Journal of Tikrit University for Humanities

The study aims to investigate the relationship among EFL teachers' efficacy, their instructional practices and preparatory school students' performance in receptive skills, through:
1. assessing the average level of EFL TsE.
2. assessing the average level of EFL teachers' IPs.
3. finding out whether there is any relationship between EFL TsE and their IPs.
4. assessing the average level of EFL students' performance in receptive skills (listening comprehension and reading comprehension).
5. finding out whether there is any relationship between EFL TsE and their students' performance in receptive skills.
6. finding out whether there is any relationship between EFL teachers' IPs and their students' performance in receptive skills.The population of the present study represents the total number of EFL teachers who teach the fifth-grade students at the preparatory schools for boys and girls and their students in the city of Kirkuk for the academic year 2021-2022. They are enrolled in thirty-eight preparatory schools, i.e. twenty schools for boys and eighteen schools for girls. These thirty-eight schools including fifty teachers for the fifth grade and 7406 students. The sample of this study includes twenty EFL teachers who are distributed among ten schools who represents 40% of its original population. The sample of the EFL fifth year students is 1630 (893 boys and 737 girls) who represents 22.01% of its original population. The study instruments contain: Teachers' Efficacy Questionnaire (TEQ); Teachers' Instructional Practices Questionnaire (TIPQ); Listening Comprehension Test (LCT) and Reading Comprehension Test (RCT),which have been validated , their reliability as well difficulty level and discrimination power are obtained . The study questionnaires have been administrated to the selected sample of the teachers. The tests of the receptive skills have been administrated to the selected sample of the students. The collected data have been analyzed statistically and the obtained results are as follows:1.There is a positive relationship between EFL preparatory school TsE and their IPs.2. There is a positive relationship between EFL preparatory school TsE and their students' performance in the receptive skills.3. There is a positive relationship between EFL preparatory school teachers' IPs and their students' performance in the receptive skills.4. EFL students' performance increased in lessons including multiple instructions such as, provide opportunities for students to use prior knowledge when solving problems, encourage students to relate facts to real life. In the light of these results, some conclusions and recommendations are presented.

This study tackles the methods of note-taking and their usefulness for students who study literature, whether note-taking is used by university students or not, what is the most used method by university students in taking notes, and how useful this method is for students in remembering the information they recorded in the lecture. The aims of this paper are to state whether EFL university students use note taking methods in their studying of literature or not, and to show which methods are used more than others.
The sample of this study is 143 third and fourth year students at English department, college of education for Humanities, Tikrit university during the academic year 2020-2021. The data is gathered using a questionnaire to determine students’ note taking methods.
Finally, the obtained data are analyzed statistically. In the light of these results, some conclusions, recommendations and suggestions for further studies are presented.

The issue of distinguishing between authentic and simulated distress in theatrical performances has garnered attention from various practitioners in the twentieth century. One prominent figure in this discourse is Antonin Artaud, who advocated for a novel form of theatre, namely Theater of Cruelty, that would stimulate and challenge spectators to re-evaluate the events unfolding before them on the stage. In parallel to this context, Sarah Kane’s career in theatre has defined itself by such Artaudian novelty. Sara Kane’s Blasted fosters the brutality of war through the symbolic representation of violence, sexual abuse and cannibalism. This research argues that Kane’s Blasted is an imitation of life—a matter that makes reality a more conscious reproduction enhancing the cathartic shock of the spectator.

Drawing on the social pattern of aged women and the factors that contribute to their restricted roles and consequently Otherness, this research examines the discourse of female senescence, a process that biologically indicates the gradual deterioration of functional characteristics in living organisms. Employing gynocritical criticism, the research examines the literary representation of old-age women in selected poems written by women who test the lived experience of growing old and the challenge it offers to individualistic conceptions of selfhood. The research argues that the examined poems implicitly highlight certain perspectives on aging such as social withdrawal, involvement, and social clock, so as to explain how old women might deal with later life experiences. The study further argues that the strategy of literary representation in the examined poems can be seen as a means through which women writers are engaged in an intellectual battle speaking for old women's subjectivity against entrenched ageist beliefs. According to this context, the research aims to answer the question of how female poets can work toward denaturalizing the social pattern of old-age women by presenting unstereotypical poetic representation. The significance of the study springs from the less attention feminist criticism pays to old-age women's literature aiming at debasing the stereotypical models of female senescence.

The study explores the relationship between fashion and feminism. Throughout history, fashion has been considered as a mechanism of oppression, focusing on the historical role of restrictive garments such as corsets in the objectification of women due to patriarchal influence and societal norms. In the context of corsetry, the paper traces the origins of these garments and their role in physically and metaphorically constraining women to fit into the narrow and idealized standards of beauty dictated by patriarchal societies. It delves into how these oppressive clothing items have been portrayed in literary texts, highlighting the struggles of female protagonists against societal constraints. The study further examines how the feminist movement has actively challenged and rejected these restrictive garments, defying norms and advocating for women's autonomy in clothing choices. The analysis of literary works from various eras reveals how authors have captured and critiqued the oppressive nature of these garments, exposing the damaging effects on women's physical well-being. The study further explores the performative aspects of fashion within the context of patriarchy, drawing upon Judith Butler's theory of performativity to critically analyze the ways in which gender is constructed and reinforced through clothing. The study then delves into the contemporary portrayal of clothing as a means of empowerment and autonomy for women, with focus on chick lit genre. It discusses how authors within this genre have utilized fashion as a form of self-expression, empowerment, and agency.

Bullying studies have witnessed flourishing in recent times. Bylling can be understood as an aggressive and malign behavior that increased among different ages of people, especially among children and students who use persistent name-calling, on purpose harm, and physical violence. Lord of the Flies criticizes the predominance of bullying among the kids (characters) and how it effects on the bullies who adopted the savage behavior on the victims who suffer psychologically and physically and even died at the end of the novel. This research aims to investigate bullying behaviour in Lord of the Flies (1954), which is one of the main themes of the novel. Moreover, it argues bullying behavior that flourishes among children and affects them psychologically, physically, and socially. The study raises questions as: why do children use bullying? do they use it intentionally? What physical traits and ills attract the bullies? how should children respond to the bullies? This research aims to focus on intentional bullying and how it affects children negatively, meanwhile it raises public awareness of bullying in the community and how bullied should respond to it. The research is divided into two sections, the first section is an introductory section, it introduces bullying, the impact of bullying on mental and psychological health and William Golding's life and main works. Section two is devoted to analyzing the novel according to bullying behavior. The conclusion is the last part of the study that sums up the findings of the study.

This article investigates the challenges of learning to listen. Listening is one of the most important skills for language learners. Most of the time, language learners do listening in the classroom or lectures. The challenge for learners is to recognize the words in a stream of acoustic blur or normal conversational speech This challenge is combined with the awareness of context, culture, discourse, community, and other sociolinguistic variables. This article will tackle the key issues and challenges in pedagogical research that are related to teaching listening comprehension as well as shedding light on the causes that make listening difficult for learners and suggest some solutions to handle such difficulties.

In the analysis of literary texts, it is crucial to have in mind the concept of chronotope. Mikhail Bakhtin, a prominent Russian literary theorist, employs the term to analyze the arrangement of temporal and spatial elements within literary texts.
The objective of this study is to provide a comprehensive analysis of Bakhtin's theoretical concept known as "the chronotope" and its impact on literary texts. Furthermore, its impact on children's literature should also be considered. This study aims to address the following inquiries. 1.The concept of chronotope refers to the literary and linguistic notion that combines the temporal and spatial dimensions within a narrative or discourse. 2. The Significance of the Chronotope. 3. In what manner might the concept of chronotope be employed in the analysis and interpretation of a textual work?
The present study is structured into three distinct components. The initial segment pertains to the Bakhtinian concept of chronotope, which encompasses an examination of chronotope itself, its elucidation, and its manifestation as expounded by Bakhtin. Section two provides an elucidation of children's literature and its interconnection with the concept of chronotope. Section three of this study investigates the representation of chronotope in children's literature.

Applied Linguistics is a dynamic and interdisciplinary field that examines the practical applications of linguistic theories and concepts in real-world contexts. This study delves into the diverse dimensions of applied linguistics aiming to provide an in-depth analysis of its historical roots, theoretical frameworks, methodological approaches, and practical implications. By examining key areas such as language acquisition, language teaching, sociolinguistics, and discourse analysis, this study aims to shed light on the profound impact of applied linguistics on various aspects of human communication and language use. The current study is relied on a wide range of academic sources, including influential works, contemporary research articles, and theoretical frameworks. The historical development of applied linguistics is traced back to its roots in the mid-20th century, highlighting the major contributions and milestones that have shaped the field. Furthermore, the study explores the theoretical frameworks that underpin applied linguistics, behaviorism, sociocultural, connectionism, and Universal Grammar perspectives, providing a deeper understanding of the conceptual foundations of the discipline.

This study deals with analyzing the presidential victory speech selected on November 8, 2020, since it has the purpose of being a piece of discourse with specific goals from a pragmatic perspective. It tackles the use of the main types presented by Searle (1979), who classified commissive speech acts into six types: promise, vowe, refusal, pledge, commit, and offer. Results show that there are three types of illocutionary acts: promise, vowe, and offer. The study tries to answer the following question: (1) What are the main functions of commissive in Joe Biden’s selected victory speech on November 8, 2020? (2) How is commissive conveyed in Biden’s victory speech?

This study aims to: first investigate and identify issues in the senior EFL learners’ linguistic and self-assessed ability to master different aspects of writing a graduation paper, second compare the writing performance of the learners from three departments, and third explore the association between students’ self-efficacy beliefs and their writing achievement. Data were collected via Situated Academic Writing Self-Efficacy Scale (SAWSE) to see if our students are confident and to identify the most engaged writers, from departments of English in three different colleges in University of Mosul. A detailed linguistic analysis of a sample of written graduation papers by senior students was also conducted to unveil the issues in those students’ academic writing. The results of the One-Way ANOVA test revealed a statistically significant difference in the writing performance among learners from the three colleges. The findings of the Spearman Correlation test indicated a small but not significant relationship between learners’ self-efficacy beliefs and their writing performance, while the linguistic analysis conducted on a sample of written papers produced by the learners showed that although each cohort has certain committed linguistic mistakes, most of them were weak in text organization, syntax, and using appropriate academic vocabulary.

One of the basic courses that must be studied by students is English. English for Specific Purposes is a set of English language skills specific to a specific purpose. Writing skills are one of the skills that have less than the maximum achievement seen from the value of the result of Iraqi student learning in informatics engineering at the university of Baghdad. In this study, the researchers used Instagram, as a medium for learning ,to show how it motivates students to learn English. The technique of data collection used was the result of both pre-test and post-test writing, as well as observation, and documentation. To show the effectiveness of Instagram as a learning tool, the researchers assessed the results of questionnaires from students. A sample of this study consisted of 30 students majoring in informatics engineering at the university of Baghdad. The stages of the data collection process of this study include; (1) observation of the subject of this study, (2) socialization stage with students about how to learn how to use social media, in particular Instagram; and (3), the implementation of this research: at this stage, the students received material and also looked for other supporting materials, as well as discussed and received suggestions and input from lecturers and friends. (4) The last is the stage of implementing the use of Instagram as a means of discussion as well as for posting the results of student work.

Over the last decades, cosmetic surgeries have grown in popularity. The majority of consumers in this lucrative industry are women. Normalizing cosmetic surgery and body alteration could lead to the homogenization of beauty and create a culture of people who look increasingly similar. Members of a society are particularly focusing on physical beauty and classifying people based on their physical features.The purpose of this research is to explore the reason behind normalizing cosmetic surgery and its psychological dimension and effects, and the concept of body image offered in Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies. The study investigates women's reactions to direct or indirect pressure of society on them to have cosmetic surgery and the ideology of the ideal beauty constructed by their culture. The concept of perfect beauty becomes interesting in this story because it can only be achieved by cosmetic surgery. Consequently, it will be appropriate to apply body image theory in studying this novel. It was found that society, media, family, school , and peers have an important role in creating the individual’s body image and ways of thinking; the society’s power to influence people makes it become the authorities that decide the “beautiful” and “ugly”.The hypothesis proposes that there is a link between body image and cosmetic surgery, people who have a poor body image are more likely want to undergo cosmetic surgery than those who have a positive body image. The findings imply that an individual’s body image is shaped by their cultural and social environments in order not to revolt against the government and the prevailing system by altering individuals' brain lesions during cosmetic surgery.

Sports events are global phenomena around the world. Football is the most common and effective language when it comes to sports. Each language has its own set of tools to achieve ends. The year 2022 witnessed a distinguished sporting event on Arab lands in the area of the Middle East, the FIFA World Cup. It was the most prominent, important and widely debated event. Qatar hosted the World Championship. It is the first version of the World Cup to be held in a Muslim country in the Middle East, which made it surrounded by a lot of arguments over a number of issues since the announcement of Doha hosting the tournament in 2010. Though the World Cup was held before in controversial countries such as Russia, particularly, regarding its human rights record and stance on LGBT issues, however, no previous tournament has been as controversial as this one. Social media, newspapers and TV channels covered the event with different reactions from one side and contradictory ones from the other. This study uses critical discourse analysis to show how international media entities portrayed the FIFA World Cup version of 2022 hosted by Qatar. The main aim of the study is to understand how the specific characteristics of social, political, and religious issues impact the media discourse and influence the portrayal of the host country. The study also aims at clarifying the most common ideologies that the Western media has presented about the Middle East and the Arab Muslim world. To fulfill the above aims, the study hypothesizes that (i) Western media has presented Qatar World Cup 2022 as a negative version, and (ii) the negative ideologies about the Arab Muslims countries are employed rather directly in different ways. The data are collected from the YOUTUBE channel of BBC NEWS. The data are analyzed linguistically and ideologically within Van Dijk's (1995, 2011) approaches. The study concludes that: (i) the Arab Muslim world is presented as a place suppressing differences, restricting freedoms and gaging mouths in regard to human rights. (ii) the Arab Muslim world is presented as the other whose values and religious ideologies are de-emphasized throughout the negative representations and strategies used in the data under analysis . The politicization of social media to drop the tournament held in Qatar was among the priorities of the Western media to boycott the tournament.

Recently, there\\'s been a rise in media attention. As a consequence, various patterns may be discovered from both an academic and an industry aspect. News networks, for instance, play a significant role in informing people all over the world about political conditions, military occurrences, and other topics. The language used during news stories, including headlines, has a significant impact on the communicative aim of such matters. This language is distinguished by a variety of linguistic characteristics. One of such characteristics is pragmatic. Sometimes this problem has received inadequate attention in studies. To be more specific, the use of speech acts as a central component of pragmatics hasn\\'t been adequately addressed in scientific research in this field. As a result, the current study attempts to fill this gap by investigating the types of speech acts employed in the headlines of Al Jazeera and Euronews websites describing the Russia-Ukraine War. Forty-seven headlines have been selected from these news websites - 22 from Aljazeera English and 25 from Euronews. For this goal, the data analysis has utilized Bach and Harnish\\'s (1979) the taxonomy of Speech Acts. This study purports that headlines can be loaded with the encoded pragmatic meanings which makes it worth conducting to reveal those kinds of meanings. The selected period is between 1 to 31 May 2022. In accordance with the data, directives and constatives happened more often than commissives. There is no use for other categories like verdictives, effectives, or acknowledgments. In line with the study, headline writers for the websites Al Jazeera and Euronews stress on the Russia-Ukraine War as preoccupying and impacting the whole world, and they utilize certain speech acts \\"directives and constatives\\" more commonly than others. In accordance to the results, making use of certain speech acts when producing headlines is an effective technique to encourage readers to swiftly comprehend what is being conveyed.

Exile is a severe form of separation that can be brought on by a person's political, social, or personal situation. It can have serious psychological, emotional, and societal repercussions whether it is forced or voluntarily. People who are exiled frequently suffer a sense of loss, dislocation, nostalgia, loss of identity and alienation as they work to acclimatize to new surroundings and make new social relationships. Exile can have a variety of psychological effects, including despair, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. It may require people to face and adapt to new obstacles, which may promote resilience, growth, and innovation. Additionally, the idea of "uncanny," or a feeling of familiarity and connection in a strange environment, might aid those who are exiled in preserving their sense of self and community.
The current paper tries to explore the psychological effects and the consequences of exile on immigrant people in Mornings in Jenin (2010), a novel by Susan Abualhawa. It will investigate the complex emotional and social consequences of exile felt by a Palestinian family. The War forced the family to flee their country, and as a result of being split up and distributed across several nations, they experienced feelings of grief, dislocation, and estrangement. It presents a complex picture of how exile affects people's identities, interpersonal connections, and mental health. To attain this aim, the study will adapt diaspora theory that provides a remarkable insight into the lingering impacts of political turmoil and relocation on people's minds and communities in exile.

For centuries, women poets had to suffer due to the inherited Western literary tradition which offers creative women no defined place, or even no place at all. The literary canon is male-dominated and hence women poets had to find a way to challenge this tradition and to create their own distinctive place. Hence Writing is the most powerful way to challenge male domination and create a place in the literary tradition.
Being a woman and a poet, Carol Ann Duffy faced the same challenges when she starts to write and, more importantly, to acquire the poetic authority long taken from or renounced by her male counterparts, and to make this possible, she uses her persona. Her writing is deemed to be a rebellion against patriarchal authority, as well as the prescribed gender roles of women, their misrepresentation of art and literature as a passive object.
The research will shed light on the poetic voice of Duffy in her poetry, which emanates through the use of various vivid and colourful female personas as the poet’s own voice. The poet claims the authority to present herself as a poet as well as a persona, to challenge the patriarchal authority and male-dominated literary tradition.

An abstract is a concise summary of the entire article, providing a brief overview of the background, purpose, methodology, results, and conclusions. It serves as a snapshot of the study, enabling readers, editors, and journals' chief editors to quickly assess its relevance and decide whether to read the full article. The fact that most of the universities' professors suffer from this is that most of the scientific journals indexed in Scopus refuse their works to be published. This is due to missing data which are criteria of the APA style (7th edition). This study aims to investigate the university professors' awareness of the abstract content, the most abstracts missing elements in Iraqi works, and the correlation between master thesis abstracts' content and university professors' awareness of the abstract content. To achieve the aims of the study, the following questions were set:
1- To what extent do the university professors aware of the abstract elements?
2- What are the most missing data in the abstract of the master's thesis?
3- Is there a correlation between master thesis abstracts' content and university professors' awareness of the abstract content? The outcomes of the study are significant for the Iraqi university instructors, postgraduate students, scholars, and researchers to write a comprehensive, well-organized, and cohesive abstract that acts as a mirror of the scientific work. The study is qualitative and quantitative in nature, to collect the qualitative data a sample consisting of 6 university professors who volunteered to participate in the study was interviewed by conducting a semi-structured interview. In addition, to collect the quantitative data a sample consisting of 15 master theses were chosen randomly from 5 universities. Frequencies, percentages, and Pearson's correlation matrix were used to analyze the data. The results revealed that the university professors' replies agreed on the most common items that an abstract should contain, which were the introduction, the aims, the purpose, the instrument, and the results. The university professors did not mention that an abstract should contain a problem of a study, the methodology, and the conclusion. All the participants are unaware of the criteria that an abstract should include. In addition, most of the master theses' abstracts miss the methodology, the problem/ gap, and the conclusion. Finally, the results revealed that there is a positive correlation between the master thesis abstracts' content and university professors' awareness of the abstract content. The university professors' awareness is due to the overlap between the functions of the abstract content. Also, the master theses' missing data are due to the student's imitation of previous theses and the supervisor's awareness of the criteria of the APA style 7th edition. In light of the results, some recommendations were suggested. © 2023 JTUH, College of Education for Human Sciences, Tikrit University

This study aims to reveal the role of metaphors in political discourse, and the impact of metaphors on political discourse. To achieve the aims of the study, the following topics have been reviewed and analyzed: the notion of understanding how metaphors shape political discourse, analyzing the impact of metaphors on political decision-making, examining the cultural and historical context of political metaphors, identifying potential biases in political discourse, types of metaphors in discourse, politicians use of metaphors in political discourse, and reviewing previous studies conducted on metaphors in political discourse. The findings revealed that in political and presidential discourse, metaphors play a significant role in shaping public perception and opinion. Metaphors have the power to frame issues and shape narratives, influencing how people interpret and respond to political messages. Political leaders often use metaphors to communicate complex ideas and evoke emotional responses from their audiences. In addition, there are three important purposes for using metaphors in political contexts: (1) To simplify complex ideas. (2) To create emotional impact. (3) To enhance persuasive power.

This research explores the intersection of Iraq's transhistorical trauma and its literary heritage following the 2003 invasion. It examines the impact of war on Iraqi society and the prevalent theme of war in Iraqi literature. It marked a turning point for Iraqi writers, allowing freedom of expression through opulent texts that established the foundations of the Iraqi postcolonial narrative. The collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime brought hope and opportunities, leading to the emergence of publishing firms and online platforms for open expression. The postcolonial novel authentically portrayed the invasion's actions and the country's political, economic, and social collapse. Authors aim to confront societal fractures and expose wounds, appreciating the divine amidst the turmoil. Examining Sinan Antoon's novel "The Corpse Washer", we delve into the trauma experienced by Iraqis due to prolonged conflicts. Antoon skillfully tackles the transhistorical horror of war and its lasting impact, embodying the cathartic consequences of pity and terror. The novel goes beyond historiographic metafiction, utilizing elements of modernism and postmodernism to portray Iraq's historical trauma through narrative techniques like memories, reflection, foreshadowing, and flashbacks.

This study presents a critical and textual analysis of John Gardener’s novel, Grendel. Relying heavily upon aspects of post structuralism, the study examines the two texts, Beowulf, an anonymous medieval epic, and John Gardener’s Grendel in terms of their contexts and discourses. The study argues that Grendel is a hypertext that relates to Beowulf by means of transtextualty so as to tackle crucial perspectives of western philosophy, civilizational heritage and thus elucidates its existential discourse. The study concludes that Gardener’s novel is a revisionist narrative that aims at elaborating on the concept of heroic Self as opposed to the antiheroic ‘Other’. Further, the study concludes that Gardener’s, by means of adaptation, presents a new discourse that does not reduce Grendel, the monster in the original epic, to the demonic stereotype of the ‘wronged villain’. The significance of the study springs from the need to liberate literature from the anxiety of aimless imitation and thus enhancing Derrida’s poststructuralist notion which confirms that meaning has no definite closure. The study significantly examines the texts with reference to Gerard Genette’s structural narratology, John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction, and other critics who theorized the main key concepts in intertextuality, appropriation, and adaptation.

Language evolves naturally, adapting to societal standards, cultural influences, education levels, social dynamics, and technology. This study focuses on internal language changes by examining the historical development of specific words within their evolutionary context. Initially, changes occur in individuals' behaviors, aiming to communicate effectively. Innovative tendencies within familiar groups lead to further modifications. Eventually, distinct linguistic variations emerge, even among languages with a shared ancestry.