EFL Learners' Attitudes towards Native-like Proficiency as an Achievement Target

The most appropriate models for teaching English have always been a point of interest in the SLA and EFL fields. In recent decades due to globalization, the standard model based on native speaker norms has been challenged by alternative models that do not rely on English spoken by native speakers. Therefore, this thesis set out to investigate whether Croatian secondary school EFL learners still aspire to emulate native speaker norms. In order to elicit their attitudes towards native-like proficiency as an achievement target, and see if there are attitudinal differences based on age, a questionnaire was administered to 68 secondary school EFL learners (23 freshmen and 45 juniors). The gathered data was analyzed by the means of SPSS. Participants’ responses showed a strong inclination towards attaining native-like proficiency, which suggests that the standard model of teaching English based on native speaker norms still has a looming presence in Croatian EFL classrooms

Rethinking mythology in Greek museums through contemporary culture

This thesis investigates the character with which Greek mythology, one of the most durable manifestations of ancient Greek heritage, survives in the perception of contemporary Greeks, and the role that Greek museums do and could play in this. The starting point for this investigation is the appraisal of Greek mythology as an ideological creation of ancient Greece that bears pan-human and diachronie intellectual and cultural potency and, as such, constitutes a significant interpretative tool for the contemporary Greek individual. More specifically, this thesis reconsiders the relationships between Greek mythology, Greek museums and Greek people, using as a bridge contemporary Greek art. It does so in three main chapters, which investigate and analyze different parameters of this nexus of relationships. Greek mythology’s adaptations by contemporary Greek society are also explored in an attempt to establish the dominant contemporary meanings of Greek mythology. Then, the relation of a specific cultural manifestation of contemporary Greek society, that of contemporary art, to Greek mythology is extensively analyzed through a series of interviews that were conducted exclusively for this thesis. In these interviews, contemporary Greek musicians, authors and visual artists speak of the position that Greek mythology possess (or does not possess) in their artistic expression, and discuss the intellectual and cultural significance that Greek myths retain for contemporary society and people. From these investigations, two antithetic poles emerge. On the one hand, there is the trivializing way in which Greek society deals with its myths through their exploitation, for example, for commercial or nationalist purposes. On the other hand, there is the sensitivity with which my interviewees pored over Greek myths, enabling them to emerge full of dynamism, and illuminating them as ever-active negotiators of life and human nature. Thus, contemporary art is identified as a powerful conveyor of mythology’s potency for the contemporary individual. Next, the position of Greek archaeological museums, as major official institutions that do, or could, represent and safeguard Greek mythology is explored and critically assessed. It emerges that Greek museums are rather unconcerned with Greek mythology’s representation and communication and thus, confirm that Greek mythology is a dead and irrelevant representative of a glorious, yet remote and strange, ancient civilization

Rethinking the role of ICTs - Digital transformation and Culture enjoyment continuity

This document will analyse recent trends and evolution of the use of ICTs in the field of cultural heritage from a different standpoint, the service provision in the age of digital transition and pandemic. The initial focus is on the usual approach in the field of goods, proper design to elicit a positive feeling by potential customers. Recently a new type of good has been identified, service. Services grown up incredibly in the pandemic, goods delivery, food delivery, and more. So, thinking at services like a good we must design them to better the appreciation by customers as since the early XX century the people did with objects and merchandise. Appling the same approach to digital services a design phase is required together with all the different components that will provide a positive feedback from the user, this means to deal with interaction design, user centred approach, usability guidelines and the overall concept of positive user experience. Recent trends and reborn technologies like the path from edutainment to serious games and gamification, the new approach to immersive interactive technologies in a nonintrusive format. Last but relevant the need to take the momentum to ensure the culture enjoyment continuity in case of crisis

Intelligence, Creativity and Fantasy

UID/HIS/04666/2019 This is the 2nd volume of PHI series, published by CRC Press, the 4th published by CRC Press and the 5th volume of PHI proceedings.The texts presented in Proportion Harmonies and Identities (PHI) - INTELLIGENCE, CREATIVITY AND FANTASY were compiled with the intent to establish a multidisciplinary platform for the presentation, interaction and dissemination of research. The aim is also to foster the awareness and discussion on the topics of Harmony and Proportion with a focus on different visions relevant to Architecture, Arts and Humanities, Design, Engineering, Social and Natural Sciences, and their importance and benefits for the sense of both individual and community identity. The idea of modernity has been a significant motor for development since the Western Early Modern Age. Its theoretical and practical foundations have become the working tools of scientists, philosophers, and artists, who seek strategies and policies to accelerate the development process in different contexts.authorsversionpublishe

St. George and the Dragon: Design and production of a cultural heritage museum installation using media archaeology

Media archaeology is a field of media research investigating new media cultures through material manifestations. Although often recognized as an approach to art, its use as an approach to design has not been fully explored. Media archaeology can be valuable because it offers alternative qualities of mediation, as a design palette, to that of prescriptive common media devices. This thesis describes a media archaeological approach towards the design of a cultural heritage media installation, exhibited at Häme Castle between April–December 2017, and produced as a collaboration between the National Museum of Finland (Kansallismuseo) and the Systems of Representation research group in the Department of Media at Aalto University in Finland. The installation displayed a multi-view stereoscopic (3D) digital reconstruction of a medieval sculptural scene of St. George and the Dragon, based on preserved, fragmented medieval sculptures from the museum’s archives. Four stereoscopic video viewers were synchronized to a rotating central physical display, affording visitors an effect of augmented reality, without the need for a mainstream augmented reality implementation. Though the work was time-limited and project-driven, the design approach achieved a well-integrated installation that was sensitive to the aims of an exhibition of sculpture within a cultural heritage museum: artistry, materiality, interpretation. This thesis therefore seeks to argue that media archaeological approaches to design can identify historical ideas that can be remediated into relevancy for new contexts, and, in spite of their historical connotations, foster engaging technological experiences for the contemporary audience, that are sensitive to the aims of an exhibition of cultural heritage

Reality Bites

Fake news, alternative facts, post truth—terms all too familiar to anyone in U.S. political culture and concepts at the core of Dana L. Cloud’s new book, Reality Bites, which explores truth claims in contemporary political rhetoric in the face of widespread skepticism regarding the utility, ethics, and viability of an empirical standard for political truths. Cloud observes how appeals to truth often assume—mistakenly—that it is a matter of simple representation of facts. However, since neither fact-checking nor “truthiness” can respond meaningfully to this problem, she argues for a rhetorical realism—the idea that communicators can bring knowledge from particular perspectives and experiences into the domain of common sense. Through a series of case studies—including the PolitiFact fact-checking project, the Planned Parenthood “selling baby parts” scandal, the Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden cases, Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Cosmos, the rhetoric of Thomas Paine and the American Revolution, and the Black Lives Matter movement—Cloud advocates for the usefulness of narrative, myth, embodiment, affect, and spectacle in creating accountability in contemporary U.S. political rhetoric. If dominant reality “bites”—in being oppressive and exploitative—it is time, Cloud argues, for those in the reality-based community to “bite back.

Making sense of the past trauma in narratives of the self: moral space of self-interpretation

This paper applies modern interdisciplinary methodologies to sociological data in order to enhance our understanding of the silences and distortions inherent in post-traumatic narratives of the self, and the mechanisms behind them, by placing these narratives in historical, as well as psychological, perspective. In particular, we use a narrative psycholo-gy approach. In addition, we use gender analysis, as the study is based on a corpus of oral data collected through a series of interviews with divorced men. Our research demonstrates that post-traumatic self-narratives are shaped not only by the attempts of the respondents to conceal their moral failures by creating an alternative version of self in personal terms, but also by their desire to adhere to the norms and standards including gender stereotypes of their historical time and social strata

New Game Physics - Added Value for Transdisciplinary Teams

This study focused on game physics, an area of computer game design where physics is applied in interactive computer software. The purpose of the research was a fresh analysis of game physics in order to prove that its current usage is limited and requires advancement. The investigations presented in this dissertation establish constructive principles to advance game physics design. The main premise was that transdisciplinary approaches provide significant value. The resulting designs reflected combined goals of game developers, artists and physicists and provide novel ways to incorporate physics into games. The applicability and user impact of such new game physics across several target audiences was thoroughly examined. In order to explore the transdisciplinary nature of the premise, valid evidence was gathered using a broad range of theoretical and practical methodologies. The research established a clear definition of game physics within the context of historical, technological, practical, scientific, and artistic considerations. Game analysis, literature reviews and seminal surveys of game players, game developers and scientists were conducted. A heuristic categorization of game types was defined to create an extensive database of computer games and carry out a statistical analysis of game physics usage. Results were then combined to define core principles for the design of unconventional new game physics elements. Software implementations of several elements were developed to examine the practical feasibility of the proposed principles. This research prototype was exposed to practitioners (artists, game developers and scientists) in field studies, documented on video and subsequently analyzed to evaluate the effectiveness of the elements on the audiences. The findings from this research demonstrated that standard game physics is a common but limited design element in computer games. It was discovered that the entertainment driven design goals of game developers interfere with the needs of educators and scientists. Game reviews exemplified the exaggerated and incorrect physics present in many commercial computer games. This “pseudo physics” was shown to have potentially undesired effects on game players. Art reviews also indicated that game physics technology remains largely inaccessible to artists. The principal conclusion drawn from this study was that the proposed new game physics advances game design and creates value by expanding the choices available to game developers and designers, enabling artists to create more scientifically robust artworks, and encouraging scientists to consider games as a viable tool for education and research. The practical portion generated tangible evidence that the isolated “silos” of engineering, art and science can be bridged when game physics is designed in a transdisciplinary way. This dissertation recommends that scientific and artistic perspectives should always be considered when game physics is used in computer-based media, because significant value for a broad range of practitioners in succinctly different fields can be achieved. The study has thereby established a state of the art research into game physics, which not only offers other researchers constructive principles for future investigations, but also provides much-needed new material to address the observed discrepancies in game theory and digital media design