Equating CONTROL with ‘containment’: justifying the equation via animal Farm

Unless they are expressed in more concrete manners, concepts, which are abstract in nature, are rather difficult to be appreciated. Thus, concepts such as CONTROL, are normally expressed using more concrete means, such as through the hierarchical and the front-back image schemas (Khazriyati 2002a & 2002b). Apart from the use of the word ‘control’ per se to manifest the concept, other metaphorical expressions such as in front of, behind and towards, are widely employed to realise the concept (ibid. & 2003). Though in terms of forms, those expressions are in no way similar to that of the word ‘control’, careful analysis via the cognitive semantics approach would enable one to be aware of the fact that the use of such expressions are not at all arbitrary in describing CONTROL. This paper looks at how the container image schema – one of the theoretical frameworks in cognitive semantics – is utilised to interpret the concept of CONTROL in Animal Farm

Creating awareness of plagiarism among postgraduates in a postgraduate course through a talk

Submitting plagiarised works at the postgraduate level is not a manifestation of a positive researcher character; yet, such an academic crime appears to be common among students. Although the crime committed may either be intentional or unintentional, the need to prevent this from happening is necessary. Hence, to curb this problem, a minor change in the course structure was made to a postgraduate course in UKM. This change was in the form of introducing a talk on plagiarism in the course activities. The talk on plagiarism was presented to the students at the beginning of the semester to create awareness of the various forms of plagiarism, the implications of plagiarism, and ways of preventing it. This talk was followed by an investigation on the students’ understanding of the subject matter through their reflective diary entries. Results show that the talk has succeeded in getting the students to understand the forms of plagiarism and ways of preventing plagiarism

The Value Of Knowledge In The Malay Mind: A Cognitive Semantic Analysis

knowledge is a universal concept that permeates all nations and civilisations. Like any other concepts, knowledge is also manifested in the form of fgurative expressions. Previous studies have shown that the fgurative expressions used in a particular language are closely related to the culture in which that particular language is used; this phenomenon is consistent with the linguistic relativity theory. In addition, studies in cognitive semantics have shown that the construction of fgurative expressions occurs systematically in the minds of its users. Thus, this paper describes how knowledge is represented in the Malay mind and how the concept is valued by the Malay speech community using the cognitive semantic approach. Specifcally, this paper illustrates how knowledge is valued by the Malay speech community through expressions related to knowledge via the use of three Idealised Cognitive Models, namely conceptual metaphors, metonymies and kinaesthetic image schemas. Results highlight the manifestation of knowledge fguratively in a variety of ways and this illustrates the manner the concept is perceived by the Malay speech community, i.e., knowledge is something big and is a source of light; hence, knowledge has to be sought in a proactive manner and that seeking knowledge is a life-long process. The fndings of this study suggest that knowledge can be discussed using the more universal conceptual metaphor the mind is the body, with different manifestations of the conceptual metaphor

Exploring three idealised cognitive models in The Kampung Boy and Budak Kampung

The notion “language mirrors the structure of human cognition” is applicable, especially when the same ideas are presented to different speech communities. This is so because speakers of different speech communities do not see a particular concept in a similar manner. Their experiences are the key factors as to why they express certain concepts in certain ways. This paper compares and contrasts three Idealised Cognitive Models (ICMs) namely, kinaesthetic image schemas, conceptual metaphors, and metonymies, that underlie the linguistic expressions in Dato’ Lat’s graphic novel, The Kampung Boy, with the ICMs found in its Malay version, Budak Kampung. This is to investigate if the thought processes in both languages, especially when conveying the same ideas, are similar or otherwise. Results show that the ICMs that were used in The Kampung Boy were either maintained, modified, dropped, or added in its Malay version. This paper suggests that no individuals experience and perceive the same things similarly despite belonging to the same culture and the same linguistic community. In addition, it also supports the notion that knowledge in the similarities and differences in the conceptualisation of ideas by people across cultures is important as it enables those from different linguistic backgrounds to appreciate the linguistic expressions used by different speech communities. This hence, helps them to understand the cultures of people all over the world without having to directly be in physical contact with them

Role of formal input exposure and onset age in grammaticality judgement

This study examines the effects of formal input exposure and the onset age of exposure on the performance of eleven different morphosyntactic structures in a foreign language setting. It studies whether being exposed to longer hours of formal language classes at a younger age is advantageous for Iranian EFL learners. Some studies have claimed that there is no advantage for early starters and in the field of grammatical learning, later starters perform better. Four groups of Iranian learners with different formal learning times participated in this study: Groups A and B were public and private school students, respectively, whereas Groups C and D had extra supplementary classes at language institutes as well. A Grammaticality Judgement Task (GJT) including some grammatical structures which were claimed to be problematic for EFL learners, was used as a tool to determine the possible differences in the performance of grammatical structures of the four groups. A two-way ANCOVA and a one-way ANOVA were used to analyse the data. Results suggest that long hours of formal exposure lead to better grammatical performance and the participants who started learning English at age 9 or below performed better in the GJT

Engaging postgraduate students in preparing research proposals

Both foreign and local postgraduate candidates of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia come from diverse backgrounds and experiences. These students face several problems especially in writing the research proposals. Hence, to facilitate the process of writing a proposal, they are required to enrol in Research Methodology, a course that is made compulsory for all postgraduate students. This article presents a report on an action research that investigates the research skills of English as a Second Language postgraduates and their research journey while undergoing the Research Methodology course. Data was collected from their weekly journal entries and the interviews conducted on them. This data is also supported with the feedback by the Research Methodology course instructors during the proposal defense sessions. The findings suggest that although the students seemed enthusiastic when writing their proposals, they were not ready when faced with questions about research problems and approaches. It is found that these students did not read extensively to identify the gaps in their research and this hence, resulted in them facing difficulties to write a clear statement of the problem. This also led to poor formulation of their research questions. The findings will be beneficial for instructors and potential supervisors who aim to be better at teaching and supervising potential postgraduate students

Reading English academic texts: evidence from ESL undergraduates’ eye movement data

Reading English academic texts can be a daunting task for many ESL university students. The complex features of academic texts which include academic discourse, text structure, and vocabulary may affect the reading process. An investigation of how ESL university students read English academic reading materials would provide insights on what learners do to attain comprehension of the text. This study aims to investigate the cognitive processes that take place when ESL undergraduates read English academic texts using eye movement data. Quantitative data (total fixation duration, total fixation count, fixation duration) and qualitative data (scan path) of eye movements derived from eye tracker accompanied with retrospective interview were collected from twenty ESL undergraduates from two academic programmes. The findings revealed that participants who failed to recall the texts had longer fixation duration and resulted in more in words regressions compared to participants who recalled and explained the texts accurately. Vocabulary used in academic texts was found to be one of the factors that affect the comprehension of the texts. The findings of the study suggest that specialised instructions that emphasise academic reading skills should be implemented at the early level of tertiary education

An Overview of the Persian EFL learners’ Spelling Difficulties

Spelling is considered a difficult skill for foreign and second language learners of English as the ability to spell in English language comes with a lot of effort, particularly when the English spelling system is known to be a complex system, even among native speakers. The difficulties could be linguistic and extra-linguistic. This conceptual paper reviews the differences and similarities between English and Persian spelling system, the sages of spelling difficulties among children, particularly the approach suggested by Tabrizi, Tabrizi, and Tabrizi (2013)in which the stages of learning spelling among Iranian learners are analyzed. The types of morphological, phonological, and orthographical spelling difficulties, factors contributing to the spelling difficulty, as well as a comprehensive literature review of EFL studies conducted on English spelling are provided in this paper. Finally, the mental processing and the role of memory are discussed briefly. It was concluded that examining the differences between the learners’ first language and English language may provide useful insights into the English spelling problems faced by EFL learners

Investigating lexical variation and change in Malaysian twitter: a conceptual paper

Social media platforms such as Twitter is constantly transforming the usage of lexical items among global Internet users, including in Malaysia. Interestingly, despite adopting British English in the national education system, American English is gaining prominence among Malaysians due to the widespread dissemination of American English through the media. American English has been classified as a hyper-central language, serving as the hub for global English in Mair’s theory of The World System of Englishes. Despite of the magnitude of American English as a global language, there is a dearth of research on how American English is affecting other varieties of English, especially Malaysian English. There is a need to examine the role of American English in leading global language variation and change. Thus, this conceptual paper proposes how the influence of American English on Malaysian English, in terms of lexical items can be investigated on Twitter. This paper demonstrates how two emerging American lexical items lit and on fleek can be investigated in terms of its trend of frequency and patterns of usage in Malaysian Twitter through a number of tools and methods. Results from such a study may be able to reveal the extent to which Malaysian English is influenced by American English in terms of lexical units on Twitter, shedding light on the global transformation of the English language

How bilingual are Malaysian undergraduates? A snapshot of the different bilingual categories in Malaysia

Almost all literate Malaysians are able to communicate in at least two different languages. Hence, ideally, conducting research involving bilinguals should not be a problem mainly because Malaysia can be regarded as a country with an abundant supply of participants for bilingual studies. However, in reality, conducting research on bilinguals in Malaysia, particularly those that regard bilinguals as a variable, is indeed a challenge; bilingualism at individual levels varies depending on, among others, the frequency and amount of input, interaction opportunities, and the perceived need for certain languages. To understand the multifaceted nature of bilingual individuals in Malaysia, an online survey was conducted on 234 Malay-English bilingual undergraduates (205 females and 29 males) from a research university in Malaysia to investigate their language profile from various aspects of bilingual experiences. Results demonstrate that although the respondents can be categorised as Simultaneous Early Bilinguals, Sequential Early Bilinguals, and Late Bilinguals, these Age of Acquisition-based categorisation cannot determine whether they are Dominant (unbalanced) Bilinguals, Balanced Bilinguals, Passive Bilinguals, or Active (Productive) Bilinguals. This suggests that, although Malay is the National Language of Malaysia and English is its Official Second Language, when conducting research on bilingual individuals in Malaysia, researchers must not consider the bilinguals as homogeneous; instead, the bilinguals’ language profile should be investigated so as to ensure that the right conclusions will be made in their studies