Paper Title

REPRESENTATION OF ASSERTION OF IDENTITY AND CULTURE THROUGH SELECT MUSLIM WOMEN’S MEMOIR

Abstract

This paper deals with the assertion of identity and culture in selected contemporary memoirs by Muslim women in India, namely, ZarinaBhatty’s Purdah to Piccadilly, Seema Mustafa’s Azadi’s Daughters and ShaukatKaifi’s Kaifi and I Presently, Muslim women are educated and employed. They are aware of their rights and have become assertive. They have a say in their marriage, divorce and many other issues. However the change is not widespreadbut there is a growing awareness about the rights and a desire for a better life. Hence, there is a need to bring awareness in this regard so as to urge the marginalized women to get inspiration from their counterparts.
KEYWORDS : Identity, Culture, Memoirs, Assertion, Muslim Women, Stereotypes

Paper Title

THE COSTS AND CHALLENGES OF SOCIAL SETTLEMENT IN USA: A CRITICAL STUDY ON ARAB-AMERICAN WRITINGS

Abstract

Between the end of 19th and the beginning of 20th centuries Arabs started immigrated to North America from Lebanon and many other Arabic countries like Yemen, Palestine and Tunisia. In fact they came as temporary residents and workers not as immigrants. They settled down in cities such as Boston, New York and Michigan but have full intention to come back to their own countries one day. Due to Arab-American literature launched under many circumstances most of it economic and political. By the time, Arab-Americans became more concern to the process of Americanization that has probably racial definitions for the American identity, and this offered more social exclusion for Arabs. On the other hand, there was what was called Naturalization Act of 1790 which had granted the right of citizenship to the pure white person as it was termed ‘free white persons’. Thus Arab-Americans found themselves living under enormous pressures to assimilate the U.S. context. At the same time Arab identity was a matter of great importance to Arab immigrants. How to maintain Arab identity in the American-born generation was the major task of those people in American society. However, the laws of naturalization were challenged and sometimes refused as it was based on whether citizens qualified as white or not. Such laws not only determined the destiny of immigrants but also set the precedents for the exclusion of entire ethnical group. However, those cases, links and clashes between whiteness, non-whiteness, Christian, non-Christian, American identity, non-American identity, European, non-European shaped Arab-American experience and literature directly and indirectly. In the matter of fact, Arab has taken English as a medium of literary device to express their thought and attitudes since the beginning of 20th century. Gradually, this literary expression has gained full recognition. The hyphenated Arab-American, Arab-British, Arab-Australian authors have been making their voices heard with confident and power to convey their message to the world. Ironically, Arab-American literature has got his renown and only after 9/11, when the world woke up on the horror of the terrorist events of that day, then people specifically Americans went and searched about Arab people, their attentions, thoughts, attitudes, and literature. At the same time Arabs found themselves a necessity to define themselves to express their point of views towards what is going on around them and to defend themselves against the common accusation that they are the source of the terrorist in the world. Thus literature of their own footprint was urgently acquired. In searching of a place in mainstream of American literary circles, Arab artists tried to increase sales and acceptance by creating for themselves the image of charismatic genius and to make themselves and their writings as a compromise between the spiritual East and the rational West, in other words, between mystical and dynamic. The Arab-American writers of the early 20th century, such as, Ameen Rihani (1876-1940); Khalil Gibran (1883-1931); Mikhail Naimy (1889-1988), were seen as the pioneers of cultural meditations between the East and the West, and the examples of the transnationalism. Those writers were the first real mediators between the two extreme different cultures of East and West. They found themselves in flexible position to be able through the English medium to drive away the wrong anticipations about each culture, and intellectual reconciliation between the two cultures. Thus this mediatory function reconciles the relations between Islam and Christianity as Gibran and Rihani did in their writings in a manner that synthesized Muslim and Christian registers in a unified idiom.
KEYWORDS : challenges; social settlement; Arab-American writers; three writers\'generations; Majhar school; costs; social exclusion; national ethnicity.

Paper Title

TESTING AND EVALUATION IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING – A CASE STUDY

Abstract

One of the ways through which feedback can be obtained from the learners on what the teachers had taught them is evaluation. Students’ achievement in a particular course of study can be determined through evaluation. This work observed various aspects of English in which students’ achievement are often assessed a view to assisting students in overcoming problems often encountered during such tests and evaluations. Purposes and forms of language tests were briefly discussed. This was followed by a discussion on characteristics of a good language test. It was recommended that students should be encouraged to possess all the recommended textbooks and change their reading habits. Teachers were also encouraged to always make them available for the students and be willing to assist them in the areas of difficulties in English.
KEYWORDS : Testing, Evaluation, English Language Teaching

Paper Title

MONISHA, A WOMAN CHARACTER IN VOICES IN THE CITY BY ANITA DESAI

Abstract

One of the most notable areas of the world literature is Indian writing in English. It was the verse form with which it started its journey and got deep rooted into various other genres of literature. It claimed its dominance with the involvement of prominent writers like Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao, R K Narayan and so on. At this juncture, it’s should be a mention about the equal amount of contribution from the women novelists to this sphere, which made the IWE, a great area in literature. The thought about women literature, immediately allows anyone to remind of Anita Desai, as she left her own mark with a touch of reality. She as a woman, was able to understand the agony of a woman, and also the psyche better than any male writer. This paper is an analysis of a character Monisha in one of the works of Anita Desai, Voices in the City.
KEYWORDS :