Dare you rocking it: Contemporary women and the trap of the glass ceiling in chick lit
October 2016
This paper argues that multiple truths can coexist, and beyond the romance and the pink flowery cover, Chick lit examines new areas in the modern women’s lives that feminists have not touched yet such as the impact of female in power on the advancement of female subordinate’s employees, and the reason that keeps contemporary women away from the glass ceiling. It demonstrates how Chick lit authors by bringing...
Socio-political satire in Femi Osofisan’s Many Colours Make the Thunder-King
September 2016
Oral literature is a vital tool that is sometimes deployed by African writers for criticizing the social and political situations in their countries with the aim of challenging and proffering solutions to unpleasant and oppressive practices by its leaders. Femi Osofisan’s Many Colours Make the Thunder-King exemplifies this situation. It is observed that oral literature is not usually considered as a possible means...
A question of the body: Colonial legacies and postcolonial imaginaries of power in African literary texts
September 2016
This study examines the representation of corporeal difference as one of the fundamental ideologies on which the power dynamics of colonial and postcolonial polities are based. The analyses in this study are anchored on postcolonial theory with regard to issues such as power, race, centre/margin and decolonisation while the various notions of corporeality discussed here are informed by the works of theorists like...
Globalisation and African women’s bodies: Some fictional representations
August 2016
Gender as an important resonance in the transnational dynamics of globalisation significantly compels African women to transgress orthodox boundaries and traditional spaces which often limit them to domestic spheres. Particularly in the global south, for instance, the gendered forces of globalisation, complexly restructures people and spaces such that African women’s identities and sexualities are profoundly...
‘You have no past, no history’ : Philosophy, literature and the re-invention of Africa
August 2016
Africa has been a victim of misrepresentation since the advent of colonialism. This paper, which is largely based on textual analysis, examines how African philosophy and literature intersect in an attempt to bring about a better understanding of Africa in both the West and Africa itself. The study argues that the intersection of literature and philosophy in African literary discourse we witness is an inevitable...
"Moments of infinite joy within a limited time": The concept of time in John Green's The Fault in our Stars
August 2016
Time is a major theme in John Green's young adult and romantic novel, The Fault in our Stars (2012). Green spent ten years trying to write the book. Even though Hazel and Gus experience typical teenage problems, as well as extreme physical hardships and psychological conflicts due to their cancer disease, they still manage to have a great time together. They fall in love with one another, meet their favorite author,...
The Necessity of idiomatic expressions to English Language learners
July 2016
Non-native speakers of English are found in different parts of the world. The usage of Idiomatic expressions by those speakers is considered as an important issue and is regarded as an essential part of the English Language competence. It is a necessity that all speakers of the English Language become aware and proficient in using English idiomatic expressions. It is essential and is considered a big part of English...
The Poetry of Bruce Meyer: The inaugural poet laureate of the city of Barrie
July 2016
Juan de Dios Torralbo-Caballero (Professor at the University of Cordoba) studies in depth the poetic work of the Canadian poet Bruce Meyer. The book is published in the prestigious Publishing House Comares, within the "Interlingua" collection, which includes hundreds of specialized studies in the fields of philology and translation. The book begins with a preface summarizing the contents of each of the six...
Representation of gendered art through gendered memories in Ahlam Mosteghanemi’s Memory in the Flesh and Chaos of the Senses
June 2016
This essay considers the way that Ahlam Mosteghanemi makes use of gendered memory in her two novels Memory in the Flesh (2008) first published in 1985 and Chaos of the Senses (2007), first published in 1998. In order to make it clear which text is being referred to, the references to these main texts will include author name, abbreviated titles MIF and COS respectively and page number for quotations. Here, it is argued...
And the word echoes: A taxonomy of repetitions in the sense of an ending
June 2016
‘Repetition’, as a literary technique, was effectively applied in Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending. It was used to explain the imperfection and subjectivity of both memory and history, and to show the richness of human emotions that cannot be generalized by any universal philosophy. However, this particular technique has not been sufficiently explored by researchers. Regarding this, the study...
Masculinity and cultural conflict in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart
June 2016
The African people have varying behaviours, mannerisms, beliefs, thought patterns and way of interaction and all of these differences formed their culture and impacted their way of life. However, with the coming of the Europeans to Africa came cultural infiltration, pollution as well as alteration. This research analyses Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958) from the angle of masculinity and culture clash...
Oralture on twin rituals among Jopadhola of Uganda
May 2016
The purpose of this study was to identify and critically analyze the oralture products associated with rituals concerning twins among the Jopadhola of Uganda. The study had the following objectives: to establish the successive stages in the life of twins among the Jopadhola and the rituals which accompany them; establish the nature or categories and functions of the oralture produced around these rituals; and establish...
Identities in The Tempest, Tempests in Identities
May 2016
This study aims to analyze the identity formation of the characters in Shakespeare’s play The Tempest in terms of psychoanalytic theories of identity. It also aims to portray the patriarchal dominance over the marginalized characters and the shifting process of identification through the interpellation of the society. Since this process carries the potential to reveal the universal effects of the elements...
Pragmatism, prostitution and morality in Philip Chidavaenzi’s the haunted trail (2012) and Virginia Phiri’s Highway Queen (2010)
April 2016
The article utilises Philip Chidavaenzi’s The Haunted Trail and Virginia Phiri’s Highway Queen to argue that female characters pragmatically turn to prostitution when the society, which should nurture morality in humanity, turns immoral against them. The moral principle is apparently premised on the notion that, when human beings behave altruistically they distinguish themselves from animals and bring order...
“To thee the harmless snake I bringâ€: The Non-Cavalier Erotics of Marvell’s Mower Poems
April 2016
The fusion of eroticism and misogyny is perhaps one of the most prominent characteristics of Cavalier poetry. Women are generally idealized, having their bodies figuratively dismembered, listed from the head down, and compared to pure and beautiful objects through the use of simile and exaggeration (Scott-Baumann, 2008). Furthermore, it is common for women to be portrayed as physically, emotionally and intellectually...
Enslavement and freedom in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World
April 2016
This research paper focuses on the subject of enslavement and freedom in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. It compares between two contrasting worlds: the primitive world, where John the Savage lives and the utopian world, where Bernard Marx, Helmholtz Watson, and their fellow-citizens inhabit. The primitive world, in this connection, symbolizes freedom, whereas the utopian world represents enslavement. The story...
Tamburlaine The Great of Marlowe as the hero of Machiavelli
March 2016
The subject of the tragic plays may be extremely tragic, like Trojan War, and other wars fought by people like Alexander and Tamburlaine but they have a moral purpose as well. There are certain tragedies which are centered around a single character like Faustus, and other have many characters like hamlet. One of the the purpose of writing these dramas is to gain monetary benefits. But the people who wrote about...
Divergent perspectives: The representation of the maternal subject in American postwar novels about the rejection of motherhood
March 2016
The article examines the nuanced representation of the rejection of motherhood in three postwar American novels to highlight the perspectives on maternal subjectivity. A close reading of the texts is utilized to analyze patterns of the rejection of motherhood displayed in abortion and infanticide or rejecting the traditional model of motherhood that is limited to females. This close analysis reveals the nuances in the...
Metaphors in political discourse: A review of selected studies
February 2016
The use of metaphors in political discourse is a linguistic strategy that has been used all over the world. Studies on metaphor have therefore been done in various parts of the world. This paper reviewed studies on metaphor in political discourse to assess the role metaphor played in political discourse. It aimed to contribute to the field of metaphor in political discourse by reviewing studies done in this field. The...
Canonical colonial approaches in Shakespeare’s The tempest
February 2016
Colonialism is the single most powerful force shaping the world we dwell in. It is a policy of supremacy, which involves the subjugation of a superior country to another inferior country. Colonizing nations by and large are primary concerned with usurping the resources, labor, and markets of the colonial territory, and may, in the long run, impose socio-cultural, religious and linguistic structures on the indigenous...
The effectiveness of using multi devices technique on testing grammar of university students
January 2016
The present study was an attempt to determine the effectiveness of using multi- devices technique to develop students' grammatical ability. Participants were 40 Preparatory Year Treatment students from Qassim Private Colleges in Saudi Arabia. The experimental group (N 20) used multi devices technique for testing grammar; online testing, mobile testing, machine testing (auto test) and pen and paper testing technique...
Nineteenth century American metaphysical women poets
January 2016
This study is an attempt to contest the assumption that nineteen century American women poets were sentimental. Accordingly, the main intuition is otherwise; some of these women are highly intellectual and their poetry is not of less vigor and complexity as that of the poetry written by the English metaphysical poets in the second half of seventeenth century England. In order to account for this intuition, the study has...
The role of orature in African socio-cultural space
October 2015
The spoken words are more natural and perhaps better understood than the written letters, which are invented to capture and to re-enact human mind, intention, emotion, opinion, view, experience and prediction among other things. Oral narratives, all over the world, set the pace for the written literature. It is an integral part of every human culture. However, the sophistication of the modern world, particularly the...
The Undoing of the Black Race: Transgression of Traditional Religion by Money in Ayi Kwei Armah's Fragment
October 2015
In the context of Ayi Kwei Armah’s Fragment (1969), the undoing of the black race means the falling apart of ancestral rites. By taking the Ghanaian traditional religious beliefs as a sample, the author depicts the disintegration of the black race’s social, political and economic system. He skilfully develops the impact of money and colonization on the Ashanti community. Armah shows how corruption and...
Colonial administration extortion in the African novel
October 2015
From all the colonial systems French, British, Belgium, German and Portuguese, the French one was the object of severe criticisms by the pioneers of the African literature of the Sixties through their works. The example of the Nigerienne Mahamadou Halilou Sabbo’s Caprices du Destin [Destiny's Whims] (1981), the Cameroonian Ferdinand Oyono’s Houseboy (1956) and The Old Man and the Medal (1956) was...
The Senecan Tragedy and its Adaptation for the Elizabethan Stage: A Study of Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy
September 2015
There is no doubt that the rise of the Greek drama, as evident in the classical writings of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, had left a predominant impact on the Elizabethan writings of comedies. However, it was the tragedies that stood supreme. Yet, their appeal to the mass Elizabethan audience for their brutal images displayed on stage would not have been emotionally captivating had it not been for the Roman...
The animal turn in fiction: An animal-centric analysis of a dog’s purpose and anthill
September 2015
Animals have held an important place in written literature for thousands of years; hence animal fiction comes to mean a fictional work where an animal plays an integral part of the story to make it complete. In most works of literature throughout the ages, animals function only in service to humans. They represent their human counterpart symbolically in order to teach lessons or correct human weakness. This tendency of...
Wordsworth’s linguistic simplicity over Pope: A text analytic study
August 2015
Conventionally, the judgment of the degree of linguistic complexity in a text relies much on the subjective interpretation of the readers. Besides being less generalizable across readers, the subjective approach has to remain limited to only a limited number of texts that human eyes can scan through. This study investigated the issue of linguistic simplicity of the poetical works of William Wordsworth over the ones of...
A case study in Code-Mixing among Jahangirnagar University Students
July 2015
English is, no doubt, a widely spoken language all over the world, which substantially influences its development. Bangladesh is no exception, and here English is taught at all levels of education and recently, it has been seen that in most of the universities of Bangladesh, students most of the time, when they speak with other students, use English in their speaking extensively, and many times, they mix English with...
A comparative study of the effectiveness of direct feedback and indirect feedback methods for Urdu EFL learners’ writings
July 2015
The current study is designed to find the comparative effects of direct feedback method and indirect feedback method of error treatment on Urdu EFL learners’ writings at intermediate level. To find out the comparative results about these two treatment methods, 46 students having Urdu as their mother tongue were divided into two groups. Errors in writings of one group were treated by direct feedback method while...
Elucidating idioms through idioms: A metalinguistic contemplation of some issues on “Befogging Idiomsâ€
July 2015
An idiom is a phrase which you cannot understand by putting together the meanings of the words in it. For example, pull your socks up has nothing to do with socks or pulling them up, but means "try your best". There are more than 5500 common idioms suitable for intermediate learners, yet the total number of English idioms is far greater. Idioms (McCaig and Manser, 1986) are a very important part of the English...
English language prepositions: An Albatross for English Language learners In Nigeria
June 2015
The acquisition and learning of a language involve understanding and mastery of what constitutes its grammar. This paper assessed the performance of second language undergraduate students in the use of English prepositions and determined the likely sources of challenges in its correct use. One hundred and ninety eight undergraduate students were randomly selected from the Department of English Language of a...
The main themes in Lord of the Flies
June 2015
This research deals with the main themes in the novel Lord of the Flies written by the British novelist William Golding. It shows how the theme plays an important role in every literary work; it reflects the central idea of the writer or author. This research shows how Golding displays his characters to present different themes and ideas in order to show his readers the experience and performance of each character to...
The efficacy of a peer teaching programme in a literary novel course: A case study
May 2015
This study aimed at describing a peer-taught program in teaching the English novel course for third-year students at University College of Educational Sciences in Palestine. Through sharing the role of teacher with the students, students were able, with support, to learn and share their learning with their classmates. The major aims of the study were to find out whether the adoption of peer-teaching strategy can enhance...
Life of Pi: Into the Divine, the Hard Way, or: Why the Tiger Didn’t Bite
April 2015
This analysis of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi examines extraordinary elements of this famed novel; it examines it as an avant-garde montage, a new fable, A tableau of the weird and fantastic—in other words, a book outside the realm of normal novelistic portrayal and exposition. In one important sense, this novel is a combination of the fictional and the factual, which can be understood as transacting...
Politics and the paradox of power in Femi Osofisan’s Many Colours Make the Thunder-King
April 2015
The dominant trend in the world of politics today is a radical and spontaneous move towards a state of terrorism in a bid to show a big line between the strong and the weak nations; between the powerful and the powerless individuals in a postcolonial state, and the paradox of this action is that it gradually leads to self destruction, and a rape on human dignity and pride which the perpetrators of this act seek to...
NGUGI WA THIONG ‘O and his ‘Mathe-logic’ of revolution in Matigari: Re-introducing militia struggle
March 2015
I once heard a story being told to my children by one of my sisters. The story, so simple, is of a man who has an incurable wound and is in search of a cure. He is told of a medicine man whose name is Ndiiro, but he does not know the way to Ndiiro's place. He encounters different people and asks each one of them the way to Ndiiro's. The story depends on a repetition of the song that describes Ndiiro. I used the...
Postcolonial adaptation and appropriation in Chinua Achebe
March 2015
Post colonialism is generally taken to be a term of repression and resistance. But post colonialism need not necessarily connote a violent reaction of the dominating and the dominated against each other. In fact more than repression and regression, cultural and political adaptation and appropriation seem to have been at work in this process. Several postcolonial theorists have condoned the view that colonialism and post...
Jane Eyre searching for belonging
February 2015
This paper tackles Jane Eyre's journey to get belonging. This journey passes five phases. The paper is not going to focus on these chronological phases in details or highlight on them. The major task of the researcher is to discuss two major points: Jane's consistent endeavors to have belonging and the moral stance of Jane to achieve this purpose. These two points will give the researcher a convenient chance to...
Philip Freneau’s literary reactions to the American revolution: A study of selected poems
February 2015
This research explores Philip Frenaeau’s literary reactions to the American Revolution by examining five of his poems. These are: “To the Americans,” “On the American Frigate Alliance,” “A Political Litany,” “George, The Third’s Soliloquy,” and “An Ancient Prophecy”. All poems contain ideas, which are closely related to the American Revolution. It...
Democracy in Africa: A “one step forward, two steps backward†policy
February 2015
Better known as a historian than novelist and playwright, the Nigerienne André Salifou, just like the Nigerian Chinua Achebe, the Ghanaian Ayi Kwei Armah and the Kenyan Ngugi Wa Thiong'O, used history to develop the various topics evoked in his novel entitled La valse des vautours (The Waltz of the Vultures). If the colonizer stressed the domination and systematic exploitation of various African...
Innovative ways of English language teaching in rural India through Technology
February 2015
We live in a global world where our existence depends solely on our felicity of using English most often. Thus, getting well versed in English has become quite mandatory. While this does not pose a problem in metropolitan cities and towns, people in rural areas lack the skills to converse in English. There is still a major chunk of civilization devoid of the developments in terms of language and technology. English...
Using assignments and group writing as means of assessments in EFL writing instructions: Bahir Dar University in focus
January 2015
This study assessed the instructors’ reflections on using writing assignment and group writing as means of providing students with more writing practices and assessing students’ performance in the writing course. Fifteen instructors were provided with open-ended items of relevance and feasibility of using the two assessment mechanisms. Only five instructors responded and their reflections are presented. All...
The ghost’s child
January 2015
The article discusses the character of the child in the novel "the Ghost child" by Sonya Hartnett. The main Idea in the novel is that one must not tie him or herself to a love affair that ended long ago. One must be in a position to bury the past and move on with life. Key words: Love, self worth.
Critical thinking through translated literature in the EFL Omani Class
January 2015
This paper rests on the hypothesis that critical thinking could be fostered through the use of translated literature in the EFL tertiary classroom. Narrative research methodology is used in the study, with twenty Advanced Academic Writing Course, English for English Specialists Credit program of Omani students of the Language Center, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman. While responding through reflective journal entries to...
Investigation of EFL learners’ discourse functions of lexical bundles: A case of written register
January 2015
The purpose of the study is to examine the discourse functions of lexical bundles in written university registers. Lexical bundles which are frequently found in written academic discourse are examined in order to analyze their functions in this register, comparing the frequency of each function. As the written register, theses of 72 EFL students were randomly chosen. The categorization was constructed based on the...
The comparative analysis of feminism thought in works of Shahrnoush Parsipour and Marguerite Duras
December 2014
Shahrnoush Parsipour and Marguerite Duras are both Iranian and French contemporary writers. There are similarities in their works for reasons such as being a woman, being writer, being intellectual, living in 20th century, being familiar with various approaches of feminism, experiencing Eastern life. The question is, what is the ideological and intellectual coordination that exists in Parsipour and Duras? The...
Living in bondage: A dream deferred or a promise betrayed for Igbo linguistic and cultural renaissance?
December 2014
When the seminal home video movie, Living in Bondage, burst into the market and Nigerian homes in 1991, it literally hit the ground running! It was such an instant hit that it caused a revolution in the Nigerian movie industry akin to the literary revolution set off by Chinua Achebe with Things Fall Apart fifty-six years ago. One aspect of the novelty, mystic, charm and great promise of the great movie was that it was...
Students become authors: A course in Advanced Writing employing expressivist theory and pedagogy
December 2014
The first main assignment required in the first six weeks of Writing II class was designed on the expressivist approach. The article provides an actual class realization when the assignment was given to a group of thirty, English-major students at one Jordanian university. Those six weeks were a mixture of hard work, complaint, excitement, and actual texts produced. An overview of the theoretical basis on which the...
Telling Stories in a World That Doesn’t Fit Them: Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient
November 2014
This paper explores the tension between the human need for the form of story and the lack of structure in reality, and how such tension is presented and dealt with in Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient. Proceeding in a fragmented, discontinuous, and cyclical narrative pattern, this late-twentieth-century postmodern novel shows no intention to tell a coherent, structured, meaningful story but confronts its...
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