A Linguistic Study of Shop Signs in Salt, Jordan

Shop signs are seen as a reflection of the socio-cultural background of the place in which the shop is located. This paper studies the shop signs in Salt, Jordan because it is one of the most popular cities in the country and it has not yet been explored adequately. These shop sings are collected from two main streets in two different areas of Salt: Hamzih Prince Street and Al Hamam Street. A digital camera is used to capture the shop signs on these streets. In addition, the study examines the shop signs using both quantitative and qualitative measures. It focuses on the language choice, the arrangement of languages and the linguistic features of these signs, i.e. phonetic, morphological, semantic, and syntactic. In addition, it studies the pragmatic functions of these shop signs. The study concludes that Salt is a conservative and traditional county in Jordan

Covid-19 conceptual metaphors in Jordanian political discourse : evidence from a newspaper-based corpus

Conceptual Metaphors are part of human cognition and are essential to human knowledge and experience. The study reported here examines the COVID-19 conceptual metaphors underlying the metaphoric language employed by Jordanian government officials during two periods in 2020, namely from February to May and September to December. To this end, a corpus of official statements (n=213) reported in Al-Rai ‘The Opinion’, an Arabic daily mainstream newspaper, was collected and analyzed using the Cognitive Metaphor Theory proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 2003). Identified conceptual metaphors are categorized under the following eight source domains: WARFARE, CONTAINER, OCEAN, JOURNEY, NATURAL PHENOMENON, EXAMINATION, ANIMAL, and SPORT. A comparison of the frequency of these metaphors in each period is established. The analysis reveals that WARFARE and CONTAINER metaphors have the highest frequency in both periods followed by OCEAN and JOURNEY. The percentage of the other four domains is less than five percent. Conceptual metaphors subsumed under the frequent domains, namely, WARFARE, CONTAINER, OCEAN, and JOURNEY are further examined and discussed following Critical Metaphor Analysis (Charteris-Black 2004). The results show that during the first period, the priority given by the Jordanian government was to focus on convincing people of the restrictive measures which suspended freedom. Therefore, WARFARE has dominated the scene. However, as the crisis progressed, the CONTAINER metaphors took over. This study may assist government agencies to use the right metaphors to impact the public opinion and win the masses to their stands

SARS-CoV-2 vaccination modelling for safe surgery to save lives: data from an international prospective cohort study

Background: Preoperative SARS-CoV-2 vaccination could support safer elective surgery. Vaccine numbers are limited so this study aimed to inform their prioritization by modelling. Methods: The primary outcome was the number needed to vaccinate (NNV) to prevent one COVID-19-related death in 1 year. NNVs were based on postoperative SARS-CoV-2 rates and mortality in an international cohort study (surgical patients), and community SARS-CoV-2 incidence and case fatality data (general population). NNV estimates were stratified by age (18-49, 50-69, 70 or more years) and type of surgery. Best- and worst-case scenarios were used to describe uncertainty. Results: NNVs were more favourable in surgical patients than the general population. The most favourable NNVs were in patients aged 70 years or more needing cancer surgery (351; best case 196, worst case 816) or non-cancer surgery (733; best case 407, worst case 1664). Both exceeded the NNV in the general population (1840; best case 1196, worst case 3066). NNVs for surgical patients remained favourable at a range of SARS-CoV-2 incidence rates in sensitivity analysis modelling. Globally, prioritizing preoperative vaccination of patients needing elective surgery ahead of the general population could prevent an additional 58 687 (best case 115 007, worst case 20 177) COVID-19-related deaths in 1 year. Conclusion: As global roll out of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination proceeds, patients needing elective surgery should be prioritized ahead of the general population