General English Research Articles

A Study on Lin Yutang’s Cultural Identity Through His Translation Work: The Wisdom of Laotse

The translation of Chinese classics has a history of more than a century, and Lin Yutang was a model of translating and introducing Chinese classics to the world in English. Lin Yutang translated Tao Te Ching as The Wisdom of Laotse by means of reconstructing, rewriting and interpreting, which has caused widespread concern and far-reaching influence in the world, and many Westerners began to learn about Chinese Taoist culture from The Wisdom of Laotse. By comparing the translated version with the original one, this paper attempts to study Lin Yutang’s cultural identity through The Wisdom of Laotse from a macro perspective. As a famous Chinese writer, linguist and essayist, Lin Yutang not only switched the linguistic code and adjusted the structure of Tao Te Ching, but also explained its contents and interpreted its thoughts in details with his own understanding, removing the strangeness of the original text, adding the logic and systematization of the Tao Te Ching. Lin introduced the indigenous Chinese Taoist culture to the English world with his insights, which has shaped his own cultural identity as a cultural interpreter, communicator and philosopher.

Does Implicit Racial Bias Affect Auditory-Perceptual Evaluations of Dysphonic Voices?

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to understand the role of implicit racial bias in auditory-perceptual evaluations of dysphonic voices by determining if a biasing effect exists for novice listeners in their auditory-perceptual ratings of Black and White speakers. MethodThirty speech-language pathology graduate students at Boston University listened to audio files of 20 Black speakers and 20 White speakers of General American English with voice disorders. Listeners rated the overall severity of dysphonia of each voice heard using a 100-unit visual analog scale and completed the Harvard Implicit Association Test (IAT) to measure their implicit racial bias. ResultsBoth Black and White speakers were rated as less severely dysphonic when their race was labeled as Black. No significant relationship was found between Harvard IAT scores and differences in severity ratings by race-labeling condition. ConclusionsThese findings suggest a minimizing bias in the evaluation of dysphonia for Black patients with voice disorders. These results contribute to the understanding of how a patient’s race may impact their visit with a clinician. Further research is needed to determine the most effective interventions for implicit bias retraining and the additional ways that implicit racial bias impacts comprehensive voice evaluations.

Exploring Indonesian Learners’ Attitudes and Beliefs toward English Accents: A Case Study in an Indonesian University

<em>This study reported the attitudes of 67 Indonesian English language learners toward British, American, and their own English accents and explored the underlying reasons motivating these attitudes. The participants’ English proficiency ranged from intermediate to advanced proficiency and confirmed either or both direct and indirect exposures to intercultural communication with speakers of English of other nationalities. The participants were required to listen to three audio samples, Received Pronunciation (RP), General American (GA), and Indonesian accented English (IAE), and to rate the accents on ‘standard’, ‘intelligent’, ‘polite’, and ‘pleasant’ traits. To seek the significant overall mean scores and the meaningful scores across the groups, ANOVA and post-hoc Tukey test were used. The results of the interview, additionally, were analyzed using content analysis techniques to find meaningful categories to clarify such emerging perceptions. The results show an overall positive attitude toward all three accents with the Indonesian accent perceived significantly more positively compared to the other two on the ‘intelligent’, ‘polite’, and ‘pleasant’ traits. The more positive evaluation of their own accent was driven by the realization that mutual intelligibility is more important than prestige, and there is a need for cultural value projections, that is, to use their own accent to channel politeness. These results call for the reinforcement of mutual intelligibility as the core of assessment and acceptance of local accents in classrooms. This can be channeled through the active promotion of audio samples demonstrating different varieties of English in the class instead of focusing exclusively on RP and GA; and through teachers’ acceptance of students’ intelligible local accents.</em>

Examining the Reliability of the International English Language Testing System Design

Background: Despite the evolution of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) to accommodate the evolving needs of test-takers and institutions, concerns have been raised regarding its reliability in assessing English language proficiency. Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the reliability of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) design as a measure of English language proficiency. Methodology: To explore this issue, the research reviewed relevant literature and employed various methods, including frequency analyses, data analytics, and machine learning algorithms based on mathematical principles. Unlike previous studies, this work analysed a dataset of 33,505 authentic band scores, allowing for a comprehensive examination of IELTS test score patterns. Findings: The findings revealed that the concept of reliability is complex, and the statistical methods used by IELTS test providers, based on classical test theory, may provide approximate rather than precise scores. Relying solely on the reputation and authority of the IELTS test is insufficient to establish its reliability, as it involves logical fallacies and arguments from authority. Research implications: It is necessary to conduct further independent research to ensure the IELTS test's reliability and address the concerns expressed by researchers and test-takers.

English as Lingua Franca or World Englishes?

One of the key ways to realizing linguistic justice, as alluded to by Phillipe van Parijs (2011), is to welcome the use of English as a global lingua franca. Linguistic justice is defined as the condition in which the languages of linguistic groups are accorded official recognition, and the speakers do not suffer from social, economic, and dignity inequality on the basis of their language. However, the acceptance of English as an international language, as pointed out by many scholars, including Van Parijs himself, can also lead to potentially unjust linguistic situations. There are, in particular, three issues that come with the use of English as a global language, and they are (1) inequality in communication; (2) unfair resource allocation; and (3) lack of speaker dignity. This paper will provide a review of how political philosophers have talked about these problems, and the normative solutions to achieving linguistic justice. The aim of this article is to provide a linguistic perspective to the issue of linguistic justice. The author endeavors to do so by looking at linguistic justice through the lens of two dominant paradigms in the field of English linguistics: the World Englishes (WE) paradigm, pioneered by Braj Kachru; and the English as Lingua Franca (ELF) paradigm, a relatively more recent alternative developed by Jennifer Jenkins. The tenets of how each paradigm views speakers of English around the world are compared and a solution to the problem of linguistic justice is offered by thinking about “Englishes” instead of a single monolithic linguistic entity “English”. In doing so, efforts are made to highlight how linguistic justice can be achieved in the world of Englishes.

Digital Literacy based Instruction in Teaching English in EFL Classroom

This study aims to determine the teachers perceive on digital literacy in Indonesia English As A Foreign Language Classroom, to know the implemented of digital literacy in teaching English in Indonesia English As a Foreign Language Classroom, and how digital literacy impact on students’ performance in Indonesia EFL classroom. This research adopts case study, where the research subject are two teachers all the English teachers and 23 students which consisted 15 females and 8 males. in this research of the result shows both of the teachers have a high perception on digital literacy in Indonesia EFL Classroom, the researcher finds there are 3 steps of implementing digital literacy in EFL classroom such as plan, action, and reflection, and the impact of digital literacy in students’ English performance shows a positive result on students’ English performance.

Variation in world Englishes through the lens of negation

AbstractThis article reports the findings of a study of negation across varieties of English worldwide, with data derived from the Global Web‐Based Corpus of English. Three general categories are explored: negative polarity‐sensitive expressions (lexical verbs such as bother, and idioms such as give a damn); negators (idioms such as be not half bad, boilerplate no‐collocations such as no worries, and implicit negators such as bugger all); and non‐standardised features such as invariant don't and multiple negation. The findings provide support for the Inner Circle versus Outer Circle distinction, with results ascribable to such factors as evolutionary status, SLA phenomena, colloquiality, and tolerance of vulgarity. Further areal findings are suggestive of linguistic epicentrality.

Incorporating World Englishes into Middle and High Schools in Korea: Teachers’ Awareness and Attitudes

The worldwide utility and status of English have given it enormous cachet in Korea. English education has been heavily emphasized in Korean middle and high schools as a means to foster a globally-oriented, linguistic diversity-aware citizenry. Yet the predominant model for language learners in Korea remains an idealized speaker of British or American English – the so-called ‘native speaker’ model. A World Englishes (WE)-informed model of English language teaching would be more in line with the Ministry of Education's stated vision, but uptake of this paradigm has been slow in Korean schools. We therefore investigate the perceptions and attitudes of Korean middle and high school English language teachers about the place of WE in Korea's English education system. Specifically: (a) What are Korean English teachers’ perceptions towards WE?; and (b) What challenges and barriers do they perceive in integrating WE into Korea's English education system? Survey data from 106 Korean middle and high school English teachers, supported by a subset of eight interviews, show that the sample view English as a global mode of communication among all its users, though they often view the ‘native’ varieties of English as more prestigious than those from other countries. They acknowledge the desirability of incorporating a WE-informed paradigm into Korea's English education system, but the varieties which they advocate are all from Anglophone countries. They also identify numerous challenges to implementing WE in Korea's classrooms. One is the need for teachers to prepare their students for high-stakes examinations which are uniformly constructed around British and American English. Another is the perceived community pressure to emphasize American English in their teaching. Finally, the absence of any WE-informed teacher education resources limit their knowledge about WE and how to teach it to students.

Genetic Algorithm for High-Dimensional Emotion Recognition from Speech Signals

Feature selection plays a crucial role in establishing an effective speech emotion recognition system. To improve recognition accuracy, people always extract as many features as possible from speech signals. However, this may reduce efficiency. We propose a hybrid filter–wrapper feature selection based on a genetic algorithm specifically designed for high-dimensional (HGA) speech emotion recognition. The algorithm first utilizes Fisher Score and information gain to comprehensively rank acoustic features, and then these features are assigned probabilities for inclusion in subsequent operations according to their ranking. HGA improves population diversity and local search ability by modifying the initial population generation method of genetic algorithm (GA) and introducing adaptive crossover and a new mutation strategy. The proposed algorithm clearly reduces the number of selected features in four common English speech emotion datasets. It is confirmed by K-nearest neighbor and random forest classifiers that it is superior to state-of-the-art algorithms in accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-Score.

Traqueotomía versus traqueostomía, la necesidad de una aclaración lexicográfica

In the healthcare field, the terms “traqueotomía” and “traqueostomía” are frequently used, often leading to confusion among professionals regarding the appropriate definition for each term or which one should be considered more correct in specific cases. A search was conducted for the terms “traqueotomía” and “traqueostomía” in general Spanish-language dictionaries such as the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (DRAE) and the Historical Dictionary of the Spanish Language of the Royal Spanish Academy (DHLE), as well as for the English terms “tracheotomy” and “tracheostomy” in English general dictionaries like the Oxford Dictionary, the Cambridge Dictionary, and the Collins English Dictionary. Additionally, searches were performed in medical dictionaries in both Spanish, specifically the Dictionary of Medical Terms of the National Academy of Medicine (DTM), and English, including the Farlex Dictionary. The terms were also explored using the Google search engine. Definitions were analyzed from both lexicographical and etymological perspectives. Definitions found in general dictionaries, in both Spanish and English, were found to be imprecise, limited, and ambiguous, as they mixed outdated indications with criteria that deviated from etymology. In contrast, definitions in medical dictionaries in both languages were more aligned with etymology. “Traqueotomía” strictly identifies the surgical procedure of creating an opening in the anterior face of the trachea. “Traqueostomía” identifies the creation of an opening that connects the trachea to the exterior, involving a modification of the upper airway by providing an additional entry for the respiratory pathway. “Traqueostomía” becomes the sole means of entry to the airway in total laryngectomies. Both terms can be used synonymously when a traqueotomía culminates in a traqueostomía. However, it is not appropriate to use the term “traqueostomía” when the procedure concludes with the closure of the planes and does not result in the creation of a stoma. Traqueostomas can be qualified with adjectives indicating permanence (temporary/permanent), size (large/small), shape (round/elliptical), or depth, without being linked to any specific disease or surgical indication. Not all permanent traqueostomas are the result of total laryngectomies, and they do not necessarily have an irreversible character systematically.

The Impact of Foreign Language Accent on Expert Listeners' Auditory-Perceptual Evaluations of Dysphonia.

Auditory-perceptual evaluations of dysphonia, though essential for comprehensive voice evaluation, are subject to listener bias. Knowledge of an underlying voice disorder can influence auditory-perceptual ratings. Accented speech results in increased listener effort and delays in word identification. Yet, little is known about the impact of foreign language accents on auditory-perceptual ratings for dysphonic speakers. The purpose of this work was to determine the impact of a foreign language accent on experts' auditory-perceptual ratings of dysphonic speakers. Twelve voice-specializing SLPs who spoke with a General American English (GAE) accent rated vocal percepts of 28 speakers with a foreign language accent and 28 with a GAE accent, all of whom had been diagnosed with a voice disorder. Speaker groups were matched based on sex, age, and mean smoothed cepstral peak prominence. Four linear mixed-effects models assessed the impact of a foreign language accent on expert auditory-perceptual ratings of the overall severity of dysphonia, roughness, breathiness, and strain. The twelve raters demonstrated good inter- and intra-rater reliability (ICC[3, k] = .89; mean ICC = .89). The linear mixed-effects models revealed no significant impact of foreign language accent on ratings of overall severity of dysphonia, roughness, breathiness, or strain. Despite the possibility of increased listener effort and bias, foreign language accent incongruence had no effect on expert listeners' auditory-perceptual evaluations for dysphonic speakers. Findings support the use of auditory-perceptual evaluations for voice disorders across sociolinguistically diverse populations. 3 Laryngoscope, 134:2272-2276, 2024.

ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES MATERIAL ENRICHMENT: APPLICATION OF STANDARD TRAINING OF CERTIFICATION OF WATCHKEEPING (STCW) YOUTUBE VIDEOS ON CADET’S LISTENING COMPETENCY

Maritime world and industry across the globe employ people from different countries which have a multicultural background. English as the most common second language in the world is really used and important as a language to communicate in the ship. So, English language proficiencies and skills are a must. In order to have common general standards in language (English) for maritime there must be regulation regarding the standardization itself. The requirements for communicative competence of seafarers in STCW present a great challenge to Indonesian seafarers who will struggle to improve their linguistic competences, since in Indonesia English is still known as a foreign language. The research taken place at Merchant Marine Polytechnic of Sulawesi Utara with population of the sample is cadets in Ship Engineering study program. The research aims to evaluate the current Maritime English course curriculum in Indonesian shipping or maritime vocational colleges-universities by analysing communication skills required by seafarers on fishing vessels. Data was gathered from documents and interviews with industry participants. The results indicate that the current exam is inadequate in preparing students for global seafarer standards. The study suggests a genrebased approach for English language courses, including Maritime English (ESP), to enhance cross-cultural knowledge and improve work skills. This approach can help university graduates gain a competitive edge in the labor market by improving communication and work performance.

Inclusion of English for specific purposes in high school tracks: A Saudi context

English for specific purposes was created to meet the needs of a language for the purpose of carrying out all growing businesses and occupational functions, as well as accessing all kinds of scientific knowledge. The current study looks at the possibility of including an English for Specific Purposes (henceforth ESP) course in high school tracks. It also looks into factors such as the outcomes of ESP-trained general English instructors, appropriate materials and skills for teaching ESP, the pedagogical environment and teaching approaches of ESP, as well as the future of general English as ESP becomes more common. Through an eleven-item Likert scale survey and structured interviews conducted with four English language teachers, 135 English foreign language teachers were surveyed, and quantitative and qualitative data were collected. According to most participants, the inclusion of ESP in high school tracks will provide students with the vocabulary and structure they need to succeed in college. While ESP is considered an extension of general English (henceforth GE), its pedagogical environment and teaching approach differ, which means teachers should be trained in science, medical terms, and pedagogical aspects of ESP instruction to motivate their students and make them more enthusiastic about the subjects they will study in professional colleges after they have completed high school.

Words and expressions in movies: Indonesian English as a foreign language students’ reflection

This study was aimed to find out the students’ reflection on the words and expressions found in English-spoken Hollywood movies, more particularly Thor Ragnarok. This descriptive quantitative study was conducted via discord. The population of the study was SMAN 2 Semarang students and the samples were the eleventh-grade students who watch Thor Ragnarok movie. The data were collected through questionnaire. The result of analysis showed that there are many students who feel their English are improved by watching Hollywood movies but they also absorb the culture like kinds of impolite words and expressions. After all, the results can give implication for how students need to study on absorbing western cultures correctly and using the words and expressions properly in appropriate ways.

Semantic Integration in It-Clefts: A Multifactorial Exploration of Agreement Variability in World Englishes

Agreement variation is a critical issue in discussing syntactic configuration and semantic integration. Two competing hypotheses have been proposed to account for how semantic integration contributes to agreement variation: the lexical-grammatical hypothesis and the notional hypothesis. Using data from NOW, a large corpus of World Englishes, this study presents a multifactorial analysis of the probabilistic factors that constrain agreement variation in it-clefts, an important but low-frequency construction, with collective nouns as clefted constituents. We employ random forests and conditional inference trees to examine how the Outer circle varieties have developed preferences different from those of the Inner circle varieties for agreement patterns of it-clefts. The principal findings include: (1) singular agreement is the default pattern worldwide, while plural agreement appears probabilistically along the continuum of collective plurality; (2) Inner circle speakers use more plural agreement than Outer circle speakers, with British English users employing more plural agreement than American English users; and (3) Semantic integration exerts more influence on Inner circle speakers in agreement implementation than on Outer circle speakers, who are more easily affected by morpho-grammatical markers. The quantitative case study on the collective noun team corroborates the lexical-grammatical hypothesis that semantic integration encourages plural agreement. This focused attention on agreement variation in it-clefts with collective nouns as clefted constituents further suggests that the extraposition analysis, rather than the expletive analysis, offers a suitable theoretical model for the syntactic configuration of the it-cleft construction.

Students’ Perceptions and Attitudes toward World Englishes Paradigm

The study aims to describe the pre-service English teachers’ perceptions and attitudes toward World Englishes (WE) Paradigm from Kachru's theory within the Indonesian context. Limited studies have been undertaken relating to Indonesian pre-service teachers’ perceptions and attitudes to the WE paradigm. The design of this study employed a qualitative case study focusing on the exploration of an individual pre-service English teacher’s perceptions and attitudes toward the phenomenon of the WE paradigm. Twenty participants who are pre-service English teachers participated in this study. Initially, the participants were asked to take The Verbal Guise Test to for stimulating the participants’ knowledge (cognitive) about varieties of English and introduce the WE paradigm. Afterward, the semi-structured interview was conducted with open-ended questions to explore how the students view different varieties of WE. The data were then transcribed and analyzed using thematic analysis by coding, classifying themes, and interpreting. The findings of the study indicated that academically participants still have a preference of the inner circle (IC) English to support the learning process. But for non-academic context the majority of participants had the ability to understand and recognize English variations and showed interest in using and learning more about WE.

A Multimodal Approach to Zhuang-English Translation of the Baeu Rodo Scriptures

The Beu Rodo scriptures are texts sung by boumo, a Zhuang ritual priest at rites. They reflect the primitive belief of the ancient forebears of the Zhuang group in China. As a scriptural heritage of the Zhuang minority nationality, the scriptures have become a significant cultural carrier in the English world through translations. Based on the published English translations, this paper analyzes the combined use of verbal and visual modes in translating the Baeu Rodo scriptures into English. David Holm’s Recalling Lost Souls is under examination as a case study. Theories of multimodal discourse analysis and intersemiotic translation give guidance for examination and discussion. First, the authors bring under examination how verbal and visual modes interacted to produce Recalling Lost Souls, an example of multimodal translation; then they move on to discuss how the translator managed to realize the representational, interactive, and compositional meanings in a multimodal whole. It is concluded that linguistic and non-linguistic modes can work together to produce a multimodal translation, a workable approach to Z-E translation of the Baeu Rodo scriptures leading to higher readability of their translated works in the English world.

Maintaining Students’ Emotional Engagement Amid Emergency Remote Teaching: Spotlighting the Indonesian EFL Teachers’ Perspectives

Language learning engagement has awakened interest in recent decades. This has taken place because engagement enables students to perform physical and mental, goal-directed, and purpose-driven activities. Unfortunately, keeping students emotionally engaged during Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) remains under-researched. Therefore, this study focused on scrutinizing how teachers maintained the students' emotional engagement during Emergency Remote Teaching, especially in the Indonesian English as a foreign language (EFL) context. English Education Department teachers at a state-owned university in Indonesia were involved as the research participants. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with two teachers during the data collection. The data were analyzed with Thematic Analysis (TA) (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The findings reported six main themes, namely (1) implementing proper teaching materials and instructional platforms during emergency remote teaching, (2) actualizing tolerance-based learning activities, (3) performing self-adaptation to technology-enhanced language teaching, (4) deploying contextualized teaching methods during emergency remote teaching, (5) applying eclectic instructional media during emergency remote teaching, and (6) utilizing constructive and humanizing online learning monitoring. Practically, TESOL practitioners, students, and policymakers can benefit from this study to realize how to maintain students' emotional engagement while performing teaching and learning activities during ERT.

Enhancing Communicative Competence Through English for Specific Purposes (ESP): A Comparative Study of ESP and General English Approaches in University Language Programme

It is generally observed that the communicative performance of the students in English language is below average. It is disheartening that a large percentage of students and graduates of Nigerian higher institutions cannot express themselves freely in both written and spoken forms of English language. Whereas, communication is central to the field of teaching and learning. Thus, there is a need to take measures through research, to improve the communicative competence of the students. This research is conceived to examine the competence of the students of Bamidele Olumilua University of Education, Science and Technology Ikere-Ekiti, Nigeria in the use of English Language for interpersonal, official, academic and professional communicative purposes; design English for specific Purpose (ESP) language learning programme for teaching English language in the University to enhance the communicative competence of the students. This study set out to experiment how the use of ESP as a teaching approach can immerse the learners with the required communicative ability for all communicative situations. The study compares the traditional approach of General English with ESP. Empirical evidence from the study suggests that the ESP approach is more effective in enhancing students' communicative competence compared to the traditional General English approach. Significant differences in communicative competence have been observed between students who undergo ESP-based education and those following the conventional General English approach. Based on the significant findings of the research; it is recommended that educational institutions in Nigeria consider incorporating the ESP-based language teaching method into their curriculum.

From GE to ESP: technology of educational work with professional authentic foreign language materials for junior medical students

Introduction. Research competencies, including the skills of working with professional foreign language literature, various authentic sources, the ability to work with specialized scientific databases forms the basis of modern professional training of medical students. Aim. Description of the author's model of working with authentic foreign language materials for junior medical students and justification of the technology of organizing educational activities using specially selected authentic materials at the stage of the transition from general foreign language disciplines to professional communication. The subject of the study was the stage of transition from the general course of a foreign (English) language (GE) to a professional one (ESP). Materials and methods. The research is based on the cascade principle of the formation of foreign language competencies of medical students. This principle presupposes the systematization and practical application of general language knowledge, on the basis of which professionally significant communication skills are formed. The methods of analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, comparative studies were used, which made it possible to assess the relationship between the system of professional medical education and the use of authentic foreign language materials in this process. The empirical study was implemented by integrating professional questionnaires (needs analysis) [24] into D. Kirkpatrick's four-type model for evaluating the effectiveness of training during the transition from GE to ESP at the beginning and at the end of training. The study was conducted during one academic year (September 2022 – June 2023) in classes in the disciplines "Foreign language (General English)" and "English for professional communication (ESP/EAP)" at the Faculty of Medical Science (N. V. Sklifosovsky Institute of Clinical Medicine, Sechenov University). The respondents of the study were 80 medical students of junior courses (1st and 2nd year students) of the level of English proficiency "Intermediate" (B1+) and "Upper-Intermediate" (B2+). Results. The results of the study showed that medical students from the study group reacted positively to the introduction of professional authentic foreign language materials into the educational process. The developed model of designing educational work allowed to form and put into practice the technologies of the educational process relevant to the professional field of medicine, which increases not only the foreign language communication of students, but also their professional competencies. Conclusion. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the parameters of the developed model of the application of actual authentic materials into the educational process of professional training of medical specialists. The obtained results can be used in professional medical education, improving and improving the process of training professional personnel at the level of development of research and socially significant foreign language competencies.