This study investigates the phonotactics of English obstruent clusters in the word-final position from a markedness theory perspective among Iraqi EFL College Students whose native language, Arabic, prefers only two-member word-final obstruent cluster as a maximum. The markedness of clusters is measured depending on Iraqi EFL College Students’ utilization of the simplification strategies. This study tries to answer whether or not word-final obstruent clusters are marked or unmarked for Iraqi EFL College Students, and whether or not the markedness of the obstruent cluster increases as to its length. In order to answer these questions, a test has been distributed among 60 Iraqi EFL Fourth-Year College students, Department of English, Colleg

Communicating effectively by gaining productive skills in a classroom setting is one of the critical goals of learning the English language. The current study was conducted to explore the correlation of EFL learners’ level of academic intelligence with their productive skills. The study tries to find an answer to what is the correlation between EFL learners’ academic intelligence and level of production skills. The study population represents EFL students at the departments of English language of the Iraqi Colleges of Education for the academic year (2022-2023). The sample includes 310 EFL students selected from the 3rd year of the Department of English of the College of Education, Ibn-Rushd for Human Sciences/University of Bagh

Proverbs gain their importance not only from the fact that they represent a cultural record of the people of every nation, but they reveal the way they use language and how they exploit their environments as a good source of inspiration to enrich that language.  Domestic animals, as part of every environment, play a major role in composing proverbs in every nation.

       This study is an attempt to pragmastylistically analyse some selected English and Iraqi rural proverbs using domestic animals in their texts. It limits itself to investigate certain stylistic and pragmatic devices such as: the type of sentences, their lengths, their content and grammatical words, the part of speech used, metaph

An idiom is a group of words whose meaning put together is different from the meaning of
individual words. English is a rich language when it comes to idioms, they represent variety. For
foreign learners, idioms are problematic because even if they know the meaning of individual
words that compose an idiom the meaning of it might be something completely different.
The present study investigates Iraqi third year college students’ recognition of idioms. To
achieve this, the researchers have conducted a test which comprises three questions. Certain
conclusions are reached here along with some suggestions and recommendations.

News headlines are key elements in spreading news. They are unique texts written in a special language which enables readers understand the overall nature and importance of the topic. However, this special language causes difficulty for readers in understanding the headline. To illuminate this difficulty, it is argued that a pragmatic analysis from a speech act theory perspective is a plausible tool for a headline analysis. The main objective of the study is to pragmatically analyze the most frequently employed types of speech acts in the news headlines covering COVID-19 in Aljazeera English website. To this end, Bach and Harnish's (1979) Taxonomy of Speech Acts has been adopted to analyze the data. Thirty headlines have been collected f

We used to think of grammar as the bones of the language and vocabulary as the flesh to be added given that language consisted largely of life generated chunks of lexis. This “skeleton image” has been proverbially used to refer to that central feature of lexis named collocation- an idea that for the first 15 years of language study and analysis gave a moment‟s thought to English classroom material and methodology.
The work of John Sinclair, Dave Willis, Ron Carter, Michael McCarthy, Michael Lewis, and many others have all contributed to the way teachers today approach the area of lexis and what it means in the teaching/learning process of the language. This also seems to have incorporated lexical ideas into the teaching mechanis

Within connected speech, RP speakers tend to shorten stressed long vowels end diphthongs in pre. Forties consonants in the same syllable on the basis of complementary Distribution, i.e., the phonological environment decides the influence of the forties plosives and fricatives, as far as they are in find position preceded by stressed long vowels and diphthongs, or particular voiced consonants plus vowels. The Iraqi learners, then, face.

         It is axiomatic that languages mirror  the world view of their users. Manipulating honorific forms  among people inevitably reflects this truth . Honorifics are conventionalized forms or expressions  manifested in all the world's languages and  are used to  express the social status of the participants in the verbal interaction and to convey indications like politeness and respect  . English is no exception. However the question is what exactly creates these forms and their meanings. Although  honorifics have been extensively researched from a grammatical and semantic  angle  , yet they haven’t received that significant  attention  i

Virtual platforms are online classes used in teaching and learning EFL that let both teachers and students connect, communicate and cooperate online in real time. Learners get access to educational possibilities at home easily. Virtual classes can be conducted using a variety of techniques, including video conferencing, Google Meet, Zoom, conversations, reactions, and screen sharing. Users can access these programs on a range of gadgets, including laptops, tablets, and smartphones. The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic affected all educational institutions, including schools, colleges, and universities. Our Iraqi educational institutions have been switched to use virtual platforms in this pandemic, much as all other foreign institutions

        Assimilation is defined ,by many phoneticians like  Schane ,Roach ,and many others, as a phonological process when there is a change of one sound into another because of  neighboring sounds.This study investigates the  phoneme assimilation as a phonological process in English and Arabic  and it is concerned specifically with the differences and similarities in both languages.   Actually ,this study reflects the different terms which are used  in Arabic to refer to this phenomenon and in this way it  shows whether the term 'assimilation ' can have the same meaning of  'idgham' in Arabic or not . Besides, in Arabic , this phenomenon is discussed from&nb