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Through a close reading of “They ask me: ‘Who am I?’’' poem, this paper examines the themes of racial inequality and linguistic displacement of the oppressed race of the Australian Aboriginals, specifically the lost generation as voiced in the poem. Adopting the theoretical frameworks of Kroskrity that focus on the linguistic racism and white supremacy, the authors analytically aim to explore covert linguistic racism through the poem’s narrative. In addition, this paper conveys the representation of race and colonial powers by conveying the exclusion and discrimination the Aborigines faced since the 18th century. It highlights the ‘White Supremacy’ (concerning politics, culture, and linguistics) and the desperate measures the white settlement took to complete the erasure of the linguistic and culture of the minority group of the Aboriginal people. The poem highlights the unspoken voices of the lost generation through the poet's heartfelt agony with his encounter with the history of Aboriginals and their racial and linguistic oppression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mother tongue, used as the language of instruction, is considered vital for effective pedagogy, individual rights recognition, and social justice. It offers marginalized students a more efficient pathway to learning compared to foreign or hegemonic national languages like English or Filipino. Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) challenges systems favoring colonial languages and asserts the importance of children's first languages. However, the political and ideological dimensions of mother tongue are often overlooked, as it can be manipulated to serve specific agendas in nation-building efforts. While linguists analyze its linguistic aspects, this paper delves into its political nature, exploring how it intersects with ideologies shaping nation-building and potentially nation-destroying processes. This article asserts that the mother tongue serves not only as a learning tool but also as a contested political concept vital for envisioning inclusive nation-building. By examining MTB-MLE in the Philippines, it explores how the mother tongue influences nationmaking and reimagining, shaping national identity and ideals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

UN peacekeeping operations rely on international cooperation to constitute competitive female peacekeepers. Meanwhile, Indonesia is an active contributor to global peace, yet its women peacekeepers dealt with linguistic challenges to participate in peacekeeping missions in French-speaking countries. This article investigates the exhaustive intellectual and physical performances of a policewoman from Banda Aceh to take part in the MINUSCA ( United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic) 2020-2021. This paper aims to illustrate the theory of feminism by using a descriptive qualitative analysis. In UN peacekeeping missions, having female peacekeepers is crucial for ensuring gender-balanced representation. This study describes how the determinism of the female gender through personal commitment, self-engagement, and motivation is as valuable as the male gender. The data are collected via recorded Zoom meetings. The findings revealed the components of French language proficiency for MINUSCA, learning activities, the Indonesian policewoman’s experiences in learning French, and French language teaching andlearning issues that needed to be addressed in Banda Aceh. In addition, this article underlines factual issues on the absence of an official French language academy in Banda Aceh. Addressing those issues will contribute to maximizing Indonesian human resources for global peace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Narratives of travel are part of world literature and cultural history. Scholarly research on migrant narratives and literature is a subfield of intercultural studies and comparative literature which allow cultures to bond and interact. Written histories of Arab Americans start with the Foundational Period (1880-1920) which revolves around the early immigrants from Historical Syria. This period is one of the least documented eras which is still difficult to reconstruct due to its many gaps and various obstacles. This paper examines the strategies and approaches used by Philip Hitti, the founder of Arabic Studies in the United States, who established the master models and approaches for the study of the Syro-Lebanese immigrant community. This model is based on locating alternative sources that include ̶in addition to official sources and written accounts ̶ folksongs, literary texts, popular stories, and personal memories. It makes use of them to reconstruct the history of this community, which is characterized by its rich popular culture and long tradition of story-telling. There may be polemics and prejudices in presenting the wealth of the oral and cultural tradition of Historical Syria’s communities in the mainstream popular and official narratives about Arabs and Muslims. When presented with scholarly research and comparative perspectives, immigrants’ narratives can have a valuable contribution to world literature on immigration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Homo Ludens, human beings inherently possess a penchant for play. They exhibit the remarkable ability to craft various forms of playful devices, one of which revolves around the skillful use of language as their primary vehicle for verbal communication. This paper explores the humorous dimensions inherent in language usage, as artfully harnessed in the signage adorning truck containers. By meticulously scrutinizing these container signs displayed on trucks navigating the highways of Indonesia, this study unveils that the creators of these signs employ three fundamental mechanisms, as articulated by Bergson's (1983) theory, to elicit smiles and laughter from their audience. These mechanisms encompass repetition, inversion, and, most notably, the concept of reciprocal interference within series. Such effects are achieved through various techniques, including phonological alterations, ambiguities, juxtapositions, and the deliberate incorporation of taboos and insults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literacy workshop is important activity delivered in community to increase people's competencies not only in reading and writing, but more importantly in building critical perspectives. However, the result of the literacy workshop needs to be examined, not only to find out the success indicator of the workshop, but also to understand the narration presented in young peoples' works. It is necessary to get the idea of what the young people's concern and thought. This paper discusses the writings as the products of literacy workshop held at Trenggalek, East Java, which was attended by young people as participants. The workshop results in 12 writings, consisting of two short stories, and 10 essays. The questions raised in this paper are; how is the discourse of daily life represented in the writings of the literacy workshop participants? What are the social and cultural factors affecting the writers in constructing the discourse? This paper argues that young people's concern reflects the current social cultural issues that matters in our life. Literacy for young people is not merely giving the skill of reading and writing, but it is a meaning-making process, that enable them to construct the meaning of their everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the relationship between the language and power in the presidential speech text, which is projected through linguistic features, especially modalities. The data was obtained from a speech delivered by President Joko Widodo during the plenary session of the Indonesian People's Consultative Assembly (MPR RI) for the inauguration of the elected president for the 2019-2024 period and the delivery of the president's vision for Indonesia better. Analysis of this paper from linguisti c modalities uses a three-dimensional model of Fairclough's critical discourse (CDA) analysis to answer its research questions. The results show that Jokowi used several linguistic modal verbs in projecting his strength. Based on the modality's context, it can be understood that the president conveyed his strategic desire to be himsel f when he tried to connect with the audience and build his image, audience, and relationship. The President produces a discourse that embodies assumptions about his leadership and audience's social relationship and affirms his legal authority as president and his power. Through the language used, Jokowi creates, maintains, and explains power he holds in these forums. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• In action exchanges what is at stake is the responsibility for performing an action. • Interlocutors negotiate their responsibilities on a move-by-move basis. • The possible choices available for a move are constrained by their functions in exchanges. This paper offers a responsibility-based model of the move system as an alternative to the current speech-functional model in discourse semantics in Systemic Functional Linguistics, particularly for exchanges revolving around the giving and demanding of goods-&-services. It argues that at move rank speakers have at their disposal the choice between positioning and not positioning each other. When positioned, the speaker may or may not be positioned as responsible for carrying out the negotiated action; and at the same time, the addressee may or may not be positioned as responsible. Drawing on simple examples mainly from TV programmes, the paper shows how certain options in the move system are preselected and activated by different structural functions in an action exchange. The responsibility-based model proposed in this paper sheds light on a number of problems identified in the current speech-functional model of the move system in discourse semantics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Data cover written English texts from informative, argumentative and narrative genres. • Adjunct placement is determined by syntactic, semantic and pragmatic factors. • Left-peripheral temporal adjuncts are prevalent in argumentative and narrative genres. • Right-peripheral temporal adjuncts are most frequently used in informative discourse. • The variation in adjunct placement is related to the genres' communicative purposes. This paper examines the distribution and functions of phrasal and clausal temporal adjuncts in left-peripheral and right-peripheral position across three genres of written English discourse, i.e. informative, argumentative and narrative discourse. Drawing on data from news reports and commentaries from The Guardian , as well as personal narratives written by students from the Universities of Portsmouth and Sussex, the study aims to provide answers to the following research questions: (1) In how far does the use of phrasal and clausal temporal adjuncts vary across syntactic positions as well as across discourse genres? (2) How can discourse-genre-specific preferences in the positional distribution of temporal adjuncts in written English discourse be accounted for? The analysis shows that left-peripheral temporal adjuncts are considerably more frequently used in commentaries and student stories than in news reports, where temporal adjuncts are most frequently placed in right-peripheral position. This genre-specific variation is accounted for by various syntactic, semantic and discourse-related factors which are systematically related to the specific communicative purposes of the underlying discourse genres. Ultimately, this paper aims to argue that the macro-level concept of discourse genre plays a crucial role in determining and constraining the positional distribution of temporal adjuncts in written English discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Si -future exclamatives in Spanish shed new light into the notion of insubordination. • Mirative future emerges as a result of successive emancipations. • Mirative future is compatible with the 'distance-forward' deictic template. • Mirative future represents a further step into the process of grammaticalization. • Mirative future exemplifies the range of mirative meaning conveyed in Spanish. This paper examines si -future exclamatives in Spanish, both synchronically and diachronically, with the aim not only of identifying their possible contexts of use but also of distinguishing their various semantic interpretations. In addition to permitting the redefinition of the space of insubordination and assessing the role of analogy in the continuing independence of the marker si , this proposal provides an explanation of Spanish mirative future as emerging from the emancipation of a previous structure, albeit that it retains the deictic value of morphological future –which becomes a functional feature in its new discursive meaning. From this perspective, the grammaticalization of morphological future in Spanish is not contemplated as a closed cycle, but rather as a still ongoing process. More broadly speaking, this paper helps outline the semantic array of mirative meanings through providing evidence about the type of mirativity that can be conveyed in Spanish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• In Chinese, life is xì and xì is life constitute a pair of explicit bidirectional similes/metaphors. • Metaphorical bidirectionality encapsulates a symmetrical perspective that regards two subjects as interacting with one another. • Explicit bidirectional life – xì metaphors may be attributed to specific features of Chinese language and culture. • Bidirectionality may be broadly understood as exhibiting unsettling metaphoricity that shifts in the literal–metaphorical continuum. This study investigates bidirectionality in figurative expressions by focusing on a pair of explicit bidirectional similes/metaphors in Chinese. This pair of similes/metaphors is also a saying: rénshēng rú xì, xì rú rénshēng ('life is like a drama, a drama is like life'). The juxtaposition of bidirectional life – xì (' drama') similes – and the bidirectional pattern of metaphorical thought that motivates them – is rarely addressed in metaphor studies. By drawing on discourse examples in which the pair of metaphors is used, this paper examines how the bidirectional figurative expressions are interpreted in discourse and what light the pair of metaphors can shed on metaphorical bidirectionality. Building upon the recent discussion of metaphorical bidirectionality and extended conceptual metaphor theory, this paper develops an enriched understanding of bidirectionality, which is conceptualised as a symmetrical perspective that regards two subjects as interacting with one another on a more or less equal footing, or the principal subject and subsidiary subject as being reversible, and which exhibits unsettling metaphoricity in the literal–metaphorical continuum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]