In the framework of this study, the phenomenon of transfer is probed pragma-linguistically and socio-linguistically concerning marriage situations among Iraqi EFL learners. The study also strives to look at the refusal strategies most commonly employed by Iraqi female English as a foreign Language (EFL) learners compared to their counterparts, American native speakers of English. The study involved 70 female participants who answered a Discourse Completion Task (DCT), which contained ten marriage proposals to be refused. Each situation entailed refusal of a person from a higher, an equal, and lower status. The researchers adapted Beebe, Takahashi, and Uliss Weltz’s (1990) taxonomy of refusal for analyzing the data comprehensively.

A reduplicative word is an important phenomenon in all language studies because it reflects many functions in language communication such as plurality, emphasis, contrast, imitation.  The various instances of reduplicative words in a particular language reflect the richness and uniqueness of that language. Moreover, such variation gives insights into both culture and thought. A reduplicative word is a linguistic phenomenon found in the syntactic, morphological, phonological and semantic levels. The current study aims at investigating the illocutionary force of English reduplicative words in some selected English colloquial utterances. To achieve this aim, an analytical -pragmatic approach has been used by adopting Searle’s (1979)

Pedagogical stylistics refers to the application of the tools of stylistics in the teaching of the English language as a foreign or a second language.  Teaching and learning poetry is challenging. Thus, pedagogical corpus stylistics (Henceforth, PCS) approach has been introduced to Iraqi undergraduate foreign language learners (EFL) to guide them to analyze poetic language.  The study aims to make students interact with authentic examples of poetic language and answer questions about it. The main objective of the study is to examine whether PCS tools enable the learners to provide linguistic evidence from the poetic texts they are exposed to. This in turn ensures objective poetic analyses. Moreover, it aims to enable EFL Iraqi stu

The present study investigates the realization and significance of textual themes in the organizational structure of M.A theses and Ph.D. dissertations, namely: the abstracts, introductions and conclusions, since in such parts the students depend on their own expressions, styles and constructions to express different viewpoints, plans, inferences, etc. The study also investigates the similarities and differences between M.A theses and Ph.D. dissertations concerning the use of textual themes;it sets out to conduct a detailed analysis of textual themes used in such texts. In conducting such an analysis, the study adopts Halliday's (1994) approach of textual themes. The results of such an analysis have clearly shown that, in spite of the di

        Criticism, as an evaluative criterion, is a significant speech act for English language learners to improve their speech and actions in their academic life. Yet, it is realized differently across diverse cultures. Few studies have shown that the linguistics forms of one language are different from those available in another language. Hence, this study aims to investigate the cross-cultural similarities and differences between 60 Iraqi and Malay university learners in the use of criticism strategies. The data are collected using a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) and a Focus Group Interview (FGI). The data are coded based on Nguyen’s (2005) coding scheme of criticism in terms of the realization strategies. Qualitative

This paper aimed at specifying the leading obstacles which faced by Iraqi EFL secondary school teachers in teaching English language. According to studies and observations, lack of adequate materials, overcrowding classrooms, lack of infrastructures, and low job satisfaction are the main barriers to English language teaching in Iraq. Data were collected from 130 EFL teachers from Iraqi schools through a standard questionnaire. The data were analyzed using a descriptive statistic to summarize and present it in a meaningful way. The findings supported previous studies regarding the classroom overcrowding, lack of teaching aids and materials, and dilapidated facilities. Furthermore, regarding job dissatisfaction and salary, interesting and eye

This study deals with the orthographic processing ability of homophones which can account for variance in word recognition and production skills due to phonological processing. The study aims at: A )Investigating whether the students can recognize correct usage and spelling comprehension of different homophones by using appropriate word that overlapped in both phonology and orthography. B )Assessing spelling production word association to the written form of the homophone in the sentence comprehension task. To achieve these aims, two tests have been conducted and distributed on 50 students at first stage at the College of Education(Ibn-Rushd) for the academic year 2010-2011. The two tests are exposed to a jury of experts for the purpose of

This study deals with the orthographic processing ability of homophones
which can account for variance in word recognition and production skills due to
phonological processing. The study aims at: A)Investigating whether the students
can recognize correct usage and spelling comprehension of different homophones
by using appropriate word that overlapped in both phonology and orthography.
B)Assessing spelling production word association to the written form of the
homophone in the sentence comprehension task. To achieve these aims, two tests
have been conducted and distributed on 50 students at first stage at the College of
Education(Ibn-Rushd) for the academic year 2010-2011. The two tests are exposed
to a jury of

The present study discusses the problem based learning in Iraqi classroom. This method aims to involve all learners in collaborative activities and it is learner-centered method. To fulfill the aims and verify the hypothesis which reads as follow” It is hypothesized that there is no statistically significant differences between the achievements of Experimental group and control group”. Thirty learners are selected to be the sample of present study.Mann-Whitney Test for two independent samples is used to analysis the results. The analysis shows that experimental group’s members who are taught according to problem based learning gets higher scores than the control group’s members who are taught according to traditional method. This

The present study discusses the problem based learning in Iraqi classroom. This method aims to involve all learners in collaborative activities and it is learner-centered method. To fulfill the aims and verify the hypothesis which reads as follow” It is hypothesized that there is no statistically significant differences between the achievements of Experimental group and control group”. Thirty learners are selected to be the sample of present study.Mann-Whitney Test for two independent samples is used to analysis the results. The analysis shows that experimental group’s members who are taught according to problem based learning gets higher scores than the control group’s members who are taught according to traditional method. This