English and Applied linguistics

Traditions and Transitions: this double volume features selected papers presented at a conference of the same name, organized by the Department of English and American Studies at St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia in September 2018. The conference aimed to celebrate a double anniversary: 90 years since the study of English was established as an autonomous degree subject within the Germanic Studies Department in 1928, and 130 years since the founding of the University of Sofia in 1888, the first higher academic institution in Bulgaria, opened shortly after the country’s liberation from Ottoman rule.

The conference brought together more than eighty academics from different generations, countries, and theoretical backgrounds. It offered a rich spectrum of topics and invited stimulating interdisciplinary and intergenerational exchanges. A year later, these two volumes present some of the most interesting and thought-provoking papers delivered in 2018.

Preserving traditions and honouring the past, but also looking into the future and embracing transition and change, the forty papers in the two volumes offer a wide range of theoretical and methodological perspectives. They have been organised into four parts. While strict boundaries between disciplines and themes are not easy to draw, multiple internal connections and shared themes are evident within each category.

Part I and Part II of the current Volume One follow the exact title of the conference: Traditions and Transitions. Part I is called TRADITIONS, HISTORY AND CHANGE and traces the historical development of the two major branches of the English department – Literature and Linguistics, a more recent one – Culture Studies, as well as the fruitful exchange programme with Leeds University amidst the Cold War era. The last two papers look at current issues from the field of Applied Linguistics and Semiotics. All papers in this part come from distinguished professors emeriti who have worked at the English Department at Sofia University, or have had a long-term connection with it.

Part II, TRANSITIONS, TRANSGRESSIONS AND PERFORMANCE, transgresses the often rigid disciplinary boundaries and explores trans-national, trans-lingual, trans-cultural, trans-human, and other aspects, well beyond the traditional scope of English Studies. Combining various interdisciplinary approaches and drawing on translation studies, culture studies, film and theatre studies, this part offers something of a counterpoint to the first part, focused on specific disciplines and historical development. It also serves as a kind of transition to the second volume, where Language and Literature are the two organising categories, although the boundaries between them are often fluid and permeable.
 

The quest to attain the goal of Education for All (EFA) in Nigeria has led to significant increase in school enrollment figures. The implication of this is large class sizes and high student-teacher ratio in most government-owned schools in Nigeria. However, research attention in education, especially in most developing countries, has largely focused on improving students’ achievement and the quality of classroom instruction in schools. Efforts aimed at improving students’ achievement are mostly on the provision of textbooks, massive construction of classrooms, and teacher training without taking cognizance of the large class sizes and peer influence in such classes. Although these interventions have contributed to the quality of classroom instruction, factors such as class size and peer influence continue to affect teachers; output and students’ achievement in public examinations in Owerri Zone I of Imo State. Therefore, this study adopted inferential survey designs to examine the effects of class size and peer influence on students’ achievement. Two research questions and one hypothesis were tested in the study. Eighty-five (85) participants from three senior secondary schools were exposed to two research instruments. Results showed main effect of class size on students’ achievement, and interaction effects of class size and peer influence on students’ achievement. Also, there was no significant difference between the mean ratings of class size and peer influence on students’ achievement. Recommendations were made on how to improve the quality of instruction and incorporate controlled-peer-interaction in large class sizes.

Prior to the Judeo-Christian missionaries’ exploit in Nigeria, Islam was regarded as a complete way of life and Islamic system of education was referred to as a holistic approach to learning as was the case in the early ages of Islamic civilization. Islamic education was, therefore, considered and placed in a very noble position as it emphasises the importance of acquisition and dissemination of knowledge than any other human activities. It is against the backdrop of this that the present paper sets out to appraise the Relevance of Islamic Education in the Modern World: A Lesson for the 21st Century Generation. In this regard, the paper discusses the nature of the Divine education, the value of education in Islam, the syndrome of un-Islamic education, the critique of western (un-Islamic education) and finally proffers possible solutions to the problem of un-Islamic education in Nigeria.

Key words: education, education in Islam, un-Islamic education and western education.

It is well-documented that L2 English learners from article-less languages, such as Mandarin and Korean, have trouble appropriately marking definiteness/specificity in L2 English, causing numerous breakdowns in referential coherence. The status of Filipino / Tagalog as an article or article-less language is up for debate, with ANG, NG, SA markers used to signal definiteness, indefiniteness and genericity according to context. This paper presents a learner corpus analysis of L2 English definite article use by L1 Tagalog speakers, collected from the International Corpus of Learner English (ICNALE, Ishikawa, 2013), totalling 24,253 words from 94 essays.  Using Pica's (1983) Target Language Use as a measure of article accuracy across the production of zero, indefinite and definite articles across four types of obligatory contexts (generic, specific definite, specific indefinite and non-specific indefinite), the results show that Filipino L2 English users struggle with the use of the definite article in generic contexts, much like the findings reported for Mandarin, Korean and Thai in the author's and others’ previous research. Based on the results of this analysis, a number of suggestions for pedagogy are presented, looking at how Filipino learners use articles successfully, when they do not, and what can be done to improve Filipino L2 English learners' accuracy and range of definite article use.