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The Impact of Psycholinguistic Factors on Second Language Acquisition
-- M P Shabitha and S Mekala
Language learning is part of mental, emotional and physical development of learners and it takes place in a multidimensional context of the society. Psychological factors play a significant role in learners’ success in acquiring and using a second language. Every individual has unique character traits that enable him to function in different ways. Psycholinguists believe that the individual differences that are inherent in language learner can predict success or failure in language learning. The paper aims to explain the psycholinguistic factors that impact the individual’s second language acquisition process. The paper also elucidates the importance of some factors for successful language acquisition and further examines the potential role of aptitude and motivation and their relation to proficiency in second language.
© 2013 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
The Relationship Between Semantic Functions and the Acquisition
of English Prepositions
--Margaret Barasa, James Mutiti, Ogata B Rose and Anakalo Shitandi
English is the medium of instruction in Kenyan learning institutions. This study aims to establish the perceived difficulties in the use of the English prepositions and to find out whether the semantic functions of such items determined their acquisition and use. A written test was used for collecting the data from the learners. The context of syntactic unit determined the preposition to be chosen. It was concluded that learners found the uncommon prepositions with multiple meanings difficult to acquire. The study further confirmed that the learners experienced difficulties when using prepositions that have fewer meanings. On the contrary, prepositions which are common are acquired with ease and at an early stage.
© 2013 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Teaching Functional English to Students of Technology Through Literature
--P Anuradha Sudheer and A Rama Krishna Rao
In today’s world of globalization, the significance of English language need not be accentuated. It is said that literature has the power to shape the teaching practices. Literature and language are interrelated. This paper endeavors to highlight the symbiotic relationship between the two and also attempts to present how a teacher, with the help of literature, can make the classes more stimulating and help students get involved by reflecting upon the themes, recurring ideas, characters, etc. The paper tries to demonstrate how the teaching of literature can be fun, departing from learning grammar by conventional methods, and also examines how literature has its own pivotal role in helping the students in acquiring their life skills besides imparting communication skills.
© 2013 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Ruby Slipperjack’s Little Voice: How Does ‘Little-Phoneme’ Fill the Gap
Between Ray’s Language and Idiolect?
--Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi
This paper is based on the novel Little Voice written by a native Canadian writer, Ruby Slipperjack. It discusses the significance of the mother tongue in the development of the identity. The narrator is a ten-year-old girl named ‘Ray’, and the incidents in her life are presented to show how culture and language are interwoven to create a search for her lost identity. She discovers her lost self in her own native phoneme ‘n’, and her realization and decision to drop the first letter of her name ‘Ray’, i.e., ‘r’, and to select ‘n’, is discussed from a linguistic point of view in this paper.
© 2013 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Shifting Positions: Identity and Alterity in The Reluctant Fundamentalist
--Alaa Alghamdi
Mohsin Hamid’s 2007 novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist offers a new and innovative framework through which post-9/11 Eastern/Western relationships and prejudices can be re-examined. By avoiding the ‘mimetic’ quality of many literary works written in the Western tradition, Hamid succeeds in radically displacing and dispelling assumptions regarding these cultural interactions. In so doing, the narrative forces the creation of a nascent understanding not limited by previous preconceptions even as the precise content and objectives of this remain elusive and open to debate. Political and literary constructs are applied to an understanding of Hamid’s work, the outcome being a heightened awareness of a shared culpability and injury regarding the type of discrimination generalized under the label of Islamophobia.
© 2013 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Social, Economic and Political Reverberations of Untouchability:
Kumud Pawde’s “The Story of My Sanskrit”
--K Jayasree
Kumud Pawde’s essay, “The Story of My Sanskrit”, is an extract from her autobiography Antasphot. This paper is an attempt to study the social, economic and political implications of untouchability in India after nearly 20 years of independence. This essay is important not only because it is a pioneer in Dalit Feminist Studies but also because it traces the path of a Dalit woman in the public sphere of education and employment. The economic aspect exposes the resistance of individuals at various levels of bureaucracy in implementing the constitutional measures put in place by the Government of India. The pervasive depth and strength of untouchability becomes a reality when Pawde elaborates how even politicians in the highest echelons remain only mute spectators in the face of society’s negation of the rights of the Dalits. What is significant about the narrative is the unsentimental and factual tone and the strong sense of individual assertion.
© 2013 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
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