British Journal of Translation, Linguistics and Literature
The aim of the British Journal of Translation, Linguistics and Literature (BJTLL), the double-blind peer-reviewed, open access international journal, is to boost original papers in Translation, Linguistics, Literature, into cross-languages and cross-cultural studies generally, and Arabic-English contrastive studies particularly. Within this diverse in scope, BJTLL cordially invites contributions in this field of interest as comparative literature, contrastive analysis, historical linguistics, applied linguistics, contrastive linguistics, neurolinguistics, corpus linguistics, computational linguistics, lexicology and lexicography, stylistics, pragmatics, translation theories, translation technologies, and translation studies. BJTLL is also interested in both theoretical and practical research on both English and Arabic. In addition to articles, BJTLL has room for notes and correspondence, discussion and relevant scholarly presentations and reviews to contribute news and information on current research, projects, and developments in the field, including conferences, Translation, Linguistics, Literature-related activities online, seminars, workshops, and other issues of interest. These may consist of comments, statements on ongoing or further coming issues, reports on current research, or short commentaries to other articles. BJTLL welcomes all original contributions from scholars of Translation, Linguistics, Literature, and Arabic studies across language communities worldwide. BJTLL offers a high standard of customer service: quick, punctual, straightway, courteous, friendly and helpful.
Discourse Analysis and Pragmatic Functions of A’fiah in Jordanian Spoken Arabic
The current study explores the pragmatic functions of the discourse marker a’fiah (عفية) in Jordanian spoken Arabic from a pragma-discourse perspective. This exploration was carried out through collecting data by means of face-to-face interviews with twenty-five Jordanian Arabic native speakers who were asked to employ such a discourse marker within a real-life context. The results of the study reveal that the discourse marker a’fiah was used to fulfill eleven pragmatic functions according to the context in which it occurred: to scold, to scorn, to show happiness, to make a threat, to express admiration, anger, blame, approval, disapproval, annoyance and surprise. They also reveal that expressing admiration was the most dominant function performed by a’fiah in Jordanian Arabic, while scolding, scorning, making a threat and expressing approval were the least dominant functions. These conclusions are supported by in-depth quantitative and qualitative analyses.
الحقوق الفكرية (c) 2025 British Journal of Translation, Linguistics and Literature https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Linguistic Aspects of Humor in American Stand-up Comedies about Arabs: A Multimodal Analysis of Digital Discourse
Humor in stand-up comedy has long been studied where humor is disputably attributed to the incongruity theory or to some linguistic tools such as pun or hyperbole. This study investigates humor in American stand-up comedies that tackle Arabs’ issues. More specifically, the study tries to determine the features of such comedy; whether this humor is verbal or nonverbal, whether stereotypes play any role in it, and whether the comedian’s ethnic background has any influence on it or not. Moreover, the study aims at testing the compatibility of the theoretical framework used. The study employs Kress & Van Leeuwen’s (2021) model of visual design to analyze the data_ 1:53 hours of videos, collected from the YouTube platform. The data comprises videos for American comedians who do jokes about the Arabs. Russell Peters is Indian American, Maz Jobrani is Iranian American, and Nemr Abou Nassar is Lebanese American. This study applies Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) within a qualitative approach to carry out deep linguistic analysis of the data. Results indicate that comedians try to create laughter using ten comedy tactics (expectation breaching, misconstruing, exaggerations, fear, disproportionate reactions, contradictions, stupidity, fooling, irony and mockery) which are realized by a shift between verbal and nonverbal techniques. Verbal techniques involve pauses, voice modulation, word elongation, accent mimicry, incorrect language, word choices, laughs and sounds. Nonverbal strategies include body movement, gestures, gazes, and facial expressions. It is also revealed that all the comedians tackle almost the same stereotypes and topics about the Arabs, but their shows differ due to their ethnic variation. Thus, each comedian proves to be highly critical of his own people, but addressing the Arabs, they show various perspectives. Results also prove that the theoretical framework adopted is well-suited for the analysis, but the study proposes a more robust framework. Such findings are useful for any future research involving stand-up comedies, and for helping comedians construct their shows.
The Sexual Desdemona: Two Adaptations of William Shakespeare’s Othello
This paper explores the concept of adaptation, particularly in relation to William Shakespeare’s Othello, examining how adaptations are not mere imitations but independent reinterpretations shaped by new contexts. Drawing on Linda Hutcheon’s theory of adaptation as “recontextualization,” the study highlights the creative process involved in adapting texts, where fidelity to the source is secondary to innovation. This study focuses on two adaptations: Oliver Parker’s 1995 film Othello and Paula Vogel’s 1993 play Desdemona: A Play About a Handkerchief. Parker’s film emphasizes sensuality, using cinematographic techniques to foreground Desdemona’s sexual power, whereas Vogel’s feminist reimagining presents Desdemona as a sexually adventurous, discontented woman navigating societal constraints. By analyzing these adaptations, the paper underscores how shifting mediums and perspectives transform audience perceptions of the original work. Ultimately, it argues that adaptations breathe new life into classic texts, showcasing the dynamic interplay between tradition and innovation.
الحقوق الفكرية (c) 2024 British Journal of Translation, Linguistics and Literature https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Beyond words: Decoding nonverbal communication in Arab didactic TV shows
Effective communication between interlocutors on TV requires harmony between the available meaning-making resources. However, a few research has recently focused on the study of verbal and nonverbal cues in different TV shows and investigated their possible functions. Moreover, didactic TV shows have not been given much attention despite their remarkable influence on the youth, especially at critical times such as the outbreak of the Arab Spring. This study, thus, aims to examine the interplay between speech acts and body language in two didactic TV shows from KSA and Egypt. Employing a qualitative, descriptive analysis, (10) episodes from a Saudi show and (4) from an Egyptian one were selected and transcribed, and the nonverbal language of the two presenters was retrieved via screenshots from the videos. Searle's (1979) speech act theory and Knapp, Hall, and Horgan's (2014) nonverbal communication were used to analyze the verbal and bodily resources, respectively. In a contrastive analysis, the results exhibited that the shared functions of the manifested speech acts and their nonverbal counterparts included audience engagement, clarification, warning, urgency, and speech regulation. Verbally, both assertives and directives were utilized, but the former were found to be the most frequent. Nonverbally, no emblems were used; rather, the two presenters relied only on illustrators. Besides, the face was the most frequent and mutual cue to attain most functions. Hand gestures and head movements also contributed to conveying the intended meanings, despite their variations by the two presenters. The study identified some common verbal and nonverbal features shared between the two Arab shows that distinguish this genre of TV shows.
Variation across the Border: Dialectin Arabic/English Translation
Translation is a multifaceted process that involves decisions at the phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, and textual levels. This paper examines dialect-related issues, which may involve one or more of these levels, from a translational perspective. It employs Halliday’s (1978) socio-semiotic approach to explore dialect-related features that are of relevance to the process and product of translation. The authentic textual data clearly shows that translators need to be sensitized to both user-related features and use-related features. While the former include dialectal and idiolectal features that may entirely or partially mark a discourse, the latter pertain to register-defining components, namely field, tenor, and mode of discourse. Athough there is a significant connection between these features, the present study focuses exclusively on user-related aspects The translator’s awareness of the various ways people use language to reflect their power, solidarity, status, education, and other aspects of social identity can significantly enhance the quality and naturalness of their translation.
Rendering Naguib Mahfouz's Novel Titres into English: A Functionalist Orientation
This paper endeavours to investigate the creative translation of the Arab Egyptian writer, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature, Naguib Mahfouz. The research introduces twelve novels of the Noble Prize Laureate, because of their linguistic validity to be analyzed at the cultural references level. The study in question discusses these novel titres, to determine the translators' decision-making process in handling the translation as literary and as creative as the original ones did on the functional perspective. This paper attempts to answer three questions: How can the functionalist orientation be applied to the translation of the fiction titres? How do translators optimize the use of the functional approach in rendering such creative texts? What makes the translatum (product) win the appeal of the target audience? The methodology adopted in the study is mixed methods, i.e., qualitative and quantitative ones. Moreover, the study finds out that the functionalist approach accepts any strategy, even if it is a literal translation or any direct approach, as long as it fulfills the same skopos (purpose/function), in case it appears natural, acceptable, and satisfactory to the target audience and bridges the gaps of linguistic and cultural specificities.
Linguistic and Cultural Compensation in Translating Poetry: Shakespeare’s Sonnets in Arabic and Jahin’s Quatrains in English
The present study highlights the concept of compensation as a translation technique applied to some selected translated poems from English into Arabic and vice versa. Due to the linguistic and cultural divergence between English and Arabic, an inevitable loss occurs at linguistic, stylistic, and cultural levels during rendering the poetic discourse. For the purpose of the study, a set of Shakespeare’s sonnets translated by Enani (2016) and Jahin’s quatrains translated by Nahed Salem (2009) and their Arabic and English counterparts are utilised, respectively. The study scrutinises the various forms of compensation from a translational perspective. This dissertation is engaged in a micro-linguistic analysis of the translated poems in terms of compensation to show the impact in order to patch up the hurdles of loss encountered in translating such a unique and exclusive literary genre. In terms of compensation, the analysis shows how the linguistic and cultural properties of the target language have been shaped, changed, and transferred, as compared to the source language. Thus, the study investigates the linguistic and cultural losses detected by scrutinising the translated sonnets in Arabic and the quatrains in English, how does compensation apply in the translation of the sonnets and the quatrains; and how does compensation differ between rendering Shakespeare’s sonnets and Jahin’s quatrains. Therefore, this study adopts a descriptive method by means of analysing and examining the collected data in terms of Hervey and Higgins’s (1992) model of compensation techniques. The results show that loss could be inevitable or avertable. Although compensation itself is categorised as one of the oblique translation techniques, it has been implemented by a combination of direct and oblique translation techniques, such as literal, modulation, adaptation, and expansion. Furtherly, the translator’s attitudes of his culture and religious background affected the target product greatly, as reflected in the translator’s intended choices in transferring the culture specific reference entailed in the Shakespearian sonnets. Likewise, the poet’s cultural and religious background influenced the poems before translation as obviously detected in Jahin’s quatrains. This illustrates how the linguistic and cultural norms of each language had a great impact on both the poet and the translator.
Exploring the Issue of (Un)translatability of Poetry between English and Arabic: An Analytical and Critical Study
This paper investigates the solutions for the problematic issue of the debate over un/translatability of poetry, particularly between English and Arabic. The issue of un/translatability is going to be analyzed and discussed in view of Lefevere's (1975) seven strategies and a blueprint. This study tries to answer four questions: What makes poetry translatable or not? How do translation theories and approaches be used and applied to poetry translation and why? What is the most frequently used translation strategy in translating the selected poems? Which of the approaches and strategies can fit the translation of poetry to maintain its nature? The methodology adopted in the study is mixed methods, i.e., qualitative and quantitative. It evaluates the quality-assessment of the target text by the frequencies of Lefevere's (1975) taxonomy. This study arrived at the conclusion that poetry is translatable for many reasons, the most significant one is cultural interaction. Moreover, the choice of the translation approaches and strategies is not fixed; they can, however, co-exist. In other words, the two orientations, i.e. free and literal ones, should supplement and complement each other in terms of time and spatial factors in poetic translation. The present study endeavors to analyze the decision-making process that the selected translators follow as well as how their orientation affects the way they handle culture-specific references, figurative language, imagery, structure, prosody and so on in the translation.
Synergy of Modes for Enhancing Persuasion in Arab Socio-Religious TV Shows: A Multimodal Argumentation Analysis of Wa Mahyay
Multimodal argumentation has become one of the recent trends in interdisciplinary research. It has been applied to the commonly persuasive genres, such as advertisements and cartoons; however, a scarcity of research has been conducted on TV shows, and none was pursued to analyze didactic TV shows that probably appeared after the outbreak of the Arab Spring with the aim of approaching the public audience from social and religious perspectives and motivating them to open a new page in a new chapter of self-and social- improvements. Therefore, this study applied a qualitative multimodal argumentation analysis to two randomly selected episodes from a Saudi didactic TV show to investigate the interplay of the various meaning-making resources utilized as rhetorical features to persuade the audience. The theoretical frameworks used encompass van Eemeren et al.'s (2002) pragma-dialectics and Baldry and Thibault's (2006) multimodal transcription developed from Kress and van Leeuwen's (2006) multimodal discourse analysis. The findings of the study showed a necessarily complementary relation between the verbal and visual modes of communication to enhance their persuasive effect on the audience. This interdisciplinary research provides valuable insights into the areas of semiotics, pragmatics, and media studies that can help linguists, media scholars and producers of this genre of TV shows.
Syntactic-Prosodic Interface in Information Structure: The Interplay between Syntactic Markedness and Prosodic Prominence of Focus
There is a vast body of research that attempts to get a window into the information structure-prosody interface. These accounts take a simplistic view and examine the prosody of information structure divorced from syntax. The current study postulates that the prosodic encoding of information structure is constrained by some syntactic factors. The basic hypothesis of the study is that syntactic markedness, as an independent syntactic variable, contributes to the eventual prosodic encoding of focus, particularly its prosodic prominence. Given that marked focus constituents basically manipulate syntax in such a way as to stand out syntagmatically, the study hypothesizes that syntactically unmarked focus constituents are predicted to be more prosodically prominent than marked constituents and, as a corollary, are predicted to be realized with higher maximum pitch, higher scaling of the H tonal target of the focus accent compared to the H of the preceding and following accents, and lower scaling of the L tonal target. To test these hypotheses, the study provides a prosodic investigation of two data sets that feature marked focus constructions and unmarked ones. The results of the study show that syntactic markedness is a highly significant predictor for focus prosody
An Eco-Translatology Approach to Analyzing the English and Arabic Translations of Pamuk's My Name is Red
The trajectory of translating Pamuk’s literary heritage into more than sixty languages attracts the attention of a number of scholars (e.g. Horta, 2017, EriŞ, 2019). Pamuk’s unique mingling of Eastern and Western cultures makes it significant to scrutinize the dispositions and worldviews of translators. This paper aims at depicting the eco-linguistic cultural plethora of factors that play a role in the translator’s lexico-grammatical decisions. To this end, the English translation of Pamuk’s My Name is Red by Göknar (2001), as well as the Arabic one by Abdulli (2000) are dissected. Lexico-cultural behaviours concomitant to the representation of nature in both target texts are analysed. Results shed light on how eco-translatology can help inform and give insights to modern translation studies.
25th Jan Revolution in the Articles of New York Times: A Study in Critical Discourse Analysis
Journalists have covered the 25th January Egyptian revolution analyzing and expressing opinions. The thesis is concerned with the inconsistency of their stances and positions. More specifically, it investigates shifts in the political stances of American journalists during and post the January 25th Egyptian Revolution. The thesis adopts Fairclough’s (1992, 2010) three-dimension framework of discourse, together with, Fairclough & Fairclough’s (2012) argumentation model to investigate the corpus of the current work. The corpus incorporates ten articles, seven editorials and three op-ed articles, that are published in the American newspaper New York Times on the Egyptian revolution from January 25th, 2011 to March 31st, 2011. Analysis is conducted on three levels; textual, discursive and social. Results indicate that writers are bias, taking sides and changing them according to the changes of the events. Thus, the articles witness a gradual change of stance from the pro-Mubarak and anti-revolution stances to the anti-Mubarak and pro-revolution stances.
Problems of Translating Taha Hussein’s ʽalā Hāmeš Al-Sīrah: A Cognitive-Pragmatic Approach
The hypothesis of the study is that cognitive-pragmatic aspects, and context-based utterances in literary texts can be problematic issues in translation due to differences between cultures and languages which can affect the quality of translation. On the basis of Gutt's (2000) cognitive-pragmatic theoretical framework of translation and Pedersen’s (2011) model of translation strategies, this thesis attempts to present a cognitive-pragmatic analysis of the translation of the Arabic novel ʽalā Hāmeš Al-Sīrah by Taha Hussein (1933) and its English translation entitled Marginalia on the Prophet’s Biograpgy by Mohamed Enani (2021). Gutt's cognitive-pragmatic model of translation has been built upon Relevance Theory of Sperber and Wilson (1995). According to Sperber and Wilson (1995), Relevance Theory is the main theoretical framework in the area of cognitive pragmatics and, according to Sperber and Wilson (1995), the only cognitive-pragmatic approach within translation studies. The results of the study show that the translation strategies that have been most applied to the selected data are generalization, specification and substitution. Due to the different cognitive environments of the source and target audiences, the indirect translation approach proved to be the appropriate method of translating the selected data. It enabled the translator to convey the intended message as much as possible without causing distortion or loss of meaning.
Pedersen’s Model of Translation Strategies
Synthesizing the Opinions of Qur'anic Exegetes Regarding Variant and Consistent Qur’anic Lections
القراءات جمع قراءة، وهي في اللغة مصدر سماعي لقرأ، وفي الاصطلاح: مذهب يذهب إليه إمام من أئمة القراء مخالفًا به غيره في النطق بالقرآن الكريم ، مع اتفاق الروايات والطرق عنه ، سواء أكانت هذه المخالفة في نطق الحروف أم في نطق هيئاتها.
Feminist Dystopia: A Study of the 2019 Ballet Adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)
Dystopian narrative has come to be the focus of academic studies in the 20th century mirroring hunger, terror, violence, and repression. It gradually eliminated the fictive utopian imagination by showing the long-neglected side of the coin. People’s constant need to live in a perfect utopian world is best manifested in Thomas More’s description of this world in his masterpiece Utopia. Since More’s Utopia, fictitious countries- mostly islands- have been dreamt of and created in literature. The construction of a utopian world is thoroughly affected by the current events in societies, aiming at changing the circumstances for the better by pinpointing them. In fact, this study attempts to examine the ballet adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985). The ballet was performed in 2019 and presented by Ecole De Dance Anick Macconnel at Fever International Dance Championships The paper adopts a feminist dystopia perspective and attempts to highlight the significant inevitable changes that occur when adapting a novel to a ballet performance – a six-minute-performance in this case. Furthermore, the study capitalizes on the amount of dehumanization female figures had to undergo with much attention given to Offred who is the main protagonist of the novel as well as in the adaptation. The adaptation is going to be tackled in the study through pointing out the significance of the medium specific features of the selected ballet performance such as the significance of ballet movements, the choice of music, and lights displaying the ramification of brutal authoritative governments and attempts of resistance. This is going to be analysed in light of feminist dystopian fiction.
Interpreting the Concept of Money According to Sheikh Shaltout and Amin Al-Khouly (between Tradition and Innovation)
This text explores the significance of money within the Islamic legal framework. It highlights how Islamic law addresses financial matters across various chapters, including worship (through zakat) and personal status (through inheritance rulings). Referencing Sheikh Shaltut's perspective, the text emphasizes Islam's practical approach, aiming to balance spiritual and material well-being. Drawing upon the Quran's description of money as a "source of livelihood" and "an ornament of life," the text underscores its crucial role in achieving a prosperous and fulfilling existence.
Exploring the Intertextual Webs: A Comparative Study of Sophocles’ Antigone and Bertold Brecht’s The Antigone of Sophocles (1948)
As a matter of fact, it has always been claimed that there are voices embedded in any literary text. In other words, any literary text involves different layers of voices: that of the author and those to which the author reacts in his/ her text. This claim suggests the matter of textual influence which started in the mid of the 18th century with the growing interest in originality and genius asserted by Bloom’s theory as stated by the art historian Michael Baxandall (1985). Therefore, ‘influence’ has to do with the author and the historical / socio-political context of the text, and studying it requires studying the context of the text. The study of ‘influence’ has proceeded anonymously and was neither able to accommodate for different analysis such as psychological, feminist, Marxist, and others, nor for studying two texts regardless of their historical priority. Hence, it lacks the benefits of implementing an interdisciplinary approach. This narrow form of ‘influence’ considering authors as agents and questioning their originality has begun to be obsolete as it shaped authors as authoritative disregarding the reader’s role and promoting outworn humanism. Shifting the focus to the reader encouraged the procedure of ‘intertextuality’. In fact, Julia Kristeva was the first to coin the term ‘intertextuality’ based on Bakhtin’s dialogism which suggests multiple meanings in each text and even in each word and the continual dialogue with works of literature and authors. “Every word,” Bakhtin wrote, “is directed toward an answer and cannot escape the profound influence of the answering word that it anticipates”. (18) This study aims at comparing Sophocles’ Antigone and Bertolt Brecht’s The Antigone of Sophocles highlighting the significance of the intertexts resulting from the different contexts in which these plays and adaptations were made, in addition to explaining the political and social dimensions in the adapted discourse. The study, therefore, highlights the intertextual webs in the examined texts, denoting the infinity of meanings in the adaptations of Sophocles’ Antigone.
A Classroom Ethnographic Study on Silence among EFL Graduate Students: A Case Study
Miscellaneous investigations have been implemented to investigate the factor of silence among Asian students in the ESL and EFL contexts and has generated huge literature most of which is related to ESL/EFL students’ silence because of several cultural and social factors. The study in hand reports on an ethnographic investigation of silence attitudes among Sudanese graduate learners in the EFL graduate linguistics environments with their academic staff in Gezira University, Sudan. The study has exploited a previously developed ethnographic interview protocol as well as observations with EFL graduate students and teachers in the MA linguistics. The researcher has investigated the probable patterns of silence among Sudanese EFL learners, explored the reasons behind this phenomenon and has attempted to trace the cultural interpretations among Sudanese silence. The participants of the study were eleven first-year graduates of English (all 26-38 years old) and 6 professors. The whole sample of the study was from Gezira University situated in the central region of Sudan. Another important factor is that the participants of this study came from different parts of Sudan including Khartoum, Darfur, and Gezira State etc. All the participants have BA and BEd in English language enrolling in Gezira University MA Program. The results of the study representing sufficient empirical proof highlight/emphasize that the Face Negotiation Model (Ting-Toomey 1994; West and Turner 2010; Wang and Yang 2005) indicates that Sudanese students’ silence behaviors are reported to be determined Sudanese cultural factors including its notions of face, sense of impact and infrequent social interactions.
The Translation of Prophets' Names in the Quran
Through this research, we aim to discuss the concept of religious translation in general, and especially the translation of Prophets' Names in the Holy Qur’an. This can be done through tracing, analysis, and comparison based on reading what is written on the lines and what is hidden beneath them. Based on the above, it can be said that religious translation in particular entails a major challenge because of the beliefs, facts and stories that the Qur’an contrains, including in particular the challenges of translating Prophets' Names .This challenge lies primarirly in translating what I called: 'the Common Revelation', or in other words, what the extended divine revelation mentioned and shared them shared. This is what we will discuss in the research, which was a small part of my research topic for obtaining a doctorate degree in linguistics and translation.
الحقوق الفكرية (c) 2023 British Journal of Translation, Linguistics and Literature https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Allusion: A Functional Evaluation of Peter Theroux’s Translation Dongola: A Novel of Nubia with Reference to Idris Ali’s Original Novel Dunqulah: Riwayah Nubiyah
This study addresses the translation of allusion in Arabic into English from a qualitative functional perspective. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the functional adequacy of Peter Theroux’s English translation of the allusions employed by Idris Ali in his Arabic novel Dunqulah: Riwayah Nubiyah (1993), via implementing Nord’s functional model of translation-oriented text analysis (1991). The study entails two initial hypotheses. First, Theroux, as a non-native speaker of Arabic, would encounter linguistic, cultural, and pragmatic translation difficulties. Second, the anticipated translation difficulties are expected to affect the functional adequacy of Theroux’s translation of allusion into English. The findings indicate that: Peter Theroux, as an American translator whose mother tongue is English, encountered linguistic, cultural, and pragmatic translation difficulties, which affected, to varying degrees, the functional adequacy of his English translation of allusion. Additionally, Theroux’s rendering of the allusions using the literal sub-strategy into English has negatively affected their functional adequacy due to the linguistic and cultural gaps between the two languages. The study concludes that adopting the literal sub-strategy has led to a functionally inadequate English translation of the Arabic allusions. Furthermore, Nord’s model (1991) would be a useful top-down problem-solving tool for translation between linguistically and culturally distant languages as it would aid the translator in identifying the anticipated linguistic, cultural, and pragmatic divergences between the languages. The produced translation would be based on a problem-solution process conducted by the translator rather than a discursive method of translation.
(Im)Politeness in Dialogues between some Prophets and the Polytheists in the Noble Qur'an:
This study presents a pragmatic analysis of linguistic Politeness and Impoliteness in dialogues between six prophets (Nuh, Hud, Salih, Ibrahim, Shuaib and Musa) and their contemporaneous polytheists in the Noble Qur'an. The data comprises 35 dialogues from 20 surahs which revolve around how the prophets talked to the polytheists to persuade them to believe in the Oneness of Allah and in the Last Day and how the polytheists reacted to the prophets’ call for faith. The analytical framework comprises Leech's (1983) Maxims of Politeness, Brown and Levinson's (1978, 1987) Theory of Politeness, and Culpeper's (1996; 2005 and 2011) Model of Impoliteness. Within a mixed approach, the qualitative analysis has revealed how the prophets have been modest, sympathetic and close to their communities while guiding them to true Monotheism. In addition, the study shows how the polytheists have reacted impolitely to the prophets’ call for faith. The quantitative analysis has revealed that the six maxims of politeness have been present in the prophets’ utterances, with the Tact, Modesty and Sympathy Maxims as the most prominent. Moreover, the four strategies of politeness (Bald on record, Positive Politeness, Negative Politeness and Off-record) have been evident in the utterances of the prophets. On the other hand, all five strategies of impoliteness (Bald on record, Positive Impoliteness, Negative Impoliteness, Sarcasm or Mock Politeness and Off-record) have been employed in the polytheists’ utterances. Most significantly, the study proposes Mercy, as a potential addition to the maxims of performing Politeness. Mercy, in the form of non-reciprocal forgiveness and pity, was prevalent in the prophets’ communication with their contemporaneous people. The prophets were the finest of creation as Allah (God) chose them over humanity in order to convey the message of true Monotheism.
Brown and Levinson's theory of politeness
The Potential Impact of Drama Text Translation on Audiovisual Translation
This article aims to demonstrate some potential similarities between the translation of drama texts and of audiovisual (AV) material, in particular subtitling. The study shows that major similar elements of playwriting and audiovisual scripts, such as the immediacy and direct contact with the audience/spectator and the use of dialogue, despite the difference in emphasis in a play on the dialogue of the characters and scenery and in a film on the dialogue and media. Situational, social and/or cultural contexts are important and existent in both the playtext and in the audiovisual text (particularly audiovisual descriptions, i.e. providing description of the image, sound and dialogue). The two genres of translation (drama and audiovisual texts) seem to share certain features which in turn help in the selection of potential subtitlers. The paper proposes that a successful translator of drama is more likely to succeed in audiovisual translation because of above similarities. Analysing excerpts from the Arabic translations of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar both as playtext and as subtitled film, this study attempts to prove this premise or hypothesis, and its outcome can help to set up a potentially successful procedure for institutions and companies to train potential audiovisual translators who have previous experience in translating drama texts.
Presupposition in the Discourse of Political Reconciliation The Case of Obama's Speech to the Islamic World from Cairo University
The current paper investigates the use of presupposition in the discourse of political reconciliation implied in Obama's Cairo University speech. Semantic presupposition triggers are identified in the speech as establishing the taken-for-granted human values shared by the speaker and his audience in Egypt and the Islamic world. Pragmatic presupposition is at play to call upon the common mental images between America and the Islamic world and hence setting a basis for reconciliation as something inevitable between the two conflicting sides (America and The Islamic World).
Flavian Epic Poetry is considered one of the most important literary works that distinguished the period of the rule of the Roman emperors from the time of Vespasian to Domitian. Flavian epic poetry was named after the Emperor Vespasian, which indicates that most of the epic works were organized to glorify the emperors and celebrate their military victories. This flattery is considered to be a famous characteristic of the style of that period. Among the most famous poets who wrote epic works in this era were Valerius Flaccus, Papenius Statius, and Silius Italicus. Each of them composed a number of epics similar to the Greek epics for the sake of imitating their precious treasures, like Argonautica, who was imitated by Valerius, the Thebaid by Statius, and the Punica by Italicus. Flavian epic poetry was characterized by exaggeration, especially regarding the description of events and the use of gods who intervene in the course of things in order to achieve their benefits. The heroic nature that the epics aimed to highlight is also evident in epic poetry.
Flavian Epic Poetry; Emperor Vespasian; Roman emperors; epic; Valerius Flaccus; Papenius Statius; Silius Italicus.
Evidence of the influence of the Iliad on Arabic literature
This paper explores the influence of the Iliad text which composed during VIII century B.C on Arabic Literature by focusing on four main points, first: how the Arab poets knew the text of the Iliad and how they tried to borrow lines from it, especially during Abbasid era, secondly: what is the relationship between Iliad and the Arab folk biography, and also the relationship between Oral narration and improvisation on both literatures. Thirdly: the influence of the Iliad on the Concept of Arabic tournament appeared in Antara's character who mixed between love and courage in his poems. Finally: the influence of the Iliad on modern Arabic literature, by discussing the different evidence that modern poets took from the Iliad once by using opening dictions, expressions, myths, characters and so on.
Iliad; Arabic literature; Arab folk biography; poetry; oral narration; Antara; myth.
This is a complete translation of an article by Timothy Hampton (2023). The focus of the article is on how a sonnet works and the central example thereof is Shakespeare's most famous sonnet "Shall I compare thee?" A sonnet, Hampton argues, contains "an emotional drama of illusion and deception, crisis and resolution, crafted to make us think and feel." The article traces how this happens from the octave, to the sestet and finally to the couplet, where a resolution is happily reached. Hampton finds a good mental, spiritual and emotional exercise in reading a sonnet – "My daily sonnet became a form of training, like jogging, or meditation. It focused my mind and challenged my emotions. I’ve never enjoyed poetry more. I recommend it as a daily exercise."
sonnet; Shakespeare; emotional drama; poetry; illusion and deception; crisis; resolution
Celebrating the Ambivalent Britishness: Reading Andrea Levy’s Small Island (2004) from Bakhtin’s Carnival Theory
Small Island (2004) is British Jamaican writer Andrea Levy’s representative work. By focusing on two British White and Black couples’ experiences before and after WWII, the author reexamines the so-called canonical Britishness and subverts the myth of the British Empire. Based on Bakhtin’s carnival theory, this paper analyzes the process of the Windrush generation’s identity construction after the 1948 British Nationality Act. This paper argues that Small Island is a post-WWII carnival celebrating the ambivalent national identity wherein the traditional Britishness is challenged through the characters’ ridiculous experiences, the mocking language toward self and other, and their efforts into claiming space in Mother country. By doing so, the Windrush generation breaks the homogeneous national identity while endowing Britishness with new meanings and celebrating the forthcoming exclusive society.
Bakhtin; carnival theory; Small Island; Britishness; Windrush generation
The Semiotics of Textual Space in the Discourse of Al-A'sha and Abu Nuwwaas: A Case Study of Liquor Dimensions Symbolism
الفضاء النصى في الخطاب الأدبى بعدًا مهمًا فى فهم المضامين النصية، إذ يصبح الأمر جليًا عند شاعرين، ينتسبان إلى عصرين مختلفين تمام الاختلاف، فالأعشى يرجع إلى عصر الجاهلية البدوية البدائية، وأبو نواس يعود إلى العصر العباسي عصر الحراك الثقافي والفكرى. وتعد دراسة العلامات من أهم مقومات العمل الأدبي؛ ذلك لأنها تتيح لقارئ النص تفسيرات، وتأويلات جديدة عن طريقها يمكن له فهم النصوص بطريقة جديدة تتفق وطبيعة عصر كل نص على حدة. إذ يؤدى الجانب اللغوي_ بما يحمله من دوال واسعة_ دورًا مهمًا في مكونات النص الأدبي باعتباره علامات تحمل دلالاتها القديمة؛ لتحيلها إلى حاضر بل تؤدي في النهاية إلى نص جديد فعال قادر على العطاء والتفاعل مع نصوص أخرى مستقبلية عبر المفردات اللغوية. إن أحد النصوص المزمع التطبيق عليها يرجع إلى العصر الجاهلي بكل أبعاده الثقافية والاجتماعية، والآخر إلى العصر العباسي وبالتأكيد فإنهما عصران مختلفان ثقافيًا واجتماعيًا واقتصاديًا، وهو ما يجعل رصد التعالقات النصية فى سياق الفضاء النصي أمرًا مهمًا لكشف المضامين الشعرية فى خطاب الشاعرين.
textual space, semiotics, Abu Nuwwaas, Al-A'sha, symbolism, liquor dimensions, poetic discourse
Home and Counter-home in André Aciman’s Out of Egypt
This paper attempts to examine the interrelationship between self-identity, home and (Jewish) diaspora as portrayed by André Aciman in Out of Egypt: A Memoir (1994). Further, the paper shows why such concepts are easily expressed in the genre of life-writing, especially the memoir, and finally concludes that Aciman’s Diaspora, which is communal, Jewish and historical, instead of unmooring his anchors, steeps him in his Jewry. In other words, his identity is exclusively Jewish and Jewry is diasporic in essence and that might make Aciman multi-lingual and multi-national but unchangingly Jewish and diasporic. This conclusion, thus, throws light on the essentially clannish nature of Aciman’s experience related in his memoir, in spite of the narrative’s representation of diaspora in postmodernist terms.
Alexandrian Jews, diaspora, exile, home, self-identity, Andre Aciman, the postmodern
Uncovering the Underlying Messages in National Political Songs under the Nasery Regime
This study is a Critical study that applies Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) principles on a group of national songs. The selected songs are by AbdelHalim Hafez due to the fact that he was known to be ‘the voice of the 1952 revolution’. Narrative analysis and features of involvement analysis are conducted on the selected songs. This study attempts to clarify how ‘the self’ is presented against ‘the other’ in national songs under the Nasery regime, the thesis defines who the self is and who the other is. Moreover, it shows the functions of national songs under the Nasery regime as a method of communicating ideologies to the public. This study, also, traces evolution of CDA theory by reviewing the works of Norman Fairclaugh (1989) and Van Dijk (1994, 1999 a. 1999 b, 2001, and 2006). The discursive recourses of manipulation in national songs are uncovered by applying van Dijk’s (1994) ‘Socio-Cognitive Approach’. The study analyzes the narrative structure that is used in national songs under the Nasery regime, and uncovers the ideologies embedded within. On the subsequent section, features of involvement are analyzed; the social implications of these structures and the ideologies they entail are elucidated. The thesis concludes with the findings of the study and recommendations for further research
critical discourse analysis (CDA), national political songs, Nasery regime, narrative analysis, Self vs. Other, Ideologies