Traduction et Langues

Editorial: Language Mediation as Meaning-Making, Access, and Institutional Practice

Daniel Xerri — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This editorial examines language mediation as a situated practice through which meaning, access, participation, and institutional relations are negotiated. It synthesises recent literature across four interrelated areas: intercultural mediation, multilingual mediation, mediation as a resource for learning and meaning-making, and mediation as access, power, and institutional practice. The discussion argues that mediation involves interpretative, relational, ethical, pedagogical, technological, and political work rather than neutral transfer between languages or contexts. It considers how translators, interpreters, teachers, learners, institutions, and technologies participate in the reformulation and circulation of meaning, while also shaping what becomes intelligible, legitimate, and accessible. The editorial then relates this conceptual discussion to the articles in issue 25.1 of Traduction et Langues, which is organised around translation studies and intercultural mediation; language teaching, pedagogy, and educational practices; language, discourse, and cultural representations; and language policy and institutional transformations. The issue’s contributions examine topics including Vietnamese endearment terms, Qur’anic reciprocal ellipsis, audiovisual translation, multilingual dubbing, AI-assisted translation of greeting formulae and diplomatic texts, educational reform, classroom meaning clarification, culturally responsive literacy, teacher development, English-medium instruction listening strategies, Business German, gender representation in literary discourse, written text on cinema screens, and Algeria’s shift from French to English in higher education. These studies show that mediation operates across translation, pedagogy, discourse, technology, and policy as a process through which language practices are adapted to particular audiences, purposes, histories, and institutional conditions. The editorial positions mediation as both enabling and ambivalent: it can widen participation, foster intercultural understanding, and support access to knowledge, but it can also obscure loss, reproduce asymmetry, reinforce institutional priorities, or constrain whose meanings are recognised.

Strategies for Translating Endearment Terms: The Case of Oxford Thương Yêu (‘Beloved Oxford’)

Lien-Huong Vo , Ngoc-Tai Huynh , Thuy-Hang Tran — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Literary translation involves more than the transfer of semantic content from a source text into a target language; it also requires the recreation of emotional, interpersonal, and culturally embedded meanings so that target readers may engage with the literary work in ways comparable to the original readership. This study examines the strategies employed in translating Vietnamese terms of endearment into English. It focuses on Duong Thuy’s contemporary Vietnamese novel Oxford thương yêu and Elbert Bloom’s English translation, Beloved Oxford. Drawing on Newmark’s (1988) and Baker’s (1992) classifications of translation strategies, the study develops a nine-strategy framework for analysing each endearment term. It further identifies the dimensions of meaning that are successfully transferred and those that resist translation, while providing explanations for cases of partial or full untranslatability. The combination of qualitative interpretation and quantitative description enhances the rigour and coherence of the analytical process. The findings indicate that seven of the nine strategies were used in translating endearment terms: literal translation, transposition, paraphrase, omission, superordination, borrowing, and couplets or triplets. Although most semantic components were adequately conveyed, some strategies generated partial semantic loss, thereby affecting translation quality. The study suggests that endearment terms remain particularly challenging because they encode culturally specific forms of affection, intimacy, hierarchy, and interpersonal relations in Vietnamese and English. Its findings contribute to research on the translation of affective and relational language and offer a basis for further studies on endearment terms in literary translation.

Iḥtibāk, Reciprocal Ellipsis, in the Qur’an: A Comparative Rhetorical and Translation Study

Muhammad Ahmad Ibrahim Aljahsh — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Iḥtibāk, commonly rendered as reciprocal ellipsis, denotes a rhetorical structure in which corresponding elements are omitted from two related expressions, each omitted component being recoverable from its counterpart in the text. In Qur’anic discourse, iḥtibāk combines concision with precision and produces a controlled movement of meaning between explicit expression and readerly inference. Although classical Arabic rhetoricians and exegetes examined this device in detail, its treatment in English translations of the Qur’an has received limited scholarly attention, particularly with regard to implied meaning, inferential processing, and the theory of naẓm. This article investigates iḥtibāk through a comparative rhetorical and translation-oriented approach. It begins with al-Zarkashī’s formulation of al-ḥadhf al-muqābalī and then traces subsequent discussions in al-Suyūṭī and al-Biqāʿī. This theoretical grounding clarifies the technical meaning of the concept and distinguishes iḥtibāk from ordinary ellipsis. The study subsequently classifies selected Qur’anic examples according to the semantic relations linking stated and omitted elements, including contrast, correspondence, causality, and contextual implication. These examples are then analysed in five English translations of the Qur’an: Abdel Haleem, Yusuf Ali, Hilali-Khan, Pickthall, and Asad. The analysis demonstrates that iḥtibāk is not a merely accidental omission of wording but a purposeful rhetorical arrangement that contributes to the construction of meaning. The translations examined vary considerably: some preserve the compactness of the Arabic where English allows, others explicate the implied meaning, some adopt a tafsīr-oriented expansion, and others rely on notes to guide interpretation. The article concludes that translating iḥtibāk requires careful attention to the relationship between form and meaning in the Qur’anic text. Translators must therefore decide whether to preserve the elliptical structure, explicate it, or combine both procedures. The study calls for Qur’an translation approaches that more systematically account for rhetorical structure and the role of inference in completing meaning.

Intercultural and Ideological Transmission in the Subtitling of African Films into German and German Films into English

Rasaq Atanda Ajadi — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Audiovisual translation has become a central medium of intercultural communication within global media circulation. Yet scholarship on subtitling has often prioritised technical accuracy and linguistic equivalence, while paying comparatively limited attention to subtitles as sites of ideological negotiation and cultural mediation, especially in African-European cinematic exchanges. This study addresses this gap by examining how subtitles transmit, reshape, or attenuate cultural meanings, ideological positions, and identity constructions across languages and sociocultural contexts. It adopts a qualitative interpretive design informed by Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), Critical Stylistics (CSA), and functionalist perspectives on audiovisual translation, particularly Skopos theory and translation equivalence frameworks. The corpus comprises three African films subtitled in German-Lumumba, What a Wonderful World, and No Time to Die-together with the German film Nirgendwo in Afrika subtitled in English. Selected subtitle extracts and interactional sequences were analysed to identify recurrent patterns of ideological framing and cultural mediation. The findings indicate that subtitling is not a neutral mechanism of linguistic transfer but an ideologically situated and culturally performative practice. Subtitles often attenuate political resistance, simplify culture-bound expressions, neutralise indigenous epistemologies, and recalibrate gendered and migration-related identities in accordance with target-language norms. Lexical substitution, semantic narrowing, modality shifts, pragmatic omission, and selective explicitation emerge as recurring strategies that shape audience perceptions of power, identity, and belonging. The study concludes that subtitles actively participate in constructing and transforming intercultural meaning. It therefore underscores the need for culturally responsive subtitling practices capable of preserving ideological nuance, cultural specificity, and more equitable forms of cross-cultural representation in audiovisual communication.

Traduction de formules de salutation français–espagnol par l’intelligence artificielle : analyse traductologique et typologie d’erreurs

Mireia López-Simó — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Greeting and closing formulae are interactional routines that play a central role in intercultural communication and raise specific challenges for translation between French and Spanish. Although these units have been widely studied from pragmatic, sociolinguistic and conversational perspectives, their treatment by current AI-based translation systems remains insufficiently explored from a translation-studies approach. Methods: This article analyses a bilingual corpus of 361 occurrences extracted from digitised textual and oral corpora, accessible through databases such as Frantext, CREA, and CORDE. The study first classifies the formulae according to their global position in the interaction, their degree of pragmatic fixation, and their local conversational position. It then compares the translations produced by DeepL Pro, a neural machine translation system, and ChatGPT-4o, a generative artificial intelligence system capable of performing translation tasks. Results: The findings show that both systems encounter difficulties when the pragmatic value of a formula depends on context, register, sociocultural convention, or sequential position. The most recurrent problems include errors of interpretation, such as counter-sense, false sense, and loss, as well as errors of reformulation, including omissions, barbarisms, and improprieties. These errors are particularly visible in polyfunctional formulae, whose translation requires the identification of whether the expression opens, maintains, or closes an interaction. The study demonstrates that translating pragmatic phraseological units requires more than lexical equivalence; it also demands contextual, interactional, and intercultural competence. The proposed error typology contributes to the evaluation of AI-assisted translation and highlights the need to integrate pragmatic and discourse-based data more effectively into neural and generative translation models.

Exploring the Role of AI in Diplomacy-related Translation Tasks: An Empirical Study on ChatGPT's Potential Use in Diplomatic Texts’ Translation

Yaşar Akgün , Nihal Yetkin-Karakoç , Mirza İşi — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Diplomatic language, with its culturally sensitive and formally stratified character, presents distinctive challenges for translation. Although artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, have shown considerable potential in technical and pragmatic translation tasks, their applicability to the specialised domain of diplomatic translation remains underexamined. This study addresses this gap by empirically assessing ChatGPT’s performance in translating diplomatic texts in comparison with human translators. Three diplomatic texts—two translated from English into Turkish and one from Turkish into English—were assigned to five third- and fourth-year undergraduate students enrolled in the English Translation and Interpreting Department at Izmir University of Economics, all of whom had completed a course in political text translation. The same texts were translated by ChatGPT (GPT-4o) using the prompt: “Translate the following texts with a diplomatic tone.” To ensure blind evaluation, all translations were handwritten and anonymised before submission. A jury consisting of two scholars in international relations and one retired ambassador evaluated the translations using a five-criterion rubric. ChatGPT obtained the highest overall score among the six participants and outperformed the five human translators across all three texts. The margin was narrowest in Text 3, translated from Turkish into English, yet ChatGPT still achieved the highest score. This result may be attributed to the formulaic and template-based nature of diplomatic correspondence, which aligns with the pattern-recognition capacities of LLMs trained on large, English-dominant datasets. The study suggests that ChatGPT has substantial potential for written diplomatic translation, particularly in texts conforming to established diplomatic conventions. These findings have implications for translation pedagogy, diplomatic communication, and the integration of AI tools into professional translation workflows. Future research should extend the inquiry to interpreting contexts and to more rhetorically complex diplomatic texts.

Du scénario original à la traduction audiovisuelle multilingue : les leviers du rayonnement mondial du film Dachra d’Abdelhamid Bouchnak

Faten Ridene — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Within contemporary Tunisian cinema, Dachra (2018), directed by Abdelhamid Bouchnak, marks a significant turning point by establishing an unprecedented model of artistic, cultural, and international success. As Tunisia’s first feature-length horror film, it is also notable for its independent production model and exceptional domestic reception, exceeding 100,000 admissions during its first week of theatrical release (Hakka, 2019). Beyond this national achievement, Dachra has become one of the most widely circulated Tunisian productions internationally, supported by a distribution strategy based on multiple modes of audiovisual translation. This study examines the extent to which audiovisual translation strategies contributed to the film’s international reach. It adopts a qualitative case-study approach that combines film analysis, translation analysis, and a comparative examination of excerpts from the original Tunisian version, the Spanish dubbed version, and the English and Korean subtitled versions. The findings indicate that Dachra’s international success cannot be attributed to audiovisual translation alone. Rather, it results from the convergence of several complementary factors, including the film’s innovative positioning within the horror genre, its strong grounding in the Tunisian sociocultural imagination, the universal resonance of its themes, and the adaptation of its distribution strategy to the linguistic specificities of different international markets. The comparative analysis further shows that dubbing and subtitling fulfil complementary functions as forms of cultural mediation. While dubbing enhances immersion and narrative accessibility for target audiences, subtitling more effectively preserves the linguistic and cultural features of the original work. The study thus positions audiovisual translation as a strategic driver of the international circulation of cinematic works, while emphasising that its effectiveness remains closely tied to a film’s narrative, aesthetic, and cultural qualities.

Teachers’ perceptions of educational reform: A comparative study of EFL/ESL contexts in Algeria, Uganda, and the United States

Djouima Leila , Richard Watuulo , Erin Watters — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Educational reforms are sustained processes of systemic change in educational policies, structures, and practices designed to improve the quality, equity, and relevance of education in response to societal needs (Fullan, 2007). Because these needs vary across contexts, reform implementation is inevitably shaped by local institutional, cultural, and pedagogical conditions. Despite the global diffusion of competency-based reforms, a persistent gap remains between policy intentions and classroom practice. Building on this gap, the present study investigates how teachers perceive educational reform across diverse Global North and Global South teaching contexts. Specifically, it examines English language teachers’ perceptions of reform in Algeria, Uganda, and the United States. Using a single-instrument survey design with embedded qualitative components, the study adopted a mixed-methods approach. Data were collected from fifty-seven (57) EFL, ESL, and English Language Arts (ELA) teachers through a structured questionnaire combining Likert-scale and open-ended items. The analysis focused on teachers’ perceptions of reform objectives, implementation processes, institutional support, and classroom impact. The findings reveal substantial cross-contextual convergence, particularly regarding limited teacher participation in reform design, insufficient professional development, increased workload, and weak alignment between policy expectations and classroom realities. Differences also emerged between Global North and Global South contexts: Algeria and Uganda emphasised implementation constraints, whereas the United States foregrounded accountability pressures. Although contexts differed in governance structures, reform visibility, and resource distribution, reforms were consistently experienced as top-down processes that constrained teacher agency and engagement. The study concludes that implementation challenges derive less from teacher resistance than from structural and contextual misalignment. It therefore calls for participatory, context-sensitive, and resource-supported reform models.

Clarification du sens en classe de langues : pratiques différenciées entre enseignants natifs et non-natifs

Florina Bălan , Monica Vlad — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This article presents an ethnographic and linguistic study conducted in the Romanian secondary education system, specifically in public high schools in Bucharest, and examines the meaning-clarification practices used by native and non-native language teachers in classroom interaction. The study addresses a research gap concerning the differentiated pedagogical use of translation, reformulation, paraphrasing, and code-switching in foreign language teaching within the Romanian educational context. Adopting a qualitative ethnographic methodology, the research draws on semi-structured interviews with six native teachers and seven non-native teachers, as well as eight focus groups with students from six public educational institutions. The methodological framework combines discourse analysis with an examination of verbal and non-verbal communication strategies used during teaching and learning. The findings show that both native and non-native teachers employ a wide range of meaning-clarification techniques to facilitate comprehension and knowledge transmission in multilingual classrooms. However, the study also identifies differentiated practices shaped by teachers’ linguistic backgrounds, professional trajectories, and pedagogical representations. The originality of the research lies in its comparative ethnographic perspective on classroom discourse and in its contribution to a deeper understanding of intercultural and multilingual pedagogical communication. The study further highlights the importance of adaptive clarification strategies in improving language acquisition and classroom interaction, as they help learners overcome communication barriers and participate more actively in learning processes. Theoretically, the article contributes to current debates on multilingual education and teacher identity. From a practical and policy-oriented perspective, it underscores the need for teacher training programmes that integrate intercultural communication and flexible language-mediation practices.

Enhancing Literacy through Culturally Responsive Pedagogy: Exploring the Intersection of Language, Culture, and Inclusive Education in Indonesian Elementary Schools

Ismail Ismail , Jabri Umiyati, Rahmat Rahmat — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Literacy development in Indonesian elementary schools remains uneven because formal curriculum expectations do not always align with learners’ sociocultural realities, local languages, and unequal access to learning resources. Although culturally responsive pedagogy and inclusive education have been widely discussed, limited comparative evidence explains how these approaches are enacted across urban, semi-urban, and rural school contexts in Indonesia. This study employed a qualitative multiple-case study design in three public elementary schools in South Sulawesi. Data were collected from 12 teachers, 3 principals, and 24 fifth-grade students through classroom observations, semi-structured interviews, student small-group discussions, and document analysis. The data were analysed thematically through deductive and inductive coding to identify patterns relating to literacy access, instructional adaptation, student participation, digital inclusion, and curriculum-context tensions. The findings indicate that inclusive literacy practices were shaped by the interaction of material access, teacher agency, culturally familiar texts, dialogic learning, and institutional support. Urban schools had stronger print and digital resources; however, meaningful participation still depended on teachers’ capacity to mediate texts, tasks, and classroom interaction in contextually relevant ways. Semi-urban schools demonstrated active adaptation through local stories, collaborative routines, and flexible questioning, whereas rural schools relied on oral storytelling, visual support, local dialect mediation, and community-based examples to broaden participation despite limited infrastructure. The study offers original comparative evidence showing that culturally responsive pedagogy functions as a practical mechanism for inclusive literacy within unequal school ecologies. Theoretically, it extends literacy-as-social-practice perspectives by linking participation, culture, and equity in classroom literacy processes. Practically and at policy level, the findings highlight the need for localised literacy materials, differentiated teacher professional development, stronger school-based learning communities, and more equitable distribution of print and digital resources so that literacy instruction can respond more directly to learners’ cultural, linguistic, and material conditions.

Pedagogical Training and the Development of Professional Postures among Newly Recruited University Teachers: A case study from Algeria

Ahmed Mostafoui , Fatima Zahra Mokhtari — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The professional development of university teachers has become a major priority in higher education, driven by pedagogical reforms, digital transformation, and evolving expectations regarding teaching and learning. Despite increasing attention to pedagogical training, little research has examined its impact on newly recruited teachers’ instructional perspectives and professional postures in Algeria. This study addresses this gap by investigating the influence of a structured training programme on the teaching perspectives, professional postures, and pedagogical beliefs of newly recruited teachers at Ibn Khaldoun University of Tiaret during the 2024–2025 academic year. Grounded in a socio-constructivist framework, the research examines changes observed during the 2024–2025 training cycle through a convergent mixed-methods design. Quantitative data were collected from 100 participants through pre- and post-training Teaching Perspectives Inventory (TPI) administrations, while qualitative insights were obtained from post-training questionnaires completed by 61 participants. The findings reveal a significant shift from transmissive conceptions of teaching toward more learner-centred and reflective approaches, with Nurturing and Apprenticeship perspectives predominating. Participants reported stronger alignment between learning objectives and instructional practices, increased confidence, and greater intention to foster students’ reasoning and autonomy. However, persistent tensions emerged between innovative pedagogical intentions and institutional constraints, particularly assessment pressures and difficulties in transferring training outcomes to classroom practice. The study underscores the transformative potential of sustained pedagogical training while emphasising the need for institutional conditions that support the implementation of new practices. It contributes empirical evidence on the usefulness of the TPI for assessing training effectiveness in a new higher education context and offers insights for policy and practice in comparable settings.

Fostering Students’ Readiness for English-Medium Instruction (EMI) Through the Development of Listening Strategies

Maamar Missoum — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Many countries have adopted English as a medium of instruction in higher education, and in 2022 the Algerian government initiated a similar policy shift. For such a policy to succeed, university students must possess adequate English proficiency. Listening is central to both language use and knowledge acquisition, since in EMI contexts learners rely on listening ability to understand disciplinary content delivered in lectures. However, many EFL students struggle to develop the level of English listening competence required to benefit fully from EMI instruction. Listening strategies may either facilitate or hinder learning in EMI courses, depending on how effectively they are deployed. Given the scarcity of research on this issue in Algeria, the present study investigates the listening strategies used by students in the English Department at Blida 2 University, Algeria. In Algerian English departments, content courses such as linguistics and civilisation are taught in English and represent 50% of BA credits and 100% of MA credits. This context therefore provides an appropriate setting for examining listening in English-medium content instruction. Strategy use was analysed in relation to participants’ gender, English proficiency, and educational background. Understanding students’ strategic behaviour may help make EFL listening strategy instruction in Algerian English departments more conducive to academic achievement in content courses. Data were collected through three instruments: a listening comprehension test, a listening strategy-use questionnaire, and listening course syllabi. The instruments were reviewed for content validity by an expert and designed with reference to the relevant literature. The questionnaire was completed by eighty-one (81) randomly selected students, and the data were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively. As an exploratory study, the findings are not intended for broad generalisation but should be viewed as initial insights. The main findings indicate apparent similarity in strategy use across the variables examined, suggest that appropriate strategy use may matter more than frequency of use, point to limited learner engagement, and reveal insufficient training in listening strategies. Recommendations are offered to improve listening strategy instruction in Algerian English departments and to support students in developing more effective listening strategies for learning from English-medium lectures.

Effektive Methoden zur Vermittlung von Wirtschaftsdeutsch: Sprachliche und kulturelle Kompetenzen für ein internationales Geschäftsumfeld

Fethi Betka , Mohamed Sadek Cheikh — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Globalisation and digitalisation have reshaped professional communication, making Business German a key competence that connects specialised language, intercultural sensitivity, and professional agency. Although scenario-based learning, translanguaging, and action-oriented language-for-specific-purposes didactics are well established in European research, context-specific accounts of Business German teaching in multilingual, postcolonial higher-education settings in the Maghreb remain scarce. This gap is particularly evident in vocationally oriented German-as-a-Foreign-Language (GFL) didactics. This article offers a theory-led, practice-based reflection situated within the tradition of action research. Drawing on several years of teaching Business German modules in the Master’s programme “Langue de Spécialité et communication” at the University of Oran 2 Mohamed Ben Ahmed, it analyses authentic materials, students’ productions, and teachers’ observation notes across three dimensions: material authenticity, task-based action orientation, and intercultural depth. The reflection shows that integrating authentic economic texts, scenario-based simulations, and digital tools can foster specialised accuracy, intercultural awareness, and professional action competence simultaneously. The multilingual repertoire of Algerian students—Arabic, Darija, Tamazight, and French—functions as a didactic resource rather than an obstacle, although recurring tensions related to text difficulty, cultural friction in role-plays, and infrastructural limitations qualify the approach. Business German is most effective when taught as an integrated, action-oriented competence anchored in realistic professional situations. The study contributes an original, context-sensitive model for multilingual GFL settings and offers implications for curriculum design and employability policy in Maghrebi higher education. It also points to the need for follow-up empirical research that systematically captures learner perspectives and competence development in order to validate these observations and assess their transferability to comparable contexts.

Verbal markers of Gender Roles Expression in the English-Language Literary Discourse through Truman Capote’s novella “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale”

Larysa Shchyhlo, Diana Movchan, Svitlana Aleksenko, Аnna Rohulia — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Gender identity and gender stereotypes constitute important dimensions of social communication, and their study in literary discourse contributes to understanding the mechanisms through which they are formed and represented. Examining the verbal expression of gender roles in literature makes it possible not only to trace the linguistic strategies used by authors but also to analyse their potential impact on readers. Despite growing scholarly interest in gender studies, insufficient attention has been devoted to comparative analyses of the verbal means through which gender roles are constructed in English-language literary discourse. This study addresses this gap by examining the linguistic representation of gender in selected literary works. The research employed several complementary methods: the inductive-deductive method was used to observe, describe, and classify gender characteristics in English-language literary discourse; the descriptive-analytical method supported direct analysis of linguistic features at the empirical level, followed by comparison and generalisation; and componential, contextual, and stylistic analyses were applied to describe semantic components and identify patterns of realisation in the texts. The analysis of verbal means expressing gender roles in Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale demonstrates the diversity of approaches to gender representation in English-language literary discourse. The study shows that lexical, stylistic, and semantic means play a central role in shaping character images and in reflecting social norms, stereotypes, and cultural expectations. The findings and conclusions are of practical relevance for linguists and other specialists interested in gender linguistics, literary discourse, and the language-based construction of identity.

Le texte-image à l'écran : écriture et discours multimodal au cinéma de fiction

Martázul Busto Núñez — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Written text has rarely constituted a central object of film studies, except in analyses of opening and closing credits. Approaches to these credits, often focused on aesthetics and typography, have rightly considered them as units possessing a degree of independence from the films in which they appear. This article argues for an approach to written language that treats it as a fully-fledged semiotic mode coexisting with auditory and visual modes within films, and therefore as an essential component of comprehensive film analysis. To substantiate this perspective through practical examples, the study applies it to a specific case: the representation of screens in fiction films, based on a limited sample of contemporary French-language works. This choice reflects a reality that has transformed twenty-first-century filmic diegesis, namely the integration of screens, especially smartphones, into everyday life and their increasing role as narrative catalysts. Adopting a semio-pragmatic approach grounded in the multimodal nature of filmic discourse, the study establishes a taxonomy of how screens function as fictional vehicles for written language. This classification also makes it possible to map the homogenisation between diegetic reality, that is, the fictional world, and cinematic reality, namely the techniques and stylistic devices of film. Such harmonisation operates at the level of meaning and sensation, linking the fictional discourse produced at the source/production side with the audience positioned at the receiving end—an audience that may, in certain contexts, simultaneously assume the role of analyst. The descriptions and resulting classification attest to the significant expressive power of the text-image, understood as written text in its dual linguistic and aesthetic nature. Examining this hybrid semiotic mode opens a methodological path that enriches the analysis of cinematic discourse.

From Ideological Struggle to Technical Debate: Algeria’s Higher Education Language Policy Shift from French to English

Houria Adnane, Lahouari Benlahcene, Mohamed Saad Alfiky, Omran Haron — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Algeria’s higher education sector has recently embarked on an ambitious , contested linguistic transition, shifting from French to English as the primary medium of instruction and scientific research Drawing on a rigorous documentary analysis of macro-level policy texts, constitutional provisions, and ministerial directives, alongside a critical engagement with language policy and English-Medium Instruction (EMI) literature, this article traces how the Algerian sociolinguistic debate has evolved. Specifically, it examines the shift from an intense, historical ideological struggle rooted in colonial legacy and the post-independence Arabisation project, toward a technical, pragmatic discourse centered on pedagogical efficacy and institutional readiness. Our macro-political and pedagogical analysis advances three critical, central arguments regarding this systemic reorientation. First, the hegemony of English in global scientific publishing and academic metrics provides an objective rationale that tempers the historical, identity-driven resistance that undermined earlier initiatives, notably the abortive 1993–1994 reform. Second, the current top-down velocity of implementation, paired with insufficient scaffolding for faculty and student linguistic proficiency, risks inducing transitional systemic shocks and declines in academic achievement, echoing the Rwandan shock-therapy transition while contrasting with Malaysia’s more successful gradualist strategy. Third, English operates as a mediating variable rather than a standalone determinant of institutional visibility; its capacity to elevate university rankings depends entirely on parallel structural reforms in research funding, digital infrastructure, and international network integration. We conclude that mitigating pedagogical risks and ensuring a sustainable linguistic transition hinges on adopting an evaluation-driven, gradualist implementation model nested within a broader, comprehensive strategy of higher education modernisation and systemic integration into the global knowledge economy.