English Concept Research Articles

An Exploratory Study of EFL Teachers’ Assessment Conceptions at a Saudi University

Each teacher evaluates students’ learning outcomes in their own way, depending on their own ideas and beliefs about teaching, learning, and assessing. It impacts on how pupils work. As a result, concentrating on instructors’ perspectives in general appears to be vital, and exposing EFL teachers’ evaluation concepts is crucial and requires considerable investigation. The current study examines teachers’ assessment conceptions of English as a foreign language (EFL) at a Saudi University. Specifically, it investigates EFL university teachers’ assessment conceptions using Brown’s (2006) Teachers’ Conceptions of Assessment Abridged Inventory, four-factor assessment inventory conceptions that include variables like student accountability, school accountability, progress, and irrelevance. The survey employed a Likert scale with response options ranging from one (strongly disagree) to five (strongly agree). The researcher gathered the study’s data using Google Forms and administered an online questionnaire to fifteen EFL English teachers in English Language Center at a Saudi University called Afaq University (pseudonym), Saudi Arabia. The obtained quantitative data were analyzed manually by descriptive statistics. The findings demonstrated that of all participants, the enhancement principle had the primary value, whereas the conceptions of irrelevance, on the other hand, were discovered to have the lowest level of agreement. The study presented some pedagogical implications and then concluded with the need for further triangulated exploration of the phenomenon.

Carrying the War against COVID-19 into Ghanaian Communities: The Case of the Akan Community

Ghana is seriously reeling under the weight of the scourge of the COVID-19; while the scientists are doing their best to provide information concerning the dos and don’ts of the disease, its communication to the people has been a huge problem. This paper uses the qualitative research approach and the Performance and Communication theories to investigate this challenge. The study isolates the Akan communities for this investigation and argues that the Ghana COVID-19 communication uses too many elitist approaches and the local language is rarely used. Again, the paper establishes that the communication falls short of considering the Akans as oral thinkers and completely ignores their ideological identities as a group of people who rely on oral structures in language and morality. The paper further observes that the COVID-19 communication in Ghana fails to recognize the subtle creative processes of translating concepts in English into Akan due to the influence of the contexts of contact. These challenges have resulted in minimum or complete lack of cooperation by Akan communities thus throwing the whole COVID-19 campaign into jeopardy. The paper recommends that the COVID-19 communication should reconfigure its approach to reach the Akan communities. KEYWORDS: COVID-19, Akan communities, Akan moral thought, communication and cultural shareability, Ghana.

Towards a Global Englishes-aware National English Curriculum of China

Abstract Although researchers and practitioners have discussed the concept of Global Englishes (GE), the degree of GE’s influence in the practical use of English is much wider and deeper in the real world than in the field of education. Mainstream ELT practices tend to adhere to native and fixed norms, which are regarded as the central problems in ELT from the perspective of the GE paradigm. Although a GE-oriented pedagogy has been discussed, studies on curriculum in the Chinese ELT context from the GE perspective are relatively rare. This paper aims to investigate the extent to which the National English Curriculum (NEC) in China reflects GE-oriented phonology and cultural learning. The study adopted a content analysis in which the NEC statements on phonology and cultural aspects were identified and discussed. After reporting the findings, the paper further discusses some pedagogic implications about curriculum and language teaching from the GE perspective.

LEXICAL MEANS OF VERBALIZATION OF THE ENGLISH CONCEPT HAIR

The article is devoted to the consideration of the features of the verbalization of the concept HAIR in the English language. The purpose of the work is to examine the structure of the English concept HAIR as a fragment of the English-language picture of the world of the English-speaking society. The main attention is focused on the analysis of the language embodiment of the given concept in the naïve and professional varients of the picture of the world. The English concept HAIR is a fragment of the conceptual picture of the world, which is reflected in the language picture of the world, namely in its three fragments, verbalized by the constituents of the lexical-semantic groups, distinguished according to the somatic feature. They are head hair, facial hair, body hair. The analysis of the language and speech material showed that the structure of the English concept HAIR in the naive picture of the world is a three-component formation, which consists of a core, a nuclear zone and a periphery. The core includes such conceptual features as somatic and gender. The nuclear zone includes objective and various associative conceptual features, namely: age, thinness, protection, beauty, strength / success, value. The periphery of the concept consists of socially-identifying functions - professional, religious and social-group. The core of the concept HAIR in the professional picture of the world includes such conceptual features as somatic, gender, structure and development. The nuclear zone includes objective conceptual features, namely: health, age, protection. The periphery of the concept consists of professional, religious, and social-group social-identifying functions. Thus the periphery of the given concept in the two variants of the picture of the world is identical. The prospects for further research are seen in the consideration of the mentioned aspects of verbalization on the material of English artistic speech as well as professional discourse.

Structure of Author’s Concept «Witch» (a Case Study of J. K. Rowling’s Novel «Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire»)

This article describes the core structure of one of the most important concepts in the series of novels by J. K. Rowling «Harry Potter», the concept «witch» and its corresponding concept in the Russian language, the concept «ведьма». Both of these concepts are extremely important for the majority of fantasy pieces of literature, they contribute to the authentic worldview. The model of the author’s concept «witch» is conveyed with the help of the analyses of verbalization of the concept in the original text. The invariant features of the concept are identified by comparing the models of traditional and author’s concepts, as well as the unique markers of the author’s concept. The most common transformations and techniques used by translators are highlighted through the comparative analyses of two variants of translation of the same novel. This also shows the ways that were used to verbalize the English concepts in Russian translation.

АNALYSIS OF COMPARATIVE FEMINIST RESEARCH

This article reveals the features of the emergence of literature on feminism in the context of world literature, examines the problems posed by researches in this area and takes into account the scientific discussions of gender scientists. In addition, in the study of feminist literature various approaches, principles and concepts of Russian, English, and French and Uzbek scientists are being studied. The study cites the works of scientists who have identified the place of a number of phenomena in gender literature, such as "gender", "reception", "classical works", "conformity", and "receptive aesthetics". The study examines methods for analyzing materials of gender discourse in feminist literature, comments on the research directions of gender scientists and examines in detail various aspects of gender in the works.

Swedish Youths as Listeners of Global Englishes Speakers With Diverse Accents: Listener Intelligibility, Listener Comprehensibility, Accentedness Perception, and Accentedness Acceptance

As reflected in the concept of Global Englishes, English mediates global communication, where English speakers represent not merely those from English-speaking countries like United Kingdom or United States but also global people from a wide range of linguistic backgrounds, who speak the language with diverse accents. Thus, to communicate internationally, cultivating a maximized listening proficiency for and positive attitudes toward global Englishes speakers with diverse accents is ever more important. However, with their preference for American English and its popular culture, it is uncertain whether Swedish youth learners are developing these key linguistic qualities to be prepared for the globalized use of English. To address this, we randomly assigned 160 upper secondary students (mean age = 17.25) into six groups, where each group listened to one of six English speakers. The six speakers first languages were Mandarin, Russian/Ukrainian, Tamil, Lusoga/Luganda, American English, and British English. Through comparing the six student groups, we examined their listener intelligibility (actual understanding), listener comprehensibility (feeling of ease or difficulty), accentedness perception (perceiving an accent as native or foreign), and accentedness acceptance (showing a positive or negative attitude toward an accent) of diverse English accents. The results showed that the intelligibility scores and perception/attitude ratings of participants favored the two speakers with privileged accents–the American and British speakers. However, across all six groups, no correlation was detected between their actual understanding of the speakers and their perception/attitude ratings, which often had a strong correlation with their feelings of ease/difficulty regarding the speakers accents. Taken together, our results suggest that the current English education needs innovation to be more aligned with the national syllabus that promotes a global perspective. That is, students need to be guided to improve their actual understanding and sense of familiarity with Global English speakers besides the native accents that they prefer. Moreover, innovative pedagogical work should be undertaken to change Swedish youths’ perceptions and attitudes and prepare them to become open-minded toward diverse English speakers.

Drawing the s(elf): exploring individual repertories through autobiographical illustrations within the English as a Lingua Franca perspective

Current research on English teaching has increasingly turned to the notion of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). However, when we look at the reality of the classroom, teachers still feel insecure about how to employ this concept and the discussions throughout their practice and the research ends up, largely, in the academic scope. Therefore, in this study we explore discussions and reflections of students about their experiences with English learning through an activity involving autobiographical illustrations. To this end, throughout the text we approach the elements that constitute ELF – to the detriment of the concept of English as a Foreign Language; we present studies that approach ELF within the classroom; we describe our methodology, the activity we propose with students, and discuss the results based on the issues raised. From this, we argue that activities like the one proposed here can be used by teachers to understand the individual repertoires of their students and, with that, to raise possible ways to work in the classroom having the ELF paradigm as its basis. We finish, then, with some possibilities of approaches focusing the development of an ELF informed classroom practice.

Засоби вербалізації концепту «ХВОРОБА» в англійській мові

In recent decades, the greatest attention in research on cognitive linguistics is paid to the concept and study of the means of its verbalization in different languages. Linguists believe that "among the universal concepts can be attributed the “ DISEASE" concept, which reflects the universal and national-specific (social, ethical, moral) ideas about the phenomenon of disease". The article considers the problem of conceptualization of the "DISEASE" concept in English and the means of its verbalization. The author considers the specifics of lexical units that represent this concept by means of the English language. The relevance of the study lies in the need to specify the data on the verbalization of the "DISEASE" concept by the English language means, as consideration of the specifics of verbalization of this concept has not been given sufficient attention. The purpose of the article is to analyze the peculiarities of verbalization of the “ DISEASE" concept in the English-language picture of the world. Materials and methods of research . The use of descriptive and comparative methods, etymological and contextual analysis contributed to the selection of semantic and cognitive features of the concept of "DISEASE", substantiation of the peculiarities of its verbalization. The material for the study were dictionary articles from dictionaries, texts of medical discourse, the work of foreign researchers on this issue. R esults of the research. The author identifies the three most common units in the lexical-semantic series of the concept of disease: "disease", "illness", "sickness". A comparative analysis of these tokens within the lexical-semantic field "disease" in English showed that they have a common semantic feature - "health problems, physiological or mental problems." Considering the concept of "DISEASE" on a naive level, we can say that a naive native speaker (not a specialist in medicine) uses language units to express and describe their health, and in his lexicon the terms "illness", "sickness" prevail. In scientific texts and specialized dictionaries, which are focused on medical professionals, the dominant number of diseases is expressed by the unit "disease". Сonclusions. Thus, despite the fact that all three considered tokens "disease", "illness" and "sickness" have a clear semantic similarity to the concept of "disease" in the context of the cognitive feature of "state of illness, physiological or mental distress", their peculiarity in the English medical discourse is obvious and is determined by the nominative smallness in the linguistic picture of the world. Summarizing all the above, the lexical-semantic field of the "disease" concept in English medical discourse can be considered as follows: the token "sickness" is a social construct of disease that passes through the medical system (token "disease") and shows the suffering of the patient illness”), which is associated with social norms and cultural values.

Ahmed Indigenization of English Language in Ahmed Ali’s Twilight in Delhi

The study employed the theoretical approach of indigenization by Kachru in Ahmed Ali’s Twilight in Delhi. Indigenization is one of the fundamental components of decolonization adopted by post-colonial linguists to familiarize a local language in a race against the dominant language of colonizers (Kilickaya, 2009). Through this tool of indigenization, post-colonial writers and more specifically, Ahmed Ali represented the native culture, flora, and fauna of the sub-continent in the selected work to bring about a reconciliatory approach between the languages of the colonizer (English) with the language of inhabitants of the sub-content (Urdu). Therefore, the novelist indigenized the English language by weaving and embedding indigenous figures of speech, local terminologies, idioms, proverbs, and translation of compacted concepts of English and Urdu languages into each other in an endeavor to combat with the western thought. Hence, the article delves into the novel to unfold the multicultural reconciliatory approach that is possible only at the time when the voices of the indigenous language and culture are accommodated by the dominant language and culture of the colonizers. Arguably, the portrayal of reconciliation of the two languages and cultures in the sub-continent during the rule of the British in the novel may introduce a more pluralistic approach to survive in the modern world of globalization. The findings may help reach a better understanding between an indigenous language and an international language in the same culture in which local culture and language get equal manifestation.

PENINGKATAN PEMAHAMAN DAN IMPLEMENTASI BAHASA NASIONAL DAN INTERNASIONAL BAKU BAGI GURU PAUD DAN SD DI KECAMATAN GETASAN KABUPATEN SEMARANG

The Childhood Education (PAUD) and Elementary School (SD) teachers should have adequate skills and knowledge in teaching, instilling, and being an example or role model for their students. Therefore, it was necessary to increase professionalism in terms of the use of national languages as well as international languages which are needed today, so that Indonesian students can use standard Indonesian properly and correctly.Based on the conditions encountered, the community service team at the Teaching and Education Faculty (FKIP), Satya Wacana Christian University (SWCU) Salatiga carried out community service activities with the aim of opening paradigms and training early-level early childhood and elementary school teachers to have a complete understanding of the concept of standard national and international languages and have the opportunity to improve language competence, especially English. This activity was carried out in the form of training, debriefing, and teaching simulations by four FKIP, UKSW lecturers who have Indonesian, English and educational management backgrounds.The results of the implementation of this activity could be seen at the beginning of understanding of classroom language and obtaining references to the use of standard language in the classroom to be used as capital to apply the Indonesian and English concepts.

Ethnic and age concepts in Russian, English and Uzbek materials

Abstract: The effectiveness of intercultural communication directly depends on the knowledge of the peculiarities of the cultural pictures of the world of the communicants. This work examines such components of the pictures of the world as ethnic and age concepts. Especially, in materials such as proverbs, literal works are considered and differentiated the concepts of age and ethnicity. This article highlights the age and ethnic differences that reflect the entire way of life of the Uzbek-Russian peoples. In particular, the diversity of views of the Uzbek, Russian and British peoples on age, as well as the diversity of colors in ethnic views is clearly reflected. The cultural attitude towards of Uzbek Russian and English ethnicity may differ in several meanings, this the widest topic to search and analyze differences, but in the article the main part of variety is given.

‘Holy Russia’: The story of the concept’s development in English literature (1870–1910)

The concept of ‘Holy Rus’ [‘Svyataya Rus’] starts to play a pivotal role in the processes of national self-identification that occupy Russian intellectuals in the first half of the 19th c. It gains a special kind of multidimensionality in the literature of the day, with the motif of personal responsibility for proximity to God and adherence to the ideal of holiness coming to the foreground. The core of the English concept of ‘Holy Russia,’ in use by the British since the 1870s, finds itself in stark opposition to contemporary meaning of the ‘Holy Rus’ concept. Its original meaning was largely defined by the specifics of Anglo-Russian political relations. At the same time, its core is consistent with peripheral meanings of the contemporary Russian concept: the image of an aggressive militaristic empire it creates and promotes shows clear parallels with public speeches of A. Herzen and M. Bakunin. By the end of the 19th c., the concept of ‘Holy Russia’ develops a new semantic layer that incorporates elements corresponding to both liberal and conservative meanings of the original concept in its contemporary form.

EFL student-teachers’ imaginations of English language and their motivation for learning and teaching

ABSTRACT The present study investigated three Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) student-teachers’ imaginations of English language and explored how these imaginations may affect their motivation for learning English currently and teaching it in the future. The findings revealed that the participants valued English due to the economic, cultural, symbolic, and social capital that this language could bring for them in the future and that their imaginations played important roles in their motivation for learning and teaching English. The study concludes with implications for teacher educators to consider the EFL student-teachers’ imaginations and conceptions of English to make them more motivated to learn English and be effective English teachers in the future.

The sovereignty of positivism

ABSTRACT Jeffrey Goldsworthy recently claimed that parliamentary sovereignty itself expresses or endorses legal positivism. This claim inverts the relationship between law and legal theory, according to which legal theories are used to explain doctrinal, functional, institutional, or constitutional aspects of the law. Beyond claiming that positivism as a legal theory can helpfully explain sovereignty as a legal principle, Goldsworthy now argues that the legal doctrine of sovereignty is itself an articulation of positivism as a legal theory. This assertion, if correct, has significant implications for current understandings of the English constitution, constitutional theory, and legal theory. This essay argues that Goldsworthy’s conception of legal positivism cannot accurately describe the English conception of parliamentary sovereignty identified by the English rule of recognition.

Japanese English as an Expanding Circle variety: Viewpoints and approaches

ABSTRACT With the increasing presence of users of English outside the Inner and Outer Circles, most notably those from China and the European Union, there is now a growing interest in varieties of English in the Expanding Circle. In the teaching of English in Japan, the concept of Japanese English, as an Expanding Circle variety, has long been controversial. Should a certain Japanese English be promoted as a means of international communication for the Japanese? Can it be a model for Japanese learners of English? This article examines various viewpoints and approaches toward Japanese English, especially with regard to its potential for the freedom of expression in the globalized world. It is hoped that this discussion will have significant implications also for other Expanding Circle users of English, who need to represent their own values in global communication today.

Hedges in English and Arabic: A Contrastive Study

Hedging is a concept in academic writing which simply signifies the idea of being cautious in one’s words. It is achieved through the use of various linguistic expressions to show uncertainty and indirectness in style. The concept of hedging is remarkably wide and interwoven. Its boundaries run over many fields of language. That is why the devices of hedging are discussed from many angles and viewpoints in linguistics. In English, the concept and its expressions are well known. The study in hand makes a thorough survey of them. Being a popular concept in English, the researcher thought of looking for it and its linguistic tools in Arabic which is a deeply expressive language. After a detailed exploration in Standard Arabic books of grammar and linguistics, peculiarly, it has been found that the concept of hedging is not apparently mentioned and its tools are not distinguishably categorized as hedges , as in English. However, Arabic too has its own devices of expressing hedging but without being classified as hedges. The study in hand scans these hedges in Arabic as counterparts of their peers in English.

English as a Lingua Franca from an applied linguistics perspective: In the context of Japan

For the past two decades, the concept of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) has been a topic of much debate among researchers in the global use of English, including those involved in English language teaching (ELT). While in many respects ELF may be viewed just as a new name for its predecessors, such as World Englishes (WE) and English as an International Language (EIL), in other ways it also provides some fresh perspectives for the function of global Englishes. In particular, having grown chiefly out of Europe, where English has traditionally been studied as a foreign language rather than a second language, the ELF paradigm is often suited for the needs of learners of English in the Expanding Circle. With Japan as a primary example, the present paper discusses the significance of the concept of ELF and of the studies within its framework for ELT in the Expanding Circle. An important argument of this article is that studies in the early days of ELF, seeking for elements to facilitate international intelligibility, are still highly useful for ELT in the Expanding Circle. They cater especially to ELT in the Asian Expanding Circle, where pedagogical models are of crucial importance, no less than current ELF studies focusing on the fluid and translingual nature of ELF do. This paper points to the need for ELT teachers to be eclectic and integrative, learning from multiple paradigms, including ELF, WE, and EIL, while even going beyond the newness and oldness of pedagogical approaches, in order to best serve their students.

English in the socioeconomic advancement of Cambodian hotel workers

AbstractThis paper addresses the concept of developmental world Englishes by exploring the role of English in providing socioeconomic elevation for non‐elite communities in Cambodia. Contemporary Cambodia has seen the rise of English as the language of choice for international communication, resulting in English being viewed as a pathway for various opportunities and socioeconomic advancement. English language research has tended to focus on elite communities and contexts, and little is known outside of these domains. The present study discusses these issues from the perspectives of Cambodian hotel workers. The implications for what needs to be done in terms of English language education for non‐elite communities in Cambodia and other similar contexts are also discussed.

PERIPHERY OF THE ENGLISH CONCEPT HAIR

The article is devoted to the consideration of the features of the verbalization of the English concept HAIR. The purpose of the work is to examine the structure of the English concept HAIR as a fragment of the English-language picture of the world of the English-speaking society. The main attention is focused on the analysis of the periphery of the given concept in the naive and professional varients of the picture of the world. The English concept HAIR is a fragment of the conceptual picture of the world, which is reflected in the language picture of the world, namely in its three fragments, verbalized by the constituents of the lexical-semantic groups, distinguished according to the somatic feature. They are head hair, facial hair, body hair. The analysis of the language and speech material showed that the structure of the English concept HAIR in the naive picture of the world is a threecomponent formation, which consists of a core, a nuclear zone and a periphery. The core includes such conceptual features as somatic and gender. The nuclear zone includes objective and various associative conceptual features, namely: age, thinness, protection, beauty, strength / success, value. The periphery of the concept consists of socially-identifying functions - professional, religious and social-group. The core of the concept HAIR in the professional picture of the world includes such conceptual features as somatic, gender, structure and development. The nuclear zone includes objective conceptual features, namely: health, age, protection. The periphery of the concept consists of professional, religious, and social-group social-identifying functions. Thus the periphery of the given concept in the two variants of the picture of the world is identical. The prospects for further research are seen in the consideration of the mentioned aspects of verbalization on the material of English artistic speech as well as professional discourse.