Source Culture and Target Culture in English Language Teaching: A Study of Intercultural Pragmatics and Students’ Learning Outcomes

The study explores the role of intercultural pragmatics in theimprovement of students’ reading comprehension of English. This is anexperimental research conducted upon 50 eighth-grade Pashtun studentsaged around 12 and 13 years. The experimental group (n=25) was taughtan intercultural curriculum which included topics from the British culture(target culture) and Pashtun culture (source culture) in addition to theform of language. The control group (n=25) was treated traditionally inwhich the focus was on the structure and form of language. The pre- andpost-tests were administered to both groups. After comparing the meanscores of the tests, it has been found that the experimental group showedgreater improvement in their English language proficiency as comparedto the control group. It is recommended that topics from both the sourceand target cultures written in the target language be included in theEnglish curriculum. Further, training programs for language teachersshould include intercultural pragmatics in their syllabi. Further researchmay be conducted in the same area in different places with participantsfrom different cultures and age groups

A Study of Stylistic Features of Cricket Commentary: A Discourse Analysis

This study is based on the analysis of language practices and features that different cricket commentators use in international cricket matches. This study explores that cricket commentary forms a complete register on its own with its field, tenor, and mode components. Data for this research have been taken from the 1992 World Cup, the 2015 World Cup, and the Ashes Series 2005 matches available on YouTube. Textual analysis technique has been employed for data analysis. After analyzing the data in the light of Halliday’s notion of register comprising field, tenor, and mode, it is found that cricket commentary is characterized by special syntactic features such as ellipsis, extensive use of exclamatory sentences, the abundant use of the simple present tense and simple sentences, passive construction notably in elliptical form, first and third conditionals, and inversion. Use of idioms, certain action verbs, certain positive and negative adjectives, and certain adverbs are some of the salient features of cricket commentary. Cricket commentary also has a special jargon with words like ‘knock’, ‘mid-on’, ‘mid-off’, ‘innings’ and ‘bouncer’ etc. Cricket commentators also use certain aspects of connected speech such as weak forms of words, elision, and assimilation

المعلّم بطرس البستانيّ: حیاتہ و جھودہ العلمیۃ

This research deals with the life and literary works of Butrus-Ul-Bustani, an Arab literary figure of the 19th Certury.  His contributation to Arabic Language and literature is mentioning.  The Muhit-Ul-Muhit and Dairat-Ul-Marif are his most famous and valuable works.  The first one is a dictionary of Arabic Language, that left positive effective on the dictionaries written after it, because the later lexicographers, who produced dictionaries, were impressed my the methodology of Al-Muhit.  Another feature of this dictionary is that the author, inspite of being a Christian, does not hesitate refering to the Holy Quran and Hadith, during deep explanation of Arabic words, that shows his belief in the authenticity of both the aforesaid sources.  The Dairat-Ul-Marif is the first encyclopeadia in Arabic compiled by an individual author according to modern western style.  It was a scholarly gift to the Arab and to the World of knowledge.</p

A Study of Stylistic Features of Cricket Commentary: A Discourse Analysis

This study is based on the analysis of language practices and features that different cricket commentators use in international cricket matches. This study explores that cricket commentary forms a complete register on its own with its field, tenor, and mode components. Data for this research have been taken from the 1992 World Cup, the 2015 World Cup, and the Ashes Series 2005 matches available on YouTube. Textual analysis technique has been employed for data analysis. After analyzing the data in the light of Halliday’s notion of register comprising field, tenor, and mode, it is found that cricket commentary is characterized by special syntactic features such as ellipsis, extensive use of exclamatory sentences, the abundant use of the simple present tense and simple sentences, passive construction notably in elliptical form, first and third conditionals, and inversion. Use of idioms, certain action verbs, certain positive and negative adjectives, and certain adverbs are some of the salient features of cricket commentary. Cricket commentary also has a special jargon with words like ‘knock’, ‘mid-on’, ‘mid-off’, ‘innings’ and ‘bouncer’ etc. Cricket commentators also use certain aspects of connected speech such as weak forms of words, elision, and assimilation

Exploring the Invariant Core: An Analysis of Multiple Translations of a Selection from Iqbal’s Shikwah

This paper is an attempt to explore the invariant core among thethree English translations of selected poetry from Iqbal&rsquo;s Shikwah. Thestudy identifies that the complex nature of poetry makes it difficult for thetranslators to transfer the ST in terms of both content and form. Therefore,good poetry is translated not only once, but several times by differenttranslators with their different approaches and strategies. Accordingly,Iqbal&rsquo;s Shikwah and Jawab -e- Shikwah is translated by three translators,including two foreign and one indigenous translator. This is a qualitativeresearch, and Viney and Darbelnet&rsquo;s model of translational analysis wasused as it best suited the qualitative nature of the present research. Thestudy was delimited to the three selected translations of a stanza fromIqbal&rsquo;s famous poem Shikwa rendered by the three translators Arbury,Singh, and Akhtar. The analysis of the translations has shown that inrendering the original text, the translators have used different proceduresand strategies which consequently resulted in various losses, specificallyin terms of form, however, the invariant core, which comprises both themeand tone, remains almost the same

Good Law or Bad Law? Need for General Principles on Plain Urdu Translation of Legislative Documents in Pakistan

The article is written against the backdrop of the plain language movement that made its way to the legal Language almost in the 1970s. Almost all countries work differently to make legal documents readable and understandable for laypersons. The rationale behind the plain language movement in Pakistan is to connect and reach out to the community members the law must serve. Through detailed and careful observation, it is concluded that the Urdu language has no systematic model, principles, or handbook that can wisely analyze the plain patterns in a translated legal text in Urdu (the author deliberately uses translated Urdu as there is no system available for producing independent Urdu legislation in Pakistan). To serve this purpose, the study draws upon Punjab (Pakistan) laws translated from English into Urdu to make them accessible to common readers who can only read Urdu. To introduce plain language markers, the author derives principles from various handbooks, official websites, and articles written and devised by different countries. Based on these markers, the study concludes that 'how' plainness necessarily paves the way for communicating legal knowledge and legal rights preserved through legislative documents

Exploring the Invariant Core: An Analysis of Multiple Translations of a Selection from Iqbal’s Shikwah

This paper is an attempt to explore the invariant core among thethree English translations of selected poetry from Iqbal&rsquo;s Shikwah. Thestudy identifies that the complex nature of poetry makes it difficult for thetranslators to transfer the ST in terms of both content and form. Therefore,good poetry is translated not only once, but several times by differenttranslators with their different approaches and strategies. Accordingly,Iqbal&rsquo;s Shikwah and Jawab -e- Shikwah is translated by three translators,including two foreign and one indigenous translator. This is a qualitativeresearch, and Viney and Darbelnet&rsquo;s model of translational analysis wasused as it best suited the qualitative nature of the present research. Thestudy was delimited to the three selected translations of a stanza fromIqbal&rsquo;s famous poem Shikwa rendered by the three translators Arbury,Singh, and Akhtar. The analysis of the translations has shown that inrendering the original text, the translators have used different proceduresand strategies which consequently resulted in various losses, specificallyin terms of form, however, the invariant core, which comprises both themeand tone, remains almost the same

A Research based dissucssion on Istawa alal -Al-Arsh in the light of Tafseer kabeer

The tafseer, mafateeh ul ghaib, of Imam Fakhr Ud Din Al Razi (544-606ah) is one of the selected tafaaseer in the world all over, which has been enjoying an international repute for quite long period. This tafseer is known as the masterpiece of uloom e islamia. In this article the tafseer has been highlighted in the problems of mutashabihaat (that which is not known by anyone except allah). There are two types of the verses of the holy quran, known as muhkamaat and mutashabihaat. Muhkamaat is obligatory for belief and action whereas mutashabihat is only for having iman (belief) on it. Afterward some people started the explanation and the ummah went astray. Therefore the religious scholars have given comprehensive explanation in their tafaseers. Imam al razi has given intellectuals and logical arguments in his tafseer at different places about this issue and tried his level best to make it understandable to reason and intellect. The strayed and unfounded ideas have been addressed effectively. This dissertation reflects   the rational arguments of imam al razi supported by quran, hadith and other relevant materials

Enhanced negative refraction in one- and two-dimensional chiral atomic lattices

We consider a physical scheme for the realization of optical lattices that have negative refracting under certain conditions. The lattice is formed by clusters of five-level closed-loop chiral atoms assumed to have a Gaussian density distribution in dipole traps along one or two dimensions. With a suitable combination of strong standing wave control fields, spatial symmetry of atoms is achieved. Besides, the dispersion properties of an atomic lattice can be modified conveniently by adjusting various parameters related to the atoms or the lattice. We show that negative-like refraction is not specific to the atoms themselves, but also emerges due to the periodicity of the lattice. We further reveal that the refraction is negative over specific regions on the lattice and strongly depends on the number of atoms trapped along a particular direction. Our model is effectively controllable remotely and may have applications in negative refraction devices and optical information processing