Newsletter 9

APETAU Newsletter No. 9

May 2007

Editor: Dr. Rula Quawas and Dr. Wafa abu Hatab

Contents: 

APETAU Third International Conference 2006

APETAU 2006 General Assembly Meeting

Minster of Culture Attends General Assembly Meeting

New Board of Management (2006-2009)

APETAU Conference Trip to Petra

IJAES Journal Vol. 7

- The Poetics of Resistance: A Reading of Native American and Palestinian Intifada Poetry

- Spenserian Images of Catholicism:  In Book I of The Faerie Queene

- Spatiality in Sayf Al-Dīn Hasan Bābakir's   Al-Zaman al-Fadāī al-M’iwaj

- Investigating Control in English and Arabic

- Arabic Subtitles on English Movies:  Some Linguistic, Ideological and Pedagogic Issues

- Missing in Compilation:  How much English is there in an Arabic-English Dictionary

- The Acquisition of the Verbs of Saying by Arab EFL Learners

- An Investigation into the Comparability of English Language Exit Tests in a Number of Tertiary Level Institutions in Saudi Arabia

- Translation versus Direct Composition: The impact of L1 on L2 Writing

- Teaching Grammar Pedagogically and Communicatively

Notes and Discussion

Members’ News: Individual and Institutional

On 23 August, 2006 APETAU held its third international conference in collaboration with the University of Jordan in Amman. The conference was attended by over 100 professors and lecturers from Jordan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Lybia, Algeria, Tunisia, Eygpt, Oman, Bahrain, Lebanon, UAE, Iran, USA, UK, Yemen, Qatar, Kuwait and Morocco.

The conference, which was hosted over two full-day sessions, addressed the following topics:

1. Arabic-English Contrastive Linguistic Studies  

2. Arabic-English Comparative Studies

3. Studies in Arabic-English and English-Arabic Translation & Bilingual Dictionaries

4. Studies in English Language & Literature

5. TEFL in the Arab World: Problems and Prospects

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APETAU 2006 General Assembly Meeting

The General Assembly Meeting was attended by the Minister of Culture, Dr. Adel Altwaisi and over 130 APETAU members. During the meeting, both the administrative and financial reports were submitted and endorsed. A new board of management was elected on that same day.

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New Board of Management (2006-2009)

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IJAES Vol. 7

The seventh volume of IJAES was issued. Some copies were sent by mail while others were hand-delivered. Please do write to us at apetau_office@yahoo.com if you have not received your copy. We promise to deliver it to you as soon as possible. The eighth volume included the following topics:

Gohar, Saddik (United Arab Emirates University)

The Poetics of Resistance: A Reading of Native American and Palestinian Intifada Poetry

(vol.7, 2006: pp. 5-28)

This paper critically examines social, historical and human zones of contact between contemporary native American poets and the Arab/Palestinian Intifada poets in order to illuminate issues of common interest that characterize the poetic discourse of both sides.  Exploring political and textual spaces in these two poetic traditions, the paper illustrates the attitude toward native land, identity, struggle and other motifs that penetrate the poetic narrative of Palestinian and Native American poets. 

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Mumayiz, Ibrahim (The Hashemite University)

Spenserian Images of Catholicism:  In Book I of The Faerie Queene

(vol.7, 2006: pp. 29-48)

Due to the continuously hostile Elizabethan-Papal relations which persisted throughout Elizabeth's reign (1558-1603) and covered Spenser's entire lifetime, Spenser nurtured pejorative images of Catholicism of a monstrously graphic nature. In Book I of The Faerie Queene, Papal-led Catholicism was regarded as being satanic evil. This evil Catholicism was used by Protestantism to define and defend itself. Spenser's vilifying views of Catholicism are expressed through the character of Archimago, who represents all what Protestants like Spenser saw in Catholicism such as pilgrimages, falsity, magical   practices, hypocrisy, deception, and disguise. These accusations were based on what Protestants saw in the behavior of "Church Papists."  The essay also puts forward the view that Archimago  was a Jesuit, probably Robert Persons, the arch Jesuit that the black insects, flies, and sprites in Book I refer to Catholic missionary priests sent by the Pope and the Jesuits secretly into England.

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Oladosu, Afis Ayinde (University of Ibadan, Nigeria)

Spatiality in Sayf Al-Dīn Hasan Bābakir's   Al-Zaman al-Fadāī al-M’iwaj

(vol.7, 2006: pp. 49-64)

 This article examines spatiality as an aesthetic expression of reality in Sayf al-Dīn Hasan Bābikir’s novel, al-Zaman al-Fadāī al-M’iwaj. The novel marks new trends in Sudanese literary writing in the postmodern period. The theoretical framework is drawn from Michael Foucault, Henri Lefebvre and Gaston Bachelard. Beginning with the discussion of spatiality in Sudanese culture and an examination of Bābikir’s technique the paper goes on to explore the inner, outer and spaces of emplacement in the novel as a strategy for the negotiation of the socio-cultural, political and historical realities of modern Sudan.

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Bakir, Murtadha J. (University of Qatar)

Investigating Control in English and Arabic

(vol.7, 2006: pp. 65-80)

This paper attempts to account for the syntactic phenomenon of control between the empty subject position of nonfinite subordinate clauses and an antecedent in the matrix clause. Both Arabic and English display such constructions. The paper discusses the standard mechanism proposed to account for control – i.e. positing the null element PRO in the empty position, which is bound to an antecedent via standard binding principles. This widely accepted analysis for English cannot be maintained for Arabic control constructions. It is argued that the pronominal pro is a more adequate candidate to fill the empty positioning in this language if we take the phenomenon of control to belong to the semantics of the individual control predicates rather than a binding relation that should be accounted for on purely syntactic grounds.

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Mazid, Bahaa-Eddin M. (South Valley University, Egypt)

Arabic Subtitles on English Movies:  Some Linguistic, Ideological and Pedagogic Issues

(vol.7, 2006: pp. 81-100)

The study provides an investigation of a sample of Arabic subtitles on English movies and TV dramas in an attempt to identify and account for some patterns of "corruption" in these subtitles, to provide some suggestions for fixing such subtitling problems and to provide some guidelines for doing, and teaching, Arabic subtitling on English audiovisual texts. The investigation of the sample Arabic subtitles on the English movies - Big Daddy, Tempted, and Lizzie McGuire Movie - and TV dramas identifies specific patterns of problems:  Literal translation, insensitivity to context, ungrammatical, unnatural or inaccurate translations, treatment of foul language and unnecessary formality. The discussion of the problems and the analysis thereof addresses some of the major issues in translating Arabic to English in general and in doing English-to-Arabic audiovisual translation (ATV) in particular.

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Abu-Ssaydeh, Abdul-Fattah (University of Sharjah)

Missing in Compilation:  How much English is there in an Arabic-English Dictionary

(vol.7, 2006: pp. 101-120)

When searching for the unfamiliar English equivalent of an Arabic word or expression, the Arab translator usually resorts to an Arabic-English dictionary. This tool, however, is inadequate for many reasons: 1) The overall coverage of English lexical items is neither thorough nor systematic 2) Little use is made of vital lexical relations such as collocations and multi-word units 3) Senses are not always accurate: some are incomplete, wrong or obsolete 4) The metaphorical potential and spoken expressions are rarely represented or explicitly expressed 5) A fairly large number of English words with affixes are overlooked. For all these reasons, a modified methodology of dictionary compilation should be considered and sources other than the Arabic-English dictionary should be consulted.

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Fareh, Shehdeh (University of Sharjah)

The Acquisition of the Verbs of Saying by Arab EFL Learners

(vol.7, 2006: pp. 137-150)

This paper investigates the extent to which university Arab learners of English as a FL have acquired the verbs of saying, i.e., say, speak, talk, and tell at the two levels of linguistic competence: recognition and production. An attempt was made to answer the following questions:  (i) How well have Arab learners of English acquired the English verbs of saying at the levels of both recognition and production?   (ii) Can they recognize the similarities and differences in use between these verbs?  (iii) Can they recognize the differences in collocations and idiomatic uses between these verbs? (iv) What are the major difficulties that these students encounter in handling these verbs? (v) What implications for teaching EFL can such a study provide? The data were elicited through two specially designed questionnaires: one for recognition and one for production. It was found that the percentage of acquisition in both recognition and production for all verbs was 61%. It was also evident that the learners encountered a number of problems in acquiring the target verbs.

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Alghamdi, Ghurmallah (King Faisal Air Academy)

An Investigation into the Comparability of English Language Exit Tests in a Number of Tertiary Level Institutions in Saudi Arabia

(vol.7, 2006: pp. 151-166)

This paper attempted to examine the English language testing situation in some tertiary level institutions that use English as a medium of instruction in Saudi Arabia. The main question proposed is: to what extent do institutions in Saudi Arabia which are using English as a medium of instruction conform to the norms and standard of language tests’ practices when designing language exit tests? For this purpose two questionnaires were designed. This paper concluded that reforms in language testing within some of the institutions studied are needed. These reforms should raise awareness among administrators and language testers to reconsider language testing procedures and testing qualities.

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Noor, Hashim (Taibah University, Saudi Arabia)

Translation versus Direct Composition: The impact of L1 on L2 Writing

(vol.7, 2006: pp. 167-178) 

This study aims at investigating the effect of EFL learners' L1 system or knowledge on the quality of their L2 essays or compositions in terms of content, organization, and style.  This study is based on the analysis of 46 English compositions written by EFL Arab university students. It particularly examines differences resulting from two writing processes (i) essays written first in Arabic and then translated into English by the same student, and (ii) essays written directly into English. It also examines the relationship between these two writing processes and students' proficiency level. The results reveal that although the two major factors of composing process and proficiency level did not significantly affect the quality of written texts, yet translations were rated slightly higher than direct compositions. 

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Imssalem, Nuwara (Garyounis University)

Teaching Grammar Pedagogically and Communicatively

(vol.7, 2006: pp. 179-190) 

Pedagogical grammars have always been a mirror reflection of descriptive grammars. This situation has led to different degrees of emphasis placed on grammar in language teaching. The position of grammar in language teaching has swung from grammar driven audio-lingual methods to communicative approaches which consider grammar as something peripheral. The purpose of this paper is to outline briefly the historical development which has led to this situation and to suggest a framework for teaching new grammatical items pedagogically and communicatively.

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Notes and Discussion:

Abdulla Al-Dabbagh

The Orient, the Other and the Novel

Mutasem Al-Khader

The Effect of Globalization on Literature 

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  Members’ News: (Individual and Institutional)

News from and about members of the Association, Please send material for inclusion to: apetau@yahoo.com

• Dr. Abdallah AL-Shunnaq and Dr. Jihad Hamdan have become full-fledged professors. Congratulations for both professors and more power to you.

• Dr. Marwan Obeidat is now the Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Atafaileh University

• Dr. Kathem Qatous is now the Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Applied Sciences University.

• Dr. Rula Quawas has been appointed as the Director of the Women’s Studies Center at the University of Jordan.

• Dr. Ibrahim Sallo attended the Fourth International Gender and Language Association Conference in Valencia, Spain, November 8-10, 2006.

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