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In this paper, I argue that English could be of more relevance to the Arabian Gulf if we conceptualized it as an educational forum for familiarizing students with socio-linguistic conventions relating to a wide variety of text types and for sharpening their critical awareness of the political implications of the uses of English. I make my case against the backdrop of a particular local context in the Arabian Gulf: the current BA programme in English at the College of Arts and Social Science, Sultan Qaboos University, the Sultanate of Oman. I maintain that the programme is predicated upon conceiving of English as a field (or rather fields) of knowledge, as academic disciplines of English literature, linguistics and translation, each with its own sets of concepts and frames of reference. As such, the programme both falls short of being fully theoretically coherent and fails to take into account the recent educational developments in Oman. Drawing upon the theoretical construct of discourse, I propose an outline of an alternative BA programme in English that revolves around the uses of English and their political implications.

This paper aims to shed light on how children's literature in Africa deserves to be studied because African writers “decolonize” the minds of African children and children and adults around the world.

This paper defines children's literature from an African perspective and the “decolonization of the mind.” This is done to examine how two African writers provide narratives for children inspired by their cultures. They deal with themes, characters and symbols that interest children and adults.

Achebe and Youssef crossed many borders: the world of children and adults, animals and humans, vice and virtue, supernatural and real. Their stories take the reader on journeys that involve enriching, engaging and inspiring adventures.

Youssef and Achebe are prolific writers. Providing a survey of what is available in Arabic and Nigerian literature for children, is beyond the scope of this paper.

This paper sends a message to those in charge of the curriculum in schools in Egypt, the Arab countries, Africa and the world at large: decolonize the syllabi in schools because the world is not black and white. Literature for children that encourages critical thinking is available by African writers in Egypt, Nigeria and elsewhere.

The works discussed show that African writers are creative, and their works inspire the African child with pride in his/her identity, culture and heritage.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, no one has compared Egyptian and Nigerian literature for children before. Youssef and Achebe provide evidence that “Good literature gives the child a place in the world … and the world a place in the child.” – Astrid Lindgren.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate an English Proficiency (EP) programme and its efficacy with respect to students' academic performance in a university within a multi-lingual context, as the programme had been in effect for some years.

A quasi-experimental approach was used to study the efficacy of an EP programme in a university within a multilingual context. Data across two academic years were used, along with regression discontinuity design.

Results suggest that the EP programme had a significant and positive intervention effect on students' initial semester grade point average. The programme effect size was found to be medium to large.

It might be useful to extend the study for one more year for more concrete conclusions. As the study was anchored upon the structure of the 2016 EP programme, any major curricular/structural change to the programme warrants another study.

This study demonstrated that the implementation of EP programmes in higher education institutions is essential not only for international students who are foreign language speakers of English but also for domestic students in English-speaking countries, especially for bi/multilingual speakers.

Previous studies related to the efficacy of EP within higher education have focused on international students who speak English as an additional/foreign language. Further, most studies have focussed on students' self-reported experiences and have yielded disparate findings. This study contributes to scholarship as it addresses the under-researched area related to domestic students who speak English as the first language in a bi/multi-lingual context.

The purpose of this paper is to reach a deeper understanding of the Lean principle of respect for people (RFP to facilitate Lean implementation in Western organizations outside Toyota.

This study uses an interpretative, hermeneutic approach to understand the RFP concept through a literature study of existing research about Lean implementation, and an inquiry into the underlying meaning of the RFP principle, by studying sources from Toyota and discussions about the RFP principle in Japan.

RFP is seen as a central principle in Lean implementations, but the failure of RFP is believed to cause Lean implementations to fail. The literature about Lean discusses the RFP principle both as a general positive atmosphere and as focused on developing the work capacity of employees. By studying the sources from Toyota, it could be understood that RFP is based on ought-respect. The authors also find that RFP is related to takumi, a perfected form of craftsmanship. The authors translate the concept to English by tying it to the recent literature about craft to develop RFP as RFC – respect for craftsmanship.

As this is a conceptual paper, it is difficult to translate the findings into a tool for companies and organizations to use. However, that is the point of the paper: that the most important ideas are not translatable into tools.

It is necessary in Lean implementations to connect people’s work to craftsmanship. Through a discussion of craftsmanship before Lean implementations, it might be possible to nurture an understanding of the underlying values of Lean.

The authors have not found any papers that propose takumi as the base of the RFP principle, nor as a foundational concept at Toyota. It is necessary to understand the concept of takumi, as perfection in craft, to understand the RFP principle.

Metaverse is a virtual application spawned by digital technology that is becoming increasingly relevant to our lives. However, for the opportunities created and challenges posed by the metaverse, its important elements and future evolution trend remain largely unknown. Thus, this paper aims to understand the current status of metaverse research and its future research directions.

Based on the analysis of the literature data on the metaverse both in English and Chinese using Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic modeling and bibliometrics, this study discussed the related research and development trend of the metaverse. The authors first defined the concept of the metaverse and analyzed 1,378 English articles from seven publishers and 590 Chinese articles from the CNKI database. Following that, the authors summarized three important themes from the current studies: virtual world, metaverse technologies and metaverse applications. Finally, a framework of future directions on metaverse research was proposed.

The review found that during the rapid development of the metaverse, opportunities and challenges coexisted. In the virtual world, metaverse technologies drive the implementation of application scenarios, and in turn, applications promote the improvement of technologies. The interrelationship between technology and application lays the foundation for the development of the metaverse. Future metaverse research will generate different research directions.

This review provides a valuable, systematic perspective for individuals who want to understand the metaverse. The conceptual framework on metaverse research proposed in this paper offers a comparison of literature analysis from domestic and international perspectives and brings new insights into the development of the metaverse.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the needs of potential end-users of a database dedicated to Swedish lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI) literature (e.g. prose, poetry, drama, graphic novels/comics, and illustrated books), in order to inform the development of a database, search interface functionalities, and an LGBTQI thesaurus for fiction.

A web questionnaire was distributed in autumn 2021 to potential end-users. The questions covered people's reasons for reading LGBTQI fiction, ways of finding LGBTQI fiction, experience of searching for LGBTQI fiction, usual search elements applied, latest search for LGBTQI fiction, desired subjects to search for, and ideal search functionalities.

The 101 completed questionnaires showed that most respondents found relevant literature through social media or friends and that most obtained copies of literature from a library. Regarding desirable search functionalities, most respondents would like to see suggestions for related terms to support broader search results (i.e. higher recall). Many also wanted search support that would enable retrieving more specific results based on narrower terms when too many results are retrieved (i.e. higher precision). Over half would also appreciate the option to browse by hierarchically arranged subjects.

This study is the first to show how readers of LGBTQI fiction in Sweden search for and obtain relevant literature. The authors have identified end-user needs that can inform the development of a new database and a thesaurus dedicated to LGBTQI fiction.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the phonological metathesis phenomenon in the early speech of Arabic-speaking children. Based on analysis of a longitudinal data from 11 children's speech, the study mainly aims at investigating (1) the characteristics/nature of the phonological metathesis process in early child speech and (2) how it is different from adult phonological metathesis. The study explores the causes behind the metathesis phonological process in child speech.

This paper explored the phonological metathesis phenomenon based on a longitudinal study of 11 monolingual Arabic speakers of Yemeni-Ibbi Dialect (YIA) and cross-linguistic data from various languages.

The data analysis showed that metathesis phenomenon in child speech has several characteristics. It occurs at an early age, at 2 years and decreases with age. It was found that metathesis occurs mostly in disyllabic and trisyllabic words or more complex syllabic words, but metathesis rarely occurs in monosyllabic words in children's speech. The results indicated that unlike metathesis in adult speech, metathesis in children's speech occurs in undeliberate, slow, fast speech. The study explored that adjacency of sounds with similar phonological features, the ease of pronunciation, or the sonority effect are the motivations that trigger metathesis phenomenon to occur in child speech.

In the literature, the metathesis phonological process has got a little attention from researchers, and this is due to the rare cases of metathesis and the inconsistency of cases and the occurrence of metathesis. However, there is no consensus among the researchers about the causes of emergence and the occurrences behind the metathesis process. However, this study argues that the metathesis process has unique characteristics in child speech in comparison to adult speech and that there are some causes for metathesis to occur in human speech particularly in children's data such as adjacency of sounds with similar phonological features or sonority effect.