English Website Research Articles

(Re)framing online news through paratexts: a multisemiotic analysis of The New York Times in Chinese

ABSTRACT This study employs a multisemiotic approach to analyse various paratextual framing devices in online news texts, including news headlines, photographs and captions, as well as section names. Translated news articles about the 2014 Hong Kong protests were collected from the Chinese-language website of The New York Times (NYT) published between 28 September and 16 December 2014 and their original versions from its English website. The study finds that the Chinese edition mainly frames the events covered in the articles through paratextual rather than textual elements and, through those paratextual elements, a slightly different social reality to their English version for the events was (re)framed. This study underscores the influential role of paratextual devices in news translation, demonstrating how they can subtly shift the framing of events and potentially influence public perception.

Evaluating the BBC’s L2 approach to teaching English consonants online: A digitally oriented pedagogic phonetic analysis

The vast majority of online L2 teaching platforms have always remained preoccupied with digitalising demonstrable pedagogic practices that facilitate the learners’ comprehension of linguistic input on the digital screen. This is particularly observable in the field of L2 phonetics where instructors’ performance (vocalic, facial, and bodily) typically reflects such pedagogic practices based on their theoretical knowledge of the field. However, it is not always the case that instructors’ pedagogic-phonetic performance can demonstrate or stage this form of phonetics knowledge, even with the ubiquitous presence of Internet ‘digital gadgets’ that are technologically enabled by L2 teaching platforms online. As a corollary to this problem, the present study continues and develops previous research conducted by the author on a pedagogic-phonetic critique of the BBC’s Internet-based L2 teaching of English vowels. A synthetic methodology of Bernstein’s model of Pedagogic Recontextualising Field (PRF) and Moinuddin’s theoretical notion of ‘digital gadgets’ is utilised as DPRF to demonstrate how the BBC’s online L2 teaching of English consonantal pronunciations, though digitally transforming text-theoretic phonetics descriptions, has partially failed to employ crucial aspects of pronunciation pertaining specifically to voicing and manner of articulation. The research data comprises 22 video-based screenshots drawn from the BBC Learning English website with materials archived for public use. Informed by the above synthetic methodology of DPRF, the present study concluded that the BBC’s online teaching of English consonants has set up what can be described as a partial digital PRF; this has been ascribed to the proven hypothesis that the BBC-based website proffers a restricted space for digitally recontextualising ‘visible’ practices associated with consonantal pronunciation to the exclusion of phonetically productive aspects of L2 teaching segmental units of English consonants. As such, these aspects are recommended to be incorporated into the phonetic-pedagogic practices afforded by the BBC’s digital PRF (DPRF).

The Kinetic-Vectorial Design of Internet-Mediated L2 Teaching Practices: The Case of BBC Learning English Website

This study offers new insights into the educational-linguistic visual semiotics of online teaching as a digital practice with kinetic-vectorial design. Towards this end, a twofold social semiotic approach is utilized as a synthetic methodology. First, Van Leeuwen’s (2016) kinetic design model is employed with a view to revealing the movement types of Internet-mediated L2 teaching practices. Second, Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2021) model of ideational vector analysis is used in a way that uncovers the subtle pedagogical practices of the same type of teaching as directional and transactional acts addressed to educational-website networked L2 learners worldwide. The data sets targeted for analysis comprise screenshot-styled images from the BBC Learning English Website available for public purposes of L2 teaching. A total number of functionally related five images have been selected with an eye to the BBC’s pedagogic content online on the techno-semiotic levels of design kinetics and vectoriality. The current study has reached three findings (with emerging relevant implications). First, the synthetic kinetic-vectorial method of analysis has proved to be empirically effective in investigating the visual semiotics of design mediated by educational websites such as the BBC Website. Second, there emerged kinetically motivated ‘pedagogic’ and ‘digital’ vectors, respectively controlled by the BBC instructors and the design features of the website itself. Third, and last, the kinetic-vectorial analysis of the BBC Website revealed a sort of spatiotemporal compression of pedagogic content; further, the visual aspects of spatial and temporal movements (mobility and movability) appeared to have occurred across different semiotic modes, verbal and visual.

地方文化对外交流话语体系构建分析——以北京市政府网站英文版为例

地方文化对外交流话语体系构建分析——以北京市政府网站英文版为例

Rhetorical Construction of COVID-19 News in Chinese Context—A Corpus-Based Study

As a language practice, news discourse is rhetorical that responds to a given circumstance and conveys values and ideas to the target audience with specific goals. This study examined how the English official website in China represented COVID-19 news to affect the public under the rhetorical framework. Using Sketch Engine as the tool for data analysis on a self-built corpus, this study carried out a quantitative analysis of the linguistic features of the COVID-19 news on In Zhejiang, the official English website of China’s Zhejiang Province. Then, based on the data obtained from corpus analysis, this study applied both modern and classical rhetorical theories to conduct a qualitative analysis of the rhetorical mechanism, including rhetorical invention, rhetorical strategies, and style, of the COVID news on the website of In Zhejiang. The results showed that the COVID-19 news was a positive response to the COVID situation in Zhejiang province and China with the purposes of mobilizing the citizens and establishing favorable images of the government and the Zhejiang people. Meanwhile, the news was constructed within its cultural context and Chinese journalism conventions, making it more adapted to the home audience and limiting its appeal to a global audience and effectiveness for worldwide communication. By demonstrating that news discourse is a rhetorical construction, this study provides valuable insights for the news media, particularly Chinese official media, on how to approach the audience rhetorically to improve the persuasiveness of their news reports, as well as a new theoretical framework for the research of public health crises.

INDONESIAN TRANSLATION ANALYSIS OF DESCRIPTIVE ADJECTIVES IN APPLE PRODUCTS’ SLOGANS

Apple, a technological company based in California, has one official Indonesian website. This website contains Indonesian product slogans translated from the English website. Since it conveys a product quality, a descriptive adjective is a language component frequently used in an Apple product slogan. This study aims to describe the Indonesian translation of descriptive adjectives in Apple products’ slogans. The result is two (2) translations referring to the literal translation strategy, one (1) referring to the free translation strategy, and one (1) referring to the creative translation strategy. As a brand component, a slogan and its translation are important in the development of a brand identity.

A Speech Acts Analysis of English COVID-19 News Headlines

News headlines are key elements in spreading news. They are unique texts written in a special language which enables readers understand the overall nature and importance of the topic. However, this special language causes difficulty for readers in understanding the headline. To illuminate this difficulty, it is argued that a pragmatic analysis from a speech act theory perspective is a plausible tool for a headline analysis. The main objective of the study is to pragmatically analyze the most frequently employed types of speech acts in the news headlines covering COVID-19 in Aljazeera English website. To this end, Bach and Harnish's (1979) Taxonomy of Speech Acts has been adopted to analyze the data. Thirty headlines have been collected from Aljazeera English news website. The findings have shown that constatives and directives occur more frequently than commissives. Other types, like acknowledgments, effectives and verdictives are not employed. The study has concluded that to pay a special emphasis on COVID-19 as an issue that preoccupied and endangered the world, headline writers of Aljazeera website uses specific speech acts, constatives and directives, more frequently than others. This makes it clear that using specific speech acts in writing headlines is an effective way for inspiring readers to easily understand the intended message.

INNV-26. NCI-CONNECT PROGRAM PROVIDES RESOURCES TO IMPROVE CARE FOR PEOPLE WITH RARE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM (CNS) TUMORS

Abstract The National Cancer Institute Comprehensive Oncology Network Evaluating Rare CNS Tumors (NCI-CONNECT) program focuses on improving approaches to care and treatment for 12 rare CNS tumors, each with < 2,000 diagnoses per year. To reach this rare population, the primary objective was to develop a website to share educational resources that provide patients direct access to clinical care and trials. METHODS: The NCI-CONNECT website uses the Drupal platform within NCI’s framework and the content is free to syndicate. A multidisciplinary team developed tumor-specific content in English and Spanish, clinical trial information, and survivorship resources using evidence-based sources. The Central Brain Tumor Registry of the United States provided statistics on incidence and prevalence of rare tumors. Population reach was calculated using Adobe Experience Cloud website analytics. NCI-CONNECT referrals and study participation data were collected prospectively. RESULTS: The English website launched in September 2018 and visits have increased 2,384%. The Spanish website launched in March 2020 and visits have increased 1,137%. From April 2020 to March 2021, top website page views by English page views / Spanish page views / people living with this disease include oligodendroglioma (43,859 / 8,241 / 11,757), ependymoma (31,579 / 12,684 / 13,294), meningioma (30,261 / 19,507 / 2,692), medulloblastoma (28,487 / 9,999 / 3,840), diffuse midline gliomas (23,064 / 3,851 / 6,033), and pineal region tumors (19,939 / 9,973 / 1,297). Referral rates and participation have accelerated – 45% of patients visiting the Neuro-Oncology Clinic at NIH have a rare CNS tumor and 409 patients enrolled in an NCI-CONNECT study. CONCLUSION: Patient-focused websites can provide guidance to those affected by rare cancers outside of in-person health care visits. The NCI-CONNECT website is an educational and clinical resource for patients and families affected by rare CNS tumors and was created to raise awareness and improve patient outcomes.

Online Teaching and Practical Implications of Teacher Professional Development

The teaching English website of the British Council identified six different levels of Teacher from “starters” to “experts” suggested that each requires a different kind of professional development. And “professional development” the key to meet today’s educational demands. As we know language is a social and cultural activity, Teachers must remain abreast of the exciting and promising development in the teaching strategies.
 To live to the challenge of globalization which is in the line with the era of information economy. A quality human capital comes from a quality education process. We live in an age of information explosion; teachers need to continuously update ones knowledge and skills. The field of curriculum in general and second language education in particular have witnessed tremendous changes over the years. A quality human capital comes from a quality education process.
 Hargreaves and Fullan (1992, P. IK), “the teacher is the ultimate key to educational change and school improvement”. Teachers do not simply implement the curriculam. They define and refine the curriculam they interpret and transform the curricular in a way that makes learning more manageable for the Learners.
 The need for Teacher Professional Development is one’s evaluation of one’s own classroom performance and getting feedback and keep updating, the slow learners and learning disability. To increase knowledge of the teacher (a) referencing (b) research (c) optimum reading (d) awareness (e) elements. ‘Regarding Pedagogy (a) Inquiry learning (b) creative and
 critical thinking (c) problem solving. Assessment, includes (a) CCA (b) assess of learning (c) assessment for learning (d) Feedback.
 A teacher should learn in the day to day environment. Planning lessons and courses managing the lesson and using inclusive practices. Goal oriented mentors/Teachers continuously develop their expertness to implement innovative way of teaching strategies, in case of online teaching. Pedagogical style, class-room processes, and syllabus are fluctuating meritoriously pertaining to the changing need of learning and teaching community. As implementing various dimensions of teaching English effectively. Teaching English online has become more convenient to improve LSRW.
 In the digital age valued teachers develop positive learning relationship with their students to establish and maintain an effective learning environment can be created through online method of handling English language teaching. Language teachers especially ,teachers handling English can use their own practice for developing their teaching in the ways of online mode. 3.2miIIion English language teachers in the world, aim to increase capability to improve language teaching with confidence and subject knowledge. ELT Teachers can bring in variety and enthusiasm among the students in language learning process and enhance the students English language skills successfully based online method.
 The physical class-room learning process may not be satisfied with the current generations of younger learners. So internet and distance learning which is also known as online method plays a vital role in the world education system and becomes the professional growth of teachers based on their Intellectual, Experimental and Attitudinal aspects.

How international students use library resources and conduct research

This study sought to (1) Determine how international students conduct research. (2) Determine whether international students conduct research in the way they perceive that they do. (3) Determine whether international students are efficient in conducting research. This study collected data from 67 international students who attend the University of Iowa, was collected through a survey and testing instrument. The results showed that international students rely heavily on English language websites such as Google and Wikipedia to conduct research for general information and facts. International students did not often use their library’s ILS (Integrated Library System). International students favored using library databases over English websites when tasked with finding a peer reviewed article. However, when asked to find the best resource possible to answer a research question, international students used an English language website primarily with a library database close behind. International students do not accurately self-identify their own methods of conducting research particularly research within their major. Students further in their education performed better on the test than those in earlier years. However, having a librarian come into class did not improve their test scores.

Evaluasi Kualitas Penggunaan Website Mata Kuliah Bahasa Inggris Berdasarkan ISO/IEC 25010:2011 pada Universitas Universal

This study was about the evaluation of the quality of Edmodo English website at Universal University (UVERS) in Batam City in Riau Islands using ISO/IEC 25010:2011. Edmodo UVERS website is a student website of Universal University that serves as a learning media around lectures. The purpose of the research with the use of ISO/IEC 25010:2011 is to provide recommendations in improving the quality of the Edmodo UVERS website. The methodology used is the observation and dissemination of questionnaires to users of the website both students and lecturers consisting of more than 30 responses. The questionnaire consists of seven points namely usability, information quality, interaction quality, effectiveness and efficiency, satisfaction, risk-free, and covers the whole. The conclusion obtained is that the recommendations given are in the usability factor, satisfaction in reliability factors, effectiveness & efficiency in perfomance efficiency factors, and risk-free on reliability factors

THE MEANING OF THE WORD ‘CRY’ ON CORPUS OF CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN ENGLISH: SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC STUDY

This research title is “The Meaning of The Word ‘Cry’ on Corpus of Contemporary American English: Syntactic and Semantic Study”. The purposes of this research are to analyze the syntactic category and to analyze the meaning of the word ‘cry’ on Corpus of Contemporary American English. The methods used in this research are distributional method to analyze the syntactic category and identity method to analyze the meaning of the word ‘cry’. The steps for the research are collect the data which is the sentence that has the word ‘cry’ on Corpus of Contemporary American English, then analyze the syntactic category and the meaning of the word ‘cry’. The data source is the sentence that has the word ‘cry’ on the Corpus of Contemporary American English website. The theoretical basis used in identifying syntactic categories are O'Grady's (1993) theory and Chaer's (1994) theory to identify the types of meanings The results showed that out of 32 data that have been analyzed, the lexical category was obtained, namely 25 verb data (78.12%) and 7 noun data (21.87%). Meanwhile, the types of meanings found are 11 data of lexical meaning and grammatical meaning (34.37%), 10 data of contextual meaning (31.25%), 8 data of lexical meaning (25%), 2 data of contextual meaning and grammatical meaning (6.25%), and 1 data of connotative meaning (3.12%).

The Learning English Website As The Alternative Media To Enhance The Economics Students’ Competence In Learning English

<p>Teaching English in Economics students has own uniqueness than others. Since it is not their main competence, most of the students are still seeing English as the “frightening” and boring subject. In other side, they need mastering English in their future job considering that today most jobs in the world need english mastery as their qualification and to support the business running well. So, it challenges the english teacher to empower many media and techniques to attract their interest in learning english. Therefore, the writer decided to discuss how empowering of the English learning website (bbc.co.uk/learningenglish) could enhance the students’ competence in learning English. The design used was classroom action research and the respondents were the first term students of Faculty of Economics and Business UMPP who took the Basic English before taking English for Specific Purposes (English for Accounting, or English for Management, or English for Economics). In collecting data, the reseacher applied some intruments; test, observation, and field notes. Meanwhile to analyze the data, T-Test was used to examine the significant of using the website in improving the students’ competence.From 180 respondents, after examining proccess by using T-Test, it was taken the mean avarage before the treatment; 57.9750 and after the treatment, the mean avarage is 68.9611. it means the mean avarage after treatment is higher than before one. Based on the result of T-Test, it showed that the value of T-Statistics 13.840 is bigger than T-table; 1,96 with the significant value 0.000 (less than 0.05). It means that there is significantly different between before treatment and after one.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><strong>Keywords</strong>: English for Specific Purposes (ESP), Technology-Enhanced Language Learning (TELL),<strong> </strong>Teaching English in Economics Students</p>

Comparative Study of Hospitals’ Websites Construction

Objectives: To offer better solution to English hospital websites in China. Method: 10 top hospitals in China and English-speaking countries were selected respectively and comparative analysis was carried out. Results: The analysis of English website of 10 hospitals in China indicated the English websites are characterized by the lack of audience consciousness, audience-centeredness, language errors, and poor interaction of website discourse. Conclusion: English hospital websites in China can be improved by the following 3 aspects. Firstly, hospitals should attach greater importance to the construction of English websites by being patient-centered and user-friendly; secondly, linguistically, translators responsible for English hospitals website should have the intercultural communication awareness and enhance the readability of the translated, playing the role of being the facilitators, coordinator between the audience and the hospital culture; Thirdly, hospital English websites in China, culturally, need to enhance the interactivity between the website texts and the targeted audience.

Transitivity-ergativity perspectives on causation in legal texts: A contrastive study of Arabic and English website terms of service

The description of grammatical systems of languages constitutes one of the major objectives of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). The present study investigates the system of causation in English and Arabic in a contrastive perspective, and aims to show that in addition to typological differences, the lexicogrammatical realisation of causation may be activated by contextual factors. To this end, the instances of causation in three parallel corpora of website Terms of Service (TOS) are explored from transitivity and ergativity perspectives, argued to be complementary. The investigation of the semantics and lexicogrammar of causation shows that lexical, morphological and analytic resources have varying frequencies in the two sub-corpora, reflecting general probabilities in the systems of the two languages. This divergence between the two languages has led to devising separate systems for English and Arabic, in addition to common systems, modifying thus the original system based on the English language (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014). The study also shows that the impact of contextual factors is cross-linguistic, confirming, thus, the higher position of the context stratum. These findings pave the way for more contrastive register-based studies extending to other registers and aiming to enrich SFL theoretical constructs and tools of grammatical descriptions.

СУЧАСНІ ІНФОРМАЦІЙНІ ТЕХНОЛОГІЇ – ЗАСІБ ДЛЯ СТВОРЕННЯ БАЗИ ДАНИХ ТА ЕФЕКТИВНОГО ПРИЙНЯТТЯ ТЕХНІКО-ТЕХНОЛОГІЧНИХ РІШЕНЬ У БІЗНЕС-ПРОЦЕСАХ НАФТОГАЗОВОЇ ГАЛУЗІ

Significant increasing in volumes, speed of transfer of information on equipment and technologies, accelerated formation and adoption of technical and technological decisions, increase of efficiency of business processes requires the introduction of digital technologies. Creation information systems in which the software uses the principles of combining cataloged information with analytical methods of searching, ranking and summarizing them at different levels allows to unify the heterogeneous information available in the company. In particular, it allows to avoid of duplication of arrays of information, to ensure a uniform standard for its processing and use with access to it anywhere in the world. After all, at every stage of making a technological or management decision there are incentive mechanisms to maximize the optimization of all business processes associated with them. For example, determining the technological feasibility of the use of certain materials and equipment in the construction of wells significantly affects its cost, timing of construction, logistics operations, requirements for the qualification of suppliers and procurement procedures. The creation of specialized information databases for oil and gas companies covering all sectors of the oil and gas and related industries, contributes to building of business processes and reducing of non-productive costs at all levels, and, consequently, increasing profitability of the companies. The information catalog of modern technical and technological solutions in the oil and gas complex is the software product that contains official information and data about domestic and leading foreign enterprises and companies that produce and/or sell materials and/or equipment or provide services for the oil and gas industry of Ukraine. Key words: database, equipment, information catalog, oil and gas industry, software, structure, technology Referenсеs Database of LLC «Gazinfoservis». Electronic resource. Web-portal of LLC «Gazinfoservis». Electronic data. Access mode: https://www.gasinfoservice.com/uk/ukraine/ (beast date 17.08.2019). – Screen title (In Ukrainian) The first sprouts. Annual Report «Naftogaz Ukraine». 2016. Electronic resource. Web-portal of NAFTOGAZ GROUP. Electronic data. Access mode: http://www.naftogaz.com/files/Zvity/Anual_report_ukr_170608.pdf. (beast date 17.08.2019). – Screen title (In Ukrainian) Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Electronic resource. OilfieldWiki. Web-portal. Electronic data. Access mode: http://www.oilfieldwiki.com/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill (beast date 17.08.2019). – Screen title (In English) Website of public procurement system «Prozorro». Electronic resource. Electronic data. Access mode: https://prozorro.gov.ua/ (beast date 17.08.2019). – Screen title (In Ukrainian) Maksoud J. Construction, installation advances extend capabilities. E&P, July, 2009. P. 56-57.

Ikhwanweb: A digital archive for a post-Islamist movement?

The article looks at Ikhwanweb, the English website of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (MB), from its early days and through the years before the 25th January revolution. The archive is used as a theoretical concept to capture both the symbolic and material struggles that the MB faced while trying to articulate its political vision. As a nodal point where power and knowledge intersect, the concept of the archive was first theorized by Foucault and Derrida. Ikhwanweb is examined as a digital archive, a site for both knowledge and memory production. The first section deals with the main analytical concept; the second tells the troubled history of the material infrastructure required to run the website. Then two main threads are identified and examined. The need to distantiate the organization from political violence and that of reaching out ‘the West’ shaped the content of Ikhwanweb. The website also allowed the group to interact directly with policy-making circles and research institutions. Can this be said to be part of that process Bayat calls post-Islamism? The concluding section reflects on this question and suggests a more ambivalent picture.

Prosthetic Soul Mates: Sex Robots as Media for Companionship

Prosthetic Soul Mates: Sex Robots as Media for Companionship

The effect of phonetic transcription on Iranian EFL students' word stress learning

Please fill up the following information accurately. (Please use Times New Roman, 12 pt. The effect of phonetic transcription on Iranian EFL students' word stress learning The correct location of lexical stress is a main concern for EFL learners whose first language has a different stress system. Therefore, in light of the fact that English pronunciation errors are often caused by the transfer of the Persian language sound system, the present study investigated the effect of phonetic transcription on Iranian undergraduate EFL students’ word stress learning. Since random assignment was not possible, the nonequivalent group, pretest-posttest design was employed to study two classes of EFL major students at the University of Bojnord (UB) and Kosar University of Bojnord (KUB) as the experimental group (EG) and control group (CG) respectively. Both groups were exposed to the same activities; however, only the EG received the treatment regarding the phonemic transcription. A 60-item word stress test was developed by the researcher based on a collection of 20 episodes of The Flatmates from the BBC's learning English website to measure students’ achievements. The reliability of the test was estimated 0.71 through KR-21 formula. The results of the independent samples t-test from the posttest indicated that the EG had a better performance than the CG. Thus, the findings suggest that EFL learners’ phonemic transcription can facilitate the process of lexical stress learning. Information about Author(s)* Author 1 Author (Last name, First name) Ghorbani, Mohammad Reza Affiliated institution (University) University of Bojnord Country Iran Email address mrg872@gmail.com Department & Rank English department, Assistant Professor Corresponding author (Yes/No) Write only one corresponding author. Yes Author 2 Author (Last name, First name) Affiliated institution (University) Country Email address Department & Rank Corresponding author (Yes/No) Author 3 Author (Last name, First name) Affiliated institution (University) Country Email address Department & Rank Corresponding author (Yes/No) Author 4 Author (Last name, First name) Affiliated institution (University) Country Email address Department & Rank Corresponding author (Yes/No)

Culture and persuasive discourse in localized NGO websites

Abstract Non-governmental organisations set different goals than for-profit corporations. However, they need to be advertised in order to keep working. One of the basic means NGOs use in order to attract volunteers and donators is their website. Although the English language is considered as the lingua franca of the internet it seems to be inadequate when a global audience is aimed at. NGOs seem to have realized the need to communicate with potential donators or volunteers in their native language and have started providing localized versions of their websites. In this paper we are going to examine the persuasive discourse adopted by NGOs in their English, French and Greek website versions. According to Aristotle (Rhetoric, 1356a) (2002) the three persuasive techniques used to change the audience’s beliefs are (a) pathos, which appeals to the audience’s emotions, (b) ethos, which establishes the good “character” and credibility of the author and (c) logos, which uses logic and evidence to convince the audience. Our aim is to examine both the use and the multisemiotic realization of the above mentioned techniques in different cultural contexts. For the needs of our analysis we will adopt methodological tools from the field of social semiotics (image and text relation (Barthes 2007) and the grammar of visual design and of colours (Kress and Van Leeuwen 1996, 2002). Translational theories such as Skopos theory (Reiss and Vermeer 1984; Nord 1997) will provide the theoretical framework for the study of the adaptation techniques and strategies adopted when the Greek audience is addressed.