Manar Elsharq Journal for Literature and Language Studies

Naturalism in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening: A Reconsideration

Instr. Dr. Jalal Majeed Hussein — 2026-08-26

This paper revolves around a significant subject matter that created controversial representations among critics and readers of the Victorian era because it was not in line with their conservative attitudes and aspirations. It is the subject matter of a young wife who has slapped the door behind social conventions and traditions now considered outdated, whose violation by Edna, the protagonist of the novel The Awakening (1899) was considered by others a social trauma and by the protagonist and the author, Kate Chopin, an awakening conducive to free life. Hence, a great deal of controversy has resulted in pros and cons, for some have been shocked by Edna’s immoral behavior exposed obviously and openly which was regarded as a kind of transgression of the Victorian mores—negative, offensive and shocking—and some have admired the novel for its stunning style and have, at the same time, excused Edna and considered her obliged to take the course she has chosen. The reconsideration of the topic of this study has been triggered by the fact that this study is based on the naturalistic approach of the novel that is designed by the French novelist and critic Émile Zola, the founder of Naturalism in literature and the author of the naturalistic novel Therese Raquin in which he elaborates on the influence of environment, social conditions, hereditary factors and sexual impulses on character and action. Interestingly enough, sexual impulses and practices are part and parcel of the human character. They are not commented upon when they are hidden, but they are scandalous when they become blatant. In a word, the main theme of The Awakening is related to the concept of disillusionment embedded in the theme of the awakening of the protagonist.

A Comparative Pragmatic Study of Threatening Speech Acts in Trump's and Araghchi's Posts during the U.S.–Israel–Iran War

Asst. Lect. Zahraa Kareem Ghannam — 2026-08-26

The study deals with a pragmatic analysis for threatening in the social media posts of both Donald Trump and Abass Araghchi that are related to the U.S.–Israel–Iran War in 2026 by using an eclectic model of Searle’s (1969, 1976) and Brown and Levinson’s (1987). The study deals with analyzing speech act theory and politeness theory. The study aims at: Identifying the meaning of speech act of threat. Showing the way the politicians use of politeness theory and its strategies. Recognizing the effect of using speech act and politeness theory on the delivered message. The study hypothesized that: Both of Trump and Araghchi use indirect speech act rather than direct speech act for the sack of diplomacy. Bald-on record is the highly used by Araghchi rather than Trump. Collectively, the findings validate the study’s hypotheses; Trump uses indirect speech act (71%) and Araghchi (87%) while the direct (28%) for Trump and (12.5%) for Araghchi. The second hypothesis is valid too since Tramp uses bald-on strategy (33%) and Araghchi (50%) this is related to the fact that Araghchi uses a direct and unmitigated judgment, his sues strong words and communicate in straightforward manner, leaving little ambiguity.

Ideology in the Epic of Gilgamesh's Poems

Asst. Lect. Noora Sadeq Habeeb — 2026-08-26

The Epic of Gilgamesh — the oldest epic in the history of Ancient East and rare literary gem not just for its colors characters but also for its adventure-filled events.. Like other epics, the structure of Gilgamesh was formed from a series of basic units, elevating to a high level a number of events. It developed through a series of engagements that ultimately helped set its thematic and artistic structure. This research is based on the main foundational ideologies that were embodied in, and give power to this work through conflict or conflicts; i.e. extraordinary vs. normal. It became entangled in the pursuit of something mythical and, as a result, it acquired an approach that (in return) provided more meanings and enriched the quest for another set of ideas oriented to the reality of existence, life-death cycles, rebirths, immortality. The results indicate that ideologies underlying the Epic of Gilgamesh are mainly shaped by older Sumerian narratives, social change embedded in Mesopotamian myth-religious practice and kingship ideology over established semantic frameworks.

The Pragmatic Functions of Apologies and Requests in Mobile-Based Role Play Scenarios

Dr. Ismaeel Talib Ismaeel — 2026-08-26

Pragmatics defines language as the practice of language in social, cultural and contextual contexts. Speech acts—apologies (corrective, face-repairing acts) and requests (face-threatening acts)—are important for social harmony. While traditional pragmatic research has focused on face-to-face (FtF) interactions using static Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs), the popularity of computer-mediated communication (CMC) has led to the transition of humans to digitally mediated and gamified situations like mobile role-play situations. It is still not sure, however, how mobile platform affordances (e.g., fewer social cues, permanence of text and semi-authentic role-play identities) impact the performance, perception and strategic mitigation of apologies and requests. The study addresses this gap by using a mixed-methods approach with the quasi-experimental research design. In addition to traditional DCTs, the study investigates the pragmatic strategies used by participants in a mobile-based, dynamic role-play setting and the contextual factors such as social power (P), social distance (D) and absolute ranking (R) of imposition or infraction. It shows that although Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Theory is still applicable (participants still evaluate (P, D and R) about face-threatening acts (FTAs) in the mobile setting, the strategies themselves are re-mediated to a mobile context. The social variables are still relevant but the study filters their effects by text and the various constraints and affordances of text-based communication. The mobile setting, on the other hand, promotes hyper-mitigation for high-stakes FTAs, bringing extra complexity to the human-computer interaction in interpersonal communication.

The Impact of Students’ Passion for English Language on their Mastry Despite Unfavorable Classroom Conditions

Asst. Lect. Sundus Hussein Alawi — 2026-08-26

The objective of this study was to look at how passionate students are about the English language and how this related to their mastery or success and proficiency level of the language. Passion generally provides a basis for establishing a positive relationship with the English language. This research involved 10 Iraqi high school students learning to speak English as a second/foreign language. These students were given a test which had four different scales, each with specific sets of questions to measure their degree of passion. The students indicated they were all having positive experiences with their English language learning. The students indicated that their ability to communicate using English is related to their motivation to communicate using the English language. This is the first study to examine the impact of having a strong passion for the English language on the process of learning another language and ultimately, the results demonstrate that a high degree of passion can lead to both increased willingness and ability to communicate using the language, as well as an increase in overall quality of life specifically when passion is experienced in a harmonious manner.

Mapping the Boundaries of Domestic and International Criminal Jurisdiction in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies: Integrating Doctrinal Legal Analysis and Corpus-Assisted Critical Discourse Analysis

Manar Saad Yahya — 2026-08-26

William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is often read as an allegory of failed civilization. Its violence also raises a narrower legal question: what survives of criminal jurisdiction when public power is physically absent? This study combines doctrinal legal analysis with corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis of the novel’s language. The primary corpus is a digital edition of the novel, divided into twelve chapter-documents across three narrative phases and comprising 60,573 raw tokens, reduced to 21,637 content tokens after normalisation, stop-word removal and lemmatization. Frequency, TF-IDF, cosine similarity, discourse salience, and a weighted Composite Chapter Score direct, rather than confirm, a qualitative reading. Coercive-authority language rises from 3.407 markers per 1,000 content tokens in the first phase to 16.411 in the last; tribe moves from zero occurrences to 40, while accountability terms remain lexically marginal throughout. The doctrinal analysis, however, resists a simple transfer from failed local order to international prosecution. Using contemporary England and Wales law as a comparator, homicide committed abroad, attempt, and secondary liability offer plausible domestic routes, subject to proof of nationality, age, conduct and intent. By contrast, the Rome Statute imposes cumulative subject-matter, temporal, territorial, admissibility and gravity constraints, together with Article 26’s categorical exclusion of persons under eighteen from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. These apparently conflicting findings take the form of an asymmetrical jurisdictional limit: the absence of institutions increases violence but does not convert an interpersonal crime into an international one, while international human-rights law mainly constrains how any domestic accountability process treats a child.

Mythic Revisions and Gender Politics in Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber and Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion

Dr.Haider Ibrahim Khalil — 2026-08-26

This article seeks to examine the ways in which myths still merge identities in the modern global and post-colonial settings especially in the writings of Angela Carter in The Bloody Chamber and Jeanette Winterson in The Passion. Through it, it attempts to find the violence inherent in these myths and criticize the positivist presuppositions they present. This paper will use a comparative literary analysis method, where similar approaches to narration techniques that Carter and Winterson adopt to address myth will be compared. This implies a study of the relationship between myth and oral traditions (including fairy tales) that each author displays and how these authors negotiate the frontiers between myths pre-and post-textual readings. The results indicate that the two texts are highly mythical, although they take different stances in their narrative. The work of Carter can be characterised as revisionist as the existing myths are rewritten to show their implications and contradictions. Conversely, Winterson story is a radically new interpretation of myth that questions dominant paradigms and cultural imperialism under which substitute narratives have historically been marginalised. The difference in their approach to the task demonstrates how myth and identity in a globalized setting can be dynamically related to each other. The revisions of Carter make one consider the power of the accepted myths and propose a more sophisticated perception of its influence on the personal and social identities. Winterson, in his turn, is more radical, focusing on the necessity of the re-evaluation of the cultural assumptions and supporting the reclaiming and empowering of disenfranchised voices in the context of mythological narratives. To sum it up, the works of The Bloody Chamber and The Passion help to gain valuable insights into what myth is and what it implies in the development of identities. By using the unique approaches to narration, Carter and Winterson emphasize the significance of the critical approach to the analysis of myths as not only the products of the past but also the processes that still affect the modern cultural topographies. This investigation supports the need to challenge the paradigms according to which myths are interpreted and the cultural discourses that they reproduce.