English Language and Literature Studies, Issue: Vol.16, No.3

The Implementation of a Project for Self-Directed Learning of Three-Level of Students

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 04:32:03 +0000

This research investigated the implementation of a project for self-directed learning (PjSDL) in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context. The purposes of this study were twofold: to foster SDL of three levels of students through the implementation of English projects, and to know the benefits of the students gaining from participating in English project-mediated learning. Therefore, a total of 43 non-English-major university students with three SDL levels (low, middle, and high) dived by Self-directed Learning Questionnaire (SDLQ) participated in this study. To achieve the goal, the instruments used were a demographic questionnaire, the SDLQ, a project evaluation sheet, and a reflective sheet. A one-way ANOVA, frequency distribution and thematic categorization were employed for data analysis. The findings revealed that the three levels of students had statistically significant differences in engagement through project-mediated SDL. Most notably, the high-level learners demonstrated the strongest engagement with technological support and gained the greatest benefit from collaborative learning. In contrast, the low-level learners reported gains mostly from content learning.

Englishness in D. H. Lawrence’s “England, My England”

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 04:32:48 +0000

As a controversial writer, D. H. Lawrence has long occupied a contested yet significant place in the history of British literature. Englishness is one of the recurring themes in his fiction, and in “England, My England” it is dramatized through the troubled marriage between Winifred and Egbert. Focusing on their conflict, this article examines the multiple dimensions of Englishness in the story, and argues that Lawrence refuses to romanticize either rural England or traditional Englishness. He presents Englishness through the tension between practical responsibility and aesthetic sensitivity, between rural tradition and urban civilization, and between war and freedom. These tensions show that Englishness in the tale is a complex cultural formation marked by vitality, contradiction, and loss. In this sense, Lawrence’s contribution lies in recasting Englishness as an unstable, internally conflicted inheritance rather than an idealized national tradition.

In Search of One’s Lost Self: Wilderness as the Antithesis of Victimhood and Femininity in Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 04:33:09 +0000

This study explores wilderness and the antithesis of victimhood and femininity assigned to the female protagonist by her society in Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing. It adopts an eco-feminist perspective to delve into the social and patriarchal circumstances that lead the protagonist to live in isolated wilderness. She goes to a remote island in Canada to find her missing father; strikingly, she finds selfhood and autonomy in the island’s wilderness. Therefore, this study explores wilderness as a remedial refuge for the protagonist from patriarchal society, the main objective being an examination of the wild terrain as a perfect replacement for the society depicted in Surfacing. It follows a qualitative methodology by applying a textual analysis and detailed investigation of three interrelated literary elements. First, the novel’s setting is examined as an ideal incarnation of the wild terrain that captures the protagonist’s attention, convincing her to live there, as she seeks to escape from her patriarchal society. Second, the novel’s characters are discussed as representatives of those who marginalize her. Third, the novel’s narrative point of view is identified as an embodiment of Atwood’s view of the violation of women’s private lives, which is a key factor that triggers the protagonist to resort to wilderness to regain her lost feminist self that is distorted by patriarchal society. In so doing, this article makes valuable contributions both to studies of Atwood’s early work and to the burgeoning field of ecofeminist literary criticism.

Children’s Naivety and the Cultural Construction of Beauty in The Bluest Eye

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 04:33:24 +0000

The Bluest Eye is one of the most famous works by Toni Morrison, examining the devastating impact of white-dominated aesthetic norms on Black children in 1940s America. Rooted in the ideological apparatus of white supremacy, these hegemonic standards equate whiteness with moral virtue and beauty, compelling Black girls to reject their own bodies and self-worth. This study analyzes how such norms function as tools of racial control, contrasting Pecola Breedlove’s tragic internalization of “whiteness as salvation” with Claudia MacTeer’s naive childhood resistance to oppressive ideals. The analysis reveals that systemic racism, family trauma, and community complicity warp children’s perceptions, leading to self-denial and psychological collapse for vulnerable individuals like Pecola. In contrast, Claudia’s innocent defiance exposes the possibility of challenging monolithic beauty myths. The paper concludes that Morrison’s work lays bare the violence of racialized aesthetic hegemony, advocating for pluralistic, identity-affirming definitions of beauty that resist colonial and racial hierarchies.

Ambiguity in Poetry: A Comparative Analysis of Arabic Translations of Emily Dickinson’s “Tell All the Truth but Tell It Slant”

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 04:33:35 +0000

This study examined lexical and referential ambiguity in Emily Dickinson’s “Tell all the truth but tell it slant” along with the ways that translators Mohammed Alsharawy, Mahmoud Masoud, and Ahmed Alshalan translated those types of ambiguities from English into Arabic. Using Lucía Molina and Hurtado Albir’s (2002) model, the study compared the three Arabic translations in terms of how they utilized strategies to translate the ambiguous verses. A comparative-descriptive-analytical methodology was applied to accomplish the objective of the study via a two-fold approach: a quantitative analysis of four major lexical and referential ambiguities, and a qualitative stylistic analysis of the entire poem to evaluate the translators’ overall interpretations of Dickinson’s imagery. To examine how often the translators used different strategies to interpret ambiguous words and references in Dickinson’s poem, we constructed a pie chart of their usage. Of the strategies used, explanatory procedures (amplification and compensation) constituted approximately 64%, while literal translation accounted for approximately 36%. Tables comparing the translations demonstrated a combination of methods used by the translators, highlighting the absence of a universal approach to translating ambiguous English words and references into Arabic.

The Narrative Construction of Universalist Ethics in “For Whom the Bell Tolls”

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 04:33:47 +0000

Ernest Miller Hemingway is widely recognized as one of the most influential writers in the United States. This study examines For Whom the Bell Tolls through the lens of Kwame Anthony Appiah’s cosmopolitan ethics, aiming to explore the work’s profound ethical dimensions. Grounded in the theoretical framework of cosmopolitan ethics, the study investigates the construction of universalist ethics within the novel. Appiah contends that universal values exist in human society and serve as crucial points of connection for both the human world and cosmopolitan thought. By analyzing the experiences of the novel’s characters, this research identifies the universal values embedded in the narrative and argues that the novel primarily embodies the values of peace, equality, and solidarity.

Reading Representation with a Corpus: Critical Language Awareness Through Data-Driven Learning

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 04:34:01 +0000

The need for two skills that are not usually taught together has been growing in the field of language learning: critical language awareness (the capacity to analyse the ways in which texts shape identity and ideology) and corpus literacy (the capacity to investigate patterns of language with digital tools). Materials that are authentic and socially meaningful and develop both are rare. This conceptual article proposes a design to fill this gap in a contemporary young adult novel, Yusuf Azeem Is Not a Hero, by Saadia Faruqi, in a corpus-based, data-driven-learning (DDL) framework, where the learner is the one asking the questions. The suggested strategy is that upper-intermediate and advanced learners should use a concordancing software tool (Sketch Engine) to identify key vocabulary, look at collocation and grammatical trends, and then draw conclusions about the novel based on the data that they discover. The design is based on data-driven-learning theory and critical language awareness and an existing corpus analysis of the novel, which is not a research end but is ready-made teaching material. The article includes learning goals, a low-tech tool choice, a five-step task progression, a worked example, and scaffolding, differentiation and evaluation strategies. It then presents a candid discussion of affordances and constraints, including digital equity, the language demands of concordance reading, and the need to sensitively facilitate the design of contentious topics, before concluding with a research agenda for testing the design. The contribution is a transferable, technology-mediated pedagogy that integrates corpus tools, critical reading and intercultural awareness and a model for utilizing literary corpora for classroom inquiry.

The Nine-Grid Task: A Spatial Metaphor-Based Tool for Implicit Course Attitude Assessment

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 04:34:15 +0000

Language bridges mind and world, with metaphor structuring abstract concepts. Spatial metaphors map physical space onto abstract domains, framing cognition and evaluation. As explicit questionnaires fail to capture implicit attitudes, this study operationalizes spatial metaphors as an indirect tool to assess English majors’ attitudes toward four course types.

In the behavioral task, thirty-two senior English majors freely positioned four courses along both a vertical and a horizontal axis within a 3×3 grid, followed by a course evaluation questionnaire. The study examined three core questions: whether vertical and horizontal positions are consistently interpreted as affective preference and instrumental value; whether the two spatial metaphors serve different evaluative functions; and whether spatial positions correspond systematically with explicit evaluations. Results show that vertical positions correspond to students’ affective preferences, while horizontal positions reflect perceived importance. Questionnaire data further support the spatial evaluation pattern of “UP IS GOOD” and “RIGHT IS IMPORTANT.”

These findings indicate that spatial conceptual metaphors function not only as cognitive representations but also as viable cues for implicit attitude assessment, offering a novel methodological perspective for evaluating university English courses.