Teaching English for Special Purposes (ESP) in a context where English is taught as a Foreign Language (EFL) is no easy task. There is in fact extensive research reporting on challenges facing both teacher and student in the Foreign Language classroom where language skills must be learnt outside their usual context. Even more challenging is teaching or learning a conceptual skill like critical thinking through writing in an EFL context. The objective of this paper is to identify and describe writing tasks contained in the ESP programme with a view to examine the correspondence between the tasks and the critical thinking skills. To this end, the study examines self-reported perceptions, experiences and opinions by Maritime English students of Aqaba College in Jordan who take an ESP course and who are supposed to develop their critical thinking skills through carefully selected writing tasks in English. The study applies the qualitative procedure of in-depth interview and explores a sample of 10 finalist undergraduate informants on issues related to their writing tasks in English. Findings of the study revealed, among other things, that there is low correspondence between writing tasks contained in the ESP programme and critical thinking skills, and that writing tasks featured in the programme pursue more mechanical writing than thinking.

This article focuses on the analysis of enactment of speech acts of offer and acceptance and their commissive effects in carrying out Sulha informal legal processes. Sulha is a method of resolving disputes used in the Middle East. These processes of Sulha are understood to operate within traditions set by communities that use the process in solving disputes. Just as formal legal processes, the success of a Sulha process is dependent on legal performative of a language used to carry out Sulha tribunals. This is based on the fact that it is through language that informal legal acts are enacted. The study is grounded on the Jordanian Bedouin dialect used in conducting Sulha tribunals whose translation equivalences are given in English. Data are collected through audio-recording which is backed up with note-taking. The audio-recorded data are then played back to identify the speech acts of offer and acceptance. The identified acts of offer and acceptance are then analyzed within the framework of Searle’s (1979) classification of speech acts. In terms of methodology, the study adopts descriptive research design whereby the speech acts of offer and acceptance are described as they occur in the legal discourses used in the informal legal process, Sulha.

The present study attempts to investigate using metaphor as a powerful tool of pessimism in poetic texts with special emphasis on T.S Eliot's Waste Land. Eliot's Waste Land which is heavily pregnant of metaphors is a great epic poetic story summarizes the gloomy circumstances of the European life after the World War I where a complexity of sad feelings dominates the whole five parts of the poem. Eliot vividly used metaphor as an effective means in transferring the real degradation of the European life after the Great War.This study includes an introduction, significance of the study, choosing the metaphorical pessimistic expressions in Eliot's Waste Land, questions of the study, objectives of the study, methodology, what is metaphor? functions of metaphor, what is pessimism? The Waste Land, Eliot's life, why was Eliot pessimist in his great Waste Land? the analysis session, the answers of the study questions and the references.

There is an obvious gap in studying the translatability of metaphor in modern English poetry, particularly in Eliot’s The Waste Land. Furthermore, it is observed that most previous studies about metaphor are in and for English, and only few ones have tackled the translatability of metaphor into another language. However, the current study aims to explore this phenomenon in Eliot’s The Waste Land and three of its Arabic translations. All metaphors of The Waste Land and its three translations are identified, studied and classified into juxtaposed tables to facilitate the comparative process. Then, an assessment of each translation is made to be compared to the original text and the other translations. This comparison aims at identifying the translatability of metaphor in The Waste Land, the most and least used strategy and how the three translators have dealt with the original text. The study also shows that the three translators could translate most of Eliot’s metaphors into Arabic analogous metaphors; Lu’lu’ah uses this strategy the most and Raghib the least. Furthermore, the strategy of paraphrasing the metaphor is used more than the second one (11 cases). Finally, this study suggests three recommendations for further upcoming studies. The first one is: Conducting a comparative study on using metaphor in the spoken languages or dialects of two different societies (the Jordanian and British, for instance). The second is: Exploring this phenomenon in students’ everyday language; and the third is: Investigating the ability of English language students in rendering metaphor from English into Arabic.

This article investigates the trends in using commissive speech in Sulha proceedings in Jordan. Sulha focuses on a dispute-resolution system in Arab society that uses the Bedouin Arabic dialect as the primary language of communication. Qualitative and quantitative research designs involving descriptive and survey instruments were used in this study. The data for the study were collected as audio recordings of some incidents taken from Sulha samples. Some of the data are from interviews with Sulha participants and the synthesis of archived disputes related to cases previously handled by Sulha. The data analysis was done according to the scope of Speech Act theory to show the trends adopted in the Sulha tribunals in making commitments by different participants in solving disputes. This study finds that the informal legal setting in the Sulha tribunals determines the patterns exhibited by commissive speech acts and their frequencies during the Sulha proceedings. A number of eight commissive speech acts are realised in the Sulha proceedings: promise, swear, vow, threat, guarantee, warning, acceptance, and offer. The eight commissive speech acts are realised either explicitly or implicitly. The results further reveal some of the commissive speech acts can elicit other commissives, and a number of commissives can also be resultant forces of other speech acts, such as the acts of directives. The finding of this study is expected to help understand how forms of language used in the Sulha enhance the adoption and discharge of commitment during the Sulha proceedings.