Wah Academia Journal of Social Sciences

Press Coverage of Rural Development News: An Analytical Study of Nigerian Compass and The Hope Newspapers

2025-12-15T03:12:13+00:00

This study investigates the extent and nature of press coverage of rural development news in Nigeria, using Nigeria Compass and The Hope newspapers as case studies. Anchored on the Development Media Theory, Social Responsibility Theory, and the framework of Development Journalism, the research adopts a content analytical method to evaluate how these newspapers report rural development news. A total of 48 editions—24 from each newspaper—were sampled using a simple random sampling technique, selecting two editions per month over a one-year period from May 2011 to April 2012. Data were presented using tables to highlight frequencies and trends in coverage. Out of the 730 editions published during the period under review, the selected sample provides insight into the consistency, prominence, and thematic focus of rural development news. Tables was used to illustrate findings. It was discovered that the two selected newspapers did not give much prominence to coverage of rural development news rather they preferred world and city news. The findings revealed that The Hope Newspaper report and publish more stories on the rural communities than the Nigerian Compass within the period under review. It is also revealing that news reported about rural development news was mostly in straight news format as the Nigerian Compass published while few reports were published as features, opinion/comment, letter-to-the-editor, photographs and cartoons. There was no report on editorial. This was due to the fact that Nigerian Compass write editorial on national issues and foreign matters as against rural and communities’ issues, as part of recommendations, imbalance of flow of communication between rural communities and urban areas can be bridged if government, donor agencies and development agencies should decentralize the practice of journalism by establishing rural/community newspapers so that their voices would be heard by the government.

ICT Adoption, Innovation, and Labor Productivity in ASEAN: Evidence from Panel Data Analysis

2025-12-15T03:26:38+00:00

Why do stark productivity disparities persist in ASEAN despite rapid digitalization? This study investigates the divergent drivers of labour productivity in the advanced ASEAN-6 and the catching-up ASEAN-10 from 2000–2023. Employing dynamic panel models, we demonstrate a fundamental dichotomy. In ASEAN-10, basic internet access and foreign direct investment (FDI) are the primary catalysts, enabling catch-up growth. Conversely, in the more developed ASEAN-6, productivity is driven by frontier innovation - specifically, patentable outputs and long-term R&D - while broad digital expansion yields diminishing returns. Critically, we identify an innovation - productivity paradox: composite innovation inputs show negative returns, whereas tangible patent applications consistently enhance productivity. The findings prescribe a bifurcated policy approach: ASEAN-10 must focus on technology diffusion and strengthening intellectual property, while ASEAN-6 should prioritize mission-oriented R&D and enhancing the commercialization ecosystem to escape the middle-income trap.

A Multi-Level Synthesis of Identity Formation in Multicultural Societies: From Foundational Theories to Digital Selves

2025-12-15T03:33:20+00:00

The increasing cultural complexity of modern societies, driven by unprecedented globalization and migration, necessitates a comprehensive framework for understanding identity formation beyond traditional, monocultural paradigms. This research paper conducts a systematic meta-synthesis of psychological, sociological, and political scholarship to construct an integrated, multi-level model of multicultural identity (Gibson & Martin, 2022). The paper’s central argument is that identity formation is a dynamic and negotiated process that operates on intrapersonal, interpersonal, and societal levels, challenging linear models of development. Key findings elucidate the relationship between identity configurations—specifically integration, compartmentalization, and categorization—and psychological well-being, with evidence indicating that integrated identities are positively correlated with narrative coherence and overall psychosocial health. The analysis extends this understanding to the intersection of cultural and career identity, proposing a new typology that acknowledges the complex interplay between cultural background, family expectations, and individual aspirations. The paper also explores the paradoxical cognitive benefits of cultural conflict and the emerging role of digital media in curating a fluid, "socio-virtualized" self (Stevens et al., 2023). The conclusion outlines significant theoretical contributions and practical implications for educators, counselors, and policymakers, while charting a clear agenda for future research, particularly in the areas of digital identity and the development of culturally-sensitive methodologies.

Bridging the Gap: Fostering Inclusive Education for Students with Learning Disabilities

2025-12-15T03:39:01+00:00

Learning disabilities (LDs) afflict millions of students, posing unique challenges to overall academic success and the general well-being of a child. This paper seeks to investigate the major impact special education has on catering to the many learning needs of these students and establishing inclusive educational settings. It sets out to describe the various types of learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia, and outlines their effects on the processes of learning. This paper stresses the importance of early diagnosis and provides support for shortcomings connected with LD by emphasizing the advantages of timely and relevant intervention. It will also focus on evidence-based instructional strategies, such as multisensory instruction, explicit instruction, and assistive technology that can help this population fill the holes in the learning process due to LDs. This paper states that collaboration among teachers, parents, specialists, and students themselves in the development and implementation of IEPs is equally pertinent. Moreover, it discusses the IEP process, setting out the need for measurable goals, adequate accommodations, and proper progress monitoring. Finally, this paper advocates for the establishment of inclusive classes where children with LDs feel supported, recognized, and encouraged to reach their full potential. Differentiated instruction, the fostering of a growth mindset, and promoting social- emotional learning all dovetail into making resilient schools with robust learning settings for each and every child.

Projecting Patriarchy: A Reflexive Thematic Analysis of Gendered Narratives in Bollywood Films (1970–2024) through a Criminological Lens

2025-12-15T03:45:42+00:00

Cinema in India holds significant cultural influence, shaping public perceptions of crime, justice, and morality. This study critically examines 56 popular Bollywood films released between 1970 and 2024 to analyze the evolution of gendered crime narratives through a criminological lens. Using reflexive thematic analysis of more than 560 dialogues, the research identifies eleven core themes—including Gender Roles and Patriarchy, Sacrifice and Self-Effacement, Female Silencing, and Moral Judgment and Social Stigma—demonstrating how portrayals of women have shifted across decades.
A reflexive thematic analysis of these films reveals clear temporal shifts: while films from the 1970s–1990s predominantly reinforced patriarchal norms, nearly half of post-2010 films (approximately 42%) depict greater female agency, resistance, and moral complexity. Despite this emerging trend, progress remains inconsistent, as mainstream cinema still frequently centers women’s identities around submission, emotional dependence, and domestic roles. The analysis also highlights how cinematic depictions of crime and masculinity contribute to public understandings of justice and gendered violence.
Overall, the findings demonstrate cinema’s dual function: reproducing long-standing social hierarchies while simultaneously creating space for counter-narratives that challenge gendered expectations. The study underscores the significance of ethically conscious storytelling in reshaping public discourse and advocates for more equitable, responsible portrayals of women in popular media.

Assessment of Gender Mainstreaming in Cassava Production and Utilization among farmers in Benue State, Nigeria

2025-12-15T03:51:06+00:00

This study assessed gender mainstreaming in cassava production and utilization among farmers in Benue State, Nigeria, with an emphasis on labor division, access to resources, decision-making, and socio-economic impacts. Using a multi-stage sampling technique, data were collected from 150 respondents through structured questionnaires and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Findings revealed a strong female participation in cassava-related activities, particularly in planting, weeding, harvesting, and post-harvest processing. However, women faced disparities in land ownership, credit access, and institutional support. Regression results showed that education, training, and use of improved cassava varieties significantly enhanced yield (R² = 0.61), while land ownership and training were major predictors of decision-making participation (Pseudo R² = 0.34). Chi-square analysis revealed a statistically significant relationship between gender and division of labor in cassava farming (?² = 165.04, p < 0.05). Factor analysis identified three major constraints: input/market access, capacity/workforce limitations, and socio-cultural barriers. Despite women’s pivotal role in productivity, only 14% independently decided on cassava earnings. The study concludes that targeted policies addressing education, land rights, training, and socio-cultural limitations are critical to achieving inclusive gender mainstreaming and sustainable agricultural development.

Reimagining the Divine: Analyzing the Portrayal of Hinduism in the 21st Century Indian Hindi Film 'Adipurush’

2025-12-15T03:56:44+00:00

This study examines how the 2023 Hindi film Adipurush reimagines one of South Asia’s most enduring sacred narratives—the Ramayana—and how this reinterpretation triggered widespread cultural, religious, and cinematic debate. While Bollywood has long adapted Hindu epics for the screen, Adipurush marked a bold attempt to modernize the story through stylized visuals, contemporary dialogue, and altered character arcs. The analysis shows that these creative choices led to significant departures from Valmiki’s traditional text, particularly in the portrayals of Rama, Sita, Ravana, Hanuman, and Lakshmana. The film also modifies key events such as Sita’s abduction, Hanuman’s journey to Lanka, and the climactic battle, often simplifying or omitting essential symbolic elements. These deviations not only sparked aesthetic criticism but also raised concerns about cultural accuracy, religious sentiment, and the ethical responsibilities of filmmakers adapting sacred narratives in the 21st century. The public response—including media debates, court observations, and calls for censorship—demonstrates how deeply mythological stories remain woven into contemporary identity and collective memory. By analyzing both the narrative distortions and the controversies surrounding them, this study highlights how cinematic reinterpretations can influence communal values and reshape the cultural life of ancient epics. The discussion ultimately reinforces the need for thoughtful, respectful storytelling when adapting foundational religious texts for modern audiences.

Understanding the Digital Divide between Public and Private University Students of the Dhaka Metropolitan Area

2025-12-15T04:01:59+00:00

The rapid proliferation of new information and communication technology (ICT) has led to an unequal distribution of ICT resources, promoting advancement and access for some groups while constraining opportunities for others, ultimately resulting in the 'Digital Divide.' To understand the digital divide, this study was conducted to examine patterns in ICT skills and efficiency and the role of family economic conditions between public and private university students of the Dhaka metropolitan area. Using a quantitative research approach and employing a stratified random sampling method, this study involved the participation of 100 students. The sample was evenly distributed between private and public university students, with an equal split between male and female students. The study found no significant gap among public and private university students in the study area regarding basic access to digital tools and fundamental skills. However, there are clear differences between students from public and private universities. Private university students tend to have better access to high-quality digital devices. Consequently, they acquire more advanced digital skills, and use digital devices more frequently. A student's family economic situation plays a significant role in determining their access to quality digital devices. This, in turn, responsible for the digital divide because students from lower-income backgrounds are unable to have to better digital tools like the affluent students.

Community Policing and Security Issues in Nigeria: A Study of Local Vigilante Operations in the South-East Region (2019–2023)

2025-12-15T04:08:06+00:00

The persistent inefficiency and shortcomings of the Nigeria Police Force and other state security apparatuses in safeguarding lives and property, particularly at the grassroots level have prompted the emergence and reliance on local vigilante groups across the country, including in the South-East region. This study investigates the role of community policing in addressing Nigeria’s security challenges, with a particular emphasis on the activities and contributions of vigilante groups in the South-East geopolitical zone between 2019 and 2023. Guided by deterrence theory, as conceptualized by early utilitarian thinkers Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham, the research explores how the threat or application of punitive measures influences criminal behavior. The study utilizes qualitative data collected through semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders such as community leaders, law enforcement personnel, and members of vigilante organizations. The findings indicate that while community-based security structures, such as vigilante groups, have been instrumental in curbing various security threats including armed robbery, kidnapping, cult-related violence, herdsmen incursions, and communal unrest their overall effectiveness remains constrained. Key limitations include insufficient training and financial support, poor collaboration with formal security agencies, and undue political interference. The paper concludes that despite these challenges, local vigilante groups hold considerable promise for enhancing public safety in the South-East. It recommends targeted interventions, including improved training, adequate funding, and proper equipping of these groups, to bolster their capacity to function as effective instruments of community policing in the region.

Renaissance Theory of Eros and Representations of Venus in Botticelli and Titian

2025-12-15T03:18:59+00:00

This study examines the Renaissance reinterpretation of Eros—the classical concept of divine love—as it was reimagined through visual representations of Venus by Sandro Botticelli and Titian Vecellio. Grounded in Platonic and Neo-Platonic philosophy, the paper explores how the idea of love as a bridge between the human and divine realms was visually articulated through art. The research argues that the revival of Classical thought, particularly through the writings of Plato and the Christianized interpretations of Marsilio Ficino, shaped the Renaissance understanding of love not as mere passion but as a metaphysical force linking body and spirit. Venus, the embodiment of beauty, becomes the primary symbol through which these philosophical tensions are negotiated. Botticelli’s Venus embodies the celestial and moral aspects of love, while Titian’s Venus manifests the sensuous, experiential, and human side. Through comparative analysis, the paper highlights how both painters reconciled pagan mythology with Christian theology, turning love into both a moral ideal and an aesthetic experience. By merging theology, humanism, and visual beauty, Renaissance art captured the spiritual ascent of humanity through the language of desire. Thus, Venus, whether divine or earthly, becomes the Renaissance mirror of man’s eternal striving for perfection, unity, and transcendence.

Exploring the Effects of Academic Pressure on Social Behavior and Mental Well-Being among Adolescents in Himachal Pradesh

2025-12-15T04:14:40+00:00

Academic pressure is increasingly recognized as a significant factor influencing adolescent mental health and social behavior, particularly in education-focused regions such as Himachal Pradesh, India. This study investigates how academic stress affects the psychological well-being and social interactions of secondary school students aged 13–17 across both urban and rural districts in the state. Using a mixed-method approach, data was collected from 400 students through standardized scales measuring academic stress, mental health symptoms, and social behavior. Findings revealed that high levels of academic pressure were strongly correlated with increased symptoms of anxiety, stress, and social withdrawal. Furthermore, students in urban and private schools reported higher stress levels compared to their rural and government school counterparts. Gender differences were also evident, with female students reporting more emotional symptoms. The study concludes that the intense academic competition and societal expectations in Himachal Pradesh have profound implications on adolescents’ mental and social development. It recommends the integration of mental health education, reduction of curriculum load, and implementation of school-based counseling services to promote a healthier educational environment.

Exploring Sustainability in Pakistan: A Data-Driven Analysis of Economic, Social, and Environmental Performance (2014-2024)

2025-12-15T04:21:37+00:00

This paper analyzes sustainable development in Pakistan by examining economic, social, and environmental capital assets from 2014 to 2024. It explores past progress, status, and future challenges in sustainability. Since adopting the National Conservation Strategy Post-Agenda 21 (1992), Pakistan has implemented reforms aligned with global sustainability goals. Despite these efforts, economic growth challenges, weak policy implementation, low human capital investment, and unsustainable industrial practices hinder long-term progress. Utilizing the frameworks of the Brundtland Commission Report (1987) and Pearce and Warford (1993), this study constructs a Sustainability Development Index (SDI) through Factor Analysis and applies Newey–West regression for statistical robustness. GDP growth and literacy significantly enhance sustainability, while trade imbalances and deforestation negatively impact it. CO? emissions have a positive but complex association, reflecting current industrial growth within Pakistan’s sustainability context, though this poses long-term environmental risk. The study highlights the crucial role of efficient governance, integrated policies, and adaptive regulations. This study concludes that Pakistan’s path to sustainability hinges not merely on economic growth but requires a governance-led, integrated policy approach simultaneously strengthening human capital, correcting trade imbalances, and enforcing environmental conservation.

Elections, Insecurity and Secessionist Agitations in South-Eastern Nigeria

2025-12-15T04:27:24+00:00

The essence of this paper is to interrogate effects of insecurity and secessionist agitations on electoral process in the South-Eastern Nigeria. In carrying out this research four objectives were stated and four research questions rose to guide the study. Primary sources such as archival materials and secondary sources namely books, journal articles and internet sources were utilized for data collection. Data analysis is based on case study methods. The findings indicated that the South-Eastern Nigeria remains a hotspot for secessionist agitations and insecurity. Secessionist agitations and insecurity undermines elections, leads to voting apathy, electoral manipulation and emergence of incompetence political leaders. For better electoral outings security and intelligence gathering should be the top priorities of the electoral institution conducting elections in the region. Above all, tolerance, respect for human rights and opinion is significant in quelling secessionist agitations.

Beyond the Walls: Systemic Barriers to Education in Institutional Care and the Role of Social Work

2025-12-15T04:33:09+00:00

Children living in institutional care often encounter deep-rooted structural, systemic, and psychosocial barriers that restrict their access to meaningful and equitable education. While institutional care is intended to provide safety and stability for vulnerable children, it frequently prioritizes routine and physical needs over emotional development and individualized learning. This study examines the multifaceted challenges that shape the educational experiences of institutionalized children and analyzes the transformative role of social work in addressing these inequities. Using a qualitative exploratory-descriptive design, data were collected from caregivers, social workers, educators, and administrators across child-care institutions and NGOs. Thematic analysis revealed four dominant barriers: institutional rigidity, inadequate resources, stigma and social exclusion, and emotional neglect. These factors collectively impede academic engagement, motivation, and long-term development. Findings show that social workers play a pivotal role in bridging systemic gaps through rights-based advocacy, psychosocial support, educational planning, and interprofessional collaboration. The study underscores the urgency of shifting from custodial models of care toward holistic, child-centered, and inclusive educational strategies that affirm every child’s right to quality learning. Strengthening social work practice and structural reforms is essential for transforming institutional care into a setting that promotes empowerment, social justice, and equitable educational outcomes.

Examining the Derivatives Market Response Under Monetary Policy Regimes: Empirical Evidence from Nigeria

2025-12-15T04:40:03+00:00

The study examines the response of the derivative market under the monetary policy regimes in Nigeria, Markov-Switching VAR (MS-VAR) approach was employed. The period of investigation spanned 1990q1 to 2023q4. Findings from the study suggest that the internal factors within the financial system have a much greater impact on interest rates than external factors such as inflation, exchange rates or real gross domestic product in the first regime. In the second regime, results suggest that interest rate shocks significantly impact the consumer price index (CPI, or inflation) and the forward exchange rate (FEXR, a proxy for the derivatives market) in the short term, but its effect on RGDP is negligible. This suggests that inflation and forward exchange rates are primarily influenced by changes in monetary policy stance. Suggesting that regulatory agencies minimize their interventions in the market during crises and allow market forces to stabilize fluctuations. This is because such interventions tend to reduce volatility in the short term, without producing lasting effects.

How Do Online Support Groups Influence an Individual’s Grief Processing

2025-12-15T05:00:40+00:00

Grief is a universal yet deeply personal experience, often shaped by cultural, social, and contextual factors. Urbanization has disrupted traditional grief-support systems such as family networks and community-based structures, leaving many individuals in urban settings without access to essential support. This study investigates the role of digital platforms as alternative mechanisms for grief support in urban communities with limited access to traditional resources. The study aims to explore how digital environments foster shared experiences, coping strategies, and emotional expression among grieving individuals. Grounded in interpretivism, it delves into the challenges of digital grief support. The research contributes to a broader understanding of bereavement in a digitally evolving society by addressing themes such as emotional resilience and the effectiveness of digital platforms. The findings are expected to inform the development of technology-driven mental health interventions, bridging gaps in urban grief support systems. While the study acknowledges limitations like reliance on text-based data and challenges in representing diverse populations, it emphasizes the transformative potential of digital platforms in reimagining grief support for urban communities.

Organizational Culture at Home: A Belonging Sense Developer

2025-12-15T05:05:45+00:00

Organizational Culture at home is not a traditional review to understand the relevance of it to family organizational development. But today’s researchers like Velez, S., Rosario, I., Mendez, V & Vargas, L. (2016) and Velez-Candelario (2019), who examine the organizational behavior at home for the first time, observed and measure the family as a socioeconomic organization including the Organizational Culture as a one of the main areas to develop. These researchers exposed that a successful organizational development at home will depend on a well define organizational culture that enhances the belonging sense of the family members. They explain that depending on the family members’ cultural manifestation at home, a sense of belonging will be strong, unifying the members’ organization and enhancing their leaders’ influence or not. It is bibliographical research in a monographs format that will guide the lector to understand this phenomenon of the family organizational culture and the influence of it to enhance the belonging sense of this socioeconomic organization. This analysis will expose how belonging sense helps to develop the family group cohesion to work together to reach their vision, mission and goals, capable of delivering a healthy and productive human capital to their macro-economic system.

Online Video in Foreign Language Acquisition at Ekiti State University: Towards Enhancing Students’ Digital Resilience

2025-12-15T05:12:02+00:00

In the last ten years, the integration of digital media in higher education has revolutionized teaching and learning of foreign languages. Online videos have been discovered as rich pedagogical assets that enhance learners' participation, comprehension and intercultural communication. However, their pedagogical applications in Nigerian Universities remain uneven and uncharted. This study therefore seeks to examine online video in foreign language acquisition at Ekiti state University. The study adopts descriptive survey research design. The population of the study comprises all the foreign language students in Ekiti State University. 100 students were sampled from them by using the stratified random sampling in order to ensure adequate representation. A self-constructed questionnaire was used as data-collection instrument. Language teaching experts and instructional technology experts vetted the instrument to ensure content validity, and reliability was determined by piloting the instrument with a Cronbach Alpha coefficient of 0.86. The researcher administered the questionnaire online via Google Form. Data collected were analyzed quantitatively on the basis of frequency counts, percentages, means, and standard deviations to give answers to the research questions. Results showed that online video resources were available but their integration into classroom teaching was not uniform. Students reported positive attitudes towards learning through online videos, with observations of increased understanding, cultural awareness and interest. However, effective utilization was hindered by unreliable internet connections, insufficiency of technology centers and inadequate lecturer’s training. The paper concludes that the University should intensify digital infrastructural awareness, plan capacity-building programs for lecturers and integrate online videos systematically in the curriculum to enhance students' digital learning experience and resistance.

Preschool Teacher Education in South Korea and Türkiye: A Comparative Analysis and Reform Proposals

2025-12-15T05:21:15+00:00

This study compares the preschool teacher training systems of South Korea and Türkiye through a literature-based systematic review, utilizing official sources and academic literature. It examines factors such as employment, national income, education duration, school starting age, weekly class hours, holiday periods, and university admission requirements. Additionally, it analyzes teacher training program content, teacher age distribution, female teacher ratios, student-to-teacher ratios, net teaching hours, annual salaries, the proportion of teachers choosing teaching as their first career, and job satisfaction levels. South Korea’s success in international assessments, particularly PISA, is attributed to its advanced preschool education system, which could guide Türkiye’s educational reforms. Findings reveal South Korea offers higher salaries and greater professional satisfaction, while Türkiye’s teachers face heavier teaching loads. The study provides insights for improving Türkiye’s education system through reforms tailored to its socio-cultural context, contributing to the literature on comparative education and preschool teacher training.

The Epistemic Gaps in Thomas Verny's Theory of Prenatal Psychology: A Critique and Current Reflection

2025-12-15T05:29:11+00:00

This article examines the epistemological gaps in Thomas Verny's influential theory of prenatal psychology, particularly in his seminal work, The Secret Life of the Unborn Child. Although Verny was a pioneer in underscoring the importance of the intrauterine environment in emotional development, his theory presents significant limitations when contrasted with contemporary developmental neuroscience and molecular biology. The study employs a critical conceptual analysis framework, contrasting Verny's central hypotheses with high-impact, peer-reviewed literature selected using rigorous inclusion criteria (longitudinal studies and the use of objective biomarkers). Key gaps identified include: the scarcity of robust empirical evidence supporting claims about conscious fetal emotional perception (contradicted by the developmental timetable of the thalamocortical pathway), the lack of integration of genetic and epigenetic factors (failing to account for placental cortisol mediation and NR3C1 methylation), and the underestimation of cultural and socioeconomic diversity (overlooking the role of social determinants of health in toxic stress exposure). The results suggest that prenatal psychology must advance toward a multidisciplinary, biopsychosocial model, prioritizing longitudinal research with objective biomarkers (fetal neuroimaging and epigenetic analysis). It is concluded that while Verny's theory was crucial for raising public and clinical awareness, a comprehensive theoretical and clinical update grounded in mechanistic, inclusive scientific research is required to ensure the field's academic validity and reduce the risk of maternal culpabilization.

Constructing Suspense and Psychological Tension: A Corpus-Based Stylistic Analysis of Contemporary Crime Thriller Fiction

2025-12-15T05:40:57+00:00

The crime thriller genre engages readers through sustained suspense, psychological depth, and narrative tension, effects that are fundamentally constructed through language. This study examines the stylistic construction of such effects through a corpus-based analysis of twenty-five contemporary crime thrillers in contrast to the BNC Fiction Sub-Corpus. Drawing on the corpus stylistics framework of McIntyre and Walker (2019) and Dutta-Flanders's (2017) model of suspense, the study focuses on such micro-level linguistic characteristics as intensifiers, modal verbs, passive voice, and punctuation. The results indicate that suspense in crime fiction is achieved by a cumulative influence of minor linguistic tactics as opposed to explicit thematic cues. The modal verbs carry the sense of uncertainty and hesitation and open the reader to the space of speculative interpretation. The passive voice denies the agency and the emphasis is on the outcomes of violence and the ambiguity of the narratives is inflated. The intensifiers provide the emotional urgency and the pauses break the sentences and signify the mental instability. These are characteristic of the crime thrillers as they represent a certain tendency of style to concentrate on character perception, emotional disintegration, and suspenseful delay in comparison with general fiction. The study offers a replicable framework for stylistic genre analysis, contributing to the field of literary linguistics by highlighting how crime fiction inscribes tension not just in its content but through the subtle deployment of language.

Cinematic Memories of Partition: Visualizing Trauma, Otherness, and Reconciliation in South Asian Cinema

2025-12-15T05:48:26+00:00

The Partition of India in 1947 remains an unresolved trauma whose reverberations continue to shape South Asian identities and intercommunal relations. This paper explores how Partition cinema engages with the politics of memory, trauma, and reconciliation through three films: Deepa Mehta’s Earth (1947), Vijay Raaz’s Kya Dilli Kya Lahore, and Sabiha Sumar’s Khamosh Pani. Drawing upon Michael J. Shapiro’s theory of the cinematic gaze and aesthetic politics, E. Ann Kaplan and Joshua Hirsch’s trauma cinema, and Marianne Hirsch’s concept of post memory, this study examines how filmmakers employ visual form—mise-en-scène, camera movement, sound design, and symbolic imagery to transform historical pain into acts of remembrance and critique. The analysis reveals how Earth visualizes communal violence through destabilized framing and sensory dissonance; how Kya Dilli Kya Lahore negotiates psychological othering within confined spaces; and how Khamosh Pani contrasts rural tranquility with gendered trauma and Islamization. Collectively, these films challenge habitual viewing expectations and nationalist historiographies, reimagining Partition not as a closed event but as an ongoing affective and political process.

Preparing for the Future: A Quantitative Evaluation of Pre-Service Teacher Education for 21st-Century Classrooms

2025-12-15T05:59:46+00:00

The dynamic landscape of 21st-century education demands that teachers possess a broad set of skills, including technological literacy, critical thinking, adaptability, and inclusive pedagogical practices. Pre-service teacher education programs play a critical role in equipping future educators with these competencies. However, the effectiveness of such programs in preparing teacher candidates for contemporary classroom challenges remains insufficiently evaluated. This study aims to quantitatively assess the effectiveness of pre-service teacher education programs in preparing future teachers to meet the demands of 21st-century classrooms. Specifically, it examines teacher candidates’ self-reported preparedness across key domains such as technology integration, differentiated instruction, classroom management, and student-centered learning. A cross-sectional survey design was employed, to N = 400 final-year pre-service teachers from five accredited teacher education institutions. A structured questionnaire with Likert-scale items was used to collect data. The descriptive statistics ANOVA, regression analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between program components and perceived preparedness levels. The results of the study indicated a moderate to high levels, the model was statistically significant, F (3, 396) = 111.62, p < .001, explaining 46% of perceived preparedness among respondents, with the highest scores in content knowledge and classroom management. Though, lower scores were reported in areas such as technology integration and inclusive education. The significant differences were found between institutions, suggesting variability in program quality and emphasis. Regression analysis revealed that field experiences and faculty support were strong predictors of perceived preparedness. As the pre-service teacher education programs are generally effective in equipping future educators for the classroom, gaps remain in preparing them for the full spectrum of 21st-century teaching demands, particularly in technology and inclusion.

Reverence, Stewardship and Divinity: An Eco-spiritual Insight into Selected Novels

2025-12-15T06:14:51+00:00

This research explores the attributes like reverence, stewardship and divinity in the selected novels under the theoretical influence of Joanna Macy’s “Works That Reconnects” to scrutinize the pathways to self-discovery and the divine. The focus is to analyze. The characters from diverse cultural and regional backgrounds in order to deal how each character’s road leads inwards, with their spiritual alignment or indifference ultimately shaping their experience of despair and fulfillment. The influence of personal experiences and the signs from the environmental consequences makes one ponder into the deep reality of the world around him and the creator of this world. Macy deals with the individual experiences as well as the collective circumstances of the human relationship with nature and brings forward the practices like reverence, acceptance, gratitude and stewardship. The novels under evaluation are A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007) by a Pakistani author Khaled Hosseini, Siddhartha (1992) by a German writer Herman Hesse based on Indian culture and The Meursault Investigation (2013) by an Algerian writer Kamel Daoud highlighting Algerian take on the absurd situations. The research focuses on the contrast analysis of a character's journey towards self-actualization under the umbrella of Macy’s defined stages of gratitude, honoring the Pain, seeing with new eyes and going forth. The individual struggle and the ecological influences on one’s character development will be the center of the study whether their take on the experiences makes them close to or away from God. The research employs a qualitative, theoretical approach, utilizing close textual analysis guided by Macy’s framework. The research provides a way to ponder on the individual experiences as well as the environmental contribution in shaping one’s inner self. As the study deals with the experiences it will be open for all other perspectives.

Exploring Pragmatic Strategies in Energy Drink Advertisements: A Comparative Gricean Analysis of Pakistani and Indian Sting Ads

2025-12-15T06:27:22+00:00

The marketing of energy drinks in the global markets is often based on dramatic and hyperbolic messages targeting the youthful consumers in the fast-growing markets in regions like Pakistan and India. This paper has used comparative pragmatic and multimodal study of ten advertisements of Sting energy drinks; five advertisements of Sting energy drinks in Pakistan and five advertisements of Sting energy drinks in India. Based on an interpretivist paradigm and a qualitative approach, the study explores the relationship between verbal and visual elements and the way in which these elements of communicative messages strategically comply or do not align with the Cooperative Principle introduced by Grice (1975), including the Maxims of Quality, Quantity, Relevance and Manner. The results reveal that both Pakistani and Indian adverts are overly dramatizing, and violate the Maxim of Quality, building on their use of fantastical and hyperbolic imagery to form aspirational meaning. However, Indian adverts are more traditional and more willing to include declarations regarding the health of their products, and are overt in regard to product details, which serves to curb the possibility of misunderstanding and indicates a stronger level of regulatory and corporate accountability. In Pakistani advertisements, however, emphasis is placed more on foregrounded real-life situations and culturally identifiable metaphors, like witches, exam success, and transformation in the workplace, but there is often a lack of disclosure in terms of health, so Pakistani youth viewers are more likely to be ethically troubled. Combining semiotic analysis (Barthes, 1977; Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006), with Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson, 1995), the paper contends that seemingly irrelevant or exaggerated visual features serve to create cognitive salience and produce implicatures that help advertisements to get remembered and persuade audiences. Such comparative analysis would develop a global discourse as it provides a Gricean pragmatics approach to the multimodal advertisement in the South Asian region and, in the process, would explain how the regulatory cultures and repertoires influence pragmatic choices, applied when creating marketing practices of health-sensitive products, that reach younger customers. Policy implications and future work related to the experimental work are outlined.

Narratives Across Media: Cultural and Structural Transformations in Literary Adaptations for Screen

2025-12-15T06:37:09+00:00

This study offers a comparative narratological analysis of three canonical literary texts and their respective screen adaptations: A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth (1993) and its BBC television adaptation (2020), Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847) and its 2009 film version, and William Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1606) reimagined as Maqbool (2004) by Vishal Bhardwaj. Drawing on classical narratology (Genette), transmedial narratology (Ryan, Wolf), and adaptation theory (Hutcheon, Stam), the study explores how narrative structures, focalization, character functions, and thematic concerns are transformed in the shift from print to screen. Through close reading and scene-by-scene comparative analysis, this study reveals both the compression and restructuring of plot and the shift from complex narratorial focalization to cinematic focalization strategies. While A Suitable Boy retains the socio-political texture of post-Partition India in a streamlined romantic narrative, Wuthering Heights sacrifices its Gothic layering and narrative complexity in favor of a linear romantic tragedy. Maqbool, by contrast, serves as a culturally situated reworking of Macbeth, replacing its metaphysical fatalism with a psychological, emotionally driven narrative rooted in the Mumbai underworld. The study finds that adaptation is not merely an act of translation, but a form of cultural and narrative negotiation shaped by medium-specific affordances, ideological repositioning, and local context. These adaptations highlight the dynamic interplay between narrative form, audience reception, and cultural meaning, contributing to evolving theories of transmedial storytelling. This research advances the understanding of adaptation as a multidimensional dialogue across media, genres, and cultures, with pedagogical and theoretical implications for literary, film, and cultural studies.

Under the Purdah: Network of Gender, Class, and Religion in Iqbalunnisa Hussain’s Purdah and Polygamy: The Life in an Indian Muslim Household (1944)

2025-12-15T06:44:19+00:00

While the canon of 1940s subcontinental literature is dominated by broad political narratives, Iqbalunnisa Hussain’s Purdah and Polygamy (1944) turns inward, using the Zenana as a microcosm to expose the pervasive network of patriarchy. This paper argues that Hussain’s work is a radical act of resistance precisely through its a-political focus, challenging the patriarchal matrix that male authors often reinforced. By unveiling the "purdah" on the female world, Hussain demonstrates how women exercise agency within severe constraints and ensures that the "doubly colonized" are not forgotten. Hussain’s zoomed-in lens on Zenana focuses on the intersection of gender, class, and religion to challenge them. Recuperating her voice is thus fundamental to challenging the political, male-centered narratives of the Partition-era India.

The World on Fire: The Role of Trumpism in Global Conflict

2025-12-15T06:52:05+00:00

Trumpism marks a crucial transformation in the power dynamics of contemporary international politics. Emerging as a defining force, Trumpism rooted in unilateralism, selective intervention and interest-driven engagement has profoundly reshaped the strategic directions of the United States foreign policy. The article examines how Trumpism has replaced multilateral consensus with transactional diplomacy and pragmatic realism. Employing a qualitative research design within the theoretical framework of offensive realism, the research examines three critical conflicts of contemporary era: The Russian-Ukraine War, The Gaza Conflict and the 2025 India-Pakistan escalation. The findings reveal that Trumpism advances a strategic rationale centered on power maximization and national self-interest rather than normative diplomacy and collective security. The insights carry significant implications for global peace, the erosion of multilateralism and the future of international order.

Interpreting Between the Lines: Unveiling the Vituperative and Manipulative Linguistic Expressions Used in Pakistani Political Discourses

2025-12-15T07:02:23+00:00

Political discourses always serve the agenda of political figures through the use of manipulative and vituperative language. Manipulative language is cunning or scheming language, having a certain agenda, while Vituperative language is bitter and abusive and hurts someone’s feelings either directly or indirectly. Today’s society is breaking away from normative language and is choosing the manipulative language that most of the public uses in daily conversations. This article delves into the complexities of the layers of political language by thoroughly studying the words’ approach at different levels. The correctness of language is marred by the grossness spread among the masses. The study is based on the analysis of the political speeches delivered by Imran Khan and Nawaz Sharif during different periods in the course of their tenure to check the validity of their language choice. This research will be beneficial to unmask their vituperative and machiavellian language, penetrating the roots of society and invigorating the masses to be vigilant and critical. Their victory speeches, speeches after their government was toppled, the speech by Imran Khan at the prominent event of Amar bil Maroof, and the homecoming speech of Nawaz Sharif are analyzed. Moreover, Fairclough’s 3D model is applied to these speeches to interpret them at different levels. Collectively, the article’s approach is to cover the broader perspective of language use or misuse.

Landscapes of Loss: Ecocritical Reflections on Munazza Yaqoob’s A Lament for the Peach Orchard

2025-12-15T07:15:44+00:00

Contemporary Pakistani anglophone fiction as seen in Munazza Yaqoob’s recent collection of short stories “A Lament for the Peach Orchard” grapples with the psychological and ecological impacts of rapid urbanization and the consequential environmental crisis. This paper argues that Yaqoob’s stories articulate a profound sense of loss and alienation that arise when familiar landscapes are altered or destroyed, reinforcing the idea that environmental harm is intertwined with human suffering. The primary arc of the paper is the progression from psychological distress of “solastalgia” through the political and ethical commitment as a necessary pathway to the envisioned “symbiocene”. This paper draws upon Glenn Albrecht's concept of soliphilia to analyse how the narrator navigates a landscape marked by decline due to human exploitation, with a sense of solastalgia – the pain of losing one’s home environment while still inhabiting it. Yaqoob’s exploration of “eco-anxiety” highlights the fear and dread surrounding an unstable future, illustrating the existential unease over the on-going collapse of the natural world. This anxiety is a critical progression from paralysis of solastalgic grief towards a politically engaged “soliphilia”. Furthermore, Yaqoob’s fiction portrays nature as an active, sentient entity as theorized by Donna Haraway and Jane Bennet who ascertain that nature is an active participant in human lives and that humans must recognize its suffering and agency. Yaqoob’s narratives, this study argues, challenge capitalistic anthropocentric perspectives and advocate for a reimagined, empathetic coexistence between humans and nature. Henceforth Yaqoob's fiction is not merely an elegy but a vital call for a restorative, symbiotic ethics in a postcolonial context.

Impact of Instagram’s Filtered Reality on Self Identity and Social Perception Among Pakistani University Students

2025-12-15T07:24:57+00:00

Instagram is one of the fast-growing social media applications that have been a part of modern society and is becoming very popular because of its ability to connect, inspire, and motivate its users. This study explores how Instagram’s filtered reality shapes individual behavioral self-identity and social dynamics. For this purpose, a survey was conducted online through Google Form with 100 university students in Multan, Pakistan, while using a convenience sampling. From the analysis, two important trends were realized. First, Instagram is a motivational platform, which inspires users to enhance their personal and professional lives. Second, this also creates psychological effects in that people tend to compare their real lives with the idealized lives they view on Instagram, which may result in low self-esteem and unrealistic expectations. The study concludes that Instagram's filtered reality creates a paradox for young Pakistani adults, simultaneously serving as a source of inspiration and a trigger for negative social comparison, highlighting the need for digital media literacy interventions. The findings of the study suggest that a majority i.e. 53% of the sample find Instagram inspirational for self-improvement, a significant proportion also suggest its role in fostering unrealistic beauty standards i.e. 54% and social conformity i.e. 52%.

Effectiveness of an AI-Assisted Cognitive Load Management Intervention to Improve Geometry Performance Among Students with Learning Disabilities: An Experimental Study

2025-12-15T07:32:21+00:00

Children with learning disabilities (LDs) often experience the cognitive overload. It makes mathematics, and more specifically geometry, particularly challenging for them. Traditional instructional approaches usually fail to address the unique cognitive needs of LD students. This study developed and evaluated an AI-Assisted Cognitive Load Management Strategy (AI-CLMS) for improving geometry performance in LD students. AI-CLMS was designed to manage the cognitive load in LD students using AI platforms which can provide adaptive and personalized instructions. An experimental study was conducted to evaluate whether the AI-CLMS is an effective strategy to improve geometry performance in LD students. A total of 32 purposively selected students were randomly assigned to a control group (n=16) and an experimental group (n=16). The experimental group received three weeks intervention through an AI platform incorporating CLT principles such as content segmenting and progressive complexity while the control group continued with traditional instructions. An 18-item Geometry Performance Assessment (KR-20 = 0.74) was used as a pre-test and post-test data collection tool. Descriptive statistics, Shapiro-Wilk tests, Levene’s test, t-tests and Cohen’s d were performed for data analysis. The data analysis revealed that there was no significant difference in baseline scores of both groups (p = .944). The control group didn’t show significant improvement in post-test (p = .518). Whereas the improvement in post-test scores of the experimental group was significant (t (15) = -4.84, p < .001, d=2.87). Post-test between group comparisons also revealed that the experimental group outperformed the control group (t (30) = -4.68, p < .001) with a large effect size (d = 1.65). These results confirmed that AI-CLMS is an effective strategy to improve the mathematical performance among the LD students. Findings of this study also confirm that AI platforms can be effectively integrated with CLT in order to improve learning in special education.

From Timber to Concrete: The Historical Evolution of the Kanju Bridge in Swat State Era (1915–1969)

2025-12-15T07:40:17+00:00

This article traces the century-long evolution of bridge construction over the River Swat near Kanju, arguing that the successive constructions of the Kanju (1929), Mingora (1962), and Ayub (1966) bridges were central to the political consolidation and infrastructural modernization of the Swat State. By juxtaposing colonial and postcolonial archival materials with vernacular historical narratives, the study reconstructs the chronological and technical development of these projects to reveal how each bridge, frequently damaged and rebuilt after seasonal floods served as a catalyst for economic integration, shaped emerging administrative practices, and symbolized the Walis modernizing vision. Methodologically, it combines textual analysis of British archival record and other relevant sources with spatial-historical contextualization to uncover how infrastructure mediated relations between territory, and community. Besides, the article illustrates a model of State formation in which infrastructure functioned as both a material and symbolic instrument of governance, marking Swat’s transition from a nascent polity to a modern, institutionally organized State.

Empowering Women: Analyzing Perspectives on the Property Rights (Amendment) Bill 2021

2025-12-15T07:54:07+00:00

This paper examines the Women Property Rights (Amendment) Bill 2021 to examine the ideological basis, implementation process, and the effect on property rights against women in Pakistan. Although the bill was dedicated to provide equitable property distribution and empower women economically, the long-term cultural, social and procedural obstacles have continued to defeat the success of the bill. The qualitative data were gathered using the in-depth interview as a method of study, and Fairclough Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as a theoretical framework to study the data obtained with the help of five family lawyers working at the Lahore High Court. The results indicate that although the bill is intended to empower women because it grants them their rights to inheritance, the practical aspect of the same has not been fully implemented. The legal professionals underlined that the structural corruption, ignorance, patriarchal traditions, and the lack of the law enforcement are the impediments to the actual development. Such practices as HaqBakhswai, coercive Hiba transfers and social pressures tend to induce women to give up their rights. The amendment is often minimized to the symbolic application, despite being a positive move in legislation, which is not very protective even in practical cases. The study highlights that the actual empowerment lies not only in the legal reforms but also in the socio-cultural change and legal awareness of the people. The gap between law and practice can also be reduced by the strengthening of institutional mechanisms and the spread of awareness on women legal rights. Finally, the paper is of use to the study of the way in which critical analysis of legislative discourse can serve as a manifestation of the greater experiences of gender equality and social justice in Pakistan.

A Jungian Psychoanalytic Study of the Archetypal Journey and the Collective Unconscious in Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies

2025-12-15T08:03:09+00:00

This study explores the psychological depth of Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies through the lens of Jungian psychoanalysis and focuses on the archetypal journey and the workings of the collective unconscious. It investigates the ways Ghosh’s characters embody universal patterns of human experience such as struggles for identity, transformation, and self-realization within a colonial and historical framework. Using a qualitative and interpretive approach, the research examines the unfolding of the persona, shadow, anima, and animus in key characters such as Deeti, Neel, and Zachary. Their voyage aboard the ship Ibis becomes not only a passage across the sea but also a symbolic journey into the depths of the human psyche. The study interprets Ghosh’s narrative as a mirror of collective memory and the shared unconscious that binds humanity across time and culture. By linking Jung’s psychological theory with Ghosh’s postcolonial vision, the research reveals the interplay between inner and outer worlds; where trauma, displacement, and resilience shape both individual and communal identities. Ultimately, the paper argues that Sea of Poppies transcends its historical narrative to portray a universal quest for wholeness. It illustrates the enduring capacity of the human spirit to heal and evolve through self-awareness that integrates the conscious and unconscious mind into a unified sense of being.

Sassui the Divine Feminine Metaphor: A Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis of Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai’s Shah Jo Risalo

2025-12-15T08:12:30+00:00

The legend of Sassui Punhoon, echoing through the ages in Sindhi oral tradition, has its textual basis in Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai’s verse compendium Shah Jo Risalo; a tale where Sassui, one of the nine principal heroines, is identified with an understanding of divine and female efforts towards transcendence. Set in the framework of the five Surs, her tale gradually unfolds with intense suffering she endures from Bhambhore up to Kech while searching for her beloved Punhoon, elevating physical agony to a sort of metaphor metonymizing spiritual awakening and revolt. This research uses a combined framework of the Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (FCDA) and Ideational Conceptual Metaphor (ICM) theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) to unravel how Bhittai’s representation of Sassui reconceptualizes gender, love and power within patriarchal constraints. Metaphors that are found in more than one Sur are located and decoded based on the InVivo method, and they are compared in terms of their cognitive structure as well as ideological function. The results locate Sassui at the nexus between Sufi mysticism, oral tradition and feminist discourse, as her journey is one of a woman’s quest for self-actualization and self-agency within cultural and spiritual limitations. Her suffering, silence, and resilience are recalibrated as acts of discursive resistance and moral endurance, projecting her away from the figure of the romantic heroine and towards the locus of feminine spiritual subjectivity. By placing Sassui in the native epistemology of Sufi humanism, the research presents a decolonial and localized feminist interpretation that moves beyond Western feminist theories. It shows how Sufi metaphors act as tools for intellectual and ideological resistance, uncovering Shah Jo Risalo as a rich site wherein mysticism and feminism meet to voice new forms of gender, spirituality, and power in South Asian thought.

Racism and Power Dynamics in ‘The Last White Man’: A Deconstructive Study

2025-12-15T08:21:12+00:00

Ethnicity and race are identity markers that associate or identify a person with a specific race or ethnicity based on certain values and characteristics. However, colonization led to the creation of binaries between races: colonizers, who were white, as superior, and colonized peoples as inferior. This division gave rise to racism and discrimination; whites were considered superior, while other races, especially blacks, were considered inferior and uncivilized. This paper aims to highlight the restructured and internalized racial discrimination and the elements that support it reflected by Mohsin Hamid in ‘The Last White Man’. This paper analyzes Mohsin Hamid's latest novel, “The Last White Man,” through the lens of Critical Race Theory to highlight racism in a racially integrated society and how power dynamics promote and sustain it. Critical race theory rejects the notion of a racially integrated color-blind society as a way to eliminate racism; rather, it utilizes power dynamics to promote racism.

The Nexus between Socio-Economic Deprivation, Perceived Police Legitimacy and Effectiveness, and Public Willingness to Report Crime: A Quantitative Study of Residents in Karachi

2025-12-15T08:29:18+00:00

This quantitative study examined interrelationships between socio-economic deprivation, perceived police legitimacy and effectiveness (PPLE), and public willingness to report crime in Karachi, Pakistan. The primary objectives were to measure these variables and test a theoretical model proposing that PPLE mediates the effect of deprivation on reporting intentions. A cross-sectional survey using a stratified multi-stage sampling design collected data from 585 adult residents across diverse Karachi neighborhoods. The survey instrument included a Socio-Economic Deprivation Index, subscales measuring Perceived Police Effectiveness and Perceived Police Legitimacy (combined into a PPLE composite), and a Willingness to Report scale. Items were 5-point Likert responses; subscale reliabilities were satisfactory (Socio-economic deprivation a = .74; Perceived Police Effectiveness a = .82; Perceived Police Legitimacy a = .84; Willingness to Report a = .79). Data were analyzed using Spearman correlations and mediation analysis (Hayes’ PROCESS). Results show that greater socio-economic deprivation is associated with lower willingness to report and more negative PPLE; higher PPLE is associated with greater willingness to report. Mediation analysis indicated that PPLE is a significant partial mediator of the deprivation --> reporting relationship. Findings suggest that deficits in police legitimacy and effectiveness are an important mechanism by which structural inequality suppresses public cooperation. Implications include prioritizing procedural-justice reforms and integrating social development into policing strategies.

Weaving the Voices of Pakistan: A Barthesian Semiotic Analysis of Mohsin Hamid’s Moth Smoke

2025-12-15T08:36:39+00:00

The aim of this study is to analyze Mohsin Hamid’s novel “Moth Smoke” by using semiotics theory of five codes which Ronald Barthes has proposed for textual analysis. By keeping in view, the Five Codes of Barthes’ Theory, the concealed meanings and voices are also interpreted. The qualitative descriptive method is used for textual analysis and quantitative method is used to make frequency list of cultural codes. This study is based on the textual analysis of the novel, “Moth Smoke” by Mohsin Hamid by using Ronald Barthes Narrative Model as analytical framework while Pierre Bourdieu Cultural Capital Theory is used as theoretical framework in order to find out Barthes’ codes in the text. By applying Barthes’ Narrative Model, the results of the current study show that this novel is consist of all the five codes such as the hermeneutic code, the proairetic code, the semantic code, the symbolic code and the cultural code which have enigmatic, suspensive elements, hidden meaning and voiced which needed to be interpreted for better understanding. The selected novel is full of enigmatic, suspensive elements, connotative meanings, binary oppositions and cultural references. Almost thirty-six cultural codes are found in the text. In short, the novel contains all the five codes.

Role of Translation in the Globalization of Literature: Challenges and Opportunities

2025-12-15T08:44:24+00:00

Translation plays a pivotal role in the globalization of literature by enabling the exchange of ideas, narratives, and cultural values across linguistic and geographical boundaries. This paper examines the opportunities and challenges of literary translation in the context of the globalization process. Based on a literature survey of various sources and interviews with professional translators and academics, the study reveals opportunities such as translator’s role as a cultural and knowledge brokers, its capacity to amplify marginalized voices, and its function within the global publishing industry. Nevertheless, it also defines significant challenges including linguistic barriers, cultural differences, ethical issues, and biases favoring dominant world languages such as English. The analysis underscores the growing adoption of hybrid translation models that integrate AI tools with human expertise. To address these challenges and enhance the functions of translation in shaping the diverse global literary space, it is suggested to utilize methods like collaborative translation processes, the use of ethical codes, and the emphasis on the profession’s diversity. The study concludes that translation is not only a technical process but also a transformative cultural act that sustains linguistic diversity and shapes a more complete global literary space.

Between Two Worlds: Generational Identity and Acculturation in Min Jin Lee’s “Pachinko”

2025-12-15T08:54:23+00:00

This study examines four acculturation mechanisms, i.e., assimilation, separation, integration, and marginalization, utilized by four generations of Korean immigrants in Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko (2017), using John W. Berry’s acculturation theory as a framework. By incorporating literary analysis with psychological theory, this research contributes to the discourse on diasporic identity and acculturation in literature. The study analyses how characters from different generations negotiate their identity through multiple acculturation strategies and how they deal with acculturative stress, the findings show that acculturation is a complex and nonlinear process as characters exhibit different strategies in their lived experience. Acculturative stress is affected by factors such as economic hardship, racial discrimination, and social exclusion, while age and the individual’s preferred acculturation strategy have a direct impact. The marginalization strategy leads to extreme distress. Although integration is the least stressful and minimizes psychological distress, it is quite unattainable due to systemic and cultural barriers. Ultimately, this research is relevant to understanding contemporary immigrant experiences that will impact future literature studies.

Watchers of the Wall: Surveillance, Militarism, and the Erosion of Civil Liberties in Gilani’s Dystopian Fiction

2025-12-15T10:31:37+00:00

This paper examines the Pakistani science fiction novel The Lost Children of Paradise by Omer Gilani through the lens of surveillance theory. The novel presents a dystopian vision of Islamabad, where high-tech espionage intersects with a Stalinist system and citizens struggle against an authoritarian establishment. The aim of this study is to analyze the mechanisms of remote management, militarized borders, and the erosion of civil liberties by employing Michel Foucault’s theories of the Panopticon and disciplinary power. It explores the metaphor of the “watchers of the walls” and investigates how these watchers maintain authority over futuristic Islamabad through visible and invisible automated monitoring systems. Using qualitative close textual analysis, this paper argues that Gilani’s dystopia exemplifies Foucault’s concept of the “carceral archipelago,” illustrating how state surveillance functions as a tool of control. Gilani critiques contemporary socio-political realities in Pakistan and the normalization of pervasive monitoring. The study highlights the extensive exploitation and oppression of individuals through the depiction of Firdous-e-Bareen, the novel’s apex disciplinary institution. This analysis contributes to scholarship on Pakistani speculative fiction and dystopian studies, serving as a warning against the dangers of authoritarian power and unchecked technological advancement.

Gendered Nationhood and Female Agency: Mumtaz’s Subversion in Moth Smoke

2025-12-15T10:39:59+00:00

This article examines Mumtaz Kashmiri in Mohsin Hamid’s Moth Smoke (2000) as a literary case study to foreground how her subversive female agency evokes and erases the nation’s gendered scripts about sexuality and motherhood. The imagined political communities of nation bank on specific imagined gender roles to sustain themselves. Nira Yuval-Davis (1997) theorizes how gender relations affect and are affected by national projects and processes (and women are integrated into this project as biological and cultural reproducers, boundary markers and symbolic signifiers of the collectivity. At the heart of all these mechanisms is the institute of motherhood, which is co-opted by the nation and state under the guise of protection of the national honor to justify control of female bodies. This research article seeks to incorporate this theoretical framework in the analysis of the character of Mumtaz from Mohsin Hamid’s Moth Smoke (2000) and inspect how she exercises her agency while facing the constraints of gendered nationhood. Her refusal to be a part of this sociological solidity and homogeneity comes at a hefty price. It ultimately exposes the hypocrisy of the system of gendered expectations which deny women their humanity.

A Feminist Perspective on Women as The Other in Hanif Kureishi’s Collected Stories

2025-12-15T10:48:02+00:00

This research analyzes Hanif Kureishi’s Collected Stories (2010) through an existential feminist lens, drawing on Simone de Beauvoir’s concept of women as the “Other” to examine the portrayal of women as the other. The research analyzes Kureishi’s New Stories by using a qualitative analytical approach. The analysis is done by in-depth reading and collecting evidence of the depiction of women as the other in Kureishi’s writings. The study explores how Kureishi’s female characters are denied autonomy, excluded from the narrative center, and often depicted solely in relation to men thus establishing their identity as the other. The research aims to understand the imbalance of gender power in influential fictional literary writings by placing the experiences of fictional female characters within a theoretical framework. The research highlights that Kureishi's stories perpetuate the values of patriarchal structures, in which women are viewed as unimportant, passive, and secondary beings while men as subjects. And their portrayal as mere objects or suppressed characters mirrors the universal gendered imbalance, which is also emphasized by Beauvoir. The findings reveal that women are portrayed as the other, passive, and secondary, serving as narrative supports for male characters rather than possessing independent identities. These portrayals reflect patriarchal values and reinforce gender imbalance, aligning with de Beauvoir’s view that men position themselves as subjects while rendering women insignificant. The study shows de Beauvoir’s theory is important in understanding contemporary fictional literature that restricts the representation of women and reinforces their identity as the other. It also underscores the importance of more inclusive narrative strategies for understanding gender inequality and to highlight women’s representation, identity, agency, and voice in literature, making it a significant contribution to feminist literary criticism.

Dialogical Intervention of Material Agency in Atiq Rahimi’s Earth and Ashes

2025-12-15T10:56:37+00:00

This paper examines how material agency embodied by the land, ruins, silence, and objects involves in a dialogical relationship with human trauma and memory in Atiq Rahimi’s Earth and Ashes. The novella portrays Dastageer, an elderly survivor of a bombed Afghan village, journeying with his grandson Yassin through a devastated landscape. The narrative employs evocative imagery and second-person address to interweave the responses of the terrain into the emotional and psychological trajectories of the protagonists. This study relies on trauma theory and eco-critical concepts for the analysis of selected literary text. The research highlights how the environment actively speaks through Dastageer’s reveries and Yassin’s innocent misinterpretation of deafness believing that others have lost their voices rather than his hearing that poignantly illustrates a material voice in rupture. The land bears witness to atrocity and become a counterpart to human testimony in the novel. The novel’s sparse yet charged prose transforms landscape into a co-author of memory, grief, and unspoken history.

Bridging the Graduate Transition: The Role of Perceived Employability, Career Decision-Making, and Job Search Behavior among University Students

2025-12-15T11:20:53+00:00

This study aimed to 1) assess the perceived employability of university students, focusing on their skills and abilities awareness, job market knowledge, and perceived university support, 2) examine the career decision-making capabilities of university students, including their career clarity, goal-setting behavior, decision-making confidence, and use of resources, and 3) analyze the job search behavior of university students, particularly their proactive search activities, networking efforts, and utilization of career services and events. The study focused on how university students perceive employability, career decision-making, and job search behavior by using a descriptive survey research design. The study was cross-sectional and quantitative in nature. Three questionnaires were developed on employability, career decision making as well as job search behavior which were used to collect data from a sample of 300 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in the public-sector universities of Punjab, Pakistan. Descriptive findings revealed that the general levels of perceived employability were moderately high among the students and this was especially true when it came to university support, academic preparation, and knowledge of employer expectations. Career decision-making capability was also seen among students of high performance particularly in being confident in making informed decisions, career planning and dealing with career uncertainties. On the same note, the engagement levels of students regarding job search activities were moderate to high in terms of networking, using online job portals, participating in career events and utilizing university career services. In general, the descriptive results indicated that the students were quite an active group in terms of career-related planning and job seeking, though they required some work on long-term career goal setting, personal skills confidence, and regular job search record keeping.

The Erasure Story in Weather Reports: An Ecolinguistic Analysis

2025-12-15T11:49:12+00:00

This analysis examines ‘erasure stories’ in the weather reports of BBC, CNN, DW, Al Jazeera, and GNN. A sample of 500 news reports (total tokens 119,564) on weather-related topic were collected. It employs Arran Stibbe’s (2015) ‘Stories We Live By’ framework. The analysis is based the concept of the ‘Erasure Story’. For the quantitative analysis, AntConc version 4.3.1 (Anthony, 2024) is used to identify the presence and absence of key ecological terminology, such as ‘climate change’, ‘ecosystem’, ‘biodiversity’, and ‘carbon emissions’. The results indicate prevailing trends of lexical and thematic omission especially in CNN and GNN where ecological factors of climatic event are left out. Though DW and Al Jazeera had higher inclusion of environmental terminologies, even their report was not consistent. The paper classifies the erasure as of typology of void, trace, and mask (Stibbe, 2015) which is justified by presence of concordance evidence, lexical visualization, and instance of erasure. Such patterns represent an anthropocentric approach, which silences an agency of nature and conceals underpinning causes of environmental crises. The study has expanded the use of the ‘Erasure Story’ to one of the commonly used genres i.e. weather reporting. It shows how pressing the need is of ecologically attentive media discourse that is centered about environmental causality.

A contrastive genre analysis of introductory sections of research articles in the Social Sciences and Humanities

2025-12-22T15:45:45+00:00

The introductory section of research articles (RAs) is an important component of scholarly writing since it takes readers on the research journey. It presents the research aims, defines the research questions, and informs the methodology, and thus it is paramount in establishing the stage for the paper. This research compares the introductions in RAs in the social sciences and humanities based on a contrastive genre analysis perspective. Swales' Create a Research Space (CARS) model was used to analyze 100 articles, 50 each in the two fields, based on random sampling. The results identify stark contrasts in rhetorical and linguistic characteristics between the two disciplines. Both have four primary moves, but their organization and wording differ. Social sciences articles usually start with a distinct problem statement, while humanities articles begin with contextual information. These findings highlight the importance of discipline-specific writing habits, assisting scholars to fulfill audience demands and improve the impact of their work.

Subaltern Silencing in Megha Majumdar’s A Burning: A Critical Re-Reading of Jivan’s Marginalization

2025-12-31T15:19:47+00:00

In recent years, contemporary South Asian fiction has increasingly foregrounded questions of voice, marginalization, and state power; within this context, Megha Majumdar’s A Burning (2020) offers a compelling narrative of subaltern silencing in a neoliberal, digitally mediated society. Against this background, the present study critically re-reads the marginalization of Jivan, a poor Muslim woman whose attempt at political expression leads to criminalization and erasure. Accordingly, the primary objective of this research is to examine how intersecting structures of class, gender, religion, media discourse, and state authority operate to silence subaltern voices, while also assessing whether meaningful forms of resistance are possible within such hegemonic frameworks. To achieve these objectives, the study adopts a qualitative, interpretive methodology grounded in close textual analysis and informed by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s theory of the subaltern, supplemented by insights from postcolonial feminism and discourse theory. The findings reveal that Jivan’s silencing is systematic rather than incidental, produced through overlapping mechanisms of economic precocity, gendered violence, communal othering, judicial coercion, and digital surveillance. Moreover, the analysis demonstrates that subaltern speech—particularly when articulated through social media—is not merely ignored but actively re-coded as threat and sedition. Consequently, while moments of resistance and agency do emerge in fragmented and symbolic forms, they remain structurally constrained and ultimately ineffective. In conclusion, the study affirms Spivak’s central thesis that the subaltern may speak but cannot be heard within dominant epistemic and institutional structures without distortion or suppression. Therefore, the paper recommends a critical rethinking of narratives surrounding free speech, digital democracy, and justice in contemporary societies, and calls for further interdisciplinary research that bridges literary studies with media studies, surveillance theory, and human rights discourse to better understand and challenge ongoing practices of subaltern silencing.

Resource Dimensions Influencing Technological Appropriation in ESP Writing Instruction

2026-01-02T04:38:57+00:00

The objective of this study is to investigate the role of the material and immaterial, social, and educational resources in the appropriation of digital and AI during English to Specific Purposes (ESP) writing instructions. Informed by van Dijk’s Resource and Appropriation Theory (RAT), the study will employ quantitative correlational survey research design and target ESP writing instructors who responded to a structured Likert-scale questionnaire. The findings reveal that motivation and teacher’s autonomy are not the only factor to define technological appropriation in ESP settings but is also shaped by the access to institutional infrastructural resources, training facilities, and participatory decision-making environments. Material and social resources emerged as central facilitators, where immaterial resources like autonomy and flexibility remained in the periphery, but played a significant supporting role. It was demonstrated that educational abilities like the ability to adapt writing instruction through the usage of the digital tools are dependent on the access of materials and the collaborative institutional cultures. This paper reiterates that ESP writing training that necessitates task-specific and discipline-relevant instruction cannot be simply a matter of individual ingenuity it must be backed up by systemic support. The results support an integrated approach to digital integration in ESP, which is based on balanced infrastructure, empowerment, and professional development to provide technological equity in the process.

Financing the Future: How Green Investments and Environmental Taxes Drive Sustainable Growth

2026-01-17T10:54:09+00:00

Neuro-linguistics Programming (NLP) as an Instructional Technique in English Language Teaching at Higher Secondary Level

2026-01-20T04:44:54+00:00

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is an extensively employed strategy, presented by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. In the field of English language teaching, NLP demonstrates to be an important device to accelerate instructional procedure. In present study, the researchers investigate diverse practices engaged in NLP that can be employed by the teachers in English language teaching. Applying a good technique to teach a second or foreign language is essential for teachers. The present study examines the prevailing NLP techniques applied by the trainers in English language classroom and to identify the perceptions of the teachers about the part of NLP in English language classroom and to analyze the extent to which teachers' instructional selections in the classroom transform the communicative competence of the students and enhances their ability for better learning. A qualitative approach was used to conduct the research. The participants of this study comprised 6 college teachers. Data was collected through open–ended questions. Data was analyzed through thematic analysis. The study shows that NLP provides a space for collaborative and effective communication, motivation in classroom, boosts confidence of students, and builds conducive classroom environment. However, there is a need for proper training for the teachers to enhance the practice of NLP.