers. In “Big Jeff” (1931), labelling materialises as a cen‑
tral factor in the social processes that create deviance. Farrell
presents a portrait of a fourteen‑year‑old Jewish‑American
boy who “was always easy to laugh at” (Farrell “Big Jeff”
203). Jeff is overweight, nerdy, socially awkward, and phys‑
ically weak—typifying the stereotypical image of the pu‑
bescent Jewish boy. His physical appearance leads the other
boys to tag him as “Jeff the fat Jewboy,” “Jeff the fatass of
Fifty‑Eighth Street,” and other labels that identify him as dif‑
dif
ferent (Farrell “Big Jeff” 203). Jeff tries to ignore the labels
and to embrace his labellers instead, but they shun him and
continue the name‑calling. The narrator says: “Jeff wanted to
be like the other kids. wanted to be one of them”; however,
his efforts prove futile (Farrell “Big Jeff” 204). His grades
suffer as a result, and he never passes in school. Jeff “got
bigger and bigger. and his classmates got smaller and small‑
er. the teachers wanted to sock him. they said he would end
up in jail. maybe on the gallows” (Farrell “Big Jeff” 204).
Jeff’s poor school performance supports labelling theorists’
assertion that “labels affect educational achievement” (Hoff‑
(Hoff
mann 172). Also in keeping with the labelling viewpoint is
Jeff’s character transformation from a harmless fourteen‑
year‑old youth to a devious con artist. The story ends with an
adult Jeff committing suicide after contracting syphilis from
one of the prostitutes he regularly beds, seeming to prove
Giza Lopes and his fellow criminologists correct in stating
that “labelling early in life has a tremendous influence on the
offender in adulthood” (456).
Sociologist Ross Matsueda suggests that self
self‑concepts are
influenced by others’ perceptions of the individual (1578). In
Jeff’s case, the instant he identifies as being different, his
self-image alters, and his criminal career takes off. He first
steals money from home: “Jeff stuck his hands in the old
man’s pocket. even cheated his own mother,” then he hangs
around poolrooms (notorious places for felons), and finally
associates with seedy characters. One such character is Big
Schmaltz, who “got hot” at the sight of Big Jeff and his “big
fanny” and decided to lure him into the bushes to indulge in
illicit activities (Farrell “Big Jeff” 203). When a policeman
spots the two, Schmaltz flees the scene; Jeff lingers behind
and is arrested and charged with sexual misconduct. He is
formally labelled as a felon, fined, and released.
Although Jeff is formally labelled a delinquent by the
criminal justice system, it is the informal labelling by his
teachers and peers that pushes him to further delinquency.
Their judgments are significant because they are the people
he deals with daily. Criminologist John Hoffmann maintains,
“If parents, peers, and adults think of an adolescent as delin‑
quent and he or she incorporates such an image as a key part
of the self, then more delinquent behavior is likely” (182).
This point is revealed when the narrator says: “Big Jeff got
wise. Big Jeff started using his Jewish noodle. Big Jeff start‑
ed gyping everybody. he stole marbles. candy. money. Jeff
stole everything” (Farrell “Big Jeff” 205).
Tannenbaum finds such behaviour understandable, since
a labelled individual:
Has gone slowly from a sense of grievance and injus‑
tice, of being unduly mistreated and punished, to a rec‑
Applying Labelling Theory to Selected Short Stories by James T. Farrell
ognition that the definition of him as a human being is
different from that of other boys in his neighborhood,
his school, street, community. This recognition on his
part becomes a process of self-identification. The young
delinquent becomes bad because he is defined as bad.
There is a persistent demand for consistency in charac‑
ter. (Tannenbaum 17‑18)
Jeff adopts the deviant role from adolescence through
adulthood, showing “consistency in character” (Tannen‑
baum 18). Additionally, his criminal activities escalate as
he matures, evident when he becomes a pimp, standing on
street corners and beckoning men to pay for coitus. He also
exploits his sex‑workers and sexually assaults them, and
when he contracts syphilis from one of the prostitutes, he ex‑
acts his revenge: “Big Jeff slept with his last whore. diseased
her. and smiling pretended to sleep. stole her money. bought
a gun. and the gravediggers cursed all holy hell when they
lowered his crated body” (Farrell “Big Jeff” 207).
A noteworthy point is that Jeff’s actions appear to be
consistent with anti-Semitic stereotypes, specifically, mal‑
ice, greed, and miserliness. Farrell’s depiction of his Jewish
character is consistent with sociologist William McAuliffe’s
assertion that stereotyping “an unwilling recipient” results in
the “internalization of the public image and a consequent in‑
tensification of the behavior in question along with adoption
of other aspects associated with the social role” (211). In the
end, Jeff becomes an actual personification of the negative
Jewish stereotype—he is hateful and vengeful.
What happens to Jeff is the result of shaming and/or
branding at an impressionable stage of life (early adoles‑
cence), which Tannenbaum maintains “encourages delin‑
quent and criminal careers” (19). Even Becker suggests that
labelling someone as deviant at a young age “sets in motion
several mechanisms which conspire to shape the person into
a deviant adult” (34). Farrell also employs ellipses through‑
out his story to emphasise Jeff’s unhealthy transition from
harmless adolescent to harmful adult. “Big Jeff,” therefore,
is a useful portrait of an individual significantly affected by
pervasive stereotyping and labelling.
A similar consequence of labelling occurs in “The Fast‑
est Runner on Sixty‑First Street” (1948), where stigma is
attached to a fifteen-year-old Polish-American boy named
Tony Rabuski. The story is mentioned here because it shows
Farrell exploring another aspect of labelling theory, name‑
ly, that “disadvantaged groups are more likely than other
groups to experience labeling” and they “may be more vul‑
nerable to informal labelling as well” (Bernburg 191). Tony
is “the toughest boy in school” and also “the poorest,” and he
“would often come to school wearing a black shirt, because
a black shirt didn’t show the dirt the way that other shirts
did, and his parents couldn’t afford to buy him many shirts”
(Farrell “Fastest Runner” 219). Tony exemplifies the stereo‑
type of the poverty‑stricken immigrant’s son who is dirty,
dim‑witted, and penniless, thus leading his peers to label
him as “Polack,” “Dirty Polack,” and “Dumb Polack” (Far‑
rell “Fastest Runner” 219, 220, 221). Schur explains that in
the 1920s and 1930s, these stereotypes of Polish‑Americans
received almost continual support from the mass media and
147
the social discourse (31). Farrell appears aware of this point,
hence, his story about a boy of Polish descent who becomes
the object of shaming.
“Fastest Runner” takes place at the time of the 1919 Chi‑
cago race riots and details the events that lead to the tragic
death of fourteen‑year‑old Morty Aiken, the best and fastest
runner on the South Side of Chicago. Morty is introduced as
a highly celebrated athlete, admired by all and loved by his
parents: “He was a streak of lightning on his feet and on the
ice, and that made him feel somehow different from other
boys and very important” (Farrell “Fastest Runner” 219).
Tony, in contrast, feels different for other reasons. He is the
outcast, the labelled, who is “laughed at” and called names.
The narrator maintains:
Ever since he had been a little fellow, Tony had often
been called a “Polack” or a “dirty Polack.” In his slow
way, he thought about these words and what they meant.
When you were called certain words, you were laughed
at, you were looked at as if something were wrong with
you. Being a Polack and being called a Polack was like
being called a sonofabitch. It was a name. When you
were called a name like this, you were looked at as a dif
dif‑
ferent kind of kid from one who wasn’t called a name.
Morty Aiken wasn’t called names. (Farrell “Fastest
Runner” 219)
Wishing to be more like Morty, Tony befriends the star
athlete, telling him one day: “Kid, you run de fastest, I fight
de best in de whole school. We make a crack‑up team. We’re
pals. Shake, kid, we’re pals” (Farrell “Fastest Runner” 219).
The two shake hands and become inseparable. However,
Morty’s association with Tony ultimately leads to his death,
when in his attempt to catch a coloured youth for Tony to
bully Morty enters a black neighbourhood and is caught by
an angry black mob who slash his throat in retaliation for
their unjust treatment by white folks.
In the story, Tony, a victim of labelling his whole life,
projects his feelings of inadequacy onto the coloured boys,
whom he views as lower on the social scale than he and,
therefore, even more deserving of being stigmatised and
shamed. By convincing himself that he is not the undesir‑
able, but the blacks are instead, he gains a sense of power:
“Tony didn’t want to be called names. He also wanted to
have as much fun as the kids had who weren’t called these
names. He began to call names. And there was a name even
worse than Polack—‘nigger’” (Farrell “Fastest Runner”
221). This projection allows Tony to transfer his self‑
self loath‑
ing onto the most vulnerable individuals in the community at
the time—African‑Americans. Consequently, Tony becomes
a labeller too. On this particular point, Becker states, “The
person labeled an outsider. may not accept the rule by which
he is being judged and may not regard those who judge him
as either competent or legitimately entitled to do so”; thus,
he makes his own rules (1‑2). This assertion clearly applies
to Tony, who rationalises his actions by convincing himself
that labelling others is the only way he can gain access to the
“white” community.
“Young Convicts” (1931) is another fictional construc‑
tion of the consequences of labelling and details yet another
148
aspect of labelling theory—the glorification of the deviant
identity. Although the majority of adolescents labelled as de‑
linquent object to the label, some bask in their delinquent
identities and thrive on being called troublemakers (Schur
22). Hoffmann maintains: “A characteristic of labeling that
is frequently ignored by researchers is that delinquency is
often attractive to some youths because it is fun and excit‑
ing” (180). Farrell illustrates this point in “Young Convicts,”
where a group of youths steal, skip school, destroy property,
lie, and vandalise because they want to “brag about it” (Far‑
rell “Young Convicts” 177). In this tale, Farrell depicts cen‑
tral themes of crime causation espoused by many labelling
theorists, namely, peer influence, poverty, poor academic
performance, low‑income family functioning (low socio‑
economic status and large families), and prior delinquency
(Loeber and Dishion 87).
The story begins with a detailed account of family life
for Farrell’s six adolescents, all offspring of poor Slavic im‑
migrants residing in a neighbourhood plagued by “antiso‑
cial lifestyles, unemployment, and ample opportunities for
crime” (Loeber and Dishion 90). Their fathers, mothers, and
older siblings work in nearby factories: “At six, seven, eight
o’clock, rain or shine, morning after morning. all became
part of the long line plodding to work.” The boys, on the
other hand, go to school but learn nothing because they often
skip classes to commit petty crimes. The narrator describes
their home life as follows:
Home to each of the kids in the gang was much the
same. A wooden shack, one or two stories high, with an
outside privy that smelled you out every time you want‑
ed to take a leak. Dark bedrooms, old beds, dirty sheets,
two, three, four, and five sleeping together in the same
bed, and on cold nights there was always a fight for the
blankets. A mother and a father who were generally
overtired from work, and from raising a family. And the
mother and father didn’t speak English. And once every
week, two weeks, three weeks, the mother and father
would get drunk. They would curse and fight, throwing
things at one another. until the police came with a paddy
wagon. These kids’ homes were alike. (Farrell “Young
Convicts” 177)
The boys’ chaotic home lives strongly correlate to their
delinquency. Psychologists Rolf Loeber and Thomas Dish‑
ion argue that “family factors—such as family size, quality
of parental supervision, parental drinking habits, employ‑
ment history, and criminality—are more impressive than
any single factor, particularly regarding male delinquency.”
Hence, children from large families characterised by insta‑
bility, inadequate parental supervision, chaos, conflict, and
weak family ties “are at much greater risk of becoming de‑
linquent than children from families without these features”
(Loeber and Dishion 71). It is understandable, therefore, that
Farrell’s juveniles hated their homes.
They also hated school and their teachers. The teachers
complained to one another that they wished to be relocated
to another school with “a better class of pupils than these
incorrigible Polacks” (Farrell “Young Convicts” 177). The
boys would skip classes and head to the railroad yards or the
stockyards, “going over the fences and leaving with anything
ALLS 9(5):143-151
removable that could perhaps be sold” (Farrell “Young Con‑
victs” 177). They revelled in their wrongdoing and could
not wait to grow up and attempt hold‑ups like their older
counterparts. One night, egged on by Tony, their leader, they
robbed a gas station. A few days later, they robbed another.
This activity continued, as they “enjoyed the fruits of their
robbery in candy, cigarettes, and movies” (Farrell “Young
Convicts” 178). Tony, in particular, delighted in their suc‑
cesses: “He saw himself as a young Al Capone” (Farrell
“Young Convicts” 178).
Tony’s attitude confirms the claim of labelling theorists
that labels can be appealing to certain individuals (Hoffmann
180). Tony, who lies and steals, gets “sneaky thrills” because
he is “part of a performance that enhances [his] self-concept
as [a] competent person who can get away with behaviors
that others consciously avoid.” By robbing, conning, and ly‑
ing, he gains superiority over others. He is thus stronger and
more capable than other adolescents because he can get what
he wants (Hoffmann 180). Tony’s confidence then balloons
to a point where he becomes too ambitious for his own good,
ordering his gang of misfits to rob a chain restaurant. When
the boys succeed, Tony tells them to rob the same restaurant
a second time. However, their luck runs out and they are
arrested.
Judge Katherine Henderson in the Juvenile Court is ap‑
pointed to their case. In court, the boys, accompanied by
their poorly dressed parents, await trial along with other fel‑
ons. The judge hurries through each case, releasing some,
placing others on probation, and sending others to the Ju‑
venile Detention Home, all the while telling the immigrant
parents “they were responsible for the delinquent conduct of
their children” (Farrell “Young Convicts” 179). For Judge
Henderson, all these cases are alike; the juvenile problem is
unsolvable.
In “The Labeling of Convicted Felons and Its Conse‑
quences for Recidivism,” criminologist Ted Chiricos and
colleagues argue that “those formally and informally labeled
are significantly more likely to recidivate. than those who are
not” (547). Tony and his gang are perfect examples. They are
formally labelled as delinquents by the criminal justice sys‑
tem and informally labelled “incorrigible Polacks” by their
teachers, thus ultimately identifying themselves as “Young
Convicts.”
A final point regarding “Young Convicts” is that it ex‑
pands on the labelling perspective to include groups. On
this point, criminologist John Braithwaite maintains: “One
of the great contributions of labeling theory. is in showing
how stigmatization fosters subculture formation.” By ostra‑
cising outcasts, stigmatisation encourages a search for others
of a similar fate (Braithwaite 26). Braithwaite’s argument is
supported by fellow criminologist Jon Bernburg, who argues
that deviant groups are a source of social support wherein
deviant labels become accepted, “while at the same time
providing collective rationalizations, attitudes, and opportu‑
nities that encourage and facilitate deviant behavior” (67).
In Farrell’s story, Tony and his gang are clearly outsiders;
consequently, “they band together and create deviant sub‑
cultures that provide social support for deviant behavior”
(Braithwaite 21).
Applying Labelling Theory to Selected Short Stories by James T. Farrell
Farrell’s concern with the social psychology of the devi‑
ating individual continues in “The Scarecrow” (1930), the
last story selected for discussion here. This tale about a pro‑
miscuous fourteen‑year‑old girl who becomes the target of
name‑calling due to her sexual deviancy stands out because
it shows the author yet again expanding on the labelling pro‑
cess, this time to include females. Criminologist Ted Chir‑
icos and colleagues maintain that labelling theorists have
substantially overlooked the relevance of sex for labelling
outcomes. Seldom do critics mention “how labeling effects
for women would be different from those for men” (Chiricos
et al. 550). Sociologists Dawn Bartusch and Ross Matsueda
support this view, arguing that “females may be more sen‑
sitive to the perceived costs of labeling, such as informal
sanctions, stigmatization, and shaming by significant others”
(150). Bartusch and Matsueda add that when parents become
unaffectionate toward a female, delinquency increases, es‑
pecially as “sexual intercourse” (161). “The Scarecrow” im‑
pressively illustrates these points through the consequences
of informal labelling on a female.
Farrell’s teenager, referred to only as the Scarecrow, re‑
sides with her single mother in a shabby apartment on Chi‑
cago’s East Side. Physically, she is described as “scrawny”
with “thin features and a “bony, angular body.” Morally,
she is a girl who is willing to bed any boy with a hint of
sexual curiosity (Farrell “Scarecrow” 9). Consequently, she
is branded a “disgrace,” “harlot,” “slut,” and “a filthy little
whore” by her pious mother, who complains: “I don’t know
what they can see in you. You’re nothing but a homely, bow‑
legged little beast. But then, I suppose pretty girls don’t have
to make whores out of themselves for every little bum that
comes along the street” (Farrell “Scarecrow” 10).
When the Scarecrow fails to react, her mother’s rage
only intensifies. She beats her daughter with a rubber hose,
spewing: “Go ahead now, cry! Cry, you dirty whore!” (Far‑
rell “Scarecrow” 10). Exhausted, the mother retires to her
bedroom and the Scarecrow to her own room. Once in bed
and half asleep, “She dreamed that she was the beautiful
wife of a handsome millionaire. surrounded by beautiful ser‑
vants, and she stood in all her beautiful majesty, sentencing
her mother to horrible tortures, because she was a mean old
witch and a cruel thing” (Farrell “Scarecrow” 11).
Her dream is soon ended by the sound of the front door
slamming as her mother, who works as a night‑shift tick‑
et‑collector at an Illinois Central Suburban Station, leaves
for work. Alone, the Scarecrow begins to fantasise about
“sleep[ing] all night [with Wayne]” because the evening be‑
fore she had slept with Kenneth, and his feet were too cold.
Accordingly, she invites Wayne over, leads him to her bed‑
room and engages in coitus with him. Once done, the Scare‑
crow combs her stringy hair and paints her face with cheap
cosmetics. She then puts on her ten‑dollar dress and accom‑
panies Wayne to a party. The narrator here says that Wayne
felt very important that night because “even though she was
ugly. she was another notch in his belt, and he could tell the
boys at Tower Tech about it” (Farrell “Scarecrow” 12).
When the two arrive at the party, all the guests chime in to
say, “Hello, Scarecrow!” One guest announces: “I have here
149
with us. the best‑known virgin in all the grammar schools of
Chicago.” Another remarks that “the dirtiest joke he had ever
known of was the Scarecrow” (Farrell “Scarecrow” 13, 15).
The boys then taunt each other about whose turn it was to be
with the Scarecrow. Ostracised and shamed, the Scarecrow
drinks until she is completely intoxicated. She then takes her
dress off to reveal the bruises caused by her mother’s abuse.
However, instead of gaining sympathy, all the guests laugh
at her bony figure, and one comments: “She’s so dumb, she’s
been in the seventh grade for three years now.” The guests
then depart leaving the Scarecrow alone in an overcoat
“shivering in front of the building” (Farrell “Scarecrow” 21).
Farrell’s story is consistent with labelling theory, which
claims that low socioeconomic backgrounds prompt infor‑
mal labelling, and shaming (especially by parents) amplifies
bad behaviour rather than deters it (Matsueda 1578). The
Scarecrow lives in squalid conditions, she is malnourished,
her undergarments are soiled, and her mother works a me‑
nial job—all common indicators of poverty. Additionally,
the more she is shamed, the worse her behaviour becomes,
a point her mother notes when she says: “I tried with all my
power to make a good girl out of you, but it’s no use” (Far‑
rell “Scarecrow” 10). Hoffmann notes, “Some adolescents
consciously take on the role that they perceive from others.
When the role includes such traits as “bad,” or “troublemak‑
er,” some youths live up to this role and engage in delinquent
behavior” (173). This assertion is particularly true of females
since “labelling effects are stronger for women” (Chiricos
et al. 547).
Criminologists Melvin Ray and William Downs further
explain that females are more likely to be affected negatively
by labels than their male counterparts are because “females
are expected to be more attentive to interpersonal relation‑
ships than men. [Consequently] labels may exert more of an
influence on behavior for females than males” (171). Also,
“stigmatized females may internalize their perception of
their devaluated status, resulting in low self‑
self worth” (Bern‑
burg 194). In the case that Farrell presents, the Scarecrow
lives up to the role of sexual deviant and acts out the given
label. Her low self
self‑worth manifests itself in her willingness
to bed any boy who pretends to want her company. Although
on the surface she appears unaffected by the name‑calling,
deep down she is very much troubled by it, evidenced when
she dreams of marrying a prince and “sentencing her mother
to horrible tortures” (Farrell “Scarecrow” 11). Another ex‑
ample of her internalised pain is when she becomes intox‑
icated at the party and begins to sob uncontrollably at her
victimisation.
“The Scarecrow” is noteworthy because it shows the con‑
sequences of informal labelling on adolescents. Whereas ear‑
ly labelling theorists advocated only official/formal labels,
believing them to be more effective in altering adolescent
identity, contemporary labelling theorists insist that informal
labels are far more damaging (Hoffmann 167). Hoffmann
argues that “whether an adolescent sees himself as a good
or a bad kid is affected more by the way he is treated by his
parents and peers than whether he is picked up by the police”
(172). Sociologist David Brownfield and criminologist Kev‑
150
in Thompson similarly believe that judgments by parents,
peers, and teachers of a juvenile’s behaviour can severely
influence delinquent behaviour and/or a delinquent self-con‑
cept (23), and Bernburg announces: “Informal labeling is
at the heart of labeling theory” (190). Farrell’s 1930 story,
therefore, is remarkably startling in its contemporaneity.
CONCLUSION
For years, Farrell’s short stories have been overlooked in the
traditional disciplinary construction of research. However,
this study proved that by employing an interdisciplinary ap‑
proach to the selected works, a better appreciation can be
obtained. This is primarily because literature and sociology
go hand in hand in Farrell’s writing. Unlike the sociologist
who analyses the issues of teenagers in American society,
Farrell shows them suffering these problems in their day‑to‑
day lives. Novelist Gerald Green confirms this point about
Farrell when he states: “Nothing in modern sociology. can
ever tell us anything new or enriching about [the working
class], once we have read James T. Farrell. A giant.” Also,
Canadian novelist Morley Callaghan argues, “people will
want to know what life was really like in Farrell’s time. and
then they will read him” (qtd. in Landers ix, x). The only
thing real to Farrell was his Chicago, and it was only through
having Chicago’s South Side as a backdrop that anything
else ever became important. Throughout his fifty years of
writing, he remained faithful to his own notion of literature
as truth and of life as art. Based on the short stories discussed
in this study, this notion has been manifest.
The four selected works, all set in the Chicago of the ear‑
ly 1900s, feature sensitive adolescents waking to the power
of words. An overweight Jewish boy is stereotyped as ef ef‑
feminate, greedy, and cunning; a Polish immigrant’s son is
branded as dim-witted and filthy; a gang of young juveniles
is labelled delinquent by the criminal justice system and as
troublemakers by their teachers; a promiscuous teenager is
branded a sexual deviant by her own mother. Farrell’s la‑
belled juveniles are all seen as irredeemable wrongdoers. All
come from impoverished backgrounds, clearly demonstrat‑
ing the strong correlation between poverty and delinquency.
Finally, in all four cases, informal labelling seems to have
been far more consequential in altering identities than formal
labelling. The stories offer compelling descriptions of the
effects of social stigma on adolescents. More importantly,
they support the sociological concept of labelling as defined
by the experts. Farrell was very critical of the idealisation
of character in fiction, believing that characters should be
presented realistically. Consequently, he wrote many stories
featuring an adolescent’s “realistic perspective on himself,
his family, and his neighborhood” (Fanning “Introduction”
xxvi). It is no wonder that Branch calls Farrell “an expert on
adolescent behavior” (10).
What distinguishes Farrell from other writers of his gen‑
eration is his truthful presentation of the human condition, a
point that Norman Mailer also acknowledged years ago by
declaring: “[Farrell] was the first author I encountered who
wrote about real people living simple lives, full of drudgery
and despair” (qtd. in Fyne 89). Farrell told the truth as he
ALLS 9(5):143-151
saw it, and even though many did not approve of his realistic
style, he nonetheless continued to write on his own terms.
Wald quotes the author as saying on this same point: “I be‑
gan writing in my own way and I shall go on doing it. This
is my first and last word on the subject” (qtd. in Wald 261).
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