English department

This cross-cultural study tackles refusals as extended in Palestinian and American societies. Refusal may be a face-threatening act to the inviter, because it contradicts his/her expectations, and is often realized through indirect strategies. Therefore, unlike acceptance, it requires a high level of pragmatic competence. The study reveals that that Palestinians and US Americans tend to use a variety of strategies so as to soften the perlocutionary effect of the face-threatening act on the addressee had an invitation been rejected. Most Palestinians believe that the use of such apologetic expressions is a significant act of politeness and, hence, a redressing strategy. Basically, they are lexical and syntactic markers of politeness which speakers usually use to show their awareness that something wrong has happened and it has to be amended. So, such speech forms are seen by Palestinian people as markers of affiliation and solidarity.

This study undertakes a thorough analysis of the aspects of intertextuality and their undertones in William Blake’s companion poems:The Lamb (1789) from the Songs of Innocence and The Tyger (1794) from the Songs of Experience. These poems are often read side by side since they are described as counterparts to one another reflecting Blake’s dualistic ideology on the conflicting states of the human soul (good vs. evil). The researchers adopted Charles Bazerman’s(2004) theory in analyzing intertextuality within texts. The analysis of the poems revealed that there are 22 instances of religious and literary intertextual allusions within both poems and their type of textual integration was mainly description. In addition, a great percentage of those allusions consist of religious undertones which help reflect the dualistic approach that Blake adopted in his volumes of poetry. Keywords: dualistic; intertextuality; poetry; religious

This study aims to investigate Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice in light of the application of Leech’s politeness maxims. The study uses a qualitative method in analyzing the utterances of the major characters in the play; Shylock, Antonio and Bassanio, since  most of the events within the play focus on their demands, personalities and behaviors. The purpose of this study is to reveal the degree of politeness reflected in the characters’ speeches. 17 extracts from Act 1 scene 3 ( a street in Venice ) and 6 extracts from Act 4 scene 1 ( the court scene) are explored due to their importance in the plot development. In light of the analysis, some of the factors are highlighted according to their significant role in determining the use of politeness or impoliteness strategies. These factors are power, psychological aspects, personal values, irony principle, social status and religion. The study also examines the way in which the six maxims are employed in the extracts. To conclude, ...

This paper shows that brand names feature a serious problem in English-Arabic translation. In order to highlight the problem under discussion, the study explores the translation of some brand names in their original context of use. 20 audio-visual advertisements, 10 English advertisement and their 10 Arabic translations that are directed towards Palestinian audience, are used for data collection. This comparative/ contrastive study focuses on the different translation strategies (domestication or foreignization) that are followed in rendering brand names in audio-visual advertisements (Venuti, 2012). The researcher employed an empirical, descriptive and analytical approach where advertisements were selected, categorized according to the different translation strategies that were adopted in rendering them. The findings of this study reveal that brand names are rendered through domestication of English advertisements into Arabic. The aim is to create a similar impact on the target lan...

The paper examined the gender differences with reference to turn taking phenomenon in academic settings at Hebron University. The analysis relied on naturally occurring data that were gathered from two different academic meetings that took place in Department of English at Hebron University during the spring semester of 2016. This research aimed at providing empirical evidence regarding gender stereotypes; the extent to which these stereotypes accurate. The findings indicated that females are more likely to take turns in conversation which supports the proposal that women’s greater turn taking rates can be attributed to interpersonal sensitivity rather than lack of assertiveness.

The notion of face has been in use as a metaphor in different cultures of the world for a very long time. It has metaphorically referred to individual qualities and/or abstract entities such as honor, respect, esteem and the self. Therefore, this paper investigates the notion of face across cultures, focusing in particular, on the Palestinian context. The origin of the concept face will be addressed as cited by researchers such as Farahat (2009), Watts (2003), Ho (1976; 1994), Agyekum’s (2004), Mao (1994), and Oetzel et al. (2001) among others. Since there is no consensus on the definition of face, I will discuss some of the definitions available in an attempt to establish a better comprehension of this important concept. This paper also investigates expressions related to face, such as, upgrading/ honoring expressions and face demeaning/threatening ones (Agyekum, 2004). The paper also tackles acts that enhance face in Palestinian culture, in order to fully understand how people can...

This paper explores the practice of insisting among people in the Palestinian society with respect to invitations. Even though insistence is perceived as a Face Threatening Act (FTA) in some societies (Brown & Levinson, 1987), the study shows that insistence in Palestinian society is desirable and expected behavior which usually aims at highlighting in-group solidarity and revealing affiliation and hospitality. Building mainly on studies in socio-pragmatics and some ethnographic work in communication, this study examines instances of insistence by means of which caring and hospitality are conveyed as markers of affiliation that recreate an interpersonal ideology of connectedness.

This paper is an attempt to apply Brown and Levinson\u27s (1987) politeness theory on Lady Macbeth\u27s speech in Shakespeare\u27s Macbeth. By analyzing her dialogues in the play, the researchers try to find the politeness strategies in these dialogues, and the reasons behind preferring the use one strategy over another. After classifying the analyzed selected parts of the play and arranging them according to Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness strategies, the researchers found that power, status and distance play the biggest role in preferring one strategy over the others. Moreover, the findings revealed that Lady Macbeth\u27s ideology leads her to prefer one strategy over another in order to perform her plans successfull

This qualitative research paper investigated Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions (1988) in relation to Foucault's (1990) concept of circulating power relations. The researcher explored the destruction and construction of some of the characters' identities due to the impact of the 'superior' English colonial language. It shed light on the resurrection of some of the females' identities due to their exposure to colonial education that came as a result of their resistance to different forms of power, which is reflected in their speaking styles. The first section highlighted the unequal power relations and the effect of education inside the Rhodesian community. The second section highlighted the change in the power relations due to the 'Englishness' that resulted in helping some characters to retrieve their own identities after their productive resistance against patriarchal and colonial powers. In the end, the results of this study confirmed the circulating nat...