International Journal of Arabic-English Studies
IJAES was launched in 2000. IJAES is published by Librarie Du Liban Publishers (https://www.sayeghonline.com/) Editor-in-Chief: Professor Jihad Hamdan, Department of English, University of Jordan IJAES has an international editorial board. Members are selected from various universities and countries in the Arab region and beyond. IJAES is fully sponsored by the Association of Professors of English and Translation at Arab Universities (APETAU), founded in 1997.
A Pragmatic Analysis of Gendered Speech Acts and Politeness Strategies in Judges’ Feedback on ‘Britain’s Got Talent’
This study provides a pragmatic analysis of the gendered speech acts and politeness strategies that the judges of Britain's Got Talent employ in their commentary. The study aims to examine how male and female judges differ in their linguistic choices, including directives, expressives, and politeness strategies, within the evaluative context of talent performances broadcast on TV. Using Searle's typology of speech acts and Brown and Levinson's politeness theory, this study uses a qualitative method with discourse analysis to look at general patterns and specific reactions to typical performances. The corpus consists of typed verbal responses from five of the episodes that were released between 2020 and 2024 (Seasons 14–17) that result in a rich but narrow sample. The study bridges a gap in the pragmatic approaches to reality television research, addressing the understudied areas of gender, evaluation, and discourse. It points out the role played by gender in determining the modus operandi of communication even in comparable positions and comparable contexts. Evidence indicates that female judges frequently make use of expressive acts and positive politeness, while male judges utilize directives, bald-on-record tactics, and humour as mitigation. The differences exist in reactions to the same performance, too.
Copyright (c) 2026 International Journal of Arabic-English Studies
Family Violence, Amputation, and their Impact on Characters` Development in the Novel “Aghithni” by Nuha Hamdalla
The study aims to explore the impact of family violence and amputation on the characters of “Aghithni” (Help Me), a novel by the Jordanian novelist Nuha Hamdalla. The novel focuses on the impact of violence and the effect of a sudden amputation on the development of characters. It also reveals the novel's ability to incorporate characters' psyches through their interactions with one another and the impact of society and the environment on their psychological development. The characters were suffering from psychological crises, resulting from society`s pressures. These affected their attitude toward themselves and the way they dealt with various life situations, leading to a hesitation between adaptability and non-adaptability. The psychological critical approach, in addition to some modern psychological studies, was used to discuss the sequential impact of violence against women as manifested in Noor`s personality and the impact of amputation on “Suhaib”. The technical tools, such as monologue, dialogue, and memoirs that helped reveal characters' psyches, were also taken into consideration. The study concludes that domestic violence affects characters` behavior. It also revealed society's impact on the development of characters' psyches, particularly how amputation influenced the personality of a major character, such as Suhaib. The study recommends that researchers pay closer attention to the relationship between literature and the psychological aspects of characters in the novel, as well as how content influences the artistic form of the work.
The Image of Neighbor Enemy in Armenian Fiction Geopolitics: An Imagological Study of Poyachyan's Stories
The article examines the image of the Turk as a foreign neighbor enemy in the collection Tomar Taragri (The Calendar-Chronology of the Exile) by Lebanese-Armenian writer Eduard Poyatchyan. The article reveals the genealogy of the foreign enemy figure in Armenian literature and, for the first time, examines the dehumanized image of the enemy neighbor in Poyatchyan's text through various imagological dimensions. Poyatchyan reconstructs the image of the foreign Turk through the traumatic memories of Armenian male characters and symbolic representations of the natural world, such as flies, mosquitoes, mud, and hunger. The purposeful presence of specific toposes in the works associated with the image of the foreigner serves as literary testimony to historical reality. The article considers the Armenian's abandoned house, grave, church, and garden as mythologized symbols - material embodiments of identity and historical memory - that signify lost land and homeland. The analysis concludes that the characters are literary witnesses bearing historical trauma, and in their imagination, the image of the Turk foreigner continues to be perceived as an enemy neighbor. Not believing in a peaceful coexistence with the Turk, not returning to their homeland, and choosing freedom in Lebanon or Soviet Armenia, the characters reject the path for a dialogue with the foreign Turk in the future.
Postediting in English-to-Arabic Legal/Political Translation: A Case Study of a Freelancer’s Output
Based on a freelancer’s initial translations of ten documents in legal and political contexts, this case study offers an analysis of 40 errors from a posteditor’s feedback on them. House’s (2015) Translation Quality Assessment Model is used to analyze translation errors into overt and covert errors. The analysis shows 4 error types: terminological errors (8/20%), breaches of target language system errors (13/33%), slight changes in meaning errors (9/22%), and phraseological errors (10/25%). While the first two error types are overt and can be easily spotted by the competent reader, the other two are covert and may escape the reader’s attention. Together, these errors mar the translation product in terms of professionalism, generic and contextual appropriateness, and linguistic accuracy. The study concludes that postediting needs to be an integral part of translation business in order to ensure standard quality.
The Digital Stage in Richard Nelson’s What Do We Need to Talk About?
This paper examines the theatrical space and audience and the demonstration of the performative presence in the context of virtual theatre and Richard Nelson’s What Do We Need to Talk About? (2020). The world’s catastrophic situation with COVID-19 caused the performing arts industries to turn to digital faster than ever before, and traditional dramaturgical practice needs to be re-examined. In a qualitative case study based on the work of Nelson, this research examines how the medium of Zoom performance reconstitutes spatiality, liveness, and audience experience. Based on digital dramaturgy, media theory, and the performance concept, this paper demonstrates that virtual theatre does not offer a straightforward alternative to physical theatre, but rather can be regarded as a new aesthetic form that strikes a balance between presence and intimacy through digital interfaces. The study demonstrates that Nelson’s play is a poignant example of the phenomenon known as networked liveness and distributed space, which creates a demand for new storytelling and spectatorship in response to current social and technological conditions.
The Apocalyptic Voice of Nature: An Ecocritical Analysis of Climate Change in Whitley Strieber’s The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
This study analyzes the depiction of environmental catastrophes and social response as humanity confronts consequences of human induced climate change climate change in Strieber’s The Day After Tomorrow (2004). It aims to examine ecological degradation, and human-nature relationships. To achieve the study's purpose, a qualitative methodology, specifically thematic analysis, has been employed to investigate the representation of climate change in The Day After Tomorrow by Whitley Strieber. The study examines themes and their interaction with the ecological dimensions of climate change using an ecocriticism theory by Garrard’s 2004, particularly the concept of apocalypse. It has been observed that Strieber’s The Day After Tomorrow deconstructs environmental concepts through its theatrical portrayal of climate change. The novel employs apocalyptic imagery to convey the severity of a crisis. The depiction is exaggerated, yet offers a cautiously optimistic viewpoint, suggesting that through joint efforts, resilience, and a redefined relationship with nature, humanity might advance toward a more sustainable and egalitarian future. This study has revealed that ecocritical studies deepen our awareness of the relationship between human and non-human existence, highlighting our ethical responsibilities toward the environment.
Material Agency and Environmental Memory in Amal Al-Faran’s The Sand Divers: A Material Ecocritical Reading
: Literary stories as ‘storied matter’ reflect the culture of a society by revealing the dynamic interactions between humans and nonhumans and the association of agency with matter. This article examines Amal Al-Faran’s The Sand Divers (Ghwāṣū l'aḥqāf) as a localized Saudi contribution to material ecocritical scholarship, focusing on how nonhuman agency is articulated within a desert environment shaped by historical memory and culturally grounded ecological practices. Drawing on Iovino and Oppermann’s material ecocriticism, Barad’s agential realism and Bennett’s vital materialism, the study explores how landscape, natural forces and memory function as vital, agentic forces that shape narrative trajectories, resist human control and sustain the heritage and culture of its people. By foregrounding the material agency of the landscape and natural forces and their role in preserving environmental memory, the article demonstrates how Al-Faran’s novel extends material ecocriticism through a regionally situated, non-anthropocentric literary vision.
Sanctuaries of Lust and Legacies of Dust in William Wells Brown's Clotel; or, The President's Daughter
William Wells Brown’s Clotel (1853) depicts the tragic experience of a family of biracial female slaves, viewing their familial separation and dehumanization in antebellum American South as a cross-generational struggle that cannot be dismissed when defining and contextualizing biracial identity in the cultural milieu of the nineteenth century. This historical-cultural context, we believe, represents the total value of Brown’s narrative, which neither romanticizes nor mischaracterizes the struggle of racially mixed people, but instead authentically historicizes their experience and ordeal in the white American South that once advocated for slavery. By interpreting key and relevant textual and contextual clues in Clotel, we argue that the biracial female slaves' racial precariousness, their half-white lineage and perceived racial superiority, increasingly affirm, to the contrary, their state of tragic wretchedness, their sexual vulnerability and marketability, and especially their sustained inferiority. In Clotel, this state of precariousness, we conclude, emerges not only as an embodiment of intergenerational unresolved conflict but also as a central narrative arc of denouncing miscegenation. Strongly tied to these insights is the claim that miscegenation in Clotel is eventually revealed to be a form of racially targeted sexual exploitation normalized by the enslavers' sexualized fixation on a specific race category, that of mixed-race.
Language Skill Development in Non-Arabic Majors: A Longitudinal ICP Study
This study aimed to analyze the effectiveness of the International Class Program (ICP) in improving four Arabic language skills—listening, speaking, reading, and writing—among non-Arabic majors at IAIN Sultan Amai Gorontalo, Indonesia. Using a quantitative longitudinal design, data were collected from 50 students at two proficiency levels (Tamhidi/A-1 and Mubtadi’/A-2) through pre-, mid-term, and post-tests. The results showed an initial score of 54.39 percent (inadequate) for Tamhidi/A-1 and 61.45 percent (average) for Mubtadi’/A-2. Student scores increased significantly by the mid-semester assessment, reaching 74.48 percent and 77.21 percent for the Tamhidi/A-1 and Mubtadi’/A-2 groups, respectively. However, relative weaknesses remained in writing, reading, and speaking skills for the Tamhidi/A-1 group, and in listening for the Mubtadi’/A-2 group. Overall, test scores showed significant progress, increasing by 20.09 percent from the initial evaluation to the mid-term, and by another 10.90 percent from the mid-term to the final, for a total increase of 30.99 percent. These results demonstrate that the ICP effectively improved the students’ language skills. Therefore, this study suggests the integration of technology, the participation of native speakers, and the development of an adaptive curriculum to further enhance the program’s effectiveness.
Verbs of Pretending and Augmentative Constructions in Hā’ili Arabic: A Construction Morphology Approach
This study applies Construction Morphology (CxM) (Booij 2010b) to a set of nonconcatenative morphological constructions in the Ha'ili dialect of Arabic (HD), a northern Najdi variety spoken in the Hā'il region of Saudi Arabia. Focusing on verbs of pretending and augmentative formations, the analysis draws on systematically elicited and naturally occurring data collected from native speakers of the dialect. The study investigates whether these constructions are best characterized as root-based templatic derivations or as word-based formations. The findings reveal a principled division between the two: verbs of pretending instantiate a root-based constructional schema in which consonantal roots map onto a fixed prosodic template, whereas augmentative forms are derived in word-based manner from diminutive counterparts. The coexistence of root-based and word-based mechanisms provides empirical support for a layered constructional architecture, in line with CxM, where abstract schemas and lexeme-based constructions interact within the morphological system of the dialect. More broadly, the HD data demonstrate that Arabic dialectal morphology cannot be reduced to a single derivational principle, but instead exhibits both root-based and word-based organization. The study therefore contributes to Arabic morphological theory by showing how CxM offers a unified framework for capturing systematic form-meaning correspondences in Semitic nonconcatenative morphology.
Enhancing L2 Arabic Writing: Development and Evaluation of a Morphologically-Aware 3D Game
This study examines the effectiveness of the URUBAH game as an Android-based Arabic learning application developed using the ADDIE instructional model and Unity 3D software, with the aim of improving second-language (L2) learners’ Arabic writing proficiency. The game was designed to support Indonesian learners of Arabic who experience difficulties in spelling, grammar, and sentence structure. It addresses these challenges by focusing on the morphological and syntactic features of Arabic while considering structural differences between Arabic and English writing systems. The objectives of this research are twofold: first, to develop an interactive digital learning tool that enhances Arabic writing skills through gamification; and second, to evaluate its effectiveness in comparison with traditional teaching methods. A mixed-methods approach was employed, integrating quantitative data derived from pre- and post-tests with qualitative insights gathered from surveys and learner feedback. The findings indicate that the game positively improves writing outcomes, including learners’ accuracy, fluency, and overall engagement. In addition, learners’ motivation increased, accompanied by reduced anxiety when practicing Arabic writing through the interactive platform. In conclusion, the URUBAH game presents a promising instructional approach with practical applications for teaching Arabic as a second language. It also demonstrates the potential of integrating advanced digital technology into language classrooms to enhance learning experiences
Critical Thinking in a Learner Literary Corpus Thematic Extrapolations in Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms
The teaching/learning of English literature to university EFL/ESL students has been essential to the development of their critical thinking skills. Using a corpus linguistics approach, the present study investigates the extent to which learners’ critical awareness is apparent through their analysis and interpretations of the characters and themes in the novel, A Farewell to Arms (1929), by Ernest Hemingway. A literary learner corpus of 206 literary argumentative essays was compiled from a '20th Century American Novel' course at an English-medium university in Lebanon. The essays were quantitatively analyzed to investigate prevalent thematic trends. This study was able to draw thematic differences between Hemingway’s novel and the learners’ literary analytic interpretations. The main findings indicated that the learners’ collocational networks strongly supported Hemingway’s stylistic ‘iceberg principle’- a critical thinking-based expectation Hemingway had for his readers. Most importantly, this lexical analysis revealed a clear ‘genre’ shift from narration in Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms Corpus to argumentation in the Learner Literary Corpus. Overall, this study underscores the importance of literature courses in developing students’ critical thinking skills and the role corpus linguistics can play in quantifying ‘critical thinking’ measures in literature.
A Corpus-Based Exploration of Debates over Helen Keller’s Work and Public Image
Helen Keller’s work has been lauded for confronting disability and battling social inequity but also criticised for its racial orientation, Western prejudice, and fixation on disability. This stylometric study used corpus tools to identify genre-specific linguistic patterns and stylistic alterations within Keller’s oeuvre. A sociographic examination of the most frequent n-grams reveals how Keller’s deafblindness anchors both the positive and negative associations with her persona and how idolisation of Keller as an inspirational exemplar is inseparable from the exploitation and social stigmatisation of her disabilities. Keller frames disabled people as a subject worthy of an audience’s interest, but her first-person pronoun collocations demonstrate that she wields multiple voices that construct different identities in her personal correspondence, published memoirs, and public addresses. The frequency and concordance of proper nouns and keywords add validity to critiques of her sociopolitical positions.
Publishing the ‘Other’: The Reception of Ruete’s Memoirs of an Arabian Princess (1886) in the US and Britain
This article examines the circulation history of Emily Ruete’s Memoirs of an Arabian Princess (1886) in Western publishing networks, revealing how the text’s material dissemination both amplified and constrained its counter-Orientalist potential. While previous scholarship has focused primarily on the textual content of Ruete’s counter-narrative, this study addresses how material conditions of publication and circulation fundamentally shaped the political efficacy of her intervention. This paper draws on extensive archival evidence, including book reviews and paratextual materials, while employing a methodological framework that synthesizes postcolonial theory with book history approaches. Through this integrated lens, it demonstrates how American and British editors systematically undermined Ruete’s authority through dismissive commentary, sensationalistic excerpting, and the addition of condescending subtitles. Western publishing mechanisms often framed her critique of Orientalism repositioning her as a native informant rather than authoritative interpreter, with British reviewers explicitly challenging her credibility while American newspapers fragmented her narrative into exotic curiosities. This study advances scholarly understanding of colonial knowledge production by demonstrating how publishing infrastructures functioned as technologies of imperial control, effectively neutralizing Arab women’s counter-narratives even while seemingly amplifying their voices.
Leveraging ChatGPT for Optimized Email Communication: An Analysis of Benefits, Limitations, and Ethical Considerations for AUM Academic Staff
This study examined the benefits, limitations and ethical considerations of utilizing ChatGPT in email communication among AUM academic staff. Surveying the perspectives of 53 faculty members of the American University of Madaba (AUM) regarding the advantages, disadvantages, and the possible ethical consideration of using ChatGPT in email communication, the results revealed that AUM’s academic staff are aware of the ethical considerations, such as plagiarism and bias in language, of using ChatGPT in email communication. To add, the results indicated that ChatGPT provides several benefits such as efficient drafting of emails, clarity of emails, coherence of messages, enhanced language skills, and convenience of time. As for the limitations, the results showed that ChatGPT would, at times, give the wrong information because it failed to understand the context. Accordingly, replies were out of context and found incapable of handling complex or specialized topics. The study concluded with some recommendations that aim at improving utilizing Chatgpt in a responsible manner in email communication
Interpreting Political Idioms from English to Arabic: A Relevance-Theoretic Analysis of the 2024 U.S. Presidential Debates
This paper examines how English idiomatic expressions used during the 2024 U.S. presidential debates were interpreted into Arabic. It focuses on idioms used by Trump, Biden, Harris, and the moderators, and applies Relevance Theory to study how Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya interpreters rendered them. The idioms were selected based on their frequency, centrality, and anticipated impact on the source audience. The Arabic interpreting strategies were categorized into literal interpretation, explicitation, adaptation, omission, and misinterpretation. The analysis reveals a constant tension between linguistic efficiency and pragmatic fidelity. Omission emerged as the most common strategy (35.6%), particularly when interpreters faced culturally opaque idioms. Literal interpretation (26.7%) and explicitation (22.2%) strategies were used when close Arabic equivalents were available, but often failed to convey the original pragmatic meaning. Adaptation (6.7%) and misinterpretation (8.9%) were the least frequently used. The findings suggest that many current strategies fall short when applied in the fast-paced environment of live political broadcasts. This highlights the need for more focused interpreter training. Future research should include feedback from Arabic-speaking audiences and interviews with interpreters to provide a more complete understanding of how meaning is managed, adjusted, or lost during live interpretation of political debates.
The Effects of Animacy and Complexity on the Morphosyntactic Acquisition of English Genitives by Jordanian Arabic Speakers
This study investigates the effects of semantic and structural factors on the second language acquisition of English genitive constructions by Jordanian Arabic speakers. The study used two tasks: an Acceptability Judgement Task (AJT) and an Elicited Production Task (EPT). In both tasks, possessors varied in animacy (animate vs. inanimate) and complexity (simple vs. complex possessors). A control group of native English speakers showed a strong preference for the ’s-genitive in animate contexts and the of-genitive in inanimate ones, with only mild effects of structural complexity. The L2 group showed the same overall preferences, but their responses were more gradient and showed stronger sensitivity to possessor complexity. In the AJT, ratings for the ’s-genitive dropped notably in Animate–Complex contexts, whereas in the EPT, the L2 group produced the of-genitive at high rates across all conditions. Proficiency had a selective effect: more advanced learners were more target-like mainly in the complex-possessor contexts where English and Jordanian Arabic differ most. These findings support the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis, suggesting that semantic cues are acquired earlier and more robustly than the structural mechanisms underlying the English ’s-genitive. The difference between judgement and production shows that learners may recognise the target forms before they can produce them easily.
Exploring the Role of Transknowledging in Enhancing EFL Learners' Multilingual Competence and Cultural Awareness: Perspectives from Saudi EFL Classrooms
This study examines transknowledging as a transformative and epistemically interdisciplinary approach to enhancing multilingual competence and cultural awareness among Saudi English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. Unlike translanguaging, which mainly focuses on how learners alternate and integrate multiple languages to facilitate communication and comprehension, transknowledging also involves drawing on learners’ local cultural practices, prior social experiences, indigenous knowledge, and discipline-specific perspectives to interpret, negotiate, and produce knowledge in educational contexts. This involved 42 Saudi undergraduates at Majmaah University and 14 international faculty members. Using a mixed-methods design, data were collected via a 3-point Likert-scale questionnaire with both open- and closed-ended items. Qualitative responses were analyzed using conceptual thematic coding to ensure rigorous categorization and interpretation. Findings reveal that 78.6 percent of Saudi participants reported that their multilingual skills enhanced their core language abilities. In comparison, 73.8 percent suggested that multilingualism engages individuals in ways that break cultural stereotypes. 85.7 percent of the faculty members in the study reported supporting transformative transknowledging practices in their EFL classrooms, and 78.6 percent also reported believing that transknowledging enhances the educational experiences and learning of Saudi students. These findings demonstrate that transknowledging unites language fluency with indigenous cultural knowledge, fostering engagement, global communication readiness, and highlighting the need for institutional commitment, educator training, and curricular innovation to build equitable, epistemically and culturally enriched learning environments.
Acknowledgements in Doctoral Dissertations: A Cross-Cultural Genre Analysis of L1 and L2 English Writers
This study analyses the acknowledgement section in doctoral dissertations written by first language (L1) and second language (L2) English writers. The study also aims to explore any gender differences in the construction of this genre. A corpus of 80 dissertation acknowledgements was compiled: 40 written by native English speakers and 40 by nonnative English speakers. Each group was further divided by gender (20 males and 20 females). Drawing upon Hyland’s (2004) move structure model, we found that the two groups of writers did not adhere to the same move structure of acknowledgement. The English acknowledgements produced by native speakers consisted of four moves: Reflecting Move, Thanking Move, Announcing Move, and Signing off Move. On the other hand, the English acknowledgements written by nonnative speakers consisted of seven moves: Opening Move, Praising and Thanking Allah Move, Reflecting Move, Thanking Move, Invoking and Blessing Move, Announcing Move, and Signing off Move. Female native English writers emphasised Reflecting and Thanking for Moral Support, while males prioritised Thanking for Academic Assistance and Accepting Responsibility. Similarly, female nonnative writers focused on Opening and Academic Thanks, whereas males highlighted Moral Support and the Announcing Move.
Visual Phatic Communication among Jordanian Users of Snap-chat Streaks
This study investigates the effect of gender and age on phatic communication through Snapchat streaks among Jordanian Snapchat users. It tests whether Snapchat streaking behaviour differs across gender and age groups. It focuses on three areas, including streak maintenance patterns, visual content types preferred by users, and perception of emotional and relational aspects that users associate with streaking. The study adopts a mixed-methods approach that includes a survey of 100 participants, quantitative visual analysis of streak images, and semi‑structured interviews with 50 participants. The findings show that both Jordanian males and females actively use exchanges of Snap streaks for purposes of digital connection. However, Snapchat streaking reveals gender and age-based differences in both streaking patterns and the use of visual content type; for example, females are more likely than males to maintain longer Streaks, and younger users show a stronger tendency to actively engage in Snapchat streaks and to maintain them. These gendered preferences resonate with wider sociocultural norms and further demonstrate that the phaticity of Snapchat streaks functions as a simple yet symbolically rich ritual of digital connection.
An Analysis of Verbal Case Markers in Modern Standard Arabic
This paper examines the phenomenon of Verbal Case and how its assignment interacts with syntactic and morphological processes, particularly in languages that exhibit rich case-marking systems. Through a detailed Minimalist Program analysis of verbal predicates, this study argues that the markers appearing at the ends of verbs in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) are not mood, agreement, nor tense markers, but rather Verbal Case markers. It proposes that finiteness on the Inflectional head (Infl) licenses the structural Verbal Case feature on verbs via an Agree relation, and that certain complementizers, such as lan, function as case-assigning particles. The findings aim to contribute to a broader understanding of Verbal Case within syntactic theory and linguistic typology, with implications for our understanding of language variation and universals.
Reading Tahrir Hamdi’s Imagining Palestine into Al-Aqsa Flood
This interview with Tahrir Hamdi, author of Imagining Palestine: Cultures of Exile and National Identity (2023), undertakes a retrospective and prospective interrogation of the book’s central theses, considering the seismic reverberations of 7th October 2023. It probes the conceptual architecture of Hamdi’s titular formulation, synthesising Anderson’s “imagined communities” and Hirsch’s “postmemory” to theorize the ongoing reconstitution of Palestinian national identity across the exilic, diasporic, and occupied Palestinian geographies. It traverses several interconnected axes: the metaphorics of marginality; the expressive modalities of dispossessed communities; the indispensability of the oppositional intellectual in sustaining cultures of resistance and counterhegemonic consciousness; the dialectical relationship between armed struggle and aesthetic-intellectual praxis; and the performativity of literature and art as instruments of decolonial mobilization. Hamdi’s responses critically reappraise the Palestinian Authority’s capitulation through the Oslo Accords, recuperate Fanon’s theorization of decolonial violence, and underscore the prescience of the book’s engagement with the UNRWA-right of return nexus and the instrumentalization of anti-Semitism. The interview concludes with Hamdi’s prospective vision for Palestine, asserting the dismantlement of the Zionist project and the inevitability of return and liberation. This exchange contributes to the burgeoning scholarship on Palestinian cultural production and resistance literature in contexts of ongoing settler colonialism and genocide.
Symbiotic Storytelling in Richard Powers' The Overstory and Ibrahim al-Koni's The Bleeding of the Stone
This paper examines comparatively the concept of symbiotic storytelling as a narrative strategy in two major environmental novels: Richard Powers' The Overstory (2018) and Ibrahim al-Koni's The Bleeding of the Stone (1990). Drawing on ecocritical posthumanism theory, symbiogenesis, and posthumanist thought, the paper proposes a conceptual framework for understanding how these novels construct profound interdependence between human and nonhuman life. While Powers employs scientific realism and polyphonic narrative structures modeled on mycorrhizal networks, al-Koni crafts mythic allegory rooted in Tuareg animism and desert spirituality. The analysis reveals that despite their divergent cultural contexts—North American forests versus the Saharan desert—both novels challenge anthropocentrism and advocate for ecological consciousness through distinct yet convergent narrative strategies. This study contributes to global comparative ecocriticism by demonstrating how different cultural traditions offer unique resources for imagining ecological interconnectedness. The paper concludes that symbiotic storytelling represents an urgent and necessary mode of environmental literature, one that can help readers reimagine humanity's relationship with the more-than-human world.
Ala'a Muwafaq Mustafa Abdulrazzaq Al-Khazraji
From Loquaimat to Munchies Cultural Erasure in the Translation of Emirati Children’s Literature
Despite the growing body of scholarship on the translation of children’s literature from English into Arabic, little attention has been given to the translation of Arabic children’s literature into English. To address this gap, this article examines the English translation of Emirati children's book حين يشتهي الجمل اللقيمات, by Maitha Al Khayat, published as When a Camel Gets the Munchies. Drawing on Venuti’s ethics of difference and Newmark’s categorization of culture-specific items (CSIs), the study investigates the strategies used in the translation of Emirati CSIs in the source text and assesses the implications of these strategies for cross-cultural engagement. The analysis revealed an overwhelmingly domesticating approach that produced a more readable and playful target text, but resulted in an over-sanitized translation that significantly flattens Emirati cultural difference. It also exposed an underlying “child image” whereby the Anglo-American child reader is assumed to lack cultural curiosity and only enjoy familiar frames of reference. The article concludes that while readability is necessary in children’s literature, a translation that embraces an ethics of difference by resisting homogenizing pressures and preserving cultural specificity is more conducive to cross-cultural engagement and to a richer learning experience for child readers.
Euphemism in Translating Children’s Literature: A Critical Analysis of the Arabic Translation of Twain’s ‘The Prince and the Pauper’
Literature seeks to engage and influence readers, particularly children, making the translation of children’s literature a complex task that requires careful cultural consideration. Given the close relationship between language and culture, expressions that are acceptable in one linguistic context may be inappropriate in another, especially in texts aimed at young audiences. This study investigates the euphemism strategies employed by Abdussadiq (2012) in her Arabic translation of Twain’s (1964) The Prince and the Pauper. It hypothesizes that euphemism was deliberately used to soften offensive or taboo expressions in the source text, thereby enhancing cultural acceptability and suitability for Arabic-speaking children. A comparative analysis of the source and target texts was conducted using qualitative methods to identify the types and functions of euphemism and quantitative analysis to examine their frequency and motivations. The findings reveal that the translator employed a range of euphemistic strategies to adapt the text to the cultural expectations of the target readership while preserving its core meaning. The use of euphemism did not diminish the original message; rather, it contributed to producing a linguistically and culturally appropriate text for young Arab readers.
The Development of the Theatrical Critical Discourse in Jordan
This study examines the development of theatrical criticism in Jordan from the perspective of cultural discourse analysis, focusing on its interactions with social, political, and knowledge transformations. The study begins with the historical context of Jordanian theater since the 1960s, when it shifted from limited university-based performances to an institutionalized cultural activity. This development was accompanied by the emergence of academic criticism in Jordanian universities, which provided more precise analytical and methodological tools and contributed to transforming theatrical reading from an impressionistic approach into a more systematic practice. The study also highlights the role of journalistic and festival criticism as mediators between performance and audience, particularly in light of contemporary shifts associated with digitalization. The study concludes that Jordanian theatrical criticism has transcended the role as a reflection of performances to be a tool for producing the meaning and reshaping the cultural identity. That is within an ongoing dialogue between the local, the Arabic, and the universal. This necessitates adopting a hybrid method that combines academic rigorism with the flexibility of the digital space to ensure the continuation of its cultural and intellectual role.
Zeina Hashem Beck’s Translingual Ghazals in Light of Historical Poetics
This article situates Zeina Hashem Beck’s ghazals within the category of world poetry, aiming to avoid hegemonic notions of this category as much as possible. The ghazal is a form of lyric that originates as a mode in seventh-century Arabic poetry. Definitions depend on the historical period and linguistic tradition of its performance. Key moments of the form’s migration include tenth-century adaptations to Persian and Urdu, as well as late eighteenth-century popularization in European languages. A translation project led by Aijaz Ahmad engendered a revival in English in the late twentieth century. However, many North American poets wrote free-verse versions criticized vehemently by Agha Shahid Ali in the introduction to his anthology Ravishing DisUnities (2000). Through the lens of historical poetics, this article argues that Hashem Beck draws on various stages in the ghazal’s legacy for her own unique translingual iterations. Schooling in Lebanon and co-hosting of the podcast Maqsooda account for her indebtedness to Arabic poetry, yet she pays tribute to Shahid’s anthology and writes anglophone ghazals that follow the rules upheld by the Kashmiri-American poet. Close readings of Hashem Beck’s ghazals published to date identify translingual elements, as well as the ways in which motifs, such as love and exile lead to explicit localizations. The article thus demonstrates how Hashem Beck’s ghazals combine influences from different phases in the form’s development.
Book Review of Robert Macfarlane’s Is a River Alive?