Journal of The College of Education

The translations of public signs distributed inside and outside Iraqi cities are random and of low quality. These translations contribute to reframing the conceptual image of cities as well as the communities inhabiting them. Moreover, the quality of these translated signs seems to underestimate the gradual development of translation as a profession and an academic field in this country. Conversely, it is unsatisfactory to continue producing and, more importantly, accepting these translations without in-depth revision. This study attempts to evaluate the translation of these signs. It reviews the strategies followed in their rendering from Arabic into English. Primarily, it does not only try to identify mistranslations, but also the impact these erroneous versions have on the viewers\' perception of cities. It is a qualitative study that brings Kevin Lynch\'s (1960) Theory of \'the Image of the City\' in Architecture to Translation Studies. The data used in the study come from two main sources: bilingual public signs and the responses of international viewers to a carefully-designed questionnaire. Results show that mistranslations of public signs do have a remarkable negative impact on reframing the viewers\' perception of the mental image of Iraqi cities and their inhabitants(including, of course, translators). Revising the available bilingual signs and establishing a high committee responsible for monitoring are among the recommendations offered by the study.

This study attempts to examine linguistic optimism in English and Arabic religious discourses. The language of religious discourse is rich for researchers to study. Optimism is realised through various pragmatic aspects. The study aims to identify the different pragmatic strategies through which optimism is communicated by adopting an eclectic model used to analyse the selected data. It consists of Searle's (1969) speech act theory, Grice's (1975) conversational implicature and Brown and Levinson's (1987) politeness theory. The study uses a qualitative content analysis method to analyse three biblical texts and three Qur'anic texts that contain optimism in the two Holy books. The study shows that optimism is conveyed mainly through the directive, representative speech acts. It is also conveyed through conversational implicature, which is mainly conveyed through words with many connotations. Finally, optimism is mainly exercised through positive politeness strategies such as encouragement, understanding, sympathy and promise to the reader/listener.

This paper investigates Sam Shepard’s States of Shock in which the playwright explores family relation during an international crisis, war. As male identity is noted as a recurring theme in Shepard’s plays, the paper examines masculine identity in States of Shock. As depicted in the play, Colonel and Stubbs, the main characters in the play, struggle to negotiate their personal identity prisms. As such, we explore this issue via the lens of social identity to address the primary constructs in the play. Although taking as its setting a family café, the events in the play transcend this both temporally and spatially through the two characters’ battle for male identity at the war front lines. As such, we argue that through the characters of Colonel and Stubbs, where the former promotes war mythologies regardless of the suffering of the traumatized soldier, Stubbs, the play presents a critique of American myths of war.

Speaking is a way to communicate in order to express thoughts, feelings, and information. It is not only about the sound; it is also about the significance and intent of the sound. Speech acts classified as "commissives" bind the speaker to future action. One of the commissives is the speech act of promising, which binds the speaker to the promise until it is unintentionally triggered. In this study, the speech act of promising is examined in four of Donald Trump’s well-known speeches. following Searle (1969), this study is a descriptive qualitative one. The study tries to identify the promising techniques that Donald Trump used in his political speeches. Additionally, it looks for the most common promising technique employed in the chosen talks.
In summary, the study found that the word "promise", whether it is a noun or a verb and the modal verb "will" are both used to make promises in the chosen speeches. Compared to other words Trump employs to make promises, the word "promise" is used less frequently. The modal verb "will" is frequently used to follow through on a promise, and this is the main technique used in all of Trump's chosen speeches. This verb is used more frequently in these speeches than the word "promise." Additionally, Trump uses it as his go-to phrase when making a commitment.

Western countries believe that Islam is a negative and bad religion. It is a fundamental source of terrorism, violence, racism, and extremism. Muslims in western countries protest against this wrong idea about Islam carrying posters that express that. The purpose of this paper to prove the idea of Islam is a good and positive religion in western countries. To demonstrate the positive idea of Islam, the posters of the protestations should be analyzed semiotically according to Barthes’ theory of denotation and connotation to get the aim of this paper. Seven photographs are analysed to prove that because they have effective strong evidence about Islam and Muslims. It is concluded that Islam is a good and positive religion. It is a religion of peace, safety, sincerity, and tolerance. It doesn’t come to kill people or restrict their freedom as western countries’ people think.

This paper investigates the collective identity of the participants in October uprisings that broke out in Baghdad against the Iraqi government in 2019. It studies this in the light of visual discourse analysis model suggested by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) and van Leeuwen (2008) by examining randomly selected murals painted by amateur protestors as well as professional painters on the walls and concrete blocks in Al-Tahrir Square and Tunnel where the uprising took place. This qualitative examination focuses on the representation of the protestors in the murals and how it reflects different aspects of their collective identity. The findings show that the painters’ could convey some different elements of their fellow protestors’ new collective identity. The study also reveals that they were too unbiased to reveal even the negative elements, and too socially brave to publicly announce their challenge to the old patriarchal social norms and some of the established social beliefs and traditions.