English

Pronunciation, despite being an obviously important component of speech and anticipated communication, seems to enjoy little or no room in the policy and practice in Bangladesh. This study, therefore, aimed at exploring the issues of teaching oral proficiency specifically pronunciation at the HSC level in Bangladesh. The purpose of the present study is to determine whether students at college level encounter problems in English pronunciation. The present study also aims to unearth reasons working behind the negligence toward pronunciation. To do so, students were interviewed with the Reading Survey focusing on problematic utterance in terms of sound and orthography for Bangladeshi learners as suggested by some previous studies. The findings show that pronunciation teaching is inadequate in policy and practice. Finally possible remedial measure for integrating pronunciation with other skills with the help of a Balanced Approach to teaching pronunciation and same inquiries in other se...

Pronunciation, despite being an obviously important component of speech and anticipated communication, seems to enjoy little or no room in the policy and practice in Bangladesh. This study, therefore, aimed at exploring the issues of teaching oral proficiency specifically pronunciation at the HSC level in Bangladesh. The purpose of the present study is to determine whether students at college level encounter problems in English pronunciation. The present study also aims to unearth reasons working behind the negligence toward pronunciation. To do so, students were interviewed with the Reading Survey focusing on problematic utterance in terms of sound and orthography for Bangladeshi learners as suggested by some previous studies. The findings show that pronunciation teaching is inadequate in policy and practice. Finally possible remedial measure for integrating pronunciation with other skills with the help of a Balanced Approach to teaching pronunciation and same inquiries in other se...

When 'we' are having 'fixities' with regard to the treatment of women, there is another group of people who think that women are not actually what 'we' mean by 'women'. My paper is about these mystic peoples' mystic woman(hood). The mystic peoples in this paper refer to the fakirs, shaadus, sufis and bauls who have a unique way of life as well as a different philosophy of life. They define women from a spiritual perspective. They believe that man(~hood/~liness) de/fines woman(~hood/~liness) and vice versa. They say that only the Absolute One is the Man; and, every other single individual on earth is a 'woman'; more elaborately to say, whatever is 'seen' belongs to womanliness. Besides, because they say that the Liquid God abides in a woman's menstrual blood and a man's semen plays not less vital role in getting the answers of their mystic questions which they call the Shams' Questions, it is not less than a puzzle too. As a Radha can play with her de/constructive role, so a Krishna can also play with the way of the world only if/when he can transform his unconscious 'Radhaness' into conscious 'Krishnaness'. My paper deals with the essence of mystic woman(hood) from the perspectives of the mystic peoples who think that woman is the 'cause' of the universe, and the Man from somewhere – inside, outside, within, above or beyond – is 'enjoying' the everlasting play.

Believe it or not: knowing the Self is in the centre of the Bauls, Baul songs and Baul Tatwa. The questions which they are besotted with are: who I am; why I am who and what I am; and when, where and how I am. Their journey starts with the suspension of dis/belief; the last stage is their mysterious and mystical understanding of the recognition of the Self as the Supreme Self, i.e., the metamorphosis of the Self into the Supreme Self. Thoughts, meditation and practice are the means of knowing the Self. Having achieved their mystical power, they free themselves from 'materiality' and get attached to 'metareality'. The Bauls cannot be separated from two things: Guru or Spiritual Guide and Gaan or songs. They communicate their lived experiences through their songs which are unlike other forms of songs for three reasons: style, structure and content. Baul Tatwa, i.e., the principles of the Bauls, is in fact a set of beliefs, values, practices, rituals and principles, which is blessed with multi-religiosity. It is both partly written and mostly secret; the secret part is basically in oral form. Alongside the search for the Form of the most High living in the guise of the Form of a human inside the human body, they search for the Driving Force which differentiates a dead body from a living body. Besides, women and sexuality play a vital role for the Bauls to know the Self. This paper will include a talk on the dirty or gray matters of the Bauls and the most received ideas about the so-called illogical and paralogical Bauls, Baul songs and Baul Tatwa. Last but not least, this paper's focus is also to justify whether the Bauls are right-wing, left-wing, conservative, liberal, progressive, or rather simply Baul.

Sometimes hegemonic dislocation, i.e., diaspora of the people of colour in the era of chaos and crisis metamorphoses a ‘god’ into a ‘dog’ and a ‘dog’ into a ‘god’, whereupon the ‘god’, as a victim of ‘eternal’ colonial discourses and practices, plays the role of a ‘dog’ and a ‘dog’ seems to be a ‘god’ in case of public imagination — which is consistently changing by the virtue of worldwide communication facilities — in local context which turns into utopian/ dystopian ‘glocality’ due to the ‘godog’-like individuals’ appearance in comparatively ‘global’ context. My paper is about the migration of Bangladeshis and our concomitant perception which is influenced by their ‘foreign’ stories apropos their pains and/or pleasures in exile. Here in this paper, in connection with the contrast between ‘replacement’ and ‘re-placement’ of both subject and matter, I have referred to the Aristotelian notion of the Unmoved Mover in parallel with such fundamental issues as money, education and social status which, since the advent of civilization and then the enlightenment, have always been carrying the essence of a ‘good and comfortable’ life on earth, and causing the transformation mentioned above. This paper will also throw its light on the migrants’ ‘mis/recognition’ of identity as ‘an/other’ subject both at home and abroad. This paper also argues that no migration within and beyond one’s own country is ‘voluntary’ and that the migrants are ‘forced’ by the ‘Unmoved Movers’ which, in terms of the materiality of life, never stop playing the everlasting play. My paper will conclude with the migrants’ appropriation of Descartes’ notion of existence: I move (i.e., struggle, challenge, fight, risk and know), therefore I exist.

The nature and role of colonization rooted in colonial hierarchy of 'we-vs.-they' is no less than a 'white' hole in the 'coloured' history of world civilization. Keeping such other versions of colonization as postcolonization, neocolonization, decolonization and recolonization, the most recent one, in consideration as nothing but politically correct expressions and colonial notifications in course of time, postcolonial scholars prioritize such key factors as power, money and education from contemporary context in parallel with gun, coin and religion from the past context in case of analyzing their serious shaping influence on the whole process of domination, manipulation and exploitation in the guise of making, unmaking and remaking.

This paper will deal with in total five questions apropos of colonization. Answering a rhetorical question (i.e., has colonization stopped?), this paper will throw its light on the whys and wherefores. Then, the paper will showcase the critical and sentimental discourses to answer how it is functioning in contemporary context. After that, the paper will discuss how and to what extent colonization at present is different from that in the past. Finally, revisiting William Butler Yeats' gyre theory, the paper will propose for a sort of 'comparative' postcolonialism to look at the colonial miracles, that is to say, what is happening globally today in parallel with what happened in the past and what may happen in future. Last but not least, the final section of this paper will go back to its first question with a hypothesis in this regard, that is to say, the last chapter of colonization is being written, but will never be accomplished.

The relationship between colonizers and natives is the story of an age old antagonism which is still present in post-colonial period. This tension can be found in many literary texts even in detective story, like Satyajit Ray's Robertson's Ruby (1992).The story is not just a simple detective story rather the story is about the ideological struggle during colonial and post-colonial period. Here, Ray, juxtaposes the colonial and post-colonial India to portray the complex relationship between colonizers and colonized. To develop the plot, Ray introduces two very important historical events of Indian sub-continent in this story. One is Indian Rebellion of 1857 or the Sepoy Mutiny and another is Indigo plantation. The story shows how history of subjugation repeats itself in different context, in different times. In this story Ray explores the attitude of the colonizers towards the natives. He also presents how this continuous suppression results in ultimate revenge by one native. Frantz Fanon's idea of " socio-diagnostic psychiatry " explains the natives' resistance against the colonial ideology. The paper tries to find out how Ray weaves a narrative of anticolonial resistance into popular detective story.

Bangladeshi students first learn to write an academic essay at school but usually they have to memorize instead of knowing the different techniques and kinds of essays. Thus, structure or organization of the essay remains unknown to them till the tertiary level. Essay structure is usually taught in the first year of tertiary education. This research aims to focus on the current situation of the tertiary level students’ academic writing. It isa both quantitative and qualitative studybased on an analysis of thirty cause and effect essay scripts.The findings suggest that the majority of the studentstried to follow the instruction properly. Though they made some mistakes,they tried to follow the instruction regarding the structureof the essay.

Generally, women are marginalized in folktales and fairytales where most of the female characters are socially helpless, physically weak and strongly male dependent. Though some characters are strong especially those who know magic, but they are portrayed negatively such as witches or demons. It is a very common scenario in almost every folktales or fairytales of the world from Arabian Nights to our own Bangla folktales and fairytales collection of Thakaurmar Jhuli by Dakshinaranjan Mitra Majumdar (1907). It may be observed that in the book almost every women characters are stereotyped except Kironmala. At the very first look, the protagonist Kironmala seems different from other female characters in the collection: She is brave and adventurous and her activities are almost similar to the activities of male heroes in the collection. This review study aims at identifying if Kironmala is truly different from the other women characters of the collection; or she is just another brick of the wall where at the end Kironmala stands just as an image of the patriarchal society.

Language and society are interrelated and thus language is considered as the reflector of a society where each and every linguistic encounter represents relationship of a number of socio-political aspects. As haggling encounters between daily travelers and drivers in Dhaka is a routine affair, this interplay mirrors power relationships and socio pragmatic features of Bangladeshi society. To analyze, 18 haggling conversations between drivers (9 rickshaw pullers and 9 CNG-auto drivers) and commuters to fix a negotiated fare were recorded and subsequently analyzed to identify the power variables of bargaining revealing the class struggle between the middle class and the working class. The data have been analyzed to find out the answer to the central research question: How does power relationship work during haggling interactions in transport sector? In the study, it is observed that usually the commuters dominate the drivers because of their social and economic positions. The findings also unveil that the drivers are compelled to demand for excessive fare because of the price hike of day-today essential goods. The study focuses on social groups, pragmatics of the unequal relationships of social classes and identity politics in language.

The paper focuses on animals and their functions in children’s literature since 1900. Children’s literature is one of the famous medium of entertainment for children and it is read all over the world. Animals have become common in the realms of children literature. This study is important because though animals are ruling in children’s literature for hundreds of years still a little has been researched on this topic. Mostly anthropomorphic animal characters are used in stories. Behaviorally, animals that are fully anthropomorphic are almost indistinguishable from humans; they go to school, drive cars, and deal with the same daily issues and concerns that humans have. These animal characters are effectively helping children and educating them with life lessons. Which animals were featured most often in children’s literature, would also be the focus of this paper. Dogs, cats, pigs, chickens, ducks, rabbits, mice, wolves and foxes and bears are featured most often. Story books have proved to be efficient and entertaining class material, and there is no reason to turn the back on the educational use of animals in children’s literature. This thesis paper consists of analysis of 21 story books with animal characters. Significant good teachings and moral lessons were found while doing this study.

William Faulkner (1897-1962) is now regarded as the greatest American novelist of the twentieth century. His short fiction “A Rose for Emily” is a Southern gothic horror story as it has a dark mysterious setting and it uses supernatural elements. This research focuses on the theoretical analysis of Emily Grierson’s character, the protagonist of the story whose character changed radically throughout the story. The story represents her as an aristocratic idol of southern society. William Faulkner portrayed her as a mysterious character who seems to be eccentric, strange, deep, reclusive and psychologically abnormal and he leaves it to the reader to decide whether she is crazy. She was never diagnosed or treated by mental health professionals but her behavior hints us of insanity. Miss Emily’s fall from sanity to insanity made her bed with two completely dead men. Through a psychoanalytic reading, this paper will unveil Emily’s conflicted character. Father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud developed the concepts of Oedipus complex, repression and proposed three stages of the mind’s structure, all as a part of a theoretical reference for the understanding of human psychological development and the treatment of abnormal mental conditions. By borrowing his three theories Emily’s reason and motive behind her action will be analyzed elaborately. Through this kind of study, the readers can get a further understanding of Faulkner’s intention to explore the destructive effects of repression and various aspects of human condition.