Weekly Presentation at English Department by Dr. Basima Othman Mahmood
A presentation of a published research entitled “Inflectional Changes of Double Marked Form” was given to the English Department Teaching Staff on Monday 4th of April, 2022 by Dr. Basima Othman Mahmood”. Below is the abstract of the paper:
It is assumed languages of human beings are directed by rules; however, these rules have certain exceptions in the form of irregularities. A double-marked form in which the regular rule is added to an irregular form has been attested in languages of human beings and is considered as a type of irregularization in the morphological processing. It has been claimed that there is a correlation between this type of irregularization process and high word frequencies. The real rate and nature of these double-marked forms have rarely been documented. On the basis of data from the new linguistic corpus (WebCorp) which allows us to make refined searches given its wider range of searching possibilities, this paper investigates whether there is a correlation between these irregularization processes in the English verbal system and word frequency with the aim of addressing the research questions: Is there a relationship between irregularization with the type of double-marked forms and word frequency in current English? If so, are irregular verbs with high frequency irregularized more often than the ones with low frequency? To do so, word frequencies of 488 irregular verbs in the past and perfect were collected from the selected corpus. Then, word frequencies of their corresponding double-marked forms in both forms were collected from the same corpus. Descriptive and statistical analyses were conducted to test the importance of the difference in the results. The results of the data in this study suggested that there is a correlation between high word frequency and these irregularization processes. By considering the current irregularization processes in English verbal system, this study makes an attempt to provide an introductory source of analytical research of how linguistic information is mentally processed and represented by the human language faculty.
- Awarding English Language teachers “Certificates of Honor” for ranking high in Quality Assurance for the academic year of 2020-2021.
A number of English language teachers of English Department were awarded “Certificates of Honor” on Monday 4th of April, 2022 for ranking high in the process of Quality Assurance for the academic year of 2020-2021.
- Weekly Presentation at English Department by Asst. Lecturer Muhammad Abdulwahab Aziz
A weekly presentation entitled “Global Solutions Conversations: A virtual exchange conversation on sustainability, design, thinking, and cross-cultural communication” was given to the English Department Teaching Staff on Monday 11th of April, 2022 by Asst. Lecturer Muhammad Abdulwahab Aziz. Below is a brief introduction to the program.
Global Solutions Conversations is supported by the Stevens Initiative, which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, with funding provided by the U.S. Government, and administered by the Aspen Institute. US and MENA university students meet live in binational groups to discuss global challenges inspired by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Through six online meetings, students will practice cross cultural collaboration and learn about each other’s culture as they engage in the process of design thinking and discuss global issues in their community. Individual teams will brainstorm a community project idea to support increased sustainability in their local communities. The aims of the program include:
- Learning cross-cultural communication skills that are increasingly important for engaging with colleagues, employers, and the community
- Becoming familiar with virtual exchange programs which is an opportunity for students to meet their peers in other countries and develop cross-cultural communication skills without having to physically travel
- Practicing three design thinking components: empathy, define, and ideate
- Brainstorming sustainable solutions to real challenges in local communities
- Weekly Presentation at English Department by Dr. Rashwan Ramadhan on “THE USE OF TRANSLATION IN LINGUISTIC STUDIES”
A weekly presentation was given to the English Department Teaching Staff on Monday 18th of April, 2022 by Dr. Rashwan Ramadhan on “THE USE OF TRANSLATION IN LINGUISTIC STUDIES”. The abstract of the paper is given below.
This study demonstrates an innovative method/practice of utilizing translation to study the linguistic phenomena, Discourse Markers (DM) (cf. Moeschler, 1989; Degand, 2009;). Based on the Relevance Theoretic Framework and polysemy approach, this paper consolidates research that examines the polysemy of English DM “but” (cf. Wilson and Sperber, 2004; Fischer, 2006) and rejects the ambiguity account by Anscombre, and Ducrot (1977) and Hall (2004), and also establishes a paradigm of correspondences for “but” in Kurdish. Data for this study consists of 50 opinion articles from English and Kurdish online newspapers. All the occurrences of “but” and its equivalents in Kurdish are examined and translated, in order to build the paradigm of correspondences. The study suggests that there are four different interpretations of a general procedure encoded by but, namely; contrary to expectations, contrast, correction and dismissal, and that these procedural meanings are translated into Kurdish as: keҫi, bełam, be pêçewanewe and bełkû respectively.
Key words: discourse analysis, relevance theory, connectives, translation
- First Stage Academic Debate Poster Fair
English Department opened a Poster Fair for First Stage students to present their poster projects in their Academic Debate course on Tuesday 19th of April, 2022 at the English Department premises. The Head of the department and a number of the English language teachers attended the fair. The best poster was later chosen to participate in the College’s poster competition. It is worth mentioning that the posters were evaluated by both (Dr. Asma Brime Abbas and Lecturer Rebin A. Azeez) from English Department.
- English Department Third Stage students’ Debate Competition with a group of Fakhir Mergasory Preparatory School students on “Vice and Virtues of Mobile Phones”
A debate competition was held for English Department third stage students and a group of Fakhir Mergasory Preparatory School students on “Vice and Virtues of Mobile Phones” on Tuesday 19th of April, 2022 at English Department. The competition was organized by (Dr. Dilovan Saifulddin Saadi) from English Department.
- Weekly Presentation at English Department by Lecturer Nawsha Galib Shareef on “Quantitative Data Analysis”
A weekly presentation was given to the English Department Teaching Staff on Monday 25th of April, 2022 by Asst. Lecturer Nawsha Galib Shareef on “Quantitative Data Analysis”. Both of the types of QDA (viz. descriptive and inferential analysis) were explained. Later, examples were provided for how to do each of the QDA types for any kind of research and how to choose the right quantitative tool for analysing research data based on the research questions and aims.
