2025-11-30
Maryam Moradi, Zohreh Ramin, Maryam Soltan Beyad
American Southern Gothic is considered an ideological apparatus used by the nation to create the myth of homogeneity. However, by drawing on Kristeva's theories of abjection and revolution, this article argues that in Orpheus Descending , Tennessee Williams appropriates the very same apparatus to deconstruct the phallogocentric historiography of the nation. By casting the social abject into the mainstream drama, Williams means to disturb the symbolic realm in order to recalibrate the criterion of Americanness. It is also discussed that Williams's allegorical rendering of the abject sublimates what resists incorporation within the hegemony of the symbolic and dismantles its essentialist categorizations of the subject. Moreover, Williams equips the abject with a semiotically charged counter-discourse that is substantiated in his poetic dialogues as well as his obscene desire and sensuality. This recourse to the pre-symbolic drives is meant to enable the abject to reclaim his place in national literature and history.
2025-11-30
Ruba Daoud, Imran Alrashdan, Abdel Rahman M. Altakhaineh
This study explores how three sociolinguistic factors—age, gender, and region—affect the use of negative particles in Jordanian Arabic (JA) across different areas of Amman: Hay Al Yasmeen, Hay Nazzal, and Shafa Badran. Using Labov’s variationist sociolinguistic approach, the researchers analyzed negation variation in a collection of vernacular JA recorded in Amman Governorate in 2020. The analysis involved 1,684 tokens collected from 83 participants who answered 40 questions and were asked to negate 30 sentences. These tokens were analyzed using the SPSS/Chi-square test. The results show that region, age, and gender all play a role in the choice of negative particles in JA. Younger speakers tend to favor ma , while females in certain areas exclusively use ma for prohibitions. Some less common negative particles also reflect similar social influences, occasionally diverging from expected developmental patterns. While some negation patterns consistently show social influences, others do not seem to be significantly affected by age or gender. This analysis emphasizes how social factors interact to shape language variation and change, suggesting that changes are ongoing and that previously observed trends in JA negation could potentially reverse. Highlights Variationist analysis of negation patterns in Jordanian Arabic speech. Age, gender, and region significantly shape negative particle choice. Younger speakers favor ma , indicating ongoing linguistic change. Gender and regional differences affect prohibitive negation use. Negation patterns show dynamic change and possible trend reversal.
2025-11-30
Mahmouud Aljamal, Hamed Altairi
This study investigates the speech act of warning in Jordanian Arabic, focusing on the politeness strategies used to soften warnings within informal conversational settings. The motivation for this study arises from a need to understand how politeness strategies adapt in collectivist cultures, where traditional theories, such as Brown and Levinson's (1987) framework, may not fully capture cultural nuances. Utilizing 56 hours of audio recordings from informal social gatherings, this research emphasizes the explicit yet indirect nature of warnings in Jordanian Arabic. While supporting the Brown and Levinson framework, the study identifies limitations in its applicability to collectivist societies like Jordan. Findings reveal a preference for positive politeness strategies and culturally specific mitigation devices, suggesting the need for modifications to the classical theory to better reflect local cultural practices. This research broadens the field of pragmatics and speech act theory by providing an in-depth analysis of warning practices in Jordanian Arabic, thereby enhancing our understanding of how cultural context shapes communication. Highlights 1. It provides the first systematic study of warnings in naturally occurring Jordanian Arabic conversation. 2. It shows that warnings in Jordanian Arabic are mostly indirect, not direct. The study finds that conventional indirect warnings are the dominant pattern, while direct warnings are relatively rare. 3. It demonstrates that warnings are frequently mitigated through politeness strategies. The paper shows that Jordanian speakers commonly soften warnings using positive politeness, negative politeness, off-record strategies, and sometimes avoidance, which supports the idea that warning can be a face-sensitive act. 4. It argues that Brown and Levinson’s framework is useful but not fully sufficient for Jordanian Arabic. The findings generally support the framework, but also show its limits in a collectivist Arab context, especially because Jordanian speakers often prioritize positive face, solidarity, and group harmony more than the theory predicts. 5. It identifies culturally specific mitigation devices, especially religious and social expressions.A major contribution is showing that warnings in Jordanian Arabic are often softened through Quranic verses, prophetic references, oath-taking, prayers, and expressions such as حرام, as well as culturally grounded directness linked to عشم, which are not adequately captured in the classical model.
2025-11-30
Yeliz BİBER VANGÖLÜ, Mehmet ÜNAL
Mass media’s influence on public perception, often involving the manipulation of information, raises concerns about its role in shaping public discourse. However, the relationship between media and individuals is complex and not always one of exploitation. By constructing plays from the documented words of individuals, verbatim theatre offers a unique response to this mediated reality. This article analyses Robin Soans’ Life after Scandal (2007) to explore how verbatim theatre engages with and critiques media representations of high-profile scandals. Through an examination of key characters’ experiences and the play’s thematic focus on truth and manipulation, this study applies media effects theories, including agenda-setting, framing and the concept of the ‘global village,’ to demonstrate how verbatim theatre exposes the constructed nature of media narratives and offers alternative perspectives on the complex relationship between media, individuals and public perception. By presenting multiple, often conflicting, accounts of the same events and amplifying marginalised voices, the analysis reveals that verbatim theatre challenges the dominant media narratives, offering a critical lens through which to understand and resist media manipulation. Highlights 1. Examines theatre's response to media through Robin Soans' verbatim play Life after Scandal . 2. Analyses the play through a broad framework of media effects theories (e.g., agenda-setting, framing, cultivation, spiral of silence). 3. Demonstrates how verbatim theatre exposes the constructed nature of media narratives. 4. Shows how verbatim theatre challenges dominant narratives by amplifying marginalised voices. 5. Concludes that verbatim theatre offers a critical lens to understand and resist media manipulation.
2025-11-30
luqman Rababah, Hanan A Amaireh
This study primarily examines the media's coverage of the enigmatic incidents of Jenin intrusions that occurred in 2023. This methodology integrates Critical Linguistics (CL) with Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), with a particular emphasis on the researcher's use of Fairclough's three-dimensional framework. The Jerusalem Post and the Jordan Times , Israeli and Arab news outlets, have comprehensively covered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The corpus contains twenty English-language news articles, ten from each agency. The media is covering Israel's 2023 Jenin military operations. According to research, media and TV employ terms relating to war, casualties, and military activities. They also employ rhetoric, emotion, and quotations to discuss disagreements. The Jordan Times routinely covers Palestinian suffering and anti-occupation activists' rise. While humanizing Palestinians, the stories highlight their injustices. The Jerusalem Post calls Palestinians terrorists without violence using hyperbole, imagery, and personification. Higlights 1-Framework Integration: The paper manages to combine Critical Linguistics (CL) with the three-dimensional model of Fairclough to examine the construction of the 2023 of Jenin incursions on discursive terms. 2-Comparative Media Analysis: It offers a unique comparative discussion of the way an Arab newspaper (The Jordan Times) and an Israeli newspaper (The Jerusalem Post) cover the same events of geopolitical interest through varying ideological prisms. 3-Victimization vs. Criminalization: The analysis shows that The Jordan Times uses a victim of aggression concerning Palestinians and that they prevail in the situation, whereas The Jerusalem Post presents Jenin as a terror capital, with the Palestinians being viewed as terrorists to justify military action. 4-Linguistic & Rhetorical Strategies: The paper can distinguish particular lexical use like adoption of military language (raids, assaults) in the Arab press and emotive metaphors and hyperboles in the Israeli press as they seek to shape the perceptions of the readers. 5-Contributing to the Body of Knowledge: The study helps the field by showing how the Arabic-language English news agencies can overcome the Western media bias by humanizing those typically marginalized in the global dialog.
2025-11-30
Amal Al-Shunnaq
This study aims at contributing to the literature written on explicitation and implicitation in Translation Studies. It discusses the use of explicitation and implicitation in the translation of the novel, Aleph , by Paulo Coelho, and also it tackles the main reasons behind using them. The importance of this study relies on the scarcity of works carried out on how the differences between English and Arabic might sometimes force the translator to explicitate and implicitate. To attain this, the translation of the first chapter of the novel Aleph by Al-Saify (2014) was read in order to identify examples of explicitation and implicitation shifts. The study showed that the sort of difference between the two languages determines which strategy to use, and it revealed that such strategies might be sometimes utilized to naturalize the text and to produce natural translation . Such conclusions might help translators in deciding when and why to explicitate and implicitate. Highlights Linguistic and cultural differences between English and Arabic are the main reasons behind using explicitation and implicitation when translating between them. Explicitation and implicitation are sometimes used to produce idiomatic translation. In translation practice, there is a general tendency to explictate. Explicitation and implicitation are used in the translation of the novel Aleph to improve the quality of the translation. Knowing when and how to employ explicitation and implicitation in the translation of Aleph can be seen as an good indicator of the translator’s proficiency.
2025-11-30
Hossein Sabouri, Ali Zare Zadeh, Roghayeh Lotfi Matanaq, Amir Gozalzadeh
The overarching argument of this article is that Willy, in Arthur Miller’s The Death of a Salesman (1998), is portrayed both through Emad and the Old Man, and Linda is displayed by Rana and the Old Woman in Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman (2016). Drawing upon Linda Hutcheon’s concept of “meme”, the objective of this paper is to compare the characters of two masterpieces to discover how Farhadi adapts and creates them native to fit his local context. In order to fill the existing gap, examining the psychological development of the characters better illuminates the similarities and the differences between two different nations and unravels Farhadi’s creativity in adapting Miller’s play to the Iranian culture. By detaching himself from fidelity, Farhadi creates his own typical Iranian version of Miller’s characters in a new culture in lieu of an accurate duplication, a change which is repetition without replication, as if Miller’s characters were reborn with the same characteristics in another context.
2025-11-30
Ahmad Al-Harahsheh, Suha Tayseer Abualkarasanneh, Rafat Al Rousan
This study aims to assess the quality of translating political texts from English to Arabic using the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT. It adopts the updated version of the Multidimensional Quality Metrics (MQM) framework to evaluate the quality of translations produced by ChatGPT. The data includes 30 political articles selected from BBC World and CNN World in English and their translations into Arabic. The study identified several linguistic errors encountered by translators using ChatGPT, such as fluency and accuracy. Translations lacking these important aspects often lead to misunderstandings and confuse the users. Despite these issues, the ChatGPT tool demonstrated good translation performance in political news, with an overall translation quality rating of 93%. Highlights ChatGPT provide spontaneous translation of different texts with nearly high accuracy. However, human intervention is crucial to rectify this translation, as human translators are more capable to recognize the cultural or social context. The expertise of human translators is essential for ensuring the building of effective and culturally suitable translation systems at the time AI grows quickly. AI technologies or tools can be developed and improved to address different language and cultural demands. Furthermore, investing in collaboration and knowledge exchange between AI researchers and human translators would encourage advancements and push translation technology forward. This will lead to more effective precise and accessible translation technologies that will help both people and communities.