Ola Hafez

The present descriptive study investigated the challenges experienced and the coping strategies used by Egyptian university educators from different institution types while teaching online during the pandemic. The cross-sectional study drew participants (N = 222) from three different academic institution types, private universities, public universities, and adult education institutions, who responded to a survey that examined the technical, professional, administrative, social, and psychological challenges teachers encountered as well as their coping strategies. Data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Results indicated that the challenges and coping strategies reported by teachers varied according to the teaching context and the requirements of each academic institution. The most reported challenges experienced were exhaustion, internet problems, technical issues, and anxiety. Despite the challenges, participants reported a few positive effects, including feeling more productive, being motivated to learn something new, feeling appreciated by the students and administration, and feeling confident using online teaching tools. Results also revealed that the participants used social and professional strategies to cope with the circumstances accompanying the sudden shift to online teaching. The results indicated how challenges faced by educators from different institution types may diminish with more training on, and experience with, online teaching, forming communities of practice as well as other coping strategies they developed. Such findings should be helpful to educators, institutions, and policymakers in different academic institutions all over the world and in various teaching contexts.

This paper examines one of the emblems of language contact and linguistic
interference, namely the use of loanwords, i.e. words having been originally
introduced to Egyptian Arabic (EA), from a foreign language by bilinguals, but
currently also occurring in the speech of monolingual speakers of Arabic, sometimes
without their awareness of their source. The term “loan” itself is only used
idiomatically as neither does the lender consent to the loan, nor is the borrower
under any obligation to repay the loan (Haugen, 1950, p. 211). Many words that have
been introduced to EA, occur in monolingual speech and follow the linguistic
patterns of EA (on both the phonological and morphological levels among others) so
that users are often unaware of their foreignness. When speakers become aware of
the use of loanwords, the phenomenon is usually informally labeled as speaking
“franco-arabe”.

Public discourse, including graffiti, billboards and bumper stickers, is innovative and dynamic, reflecting and often also challenging social values. While graffiti involves defacing public property, bumper-sticker (BS) discourse adds a human “touch” to a metal object, expressing the driver’s identity, and turns the street into an arena for display and communication. The few previous studies of BS discourse explore this type of discourse as a non-traditional means of communication and as a medium of political agency in different societies, with emphasis on the US and Israel. Lammie and Humphreys (2004) classify a corpus of American BSs into nationalistic, ideological, commercial, religious, and philosophical categories. Egyptian BSs, however, remain uninvestigated both linguistically and sociologically. The present paper, combining tools from content analysis, linguistics and ethnomethodology, explores how BSs function differently in Egypt based on a corpus of 581 bumper stickers on private cars, taxis and shuttle microbuses in Cairo. In terms of content, they are argued here to revolve around affiliation (e.g. sport, school, and profession), religion (as an expression of faith and/or invoking God’s protection), and ideology (e.g. photo of Guevara) among other culture-specific conceptual domains. In addition to the content analysis, the paper also analyses BSs in terms of engagement markers, speech acts and intertextuality. The paper concludes with insights regarding the dialogic interactional nature of BSs.
https://al-kindipublisher.com/index.php/ijllt/article/view/439

This paper analyzes a number of pronunciation problems that EFL students suffer from, particularly ones pertaining to rhythm and fluency. Then, it recommends the use of "limericks", a five-line verse form, for pronunciation mini-lessons and practice. Finally, it attempts at implementing such pronunciation practice through the use of a number of classroom activities, integrating different skills.

This paper attempts a critical discourse analysis of Orwell's Animal Farm to highlight ploys of manipulation. Animal Farm, a satire on the Russian Revolution, is constructed of three stages: a) animal suffering from human exploitation; b) the expulsion of man and the establishment of democracy; and c) the gradual deterioration into a totalitarian state. The goals for which the animals have rebelled are soon mystified by the pigs, who claim to be the "brain workers" of the farm, take privileges while exploiting the "lower animals", and continuously modify the law of the farm to suit their purposes. A critical discourse analysis is carried out to elucidate the process of manipulation by analyzing such ploys as generic statements, modality, forms of reference and address, and rewording. Such an analysis aims at highlighting the tools of domination, the language of mystification and rationalization of inequality used by the pigs to undermine the lower animals' authority over their own judgment and keep them under control. Eventually the pigs represent all "the vices of man" for which the rebellion started: injustice and abuse of power. As many of the ploys used by the pigs are true to totalitarian states, a study of the discourse of manipulation should be helpful in raising consciousness essential to the establishment of real democracy.

The present paper aims to investigate the linguistic representation of voice in terms of language choice, lexical borrowing, representation of accent, and relexification (i.e. literal translation), in three novels written about Egypt, namely Newby's The Picnic at Sakkara (1955), Durrell's (1958) Balthazar, and Soueif's In the Eye of the Sun (1992). By studying multilingualism in three novels about Egypt (two written by foreigners who lived in Egypt for approximately five years each, and one by a bilingual, bicultural Egyptian), this paper draws conclusions on the three writers' representation of voice-i.e. their concept of, and attitude to, the Self and the Other, as well as some culture-specific, deeply-rooted Egyptian concepts and elements as opposed to universal ones.

This paper studies overlap in two-party conversation in Egyptian Arabic spontaneous speech. Following the turn-taking model of Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson (1974), this research investigates manifestations of overlap in naturally occurring conversations among family members and friends. The corpus of the study consists of 40 minutes of naturally occurring face-to-face two-party conversations by seven family members and friends. These were audio-recorded, transcribed and analysed in terms of the turn-taking conventions of Sacks et al (1974). Three types of overlaps were identified, namely, misjudgment overlaps, competitive interruption, and backchannel. The study identifies a host of functions of overlap in spontaneous informal conversation and concludes on the diversity of overlap types and motivations varying from agreement and cooperation at one end to competitiveness at the other end.

This article investigates turn-taking (TT) in Egyptian Arabic spontaneous speech (SS) and drama dialogue (DD). Although SS and DD both involve speech exchange, they differ in the organization of talk between two parties due to the pre-specification of DD in contrast to SS. Audio-recorded samples were chosen where the age, role-relationship. occupation and social class of the participants of each of the discourse types were similar to those of the other. The SS sample was obtained clandestinely to ensure spontaneity. Both samples were analyzed against a model built from the literature on TT in English SS. Differences between both speech-exchange systems were divided into differences in frequency and differences in absolute occurrence. Differences of frequency include the absence of competition between parties, which leads to minimal overlap and interruption, hesitation and silence in DD due to its economy and concentration. The average length of a turn in SS is shorter than in DD. Differences of absolute occurrence, on the other hand, include audience backchannel, monologue and choral talk. SS and DD also differ in the rendering of simultaneous sets of conversation. All in all, DD imitates SS in some respects but differs in others to maintain its economy and tidiness or to serve a dramatic purpose.