Journal of Tikrit University for Humanities

There has been an increasing interest in hate speech due to its impact on both individuals and societies. The term 'hate speech' covers expressions in any form deemed humiliating to any race, religion, ethnic or national group. Hate speech is connected to the freedom of expression , advocacy of hatred and incitement of violence. Thus, it has to be understood in the different contexts in which it occurs. The present study deals with racial hate speech. The main aim of this study is to identify the speech acts employed in articles published in a Rwandan newspaper called Kangura. In order to carry out a pragmatic analysis of racial hate speech, seven extracts have been chosen. The main conclusions arrived at is that directives are the most common ones used in the dissemination of racial hate speech and indirect speech acts outnumber the direct ones.

This research aims to find out the relationship between language proficiency and pragmatic competence among Iraqi EFL undergraduate students whether the pragmatic competence would be achieved completely by students with different proficiency levels in a pragmatic test. This study also aims to find out the relationship between language proficiency and pragmatic competence to achieve communicative competence perfectly. It also examins whether there is any significant difference between the performance of females and males according to language proficiency and pragmatic competence. The sample was selected randomly which consists of 120 university students including 30 females and 30 males in English translation department at Mosul University, moreover, 30 females and 30 males in English translation department at Tikrit University .The sample vary according to gender and age (freshmen or fresh women and seniors). The researcher uses three levels; beginning, intermediate and advanced which the participants are placed in. These levels are based on the results of the proficiency (TOFEL) test. In addition, the researcher uses pragmatic competence test(MDCT) to examine the extent of participants' pragmatic competence.The data are analyzed statistically by using the SPSS program in order to provide a descriptive analysis. Finally, the results of the study obtained through statistical analyses show that there is no significant relationship between language proficiency and pragmatic competence. This means, the students with different proficiency levels do not perform differently in the pragmatic tests. The male participants performance is not good in pragmatic and proficiency test.

This study aims at exploring the debatable issue of learner’s differences in second language acquisition (SLA, henceforth). Differences in learning are critical factors which faculty members should take into account in the process of learning and teaching second or foreign languages , also these differences influence learning processes and lead to different linguistic abilities and skills in the second language . Learners differ from each other due to biological, conditioned factors or unconscious forces, each learner is different from the other, and they have different personalities and styles. Some second language learners make rapid and apparent progress while others progress very slowly and with difficulties, in this respect there are several important areas where the learners may show differences from each other. These include: age, sex, aptitude, motivation, cognitive style, personality, and learning strategies.

This paper examines the nature of racial inequality in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. It attempts to study it in terms of its historical variations and contemporary realities that represented by the role of racism and gender. The paper investigates how Pecola believes that racism and feminity are connected with the color of skin and whiteness. Taken as a black writer, the paper critically studies how black women are represented in Morrison’ The Bluest Eye. The unseen struggles and difficulties which confront the black women community are deciphered. The study is going to be based on the theories of race and racism that will clarify the concept of blackness. It brings to light the human rights and values that promote coexistence among all people from all background and ethnicity.

This study deals with reference, which is one of the semantic relations through grammar. It is a grammatical cohesive device whose function is creating cohesion through combining between utterance and meaning in order to achieve unity of the Qur’anic text, where cohesion is the basic feature for building and forming the text depending on grammatical structures. The problem is embodied in finding the situations of reference in the Glorious Qur’an and revealing how it contributes in creating textual cohesion to achieve the intended benefit and to avoid repetition and redundancy in style. This study aims at specifying to which extent reference contributes in achieving texture feature of the Qur'anic text by linking the parts of one sentence or many sentences with each other to make a text. This study depends on two hypotheses: the first is; only endophoric reference achieves textual cohesion because it works within the text. The second is textual cohesion is more embodied with reference by pronouns especially third person pronoun. The adopted model in this study is Halliday and Hassan (1976) who suggest the types of reference. It consists of five axes. Each of them is dedicated to explain this cohesive device. The first axe deals with the concept of reference. The second axe focuses on the function of reference. The third axe sheds light on the types of reference while the fourth one deals with the articles of reference, where the most important article is reference with pronouns. The fifth axe is a conclusion in which the role of the reference as a cohesive device and a means for economy that leads to avoiding redundancy is clarified.

The current paper aims at showing the similarities in terms of religion between Shakespeare's Hamlet and Muhsin Al-Ramli's Dates on My Fingers. The paper sheds the light on the characters, and context in both works. The study has concluded that there are many similarities as if Al-Ramli has adopted part of Shakespeare's Hamlet. The Ghost and the grandfather are similar in that both of them seek revenge claiming it to be religious. On the other hand, Hamlet and Noah are similar in that they both represent religious and secular ideology alike. Finally, both works represent the religious beliefs that were widespread at their times.