OKARA: Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra

Fostering Learner Autonomy in Vietnamese Higher Education: What Factors to Be Considered?

Dung Thi Phuong Cao, Phuong Dzung Pho — Sat, 30 Nov 2024 14:49:09 +0700

Learner autonomy is widely recognized as a significant goal for tertiary education in enabling learners to become lifelong learners. To achieve this goal, it is crucial to identify what factors support or impede learner autonomy. This study, therefore, aims to explore influencing factors by collecting data from 420 English majors at a university in the south of Vietnam, using questionnaire surveys and focus group interviews. Its results show that motivation and teachers’ teaching styles and requirements are the two most influential factors, representing internal and external elements, respectively. Internal factors are found to be more influential than external ones, with eight out of nine identified as very influential (i.e., motivation, learning attitudes, knowledge of the subjects, language proficiency, learning styles, learning goals, preferences for self-study, learning methods/techniques). Family expectation emerged as a new external element contributing to learner autonomy. Discussion about the influence level and suggestions for facilitating learner autonomy are presented.

The Islamic Worldview and Language Proclivity: The Case of Modern Brunei

Salbrina Sharbawi — Sat, 30 Nov 2024 18:48:49 +0700

Brunei is undergoing a language transition, with younger generations favoring English over Malay, raising concerns about the potential impact on the Islamic worldview traditionally tied to Malay. This study examines the relationship between language preference and the Islamic worldview among 67 young female Bruneian Muslims, using an online survey to assess their language use, religious identity, and perspectives on Islamic and Western ideologies. Findings reveal strong alignment with Islamic beliefs on divine matters but ambivalence on contemporary social issues like gender and dating, particularly among English-preferring participants. While a weak association between English proclivity and a Western worldview was observed, it was not statistically significant. This study highlights the complexities of language and religious identity in a globalized context, emphasizing the need for further research and adaptive strategies in Islamic education to address linguistic and ideological shifts.

The Ordering Distribution and Competing Motivation of Evidential and Logical Causal Clauses in English and Chinese

Wanying Fu — Thu, 28 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0700

The ordering distribution of causal adverbial clauses in English and Chinese differs due to distinct factors, with English clauses tending to appear finally and Chinese clauses initially. This study aims to analyze the ordering distribution of logical and evidential causal clauses in English and Chinese using Diessel's competing motivation model, investigating the interplay of semantic forces, syntactic processing, and discourse pragmatics. A corpus-based analysis was conducted on 800 sentences from the British National Corpus and the Lancaster Corpus of Mandarin Chinese, focusing on four causal subordinators in each language. The results reveal a clear cross-linguistic distinction: In Chinese, evidential causal clauses occur initially at 82.5%, driven by iconicity and discourse coherence, while logical causal clauses show a lower initial occurrence rate of 67.3%. Conversely, English causal clauses tend to occur in final positions, with evidential clauses at 91.66% and logical clauses at 84.2%, due to the relative semantic independence, functioning as independent processing units. The ordering distribution reflects competing motivations: Chinese prioritizes iconicity and discourse coherence, while English emphasizes syntactic independence and processing ease. The study provides new insights into the interaction of semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic forces in shaping clause positioning across languages.