Thesis (Bachelor of Arts in English)

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    An investigation on the impacts of professional dpevelopment on urban and suburban educators in Bangladesh
    (BRAC University, 2025-05) Prodhan, Jotirmoyee; Sultana, Syeda Farzana
    An essential area in the Bangladesh education sector is to explore the various effects of professional development on urban and suburban teachers. Basically, professional development or training of a teacher is very important and essential to ensure effective teaching. This qualitative study explores the differential impact of professional development (PD) programs on educators in urban and suburban contexts across Bangladesh. Therefore, this study explored disparities in educational attainment, participation, and consequent effectiveness using semi-structured interviews with a total of seven purposively selected educators, three from urban schools in Dhaka city and four from suburban schools in Gaibandha district. So, the findings of this study reveal geographical and infrastructural inequalities that affect PD participation and implementation. Moreover, urban educators experience improved access to institutional support as well as technological infrastructure, in addition to centralized training facilities, leading to improved teaching methods, increased adoption of student-centered approaches, and integration of educational technology. Conversely, suburban educators often face obstacles, including logistical constraints, limited institutional and financial support, and inadequate infrastructure, which hinder both their opportunities to obtain educational qualifications and the practical application of acquired skills. However, this study emphasizes the need for appropriate and context-specific PD programs, decentralized training initiatives, equitable distribution of educational resources, as well as strong institutional support to address the urban-suburban professional growth disparity. In fact, eliminating this disparity is crucial to increasing the quality of equitable education across the diverse geographical contexts of Bangladesh.
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    Trauma, an unfortunate aftermath: exploring childhood abuse in the memoirs of Jennette McCurdy and Tara Westover
    (BRAC University, 2024-05) Hossain, Tahmina; Kaiissar, Jahin
    This thesis utilizes the concept of trauma theory to explore the effects of childhood abuse in the memoirs Educated by Tara Westover and I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy. Trauma theory by Cathy Caruth and Judith Herman is used to look at the ways victim deals with their trauma when their abuser is a part of their family. Both memoirists were fond of their abuser, and it took time for them to understand their abuse. Thus, the victim's immediate response to the abuse will be explored, along with their aftermath response to the abuse. An explicit textual analysis is given of both memoirs to understand the reason for their preferred methods to cope with the trauma. Furthermore, the thesis will also look at what constituted them in starting their healing journey. Lastly, the paper gives some possible hypotheses of the reason why the authors chose to share their story.
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    Early syntactic development of a Bangla speaking child: a case study
    (BRAC University, 2024-01) Hossain, Tasruba; Sultana, Asifa; Azim, Firdous
    This research was aimed to reveal the syntactic progression of a child who speaks Bangla. It also tried to find out the Bangla structural error in the child utterances. To carry out the study, a Bangla speaking child was observed from 26 to 38 months. The child’s speech was analysed through categorizing different sentence patterns (negation, interrogative, statement and imperative sentences). The results of the study revealed a developmental trend in terms of syntactic features that happened with age. Further studies will be benefitted by the findings of the research in the field of child language development.
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    Ascertaining the concept of “Fluidity” in sexual and gender identity and orientation: a critical analysis of crossing and call me by your name
    (BRAC University, 2023-01) Alam, Samina; Noman, Abu Sayeed Mohammad
    The LGBTQ community has been marginalized and discriminated against from the very beginning of its origin and is considered a sexual minority. Although they all belong to the same community, their experiences, struggles, traumas, and observations are different from each other. LGBT was more of an individualistic term until queer identity emerged and pioneered a new way to be sexual and gender fluid. However, the path was still not flexible for LGBT people, and several movements were taking place to claim equal rights and recognition in society. There was always a concept of gender hierarchy and competition between heterosexuals and the LGBTQ community that created polarization in their relationship. It created an unavoidable and unacceptable environment for LGBTQ people in society and forced them to challenge conventional sexual and gender ideologies. The 21st century was the time when the fluid term "queer" came into the limelight and asserted the fluidity of sexual and gender orientation. Queer orientation is a different ideology and identity that promotes fluidity in sexual and gender orientation; it is the individualistic choice of a human being. This paper aims to demonstrate and explore the struggle and oppressive journey of LGBTQ people, as well as how they achieve recognition, by establishing the concept of gender and sexual orientation fluidity. To demonstrate their situation and prove the content, I have used two novels: Call Me by Your Name by Andre Acimen and Crossing by Pajtim Statovci. These novels will help the paper depict the reality of the homophobic and homonegative condition of LGBTQ people.
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    Students’ and teachers’ attitude towards translanguaging: an inter university study in Dhaka
    (BRAC University, 2019-07) Masood, Nazia; Sanjana, Lubaba
    An age old question whether or not native language should be used in second language classroom is still unanswered. On the basis of this thought, this research aimed to figure out students’ and teachers’ attitude towards translanguaging from Bangladeshi context. It mainly focused on tertiary level students and their teachers, for which 156 students and 10 teachers of 7 privately-run universities of Dhaka participated in the data collection procedure. Lev Vygotsky’s socio cultural theory and the concept of zone of proximal development (ZPD) were used to analyze the data.Findings showed that translanguaging might be useful to understand meaning of unknown words, to provide assistance to weak students, and to boost students’ confidence level. This study also highlighted how contextual need would suggest teachers when to use the native tongue alongside the target language.
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    Let down your hair Mrs. Maas: interpreting Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49
    (BRAC University, 2014-04) Easmin, Sabina; Islam, Syed Manzoorul
    My paper examines the idea that in the novel The Crying of Lot 49, the obscure plot is mostly interpreted as the post modern adoption of a world famous fairytale Rapunzel. In The Crying of Lot 49, there is an odd sense of detachment which is not so much from reality, but it is certainly the case too, as from itself. In my view this detachment from itself is mainly caused by an ontological contingency, an absence of truth. But, it is also owing to a layered thematic structure, where the different layers are presented not as sediments but rather as a palimpsest rendering each layer perspicuously transparent but lacking in cohesion. Reading Pynchon’s novel is a peculiar experience as the story unfolds, the reader is made increasingly word-conscious as each word becomes, figuratively, more conscious of both its etymological roots and its semantic field, so that eventually each word potentially suggests a whole knotty cluster of meanings .This tends to perplex the reader, mainly because every thematic is overly emphasized; e.g. almost all the names are linked to Freudian psychology, they have psycho sexual connotations and connotations of paranoia. All thematics pertaining to religion are somehow related to death. They are juxtapositions of Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and ancient Egyptian theology and mythology picked randomly and served as a bowl of magic soup. A well-known fairy tale frames the story, whereas the story itself is set up as a detective story with its protagonist Oedipa Maas in the role of the classic private-eye who struggles to discern reality from appearance in a world where every clue is prepared and laid out by her former, dead lover. All she has to do as executor of his will is follow the dead man’s instructions whatever they are and wherever they take her. The names, religious instants, fairy-tale and detective story of this novel are foregrounded thematics that have all been transformed into free flowing states disengaged from their usual marks of identification. They have become simulacra. In my view, the constant conflict between the dichotomy of reality and appearance and its eventual breakdown is a strong theme in this story. The plot of Pynchon’s story is presented in the form of a detective story which is epistemological. The protagonist sets out on a quest to unravel what seems to be an extensive conspiracy revolving around an underground postal service system. My thesis proposes that this epistemological quest conceals an obscure plot, which permeates and supports the entire story. This obscure plot is the well- known fairy-tale Rapunzel, but presented in a postmodern variation, which, contrary to more modern representations, seeks to up-hold the traditional formula for fairy-tales: an innocent story on top and underneath deep, dark murky waters of meaning that may or may not be penetrated.
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