This study analyses six political cartoons selected based on their relevance to current Iraqi political issues, specifically the period between 2005 and 2015, from American online newspapers (calgecartooms.com). The selection criteria included the cartoons' satirical elements, visual rhetoric, and their ability to engage with themes such as power dynamics, social issues, and public opinion. It sheds light on how these cartoons can function as mediators of meanings between the cartoonists and the readers. The data is examined using multimodal discourse analysis (MDA), which combines language study with the analysis of other visual elements, like colors, gestures, and images, to understand meaning (O’Halloran et al., 2011). The Visual Social Semiotics framework proposed by Kress and Van Leeuwen is applied for data analysis. According to Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006, p. 1), who built upon Halliday’s functional socio-semiotic theory of language (1975, 1978, 1994, 2004), visual texts serve as resources for encoding interpretations of experience and enacting forms of social interaction. They identify three functions of meaning that act as semiotic modes of communication: representational meaning, interactive meaning, and compositional meaning. Moreover, the study attempts to demonstrate how cartoons portray surrounding circumstances, particularly political events, and examines their role in reflecting the main issues present in our daily lives and their impact on readers' beliefs and attitudes.
The covid-19 pandemic sweeping the world and has rendered a large proportion of the workforce as they are unable to commute to work. This has resulted in employees and employers seeking alternative work arrangements, including the software industry. Then comes the need for the global market and international presence of many companies to implement the global virtual teams (GVTs). GVTs members are gradually engaged in globalized business environments across space, time and organizational boundaries via information and communication technologies. Despite the advancement of technology, the project managers are still facing many challenges in communication. Hense, to become a successful project manager still a big challenge for them. This study
... Show MoreThe purpose of this study is aimed to lay down an arranged platform suited to Iraqi constructional associations which in charge to carry out multi constructional projects, as it fulfilled management requirements and supervising, so that low - cost projects will be controlled in due term and quality. Based on primary info and observed data collected, the study thesis has been formulated in this way: Iraqi constructional sector bodies which are in charge to implement simultaneously multi constructional projects in need to reformulate its organized structure so that it will be more fitted to management and control of these projects. This thesis includes a
theoretical part contained presenting the most important resources locally and int
In high-dimensional semiparametric regression, balancing accuracy and interpretability often requires combining dimension reduction with variable selection. This study intro- duces two novel methods for dimension reduction in additive partial linear models: (i) minimum average variance estimation (MAVE) combined with the adaptive least abso- lute shrinkage and selection operator (MAVE-ALASSO) and (ii) MAVE with smoothly clipped absolute deviation (MAVE-SCAD). These methods leverage the flexibility of MAVE for sufficient dimension reduction while incorporating adaptive penalties to en- sure sparse and interpretable models. The performance of both methods is evaluated through simulations using the mean squared error and variable selection cri
... Show MoreModeling forward kinematics with neural networks allows for efficient handling of nonlinear relationships and realistic error correction in time-critical applications by relying on accurate training data. This paper presents a Multi-Layer Feed-Forward Neural Network (MLFFNN) to solve the forward kinematics of a 3-DOF robot. The proposed MLFFNN consists of 50 hidden neurons and was trained using 628319 samples to find only the position (x, y, z) of the end-effector. Data were generated by MATLAB, assuming an incremental motion of joints. The joint variables ( , , and ) are the inputs of the NN, which outputs the positions of the end effector (x, y, z) calculated using the Denavit-Hartenberg (DH) method. The results demonstrate that t
... Show MoreThe present study deals with the websites of Iraqi political parties on the internet to identify the effectiveness in providing communicative applications that help audience to participate, express their opinions, their positions, and other aspects reflecting the extent of employing modern technological tools to allow opportunities for political, and democratic participation since the internet has become an effective tool for political communications of political parties. The research sample includes eight political parties. The research concludes that the Iraqi political parties do not employ interactive communication patterns to reflect their interests in communicating with the public, providing opportunities for their participation an
... Show MoreThis research aims at investigating pupils’ ability in using discourse markers which are identified in the English textbooks of secondary schools. Four texts are chosen from third intermediate class. The four texts are short stories of different topics.
This research hypothesizes that there are no statistical significant differences among Iraqi intermediate pupils’ ability in using textual
... Show MoreThe determiner phrase is a syntactic category that appears inside the noun phrase and makes it definite or indefinite or quantifies it. The present study has found wide parametric differences between the English and Arabic determiner phrases in terms of the inflectional features, the syntactic distribution of determiners and the word order of the determiner phrase itself. In English, the determiner phrase generally precedes the head noun or its premodifying adjectival phrase, with very few exceptions where some determiners may appear after the head noun. In Arabic, parts of the determiner phrase precede the head noun and parts of it must appear after the head noun or after its postmodifying adjectival phrase creating a discontinu
... Show MoreAI in teaching English is reshaping language learning. While interest in AI-supported education is growing worldwide, research in this area is still emerging in Iraq. This review synthesizes empirical AI-based intervention studies to enhance English language learning in Iraqi higher education, and the perceptions of stakeholders regarding AI tools in language instruction. The reviewed intervention studies, comprising studies employed different AI platforms to support grammar instruction, speaking fluency, writing feedback, and pragmatic competence. These interventions yielded improvements in learners’ performance, motivation, and communicative confidence. In parallel, perception-focused studies revealed positive attitudes toward A
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