This study aims at investigating politeness strategies and pragmatic modifiers used by native speakers of Jordanian Arabic to perform the speech act of refusal. The data were collected from 24 hours of recorded conversations taken from different mixed and same-sex conversations by native speakers of Jordanian Arabic. The researchers observed these conversations and utterances that perform the speech act of refusal. The strategies of refusals were analyzed following Beebe, Takahashi, and Uliss-Weltz (1990) model, while pragmatic modifiers were analyzed following House and Kasper (1981) and Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper (1989). The results of the study showed that the Jordanians used complex strategy more than direct and indirect strategies. The findings showed that Jordanians used many pragmatic modifiers to soften their refusals. The study found that external modifiers were more frequent than other types of pragmatic modifiers. The study also found out that culture affected the use of refusal strategies and pragmatic modifiers. The impact of culture appeared clearly in the fact that Jordanians tended to use Islamic religious expressions to mitigate their utterances. Besides, it seemed that Jordanians preferred complex strategies because they viewed repetition and using more than one strategy as a polite way to save the face of others.

Purpose of the study: The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of dialogue journal writing (DJW) on learning the vocabulary, organization, and grammar of English. It also explores the impact of DJW on the attitudes of students towards writing in English. Methodology: The sample of the study consists of 50 undergraduate Jordanian students divided equally into an experimental and control group. The control group was given traditional writing instruction while the experimental group was taught using dialogue journal writing. The study used a pre and post-test to investigate the impact of DJW on writing skills, while a questionnaire was used to unveil the attitudes of students to writing. Main Findings: The results of the research revealed that the vocabulary, organization, and grammar learned by the experimental group were significantly improved (p<0.05) compared to the control group. The study also found out that students taught using DJW developed positive attitudes towards writing better than students exposed only to conventional teaching methods of writing. Applications of this study: The present study is beneficial in providing teachers of English as a foreign language with new methods to teach writing skills. Novelty/Originality of this study: The current study is significant since the impact of dialogue journals on writing is under-researched in the Jordanian context.

This paper aims at examining the personal factors that affect and are affected by the cross-cultural marriage in The Inheritance of Exile: Stories from South Philly. The intercultural marriage of Hanan; an Arab, and John; an American, affects the entire unit of children, members of family and social networks. Cultural differences between the couple make their parents reject the interracial marriage and this leads to struggle and instability in the couple’s marital life. The study highlights the sociological, economic and cultural contexts that affect this interracial marriage.

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The study aims at analyzing the meanings and symbolic implications of flowers in selected poems by William Blake (1757-1827) from a feminist perspective. This paper analyzes the themes and symbolism of different kinds of flowers to explain how William Blake tries to expose the situation of women in the patriarchal nineteenth-century society. The study discusses the language of flowers from a feminist perspective relying on three prominent feminists. First, the study relies on Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) who rejected the patriarchal role of women as submissive and weak. Second, the study applies Virginia Woolf’s feminist perspective about rejecting the role of women as the angels of the house. Third, the study applies Simone de Beauvoir’s rejection of categorizing women as subjective and inferior. William Blake is an early feminist who rejected the submission of women and used his poetry to comment on the situation of women in the nineteenth century. He expresses many issues related to women. He believed in women’s ability to be independent and strong and he refutes the traditional social stereotyping of women as being inferior and weak and therefore they are in constant need of the support of men. Blake stresses the beauty and strength of women through describing women in floral imagery.