Journal of Linguistics, Literature, and Language Teaching (JLLLT)

The Interference of Maanyanese Language on English Pronunciation: A Case Study of University Students at Palangka Raya

2025-11-18T18:09:23+07:00

Phonological interference from learners' first language (L1) is a well-established factor affecting English pronunciation, yet empirical research on L1 transfer among speakers of minority languages in Indonesia, particularly Maanyanese remains scarce. Despite growing interest in L2 phonology, no previous study has examined how the Maanyanese language, with its limited vowel inventory and absence of central vowels, influences English vowel production. This study addresses that gap by analyzing the English pronunciations of three Maanyanese-speaking university students selected through purposive sampling. Using a qualitative case study design, supported by semi-structured interviews and acoustic-phonetic analysis in Praat, the research investigated how learners produced English vowels that lack direct Maanyanese equivalents. The findings reveal systematic substitution patterns such as /?/?/i/, /?/?/a/ or /u/, and the consistent avoidance of schwa, indicating predictable L1 transfer. Interpreted through the Perceptual Assimilation Model, these patterns illustrate how unfamiliar L2 vowels are assimilated into existing Maanyanese phonemic categories, shaping learners’ interlanguage phonology. Scientifically, the study contributes new evidence on L1 influence from an under-documented Indonesian language, expanding the understanding of L2 vowel acquisition in multilingual contexts. Pedagogically, the results underscore the need for explicit instruction in vowel reduction, tense–lax distinctions, and segmental contrasts not present in Maanyanese.

Investigating EFL Students’ Active-to-Passive Voice Errors through the Lens of the Surface Strategy Taxonomy

2025-12-22T16:59:28+07:00

EFL learners often find grammar challenging, particularly when using the passive voice, which often leads to errors. This study investigated the types of errors that EFL students made when converting active into passive constructions, using the Surface Strategy Taxonomy (SST) proposed by Dulay et al. (1982) as the analytical framework. A quantitative research design was employed, and data were collected through a test administered to 50 English majors in the English Language and Literature Department at Ghor University. The test consisted of 21 active sentences in various tenses, which students were required to transform into passive sentences. Analysis of the results revealed four main types of errors according to the SST model. Misformation errors were the most frequent (46.10%), followed by omission errors (34.58%). Addition errors were less common (10.85%), while misordering errors occurred the least (8.47%). The findings provide educators with valuable insights, helping them refine teaching strategies and improve students’ proficiency in the passive voice.

Language and Ideologies in Mission Statements of State and Private Universities in Ghana

2026-02-28T08:37:25+07:00

This study examines how state and private universities in Ghana construct institutional identities and ideological orientations through their mission statements. Drawing on Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework, the study analyses 63 mission statements to uncover the ideological categories encoded in these texts and the linguistic resources through which they are realized. The findings reveal thirty-two ideological orientations, with educational, developmental, professional, leadership, and national ideologies most frequently foregrounded. Linguistically, ideologies are naturalized through declarative sentence structures, non-finite clauses, nominalization, evaluative adjectives, and strategic representations of social actors. A comparative analysis shows that state universities predominantly align with national development, scientific advancement, and public service discourses, whereas private universities, especially faith-based ones, mobilize religious, entrepreneurial, global, and moral ideologies to differentiate their institutional identities. These patterns demonstrate that mission statements operate as ideological technologies that mediate institutional legitimacy, respond to socio-political pressures, and position universities within both local and global educational markets. The study contributes to Critical Discourse Studies by illuminating how higher education institutions in the Global South recontextualize globally circulating discourses within culturally and politically specific contexts. It also offers insights into how language functions as a strategic tool in institutional branding, policy alignment, and identity construction.

Mismatch Between Linguistic Structure and Facts: An Analysis of State Officials’ Statements Based on Stuart Hall’s Theory of Representation

2026-06-16T13:54:02+07:00

The phenomenon of public distrust toward state officials is not solely caused by a mismatch between language and empirical reality, but also by the complex processes through which meaning is represented within the social sphere. This study aims to analyze how state officials’ language constructs, reproduce, and distort reality through the lens of Stuart Hall’s theory of representation. Within this framework, language is understood not merely as a reflection of reality, but as a practice that actively produces meaning through systems of signs and discourse. This research employs a qualitative approach, using discourse analysis, to examine statements made by state officials in the public domain. The findings indicate that meaning within officials’ statements is dynamic and open to multiple interpretations, shaped by social context, ideology, and the positionality of the audience. Public distrust emerges from the gap between meanings encoded by officials (encoding) and those interpreted by the public (decoding), including oppositional readings. The expansion of access to information and digital literacy has strengthened the role of the public as active agents in producing and disseminating meaning, thereby diminishing officials’ exclusive control over representation. The illogicality and inconsistency found in certain statements reflect not only cognitive limitations but also a failure to construct representations aligned with the collective experiences of society. Therefore, public trust is largely determined by the success of the representational process, encompassing the construction of meaning, strategies of message encoding, and the dynamics of audience interpretation within broader social contexts.

“The Caves of Steel”: Literary Devices to Reflect Social Issues in the Futuristic Cities

2026-05-25T07:37:26+07:00

Isaac Asimov’s “The Caves of Steel” (1954) is often discussed as a foundational robot novel and a key text in the mid-century convergence of science fiction and detective fiction. This review article argues that the novel’s lasting critical value lies in the way its literary devices, especially spatial metaphor, genre hybridity, focalization, and the semiotics of the human/robot boundary, transform social anxieties into narrative structure. Drawing on scholarship in science fiction studies, urban cultural theory, and recent dissertation research, the article examines how Asimov’s enclosed-city chronotope represents overpopulation, class stratification, technological governance, and xenophobic othering in the futuristic city. Methodologically, the study combines a targeted literature review, device-centered close reading, and thematic coding of social-issue representations related to space, labor, prejudice, and technocracy. The findings indicate that Asimov’s strategy is not limited to simple allegorical substitution; rather, the detective plot performs a social-epistemological function by compelling both protagonist and reader to revise inherited assumptions about personhood, trust, and civic belonging. It further shows that the city itself operates as a formal mechanism that makes social contradictions visible, readable, and narratively manageable. The article concludes that “The Caves of Steel” remains an influential model of social science fiction in which narrative form itself stages debates about modernity’s infrastructural, ethical, and political limits.