The speech act of refusals has been studied widely either alone or in relation to such areas as apology, requests, promotion, and invitation. The present study aims to investigate the strategies employed by Iraqi females in refusing marriage proposals. It attempts to explore their preferences to respond directly or indirectly in relation to their ages and educational background of the parents. The sample of the study consists of 25 participants; they are learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) at the College of Education for Women/ University of Baghdad. The data are collected by using a discourse completion task (DCT) followed by a follow up interview. The researchers used a Google form shared via emails to get responses from the participants. The items of the completion task are mainly designed by the researchers after surveying the literature so as to have the situations in the final shape. Beebe’s et al. (1990) taxonomy is selected as the most comprehensive modal for the analysis of refusal strategies of the respondents. The results indicated that the Iraqi females tend to use more indirect strategies to refuse the marriage proposals. The most frequently used order of responses began with an apology followed by gratitude and then the reason for refusal, as a typical Iraqi way of expressing their refusal. Based on the fact that the study sample are EFLs, there were signs of pragmatic failure as some of the responses carry some negative transfer, thus, the researchers recommend that future studies have to focus on teaching the methods of refusing appropriately by incorporating the teaching of speech acts, including the speech act of refusals, with more details in their Bachelor Program.
This study is an attempt to investigate the conceptual metaphor of UP and DOWN commonly used in Iraqi community. Some of the metaphorical expressions in Iraqi colloquial Arabicarewidely used by Iraqi speakers in everyday language. Ithas been analyzed by following the cognitive theory of metaphor (Lakoff& Johnson,1980).The study indicates that the Iraqi speakerexperiences more of the metaphorical expressions of UP and DOWN to referto many of the abstract concepts that shape his/her impression of everyday life situations.
The present paper is a qualitative descriptive study. It aims to examine the macro-cultural schemata addressing the concept of violence against women in Iraq from a cognitive linguistic point of view. To meet this objective, a number of Iraqi social caricatures have been selected from two popular and active Iraqi caricaturists, Odeh Al-Fahdawi and Nasser Ibrahim. The selection and the analysis of data have been achieved following the validity and reliability procedures and the ethical considerations. To meet this objective, Sharifian’s Model (2011) of Cultural Schemata has been adopted in data analysis. The study has concluded that the macro-cultural schemata regarding the concept of violence in the selected panels reveals that violenc
... Show MoreCreativity, imagination, and ingenuity are connected with instructing students in literary tasks. The purpose of the study is to determine what teaching activities are most Productive in helping students to comprehend literature. The research design used in the study is descriptive one. The researcher created a survey questionnaire that teachers could complete. It includes twelve learning activities related to teaching literature, such as: conceptual mapping of a poem, short story, or novel; observing and analyzing videos; collaborative discussions about the chosen text; and topical discussions with a partner ,composition of a poem ,analytic writings; playing a role; narrating stories with visual assistance, teacher-student exchanges; atten
... Show Moreالثقافة هي النظرية حول العالم والناسواساليب توزيع خبراته عليهم . انها الكل المعقد والتي تشمل المعرفةوالمعتقدات والفن والاخلاق والقوانين والعادات واية امكانيات وعادات يكتسبها الانسان كونه احد اعضاء المجتمع . ان ادراك ثقافة اللغة الاجنبية ينبغي ان يُنظرلها كمكونمهم في عملية تعليم / تعلم اللغة الانكليزية بوصفها لغةاجنبية وتتضمن الثقافة فهم داخلي وتدريجي للمساواة بين الثقافات ، ومنهن متزايد لثقافة الفرد
... Show MoreThe purpose of this study is to identify the extent of the EFL teachers’ implementationoftotal quality management (TQM)principles through teaching English as a foreign language in Iraqi secondary schools.A total of 180 EFL teachers fromsecondary schools in Baghdad during the academic year 2010/ 2011 participated in the study. Data was collected using a scale to identify the extent of implementation of total quality management principles by 140 EFL teachers in their classroom. To support the data collected from the scale,40 teachers were observed by EFL educational supervisors during their lessons. The collected data was analyzed using frequency, means and standard deviation to identify the extent of implementation of (TQM) principles.
... Show MoreA case–control study (80 patients with chronic hepatitis B virus [HBV] infection and 96 controls) was performed to evaluate the association of an IL12A gene variant (rs582537 A/C/G) with HBV infection. Allele G showed a signifcantly lower frequency in patients compared to controls (31.2 vs. 46.9%; probability [p]=0.009; corrected p [pc]=0.027) and was associated with a lower risk of HBV infection (odds ratio [OR]=0.49; 95% confdence interval [CI]=0.29–0.83). A similar lower risk was associated with genotypes CG (17.5 vs. 29.2; OR=0.25; 95% CI=0.08–0.81; p=0.02) and GG (10.0 vs. 16.7; OR=0.25; 95% CI=0.07–0.91; p=0.036), but the pc value was not signifcant (0.12 and 0.126, respec‑ tively). Serum IL35 levels showed signifcant difere
... Show MoreBackground: Gallstone disease (GSD) is a significant global health burden with variable prevalence influenced by metabolic, genetic, and infectious factors. Increasing evidence suggests that Gram-positive bacteria, particularly Staphylococcus aureus and Enterococcus species, contribute to gallstone pathogenesis through enzymatic activity and biofilm formation. Objectives: To characterize Gram-positive bacteria within gallstones from Iraqi patients, evaluate their biofilm-forming capacity, and analyze the relationship between bacterial colonization, gallstone type, and cholesterol levels. Methods: A total of 100 gallstones were obtained from patients undergoing elective cholecystectomy between October 2024 and March 2025. Stones were
... Show More