The Tempest in an English Teapot: Colonialism and the Measure of a Man in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth

Zadie Smith’s White Teeth argues that we can take responsibility for the future if we refuse to act in thrall to the legacies of the past, which favour one human life over another, and act instead with the conviction that all lives are lives (Judith Butler). White Teeth examines the colonial legacy of violence against others and suggests that we can only change what counts as the past for future generations by questioning the modernist ideology of science as liberation. This questioning entails a rethinking of masculinity in its paternal function and also in its symbolic manifestation as a trope for the production of the ‘truth’ we call science.     

‘The English is not the same’: challenges in thesis writing for second language speakers of English

In this article I describe my interaction as an English for academic purposes (EAP) practitioner with a supervisor and her two postgraduate international students, both of whom were second language speakers of English (L2). Because of linguistic and relationship issues the supervisory experience for the parties was challenging and frustrating. I discuss the implications of this research and suggest that while linguistic difficulties impact negatively on the supervisory relationship this is exacerbated by the differing assumptions and expectations of the stakeholders. I argue, however, that what is regarded as ‘acceptable’ English at our institutions has not been sufficiently interrogated and the belief that English as a native language (ENL) is the only acceptable variety of English needs further investigation. Such an investigation needs to take place in a forum where the less powerful voices of the EAP practitioners and the students will not be marginalised.     

On Woolf’s Androgynous Thought and Artistic Creation:An Analysis of Lily Briscoe in To the Lighthouse

To the Lighthouse is one of Virginia Woolf’s masterpieces. It is also one of the most influential stream-of-consciousness novels in modernism. This thesis makes a more complete study on the novel theory of androgynous thought of Virginia Woolf and the female artist Lily Briscoe who is the outstanding representative of the androgyny.     

The English Translation Strategies and Techniques of the Names of Tourist Attractions in Xi’an

In the translation of tourist materials, the translation of the names is the primary part. This paper aims to analyze the translation strategies and translation techniques of the names of tourist attractions. At the same time, it is aimed at awakening the cross-cultural awareness of translators and spread the distinctive culture of Xi’an.     

The English Translation Strategies and Techniques of the Names of Tour-ist Attractions in Xi’an

In the translation of tourist materials, the translation of the names is the primary part. This paper aims to analyze the translation strategies and translation techniques of the names of tourist attra...     

‘Supportive’, ‘real’, and ‘low-cost’: implicit comparisons and universal assumptions in the construction of the prospective college-based HE student

This paper first argues for the importance of continued analysis of marketising discourses in Higher Education (HE), both despite and because of their ubiquity. Secondly, the paper looks specifically at college-based HE provision in English Further Education (FE). Using the ‘possible selves’ concept alongside critical discourse analysis, the paper analyses the representations of prospective students on marketing web pages for HE provision in FE colleges. Arguing that the web pages reveal more than just the limited language of HE marketing strategy, the paper highlights common representations of the college-based HE student across policy, research and marketing sources. By exploring both the celebratory and the limiting nature of these representations, the paper therefore asks what the pages’ projections of future or prospective students can tell us about current understandings of English college-based HE.     

do i know its wrong: children’s and adults’ use of unconventional grammar in text messaging

There is concern that the violations of conventional grammar (both accidental and deliberate) often seen in text messages (e.g., hi how is ya?!!) could lead to difficulty in learning or remembering formal grammatical conventions. We examined whether the grammatical violations made by 244 British children, adolescents and young adults in their text messages was related to poorer performance on tasks of grammatical knowledge, including translating grammatically unconventional text messages into standard English. We found that variance in the production of grammatical violations in naturalistic messages was inconsistently predicted by grammatical task performance. Specifically, primary school children who made poorer grammar-based spelling choices were more likely to make more grammatical violations in their everyday messages, and university students who failed to correct more grammatical errors in a given set of messages were also more likely to make such errors in their own messages. There were no significant relationships for secondary school students. We conclude that using unconventional grammar when texting is not a consistent sign of poor grammatical abilities, although there may be links between some aspects of grammatical skill and grammatical violations in text messages.     

Teacher’s Role in the Oral English Class

English speaking has been paid more attention today, especially in the age of globalization. Teachers are attempting to find out more effective methods to enhance the teaching results of English speaking. Facing the great demands and present difficulties of oral English classes, teachers have to conduct more study and practice to find out what roles that an oral English teacher has to take in the oral English classroom. Compared with the traditional teaching role in the English classroom, an oral English teacher has to fulfill more than one role in the classroom teaching so as to provide better learning conditions for students. Lacking more exposure to the real interaction with native speakers, students expect the oral English teacher to be a creator of the language environment. With various teaching and learning activities in the oral English classroom, the teacher has to be a good organizer to ensure every student to achieve improvement. An oral English teacher also has to correct students’language errors while ensuring the smooth progress of the classroom teaching. Only when an oral English teacher make clear what roles he or she has to take in the classroom can he or she achieve effective teaching.     

Durability problems with explicit instruction in an EFL context:the learning of the English copula be before and after the introduction of the auxiliary be(Ⅱ)

The explicit instruction consisted of an explanationphase,an identification phase,and a writing phase.In the firstphase,the teacher presented two CSs and one FV sentence inJapanese and explained form-meaning relations in them.Thenshe presented English equivalents of those three sentences and     

Experiencing the same but differently: indigenous minority and immigrant children’s experiences in Cyprus

This paper examines the experiences of minority students from two different cultural groups, immigrant children of Pontian background and indigenous minority children of Roma descent, in the Greek-Cypriot educational system. Through a joint re-examination of results from two different qualitative studies, this paper delineates similarities and differences of how life at school is experienced through the eyes of children who are not part of the mainstream, in an effort to gain insight into the nuances of being a minority child in the specific educational system. Comparisons across the two groups of children suggest that although both groups shared a minority status, they nonetheless experienced marginalisation across different dimensions that were linked to their dual multilayered position as both insiders and outsiders. Attention to such complexities enables us to gain deeper understandings of children’s lives, as too often the category of ‘minority child’ seems to be treated as a monolithic and homogeneous one.     

“It’s not just learning English,it’s learning other cultures”: belonging,power, and possibility in an immigrant contact zone

This ethnographic investigation of a multiethnic, multilingual classroom examines the ways in which immigrant students’ goals for community and belonging were mediated by their vibrant cultural and linguistic practices. Findings demonstrate how youth formed a community of practice through brokering acts, resource pooling, and linguistic play across national, cultural, and linguistic differences. As such, immigrant students were agentive transcultural navigators whose practices broach new understandings of social life and learning, and present a pedagogy of possibility. It is argued that immigrant classrooms in contact zones must be reenvisioned – from reductive spaces where educational goals are to acculturate the immigrant into a fading US homogeneous mainstream – to cutting edge spaces of twenty-first-century learning.     

A Study of Presupposition in Hotel’s English

As a common phenomenon in language,presupposition plays an important role in linguistic communication.Study of presupposition in hotel’s English reveals that on account of the felicity of information-conveying,presupposition has been em ploying by Hotels’staff intentionally or unintentionally.In hotels’service,proper use of presupposition ensures the normal con duction of hotels’service circuits,contributes to the economy and coherence of communication,facilitates understanding be tween guests and the hotels’staff.In addition,it enhances persuasion and latency of staff’s speech,guarantees satisfactory settle ment of complaints.     

Off the Record: Police Surveillance,Muslim Youth,and an Ethnographer’s Tools of Research

Surveillance practices are becoming increasingly insidious, finding their way into nearly every aspect of public and private life in the United States. Surveillance by state policing agencies have particularly targeted and criminalized communities of color. Such practices are not simply a new context, but are part of a broader carceral state, structuring all aspects of social life. Drawing upon a year and a half of ethnographic fieldwork with Muslim youth in New York City, I attempt to engage in a practice of “uncomfortable reflexivity” to ask how living within a carceral state that actively surveils Muslim communities affected the ways in which Muslim youth engaged me, a social researcher, and the tools I used to collect data. This research recognizes that youth are not simply there for researchers to take knowledge from, even if “insider” researchers have meaningful relationships with them. Rather, this research depicts that young people are carefully engaged in thoughtful and creative ways to ensure their own safety is protected. Ultimately, this study points to the necessity of research that is both self-reflective in its design as well as in its ability to make claims about youth experiences.     

Screens of disorder: English cinema’s representation of teachers’ responses to challenges to their authority in the 1960s

Change across wider English society in the 1960s was characterised by a managed and relatively consensual social liberalism. There was a discernible cultural shift toward greater personal and sexual freedom. Within education in England, a revisionist approach sought to extend traditional education to a wider constituency, in particular incorporating the sometimes disaffected and unskilled working class. This context presented new challenges for 1960s teachers in their relationships with pupils. Through the 1950s and 1960s, English cinema portrayed England’s changing teacher–pupil relations. This article examines the nature of change in teacher–pupil relations, with particular regard to its impact upon teachers’ authority. English cinema’s representation is located within English societal change in the 1960s in relation to youth culture, education and attitudes to authority.

Several themes are identified. Teacher status appeared to contribute rather less to 1960s teachers’ authority and teachers’ personalities rather more. 1960s teacher–pupil relations were somewhat volatile. Relationships began to take place beyond the school gates. Films depicted greater diversity in teachers’ strategies to maintain their authority, with some teachers making concessions to pupils to preserve harmonious relations. A more prominent approach was teachers’ still more firm imposition of traditional discipline, attempting to hold back the tide of increased pupil hostility in classrooms, which more frequently featured the particular challenges posed by girls.

The analysis has relevance beyond England and beyond the 1960s. It explores the variety and fragility of teacher authority, highlights the pressure that maintaining discipline places upon individual teachers and recognises the appeal of classroom conservatism.     

‘Absent fathers’, and children’s social and emotional learning: an exploration of the perceptions of ‘positive male role models’ in the primary school sector

This paper focuses on the testimonies of three male primary school staff members who utilised social and emotional learning (SEL) in their everyday practice within their respective schools. The data, collected through individual interviews, illustrate how these three men interpreted SEL, and their role in the development of children’s social, emotional and behavioural (SEB) skills, in response to their perceptions of pupils’ home-life. In particular, the sample identified the children’s fathers’ perceived ability/inability as a main cause of pupils’ SEB deficiencies. Consequently, the three male staff members maintained that in order to advocate and encourage alternative, appropriate behaviours, they should act as ‘replacement fathers’ and become ‘role models’. The findings contribute to existing debates relating to the notion of ‘positive male role models’ in primary schools and the propensity for staff to engage in parental blame. The implications of these findings are discussed, and suggestions that call for a more democratic and cooperative exchange of knowledge between parents and teachers are made.     

‘Saving the nation's children’:1 teachers,wartime evacuation in England and Wales and the construction of national identity

The teachers in charge[of evacuation]are performing national service of the highest importance. … The successful maintenance of the morale and the steadying of nerves of the civil population will be worth several battles to the nation, and in the early critical days of a war this will depend largely upon the teachers, to whom the children and their parents will look for guidance, inspiration and support.