اللغة الإنجليزية
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Item Reflections on George W. Bush’s ‘War on Terror’ through George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four(UNIVERSITY OF ALGIERS 2. Faculty of Foreign Languages, 2019) Kalloum, Ahmed; Ait Ammour, Houria (Directeur de thèse)In this dissertation, I intend to examine George W. Bush’s ‘war on terrorism’ and its resemblance to George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The monitoring idea running through this work is that the U.S media, after the 9/11 attacks, launched a series of hysterical coverage overwhelmed by an orientalist rhetoric whose target was to spread fear-mongering in the American public and paint every Arab and Muslim with the same “terrorist” brush. Otherising Middle Easterners facilitated the task for the Bush administration to push their war agenda. Similarly, in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, the totalitarian government, the Party, employs the same tactics of demonising the ‘other’. The abuse of language by the media is a major theme in the novel. That is why the comparison between Bush’s ‘war on terror’ policy and the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is worthwhile dealing with. The present study will be basically divided into three main chapters. The first chapter will focus on George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and analyse it through a postcolonial lens, namely Edward Said’s work Orientalism. The second chapter will shed light on the background of the 9/11 attacks and the attempts made by the Bush administration to overlook that history for the sake of fighting an obscure enemy labelled as ‘terror’. This is all done through a comparison between Nineteen Eighty-Four and the ‘war on terror’. The third chapter will explore the abuse of language by the media during the war on terror and in Nineteen Eighty-Four.Item ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE LMD STUDENTS’ AWARENESS OF STRATEGY USE IN PROMOTING LEARNER AUTONOMY(UNIVERSITY OF ALGIERS 2. Faculty of Foreign Languages, 2018) Badaoui, Sadjia; Boukhedimi, Yasmine (Directeur de thèse)The study investigated EFL students’ awareness of strategy use in promoting autonomy at the English Department, Blida 2 University during the academic year 2014-2015. It was a case study which attempted to explore the extent to which new registered students were aware of strategy use and make use of it . Data have been collected through triangulation : two part questionnaires have been administered to 70 students and classroom observation in order to reveal whether they are aware or not of strateg use . In addition to a semi-structured interview conducted with 10 informants for the sake of uncovering their awareness or not of their learning problems and the strategies used to solve them. Both quantitative and qualitative data analysis have led to conclude that learners in this sample were aware of their learning difficulties but showed a lack in person ,task and strategic knowledge . Also, all participants (70 ) used some metacognitive strategies out of metacognitive knowledge . therefore ,they seemed to be not aware of strategy use.Item RETENTION AND ATTRITION IN EFL VOCABULARY LEARNING(University of Algiers 2. Faculty of Arts and Languages, 2013) Tihal, Wafia; Bensemmane, Faiza (Directeur de thèse)The present descriptive and exploratory study aims to explore the effectiveness of Vocabulary Learning Strategies used by final year school students and to test their retention of the target words thereby measuring their vocabulary size. It is based on the works of Oxford (1990) and Schmitt (1997). A vocabulary learning strategies questionnaire adapted from Schmitt’s (1997) taxonomy was used to gather data on the students’ use of five identified Vocabulary Learning strategies : Determination (DET), Social (SOC), Memory (MEM), Cognitive (COG) and Metacognitive (MET) strategies . A Vocabulary Achievement test was used to evaluate their word retention . A questionnaire to teachers was designed to elicit their attitude towards vocabulary teaching and the recall strategies taught for long term vocabulary retention. The results demonstrate that: 1. ‘Shallow’ strategies ( ‘taking notes’, ‘guessing from context’ and ‘asking classmates’) did not cause retention as they did not require manipulation of vocabulary . 2. At a receptive level, students used ‘bilingual dictionary’, ‘guessing from context’ and ’asking classmates’ strategies to comprehend the meaning of unknown words. 3. At a productive level , ‘discovery’ strategies were used. Students avoided strategies involving deep mental processing(such as Keyword Method, Semantic Mapping and Spaced Word Practice )and used strategies which cause attrition. 4. Teachers did not use efficient strategies to help their students increase their word retention. Finally, proposals were made for teachers to improve vocabulary retention in EFL secondary school students.Item FAMILY DISINTEGRATION IN ARTHUR MILLER’S ALL MY SONS, EUGENE O’NEILL’S LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT AND SAM SHEPARD’S BURIED CHILD(University of Algiers 2. Faculty of Arts and Languages, 2013) Mechta, Amina; Deramchia, Yamina (Directeur de thèse)The present research aims at shedding light on the issue of family dysfunction as portrayed by Miller, O’Neill and Shepard in a twentieth century American social context. The work deals with the theme of family disintegration, a phenomenon that affected the modern American society, where the ethics that forged the old successful American family started to vanish in an age of materialism, criminality and immorality. All My Sons, Long Day’s Journey into Night and Buried Child will be examined on the basis of Freud’s psychoanalytical theory to reveal the repressed familial ills that made up of the Kellers, the Tyrones and Dodge with his family a typical illustration of the disintegrated twentieth century American family whose past transgression of the law ruined their present existence. The research will focus on the cruciality of the past and its impact on people as explained by psychoanalysis. In fact, the outcome of the three families past incidents return back to haunt their present life which proved to be a failure. In addition, this work will dig into the repressed conscious vs unconscious mechanisms of the three plays’ characters in an attempt to decipher the hidden mysteries that led to the current fragmentation of family relationships. As for the theme of the Oedipus complex that is related to the Greek tragedy of the Oedipus Rex, this research will, eventually, tackle the topic of the father-son antagonism typically reflected in the enmity which exists among the three father figures and their male offspring depicted in all of All My Sons, Long Day’s Journey into Night and Buried Child. This research will therefore, attempt to explore the alarming phenomenon of the disintegrated American modern family that proved to be an utter disillusionment for the American Republic’s old sacred ideals of happiness, integration and unity on which the latter was forged.Item Investigating EFL Learners’ Use of Lexical Cohesive Devices in Writing(University of Algiers 2. Faculty of Letters and Languages, 2013) Hazel, FatihaThe present study is an attempt to unveil the types of lexical reiteration that EFL first year (LMD) students have, most frequently, recourse to when writing and the extent to which they affect the quality of their written performance. To this end, a descriptive small-scale research has been conducted with a group of 14 students enrolled in the department of English at the University of Algiers 2. The procedure of the study consists of undertaking an analysis of cohesion in the light of Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) theory on lexical reiteration as a sub-type of lexical cohesion. The sampled corpus involves one-paragraph compositions written by the subjects under two different conditions. The first part of the written production is represented by a set of paragraphs that learners have produced as part of an assigned homework while the second consists of their second term writing examination papers. Furthermore, as a follow-up to the results gained from students’ written productions’ analysis, two questionnaires were devised in the present study, one to the group of first year students and the other to teachers of writing. The students’ questionnaire has sought to unveil their perceptions, the reasons that underlie their use of lexical ties and whether their perceptions of lexical ties match their productions. The questionnaire to the teachers was meant to elicit the type of instruction they advocate for cohesion, more precisely lexical cohesion. Results of the analysis of cohesion have shown that the group of first year LMD students have overused repetition of the same item. The instructors should, therefore, pay more attention to the teaching of other lexical cohesive ties. Moreover, in the light of the comparison between the high- and low-rated papers in terms of the most preferred types of reiteration, the findings of the study indicate that good student writers use more lexical cohesion ties than the poor writers. Equally, they tend to vary their repetition via exploring the semantic relation of synonymy better than the writers of poor papers who were found to rely mostly on repetition of the same item. Also, the study has succeeded to demonstrate that little attention is, currently, being paid to the cohesive effect of vocabulary by teachers of writing who exhibit a tendency towards concentrating on the grammatical devices of cohesion as being the sole crucial ingredient of cohesion in writing. As a matter of fact and in the light of the obtained results, we hope we could substantiate the fact that using the variety of lexical reiteration ties is a further underlying characteristic of good written performance. Similarly, results could be deemed insightful in improving the contents of the first year LMD writing course of the University, and in making decisions about what classroom exercises could best be se provided to the students to help them achieve a higher level of lexical cohesion in their written performance.Item THIRD FORCE IN BRITISH POLITICS(University of Algiers 2. Faculty of Letters and Languages, 2013) Derragui, Hiba Khedidja; Mansouri, Brahim (Directeur de thèse)The future of the third force in British politics rests in the role of the Liberal Democrats to make an electoral breakthrough. If that role is important, then realignment in British politics is clearly possible. Through a historicist approach along with an analysis of many data from the British Election Study surveys and qualitative data from newspapers, this dissertation examines the role of the Liberal Democrats in British politics and the challenges facing them. The purpose of this dissertation is to assess the Liberal Democrats’ record from the twentieth to the first decade of the twenty-first century, notably in terms of electoral performance and suggests the possibility of a long-term role for the Liberal Democrats as a realigning or at least persistently dealigning force. This dissertation provides a succinct account of the history of the party. It also focuses on the Alliance between the SDP and the Liberals in the 1980s and the process of merger. It determines also the Liberal Democrats’ position in the political spectrum through defining their ideology which is clearly rooted in social liberalism and considering their ability to achieve electoral performance in terms of votes and seats as well. It considers the party’s relations with the Conservative and Labour parties. It explores the party’s policy and strategy through an analysis of the party’s manifestoes and policy documents and examines the outcome of the 2010 General Election which resulted in a hung Parliament. Finally it considers the Liberal Democrat- Conservative Coalition government which is still seeking to implement its ambitious programme despite shortcomings.Item The Role of oral practice in improving the learners' acquisition of word stress(University of Algiers. Faculty of Letters and Languages, 2009) Mekhoukh, Sohila; Khaldi, Kamel (Directeur de thèse)This experimental study investigates the role of the teaching of English word stress through three modes of pronunciation/speech practice to see if this can improve the learners' performance. We noticed that the production element in the Foreign Languages Department (the English Section) at the University of Setif is not satisfactorily taken into account, and the practice activities done in the language lab are limited to imitation and do not allow for communicative oral practice of the targeted pronunciation feature. Thus, our research question concerns whether the use of controlled, guided and free pronunciation-oriented speaking practice help our students produce word stress more accurately. Questionnaires and tests were the main research tools used in this study. The teacher's questionnaire, the subjects' questionnaire, and pre-test's results helped us identify and diagnose some of the students' problems with word stress and the potential causes. Students participated in either experimental or control group, study English as a foreign language. Material used for instruction is planned to be production-oriented and the lessons were of a practice type. A variety of tasks including listening and spelling awareness activities were also designed, added to that, an integration of three speaking practice modes (controlled, guided, and free) simultaneously, taking into account the learners' difficulties even with any features related to word stress, such as syllable division and vowel reduction. The pre-test/post-test data indicated that our teaching strategy facilitated the improvement of word stress production among these students to some extent. The experimental group exceeded the abilities of the control group.Item Investigating the Use of the Relative Clause by Second Year Students of English in the English(University of Algiers 2. Faculty of Arts and Languages, 2013) Kasbadji Lahoubi, Soraya; Bensemmane, Faiza (Directeur de thèse)The present research tries to investigate the use of the relative clause by twenty-one second year students of English (EFL) at the University of Algiers 2. After several years of teaching this grammatical structure to second year students of the English degree course, I have observed that students have problems using the relative clause, specially the pronouns WHO, WHICH, THAT, WHOM, the possessive WHOSE and the after prepositions such as OF WHICH, WITHOUT WHOM, FOR WHOM. One of the reasons for their difficulties in learning this complex grammatical structure may be the influence of their L1, Arabic. L1 influence has been reported on the acquisition of relative clauses (Lightbown and Spada 2006). And for learners whose L1 does not have a particular clause type such as object of comparison (for example, The person that Susan is taller than is Mary) it is more difficult to use that clause type in English. Thus, Arabic speakers often produce the relative marker and the pronoun it replaces as they do in their own language (for example, The man who I saw him was very angry,), which is quite confusing. This study deals with second year students’ use of the relative clause and tries to identify their problems and to suggest possible solutions. Grammar tests with exercises on the relative clause followed by a questionnaire on the test were given to twenty one of these students. The data from both research instruments were analyzed, as well as the students’ errors made in the tests. The findings are quite interesting and reveal that many but not all the errors are due to L1 (Arabic) interference. The students have demonstrated three main types of problems related to the relative clause: vi - Misuse of the relative pronouns (who, which, whom, that) and of the pronouns they replace ( it, they, him…etc.) - Misuse of the possessive WHOSE and the after-preposition relatives such as OF WHOM and FOR WHICH. - Misplacement of the relative clause in the sentence. The study ends with some suggestions of activities that may improve the students’ understanding of the meaning of sentences containing the relative clause and their use of this somewhat problematic grammatical structure.Item ALICE WALKER’S FORBIDDEN TRUTHS IN POSSESSING THE SECRET OF JOY, IN LOVE AND TROUBLE: STORIES OF BLACK WOMEN AND YOU CAN’T KEEP A GOOD WOMAN DOWN(University of Algiers 2. Faculty of Letters and Languages, 2012) Azzouz, Ryma; Ait Hamou, Louisa (Directeur de thèse)The present research work examines how women are made able to overcome society’s forbidden truths — and the state of self-hatred engendered by these latter — to attain the state of wholeness or spiritual maturity. To fulfill such examination, Alice Walker’s taboo-breaking writing in Possessing the Secret of Joy, In Love and Trouble and You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down is analyzed. In Possessing the Secret of Joy, Alice Walker’s desacralization of the forbidden goes to the extreme. In this novel, the forbidden truth disclosed is female genital mutilation. In the study at hand, the disclosure of the forbidden is related to a process of maturation, marked by a move from self-hatred to wholeness. To account for this move in Possessing the Secret of Joy, recourse is made to a Jungian perspective. Carl Jung’s conception of this move, or what he referred to as the individuation process, lends to the female protagonist’s path to wholeness, in this novel, a progressive aspect. Yet, despite the fruitfulness that can ensue from this aspect and from the adoption of a Jungian perspective to analyze a novel whose author clearly recognized the healing impact Jung’s psychology had upon her, it appears impossible to apply the Jungian perspective, as it is, on the inner journey of the female protagonist of Possessing the Secret of Joy, known as Tashi. What seems to pose a problem in Carl Jung’s theorization of “psychic growth” is the presence of some allusions to women’s innate inferiority. It is more specifically in his theorization of the complementarity notion, or what he called “the anima-animus archetype”, that these allusions are apparent. This archetype represents one of the steps in the process of individuation, or “psychic growth”, the novel’s protagonist goes through. According to Carl Jung, it is during this phase that the individual discovers and faces her masculine side, or animus, if it is a woman or his feminine side, or anima, if it is a man. It has been observed by many feminist critics, like Susan Rowland, Verena Kast and Naomi Goldenberg that the Jungian theorization of duality is sexist and fell into the trap of easy stereotyping based on conventional gender roles. For them, what is specifically sexist in the Jungian theorization of duality is Jung’s consideration of women’s rationality, logic and spiritual strength as specific to what he deems their masculine side, or animus. So, whenever a woman is strong enough and escapes society’s patriarchal socialization, for the Jungians this is due to her masculine side. In In Love and Trouble and You Can’t Keep A Good Woman Down, the forbidden analyzed is more complex and less striking, but equally dangerous and harmful. In the two short stories entitled “Roselily” and “‘Really, Doesn’t Crime Pay?’”, it is identified with the degenerating effects of wifehood and motherhood in a woman’s life — especially when they are imposed as women’s only spheres of activity. In these short stories, it is not certain whether the state of wholeness is attained, but the process of maturation the female protagonists go through is itself revelatory of the different workings responsible for women’s oppression by society and its forbidden truths. In You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down, the female protagonists are equally oppressed by the forbidden, even though they are more assertive and self-confident. In “Advancing Luna — and Ida B. Wells”, the confrontation with the forbidden truth of interracial rape is lived by a woman writer activist. Even though this short story does not seem to have a definite end, its protagonist is nonetheless able to reach the point of condemning rape (interracial or not) and matures into a more committed writer. In “Coming Apart,” the forbidden issue treated by the writer is identified in the present research as pornography and its debasing power. What is particular about this short story is that the confrontation with the forbidden and the ensuing attainment of a certain maturity is lived by a man. Even though in some of her works, like The color Purple or Possessing the Secret of Joy, Alice Walker seems to be always willing to give men the role of the villains, this does not mean she is a separatist defending the rights of only women and blaming men for all the ills of the world. In this short story, she proves her interest in also men’s spiritual ascension towards the state of wholeness. Alice Walker instigates universal solidarity between people of all races, social backgrounds and of both sexes.Item The Impact of Listening Comprehension Strategy Training on First Year English Students’ Listening Ability(University of Algiers 2. Faculty of Letters and Languages, 2012) Khelifa, Mahammed; Bensemmane, Faiza (Directeur de thèse)This study was motivated by the weak results the students of English in the University of Blida have achieved over the last fifteen years. Teachers and administrators alike believe students’ weaknesses are mainly due to their non- effective listening strategies in the listening module, which is key to understanding Academic English needed for their university studies. It was important to understand the students’ listening difficulties and to see if a Training Programme involving Strategy- Based Listening Tasks can improve the students’ listening ability. Therefore, a pre- test (Oxford Placement Listening Test) was administered to a sample class of sixty- four first year students to determine their proficiency level. When it was corrected, only thirty students were singled out and divided into an experimental group and a control group of 15 students each. Both groups were administered a 22 item- questionnaire to identify their listening comprehension problems and their listening strategies. The Experimental Group received Listening Comprehension Strategy Training for twelve weeks. The Programme consisted of strategy- based teaching which developed strategies centred on a framework suggested by Brown (1990: 148). During this time, the control group attended the regular listening sessions with no treatment. To triangulate the results, a semi structuredinterview was carried out with the teachers of the module. After the Training Programme, both groups were given a post- test based on IELTS format. The results revealed that the scores of the Experimental Group were higher than those of the Control Group. They had a significantly higher level of listening proficiency and used more strategies, e.g., listening for key words, inferring and listening for gist than they did before Listening Comprehension Strategy Training. However, no significant difference was found in the use of non- verbal cues and asking for clarification strategies. On the other hand, the Control Group used listening comprehension strategies equally before and after the training, except for predicting and note-taking strategies. Based on these findings, it was suggested that listening teachers should be made aware of strategy- based listening tasks and develop materials based on these results.