Updike’s Use of the Qur’anic Verses in Terrorist

This article exposes Updike’s use of the Qur’anic verses in his novel Terrorist. Apparently, the writer wants to investigate a Muslim terrorist’s mind, which causes him to launch deadly attacks against the American people. However, the results of Updike’s investigation are problematic and subjective. Updike seems to be a new Orientalist who manipulates the Qur’anic scripture to assert his mastery, neutrality and intolerance of Islam for non-believers. It proves that his presentation of Islam is based on stereotyped myths and lies. The narrator claims that the protagonist “Ahmad”, under the guidance of his religious teacher Sheikh Ahmed, inspired by the irrational and suppressed tone of the Qur’an, commits a suicide attack at Lincoln Tunnel but in the end, he is persuaded by his Jewish- school- councilor to discard this idea. Conclusively, it sounds that Updike fails to detach himself from his characters and misuses the Qur’anic verses to defend his pre-supposed ideology against Islam.

Influence of Ecology on Comprehension of English Idioms and Proverbs by Pakistani Language Learners

Influence of Ecology on Comprehension of English Idioms and Proverbs by Pakistani Language Learners This study attempts to investigate influences on the comprehension of English ecology bound idioms and proverbs, without any contextual clues, by the language learners of Pakistan. Language of idioms and proverbs has its ecological roots. Ecology is used as a metaphor for physical, social, psychological and learning environment of Pakistan for language learners in this research. The researcher has used mixed methods i.e. both qualitative and quantitative approaches using the tool of a questionnaire for data collection. Content analysis has been used to analyze the data. The study is exploratory in nature and tries to sketch out the type of meanings that are perceived by Pakistani adult learners and the way they comprehend them while learning within their native ecology. The results have been described by surveying and keeping in view the theoretical frameworks of ecological and cognitive influences on the comprehension process of learners in Pakistani context. The study reveals that meaning is a matter of perception and one's ecology plays an important role in forming, understanding and interpreting it. It elucidates various connotations of ecological nature embedded in the formation of idioms or proverbs and compares this to the comprehension level of those language learners who have been brought up and studying in a different ecology. The reasons of problems in mutual intelligibility highlight the interaction between Pakistani learners' ecology and the target language ecology in which English idioms and proverbs originated.