Speech acts and language styles of Biden’s victory speech for promoting peace values

The importance of language in expressing ideas and ideologies has always been a focus of public debate in politics. The persons in charge of the reins of power become a source of concern, as well as the language they use. As a result, this research looks into the speech acts, language styles, and how they express peace values from Biden’s victory speech. A qualitative research design was used. Biden’s pragma stylistics and peace values were extracted from his victory speech in Wilmington, Delaware on November 7, 2020. This study focused on three aspects, namely: categories of illocutionary acts, language style based on sentence structure, and peace values. The data were analyzed following these stages: data condensation, data display, and drawing/verifying conclusions. The results showed that the most common illocutionary type employed in diverse language styles in Biden’s victory speech was commissive. Presumably, politicians have become accustomed to making promises or making commitments in order to entice citizens to vote for them. In addition, two types of peace values (inner peace and social peace) were discovered along with three types of language styles: parallelism, antithesis, and repetition (epizeuxis, anaphora, and anadiplosis), with more than half of the data employing parallelism as the language style. The majority of Biden’s speech focused on social peace to keep social life free of internal strife.

A study on condolence strategies by Jordanian students at Irbid University College

This study aimed to investigate the strategies of condolence speech act as expressed by Jordanian students at Irbid University College and identified the respective role of social power and social distance in offering these strategies. It employed qualitative and quantitative research methods, and the study participants included 100 university students ranging from 19 to 23 years old. The data were collected using an adapted version of the discourse completion test and coded based on the coding schema. The results of the study demonstrated that praying for God’s mercy and forgiveness for the deceased was the most frequent strategy used by the participants, and expressing sympathy was the least frequently used strategy. When the power and distance aspects of the relationship between the speakers are concerned, the results showed that some of the strategies such as ‘praying for God’s mercy and forgiveness to be with the deceased' and ‘offering condolences’ are low-risk strategies to threaten the face needs of the bereaved people. Moreover, the results showed that the use of these strategies was mainly attributed to the participants’ culture, religious orientation, social power, and social distance between the interlocutors. Finally, some pedagogical implications and suggestions for future research are briefly discussed in this article

Investigating Indonesian EFL pre-service teachers’ conceptions of culture and intercultural competence

Globalization inevitably increases communication among people from different languages and cultural backgrounds. This phenomenon dramatically demands changes in the traditional aims of language teaching which rely on the norms and values of native-speaking countries. A large body of literature encourages language teaching to be concerned more with intercultural competence (hereinafter IC), which is allegedly effective to help students achieve successful intercultural communication. Nonetheless, in the Indonesian context, there is still an iota of evidence regarding pre-service teachers’ understandings of the terms culture and IC. Thus, this study attempts to gain insights into Indonesian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) pre-service teachers’ understandings of culture and IC. It is considered as a single case study employing questionnaires and interviews. In total, 26 EFL pre-service teachers participated in this study by answering a questionnaire, with mainly close-ended and some open-ended questions. From these participants, seven pre-service teachers were interviewed. The results suggested the discrepancy in the participants’ understandings of culture and IC. This condition may hinder the meaningful goals of cultural teaching and the effective pedagogical practices in their future EFL classrooms. Drawing on the results, the present study provides some recommendations for the pre-service teachers and teacher education in an attempt to develop cultural teaching in English Language Teaching (ELT)

EFL teachers’ online teaching in rural schools during the COVID-19 pandemic: Stories from Indonesia

The implementation of online English instruction in remote areas during the COVID-19 pandemic, which mandates school closures, remains unknown, especially given these areas’ reputation for inadequate educational facilities. Additionally, the preparations, implementation, and challenges experienced by English as a Foreign Language (henceforth, EFL) teachers in rural areas remain unclear. This study therefore aimed at exploring the experiences of EFL teachers in rural areas on (1) their readiness for conducting online teaching, (2) their implementation of online teaching, and (3) the challenges during the implementation of online teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The research was conducted in Indonesia with eight English teachers in rural schools. This study was a qualitative study that employed a phenomenological study approach and used semi-structured interviews to collect the data. The findings indicate that EFL teachers, during this pandemic time, were able to conduct fully online English teaching because they possessed sufficient knowledge of English instruction using technology. Additionally, these teachers might leverage various technologies and adapt those tools to transform their usual face-to-face English instruction into online instruction. Nonetheless, these teachers in rural schools frequently encountered challenges with internet connectivity, student-owned technology devices, student enthusiasm, and student netiquette when enrolling in online English teaching. Additionally, this article discusses some practical considerations for implementing online English teaching during a pandemic.

L2 attitude and motivation of secondary, undergraduate, and postgraduate ESL learners in India

Second language (L2) attitude and motivation-related studies focusing on differences caused by age have mostly highlighted the temporal dimension of L2 attitude and motivation. Age-related L2 motivation studies have also been gainfully employed at comparisons between L2 learners of different age groups recruited from different L2 learning environments. Such studies have not, however, attempted an analysis of the L2 attitudinal and motivational differences that may exist among L2 learners within a closer age range, e.g., 18 to 25 years. This article presents the findings of an L2 attitude and motivation survey, using a modified version of Dӧrnyei et al. (2006) and Ryan (2005), conducted among secondary, undergraduate, and postgraduate English as a second language (ESL) learners (N210) in India. It primarily presents a comparative analysis of the L2 attitudinal and motivational constructs of integrativeness, instrumentality, cultural interest, linguistic self-confidence, and L2 anxiety attested in the sample. Additionally, it offers a description of the correlation between the five L2 attitudinal and motivational constructs concerning the different ESL groups. As the ESL learners across the academic levels demonstrated ESL motivation more on the side of instrumentality, they also reported linguistic self-confidence more in the familiar environment of an L2 classroom than outside of it. Since better motivational strategies enhance learner dedication to the learning of a certain L2, an elaborated understanding of the specific differences in L2 attitude and motivation within this important age range should help design more useful and effective L2 pedagogical methods

A linguistic study of English double negation and its realization in Arabic

The studies on multiple negation have been conducted intensively in linguistics, but very few studies have focused on multiple negation in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). Although multiple negation appears in informal varieties, researchers find it an important topic for research. First, as linguists, we believe that all kinds of language varieties are worth studying. Second, the complexity of the structure of multiple negation raises queries about the difficulties that Arab students will encounter when they attempt to translate them from English to MSA. Our study focuses on double negation (DN) because, unlike other types of multiple negation, it yields a positive interpretation. This paper begins with a review of studies on multiple negation in English, MSA, and other languages, using a framework of generative grammar and the minimalist program. We then report on our empirical study of 60 randomly selected Arab students of English who were asked to translate 20 sentences containing multiple negation into MSA. To determine whether the intensity of their exposure to English would impact their understanding of these negative English structures, the students studying at levels two and four were selected. The students’ responses were quantitatively analysed. The results showed that MSA exhibits both DN and negative concord constructions. Moreover, the syntactic analyses of DN provided by Watanabe (2004) and Giannakidou (2000) concord with DN in MSA with some considerations. Additionally, all the sampled students had difficulty translating these types of sentences, indicating that intensity of exposure did not cause differences in performance

Effects of affective variables and willingness to communicate on students’ English-speaking performance in Thailand

Recently, Willingness to Communicate (WTC) has been explored and proposed to be one of the key concepts for identifying when one decides to initiate communication in the target language. The attention, nonetheless, has been concentrated on how WTC interacts with other learners’ variables. This study, on the other hand, intends to offer empirical evidence on the direct roles of affective variables (self-confidence, anxiety, motivation, and grit) and WTC variables (WTC inside the classroom, WTC outside the classroom, and WTC in a digital setting) in Thai students’ English-speaking performance. The data were obtained from 35 undergraduate students (17.1% males; 82.9% females) using a survey questionnaire. Then, a speaking test was taken from an English Communication Skills course and was analysed using correlation and hierarchical regression. The results disclosed positive correlations among self-confidence, motivation, grit, WTC in a digital setting, WTC inside the classroom, WTC outside the classroom, and speaking performance, and negative correlations among self-confidence, anxiety, and grit. However, motivation was the only significant predictor of speaking performance. The findings offer some implications for English teachers in improving students’ English-speaking performance.

Enhancing grammar competence of vocational school students through the Omygram learning chart

Various methods and approaches have been used to support English learning. However, there is still a lack of information on how the grammar competence of vocational students can be improved in the Malaysian context. This study aims to build the Omygram learning chart and identify its effects on the achievement level of the students in Program Vokasional Menengah Atas (PVMA), or the upper-secondary vocational programme, on their English grammar competence. The study involved two secondary schools in Johor, Malaysia, employing a quasi-experimental design. A descriptive analysis from SPSS showed the increment in the mean score for the post-test of the treatment group of 5.58, higher than the control group (0.33) after the intervention was applied. The results of t-test showed no significant difference in achievement between pre-test and post-test for the control group [p = 0.504, (p 0.05)]. On the other hand, the result of the t-test for the treatment group showed a significant difference in achievement between the pre-test and post-test [p = 0.000, (p0.05)]. Students’ motivation after using the Omygram learning chart was also high. In conclusion, the development of the Omygram learning chart is proven to effectively increase students’ achievement in English. This confirms that developing learning aids improves students’ grammar competence and motivates them to learn the language better.  As a result, the goal of producing a skilled workforce in TVET (Technical Education and Vocational Training) and possessing soft skills will be more achievable

The magic of storytelling: Does storytelling through videos improve EFL students’ oral performance?

This study aimed to examine the EFL (English as a foreign language) students’ oral presentation of storytelling. The students performed retelling of narratives such as fables, legends, myths, and fairy tales using their smartphones and video recorder. The participants of the study were 19 students enrolled in the Drama in ELT (English Language Teaching) course at Universitas Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh, Indonesia. It employed participant observation and interviews to collect data. The results of the study revealed that for non-language aspects, the lowest score was for ‘dress code’ (M=2.1), meaning that the students did not make any efforts to dress and use props that were related to the stories they were telling. While for the language aspects, the lowest score was for ‘communicative abilities with the audience’ (M= 1.2). This shows that even though the participants recorded their performance, and there was no audience watching them directly, they still faced barriers and a lack of confidence when presenting the storytelling. The interviews further supported the findings from the observation such as not being able to use appropriate props for their performance, lack of eye contact, switching voices, use of gestures, difficulty in remembering the script, and needing somebody else to do the recording for them. Therefore, the students need more practice in front of audiences to overcome the problems in the future to ensure that the use of storytelling can improve their oral performance