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| Title | Abstract | Action(s) |
|---|---|---|
| "RE-IMAGINING HOLOCAUST: THE POLITICS OF TERROR AND TRAUMA IN THE MIDDLE EAST FICTION " | Title: Re-Imagining Holocaust: The Politics of Terror and Trauma in the Middle East Fiction Wars and military conflicts have besieged the Middle East for years resulting in colossal human tragedy especially in countries like Syria and Iraq. This extended exposure to extremely traumatic events, which include encounter with grotesque deaths and total destruction, has serious consequences for the mental health of the survivor-victims. Through the textual analysis of the selected fiction from wartime Syria and Iraq, this study engages with the grim on-ground traumatic reality and its detrimental effects on the psyche and emotional lives of the characters. As the imagined worlds of the texts are imbricated in the sociological reality of the two countries, a comprehensive account of the true events is considered a necessary prelude to the understanding of the characters’ responses to war, destruction and global politics. The analyses of the texts rely on two assumptions: that the prolonged encounter with the grotesque has serious, devastating effects on the mental health of the characters (the survivor-victims of the wars), and that trauma is not only personal but also political – terror is used as a ploy by those who control these wars to bring the characters, as victims of these wars, into a state of total abjection and submission. As the selected texts reveal, this psychological terror can manifest in multiple ways, for instance, military prowess, media censorship, and/or narrative framing etc. The literary analyses invoke Robert J. Lifton, Judith Butler, and Giorgio Agamben to support these objectives. The study concludes that future studies on Middle East war-trauma must take into account the total devastation of survivors’ physical and mental landscapes in order to fully understand the complex nature of traumatic injury inflicted on the trauma victims. |
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| An Ecocritical Discourse Analysis of Digital Advertisements: An Ecolinguistic Perspective | The aim of the study is to examine the linguistic components of the advertisements in order to identify the narratives, created by manufacturers that seem to be environmental friendly and consistent with ecological principles. Additionally, it seeks to define the part, language plays in influencing customers' ecological preferences. The information, which is restricted to beverages and dairy items, has been gathered from the official websites of ten Pakistani food manufacturing enterprises. The advertisements are examined using Stibbe's (2015) ecolinguistic analysis methodology and the theoretical frameworks of agenda-setting theory. It is alleged that food manufacturing corporations create a variety of stories that are subtly implied, where the readers find them uninteresting, but the stories employ language to imprint specific perceptions in readers' minds and control the daily purchasing decisions of consumers. The research deconstructs the ecological attitude of the discourses and assesses them in the context of ecosophy; it is useful for people to identify the ecologically detrimental discourses and how food manufacturers might improvise their discourses to promote consumption. The language is employed in such an affable way that readers assume, it is for commercial purposes, although each story is laced with the idea of consumerism. The investigation is distinctive since it combines the fields of ecology and language. It reveals the ways that linguistic discourses are used in ads to build narratives that aim to displace the use of natural commodities. The goal of using linguistic discourses for business reasons is to commercially glorify what is being sold in the eyes of consumers as a better source of natural repercussion. |
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| Evidentiality and Episiemic Modality in Political Discourse: Analyzing Speakers' Stance and Ideology Through Appraisal Theory | This research study has attempted to investigate the comparison between the frequency and distribution of resources, types of evidentiality and values of epistemic modality; further, it investigates the function of evidential markers and epistemic modals as stance makers and ideology construction. Although, evidentiality and epistemic modality are the main subjects in wide range of studies, the two domains have not been discussed in Pakistani political context. Therefore, corpora containing 5 speeches of Pakistan‟s former Prime Minister Imran Khan and 5 speeches of American President Joe Biden have been compiled for the analysis. The study has adopted mixed-method approach. The data has been analyzed first via corpus-based methodology, where Antconc software has been used to locate the frequency and distribution of evidential markers and epistemic modals, while Appraisal Theory of Martin and White (2005) has been applied to analyze the pragmatic function of the linguistic markers through its resources of „attitude‟ and „engagement‟. The findings indicate that both the speakers have made use of personal knowledge (PK) evidentials from inside source more frequently among the other categories. Imran Khan in his speeches has used „I think‟ „I believe‟ and „unfortunately‟, whereas Biden has used „I know‟ „in my view‟ and „it is clear‟ more frequently. In terms of epistemic values, both the speakers have used „will‟ and „must‟ of high epistemic value more frequently followed by other epistemic values. The study has suggested that while making claims the speakers have often taken personal responsibility and have shown their strong confidence towards the truth of proposition. Secondly, the uses of high epistemic values have often presented subjective stance and speaker‟s positive self-representation. Overall, there have been no significant differences in the results. This research study contributes to the field of corpus-linguistics and to the practice of discourse community with the analysis of linguistic expressions in the speeches. Keywords: Evidentiality, Epistemic Modality, Appraisal Theory, Political Discourse Analysis, Corpus Linguistics |
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