Teaching Philosophy

 Every type of teaching philosophy is grounded in the kind of personality, qualification, and training the instructor has. My philosophy stems from my deep conviction that the quality of teaching can be better sustained if it is the product of interaction between one’s research activities and the content of one’s courses.  My research, which draws on the insights of cognitive science in general and cognitive linguistics and the conceptual theory of metaphor in particular, has had a great impact not only on the content of my teachings but also on the enhancement and better understanding of how learning comes to take place in the mind of the learner. Cognitive science typically taught me that memory is one of the most important cognitive abilities, but not the only resourceful cognitive ability that students should rely upon to learn; they certainly need to think, and think in such a way that they can reflect upon various issues related to their life as human beings, their life as a citizen within their own country, and their possible life in any other country in the world. One of the important issues that they need to think about is language, but with special reference to their own language or language variety. In particular, metaphor as a cognitive tool tends to play a big role as a facilitating device in my teaching methodology as well as a subject-matter of course material.  The interaction between research and course work cannot work efficiently without accommodating the students’ needs, simplifying theory, and adapting it to their needs. My courses interact with my research by being a kind of fodder for my research, which investigates problems and difficulties arising from and through either what I teach the students or the learning difficulties that they might experience independently of what they are taught. In such a way, a maximal use is made of theory to resolve learning problems and difficulties and a maximal use is made of practical learning difficulties and problems to verify the extent to which theory and practice are in harmony with one another.

 Course title: Introduction to Stylistics  Course code: Najd 302  Course level: Five  Academic year: H  Academic term: Second semester  Room: 1008  Instructor: Professor Zouheir A. Maalej  Office number: 2127  Office hours: Sunday (8-10) and Wednesday (9-12)  Office landline:   Website:

The objective of Introduction to Stylistics is:  Sensitizing students to the role of parts of speech in creating and guiding meaning;  Equipping them with theoretical toolkits to cope with text analysis;  Raising students’ awareness about the relation between language as a mental and cultural phenomenon;  Drawing their attention to the fact that language carries and guides knowledge of the world;

 The course aims to introduce students to general issues in the stylistics of adjectives, nouns, adverbs, modal, mood, nominalization, passivization, and pronouns. In particular, the course considers language as a symbolic, and correlates syntactic structure with socio-cultural meanings and psychological effects.

 The course is PowerPoint-based.  Students are expected to have a grasp of basic issues in language.  The testing procedure will include analyzing texts, reflecting upon knowledge of the theoretical issues developed in the course.  The evaluation system will include: (i) two mid-term exams (40%), (ii) student portfolio and class participation (20%), and (iii) final exam (40%).

 Late comers will not be admitted into the class.  Absence beyond the percentage ALLOWED by King Saud University's internal regulations will AUTOMATICALLY be sanctioned by DEBARRING students from exams.  All sorts of excuses will NOT be ADMITTED except in cases of medical treatment under presentation of a medical certificate duly signed by public competent authorities.  There will be NO MAKE UP exam, unless students showed medical evidence, and students will not be accepted for TWO make-up exams.

 Stylistics CODOR  Week 1: Introduction  Week 2: Pronominalization + Practicum  Week 3: Pronominalization + Practicum  Week 4: Nominalization + Practicum  Week 5: Passivization + Practicum  Week 6: Progress test preparation  Week 7: Progress Test 1  Week 8:Progress test correction  Week 9:Evaluative modality + Practicum  Week 10: Deontic modality + Practicum  Week 11:Epistemic modality + Practicum  Week 12: Progress test preparation  Week 13: Progress Test 2  Week 14: Progress test correction

 Leech, Geoffrey & Mick Short (1981). Style in fiction: A linguistic introduction to English fictional prose. London/New York: Longman Group Ltd.  Semino, Elena & Jonathan Culpeper (1995). Stylistics. In Jef Verschueren, Jan-Ola Östman & Jan Blommaert (Eds.), Handbook of pragmatics (pp ). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co.  Wales, Katie (1989). A dictionary of stylistics. London/New York: Longman.  Widdowson, H. G. (1975). Stylistics and the teaching of literature. London: Longman.  Wilson, John (1990). Politically Speaking: The Pragmatic Analysis of Political Language. Oxford/Cambridge: Basil Blackwell.