Interpersonal metadiscourse categories in two Egyptian newspapers concerning the 2007 constitutional amendments

This research-work aims at studying the use of metadiscourse markers by foreign learners of Arabic to enhance their writing skills. First there is an introduction which explains the role of metadiscourse markers in writing within the framework of the two paradigms of meaning suggested by Halliday, i.e. the textual and the interspersonal. Second two hypotheses on which the research-work is built are spelled out. The first hypothesis assumes that writers will always use the two basic paradigms of meaning suggested by Haliday as far as metadiscourse markers are concerned. The Second one postulates that foreign learners of Arabic acquire solid knowledge of these four categories of markers that fall within the two paradigmatic classifications, their performance in writing will be improved significantly in comparison with those who did not acquire such knowledge. Before examining these two hypotheses the research provides a full-fledged account of four basic types of metadiscourse markers and their equivalents in Arabic. Then it sets out to check the two afore â mentioned hypotheses. In order to verify the two hypotheses mentioned above, two methodologies are used correspondingly to each hypothesis. The first methodology is an empirical one and the second is experimental. The empirical method used in verification of hypothesis one, involves an analysis of a sample of twenty newspaper articles about a given subject representing different styles, cultural backgrounds, personal and political affiliations of writers. In order to verify the second hypothesis, the foreign learners of Arabic will be able to improve their performance in writing significantly by mastering the use of metadiscourse markers, an experimental methodology is applied. Two groups of non-native Arabic learners are selected randomly, one serving as a control class and the other serving as an experimental class. The results show that following a post-test given to both groups, the writing level of the experimental group, who analyzed and learned metadiscourse markers, comes out higher than that of the control group, who did not go through this experience

Semantic Systems. The Power of AI and Knowledge Graphs

This open access book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Semantic Systems, SEMANTiCS 2019, held in Karlsruhe, Germany, in September 2019. The 20 full papers and 8 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 88 submissions. They cover topics such as: web semantics and linked (open) data; machine learning and deep learning techniques; semantic information management and knowledge integration; terminology, thesaurus and ontology management; data mining and knowledge discovery; semantics in blockchain and distributed ledger technologies

Terrorism and the Law: Cases and Materials

Terrorism and the Law: Cases and Materials (2d ed. 2010) is a textbook written by Professor Gregory E. Maggs (of the George Washington University Law School) and published by West (ISBN-13: 9780314908582). The textbook considers legal aspects of a broad range of methods that governments have for fighting terrorism, including criminal penalties, economic sanctions, immigration restrictions, military force, and civil liability. It addresses not just the steps taken in reaction to the 9/11 attacks, but also many other counterterrorism measures by the United States and other nations in recent years. To offer a global and comparative perspective, the materials include cases from foreign countries and international tribunals. The text addresses many legal developments that have occurred since publication of the original edition, including new Supreme Court decisions and federal legislation. Please visit SSRN (http://ssrn.com/abstract=2153238) to access the book parts. The SSRN download includes the preface, table of contents, and the first chapter. This download was prepared and posted with the permission of the publisher

Curating and Cultural Difference in the Iberian Context. From Difference to Self-Reflexivity (and Back Again?)

This article analyzes how curatorial practices deal with coloniality and, in a broader sense, with the legacies of colonialism and imperialism in our postcolonial present. To do so, it approaches the curatorial landscape of the Iberian territories in a moment of a radical geopolitical transformation, marked by the inclusion of Portugal and Spain in the European Union, the critical responses to the commemoration of their imperial past, and the rethinking of their postcolonial, post-dictatorial identity. Frequently framed from the point of view of exceptionalism, in a separated way, this article argues that Iberian postcoloniality can be better understood when approached from a comparative perspective.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Elias Nasrallah Haddad: Translating Visions of Palestine

Elias Nasrallah Haddad (1878/79–1959) was a teacher, translator, writer, ethnographer, and linguist whose career spanned the final decades of Ottoman rule in Palestine, the whole of the British Mandate period, and the Nakba and after. Based for most of his life at the German-run Syrian Orphanage in Jerusalem, he asserted, in his many books and articles on Palestinian life and language, his adopted country's right to progress, alongside the importance of recording its traditions. He highlighted the Arab nature of Palestinian society while urging tolerance and coexistence as the foremost of its values and virtues. This article draws on multiple sources and genres to trace Haddad's life history and his impact on a wide range of fields and people, ranging from the British high commissioners to whom he taught colloquial Arabic, to the storytellers in the villages of pre-World War I Palestine whose memories of Bedouin poetry he transcribed and translated

AN OVERVIEW OF INDONESIAN LOANWORDS FROM FRENCH

When two languages come into contact, they exert a reciprocal influence, often unbalanced. A phenomenon that often occurs in case of language contact is the absorption or borrowing of lexical elements, which will enrich the vocabulary of the receiving language. In this article, we deal with words adopted from French in Indonesian and vice-versa. This research shows that most of the words of French origin in Indonesian/Malay language were borrowed through Dutch. Historical background explains why there are no direct loanwords from French language in Indonesian. Nowadays, a second batch of words originating from Old French finds their way into Indonesian through English. On the other hand, very few words from Malay-Indonesian origin were borrowed in French, and their route was not straight either: they were conveyed through Portuguese or Dutch. Phonological adaptation and shift of meaning may have happen when the words were loaned from French to Dutch language or later, when adapted from Dutch into Indonesian language. The data analysed in this article may help teachers of French as a Foreign Language in Indonesia, as well as teachers of Indonesian as a Foreign Language in French-speaking countries, to predict which words will be immediately recognized by their students, and when they should pay extra-attention to faux-amis (cognates whose meanings differ)

Multilingualism in the linguistic landscape of urban Jordan

The main purpose of this study is to investigate language practices in the linguistic landscape (LL) of Jordanian cities. There have been few research studies that examine the LL of Jordanian cities, and none has investigated multilingualism. This study is intended to fill this gap in LL research. By means of qualitative and quantitative methods, it aims to discover the extent to which multilingualism is reflected in the LL. The main fieldwork was conducted in November and December 2012 in urban Jordan. Ten streets were selected in each of six major Jordanian cities, including Irbid, Salt, Zarqa, Amman, Karak and Aqaba, sixty streets in total. A LL item represents ‘any piece of text within a spatially definable frame’ (Backhaus, 2007). 4070 signs were recorded as multilingual (c. 51%), whereas 3967 signs were categorised as monolingual (c. 49%). To discover correlations between types of signs and existing languages and scripts, and to measure these against conflicting language policies, signs are categorised as ‘top-down’ or ‘bottom-up’. The notions of ‘code preference’ (Scollon & Scollon, 2003) and dynamics of language contact are employed to understand the semiotics of writing in the LL of Jordanian cities. The main data findings indicate that minority languages are almost absent, so a questionnaire was introduced as an additional supportive source to the analysis of the findings, providing a qualitative dimension to the study. The study was conducted in July 2013, during which period the researcher interviewed 32 participants. The primary objective of this secondary study is to reflect on plausible reasons explaining the limited presence of minority languages in the visual public space. The main data indicate a dominance of both Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and English on signs, because they are closely related to Arab nationalism and globalization respectively. Jordanian Arabic is deleted from the top-down LL, because it is closely linked to informal domains. Classical Arabic (CA) is mainly used to convey religious functions in the LL. Mixed codes, Romanised Arabic (RA) and Arabacised English (AE), are commonly used in the LL to reflect ‘glocalisation’. French, German, Italian, Spanish, Turkish and Russian are found mainly to be used on brand name and business name signs for reasons of European linguistic fetishes and tourism. The data indicate that minority languages are significantly marginalised on both top-down and bottom-up signs. Several reasons lie behind the limited visibility of established minority languages in the LL. Spatial distribution of migrant communities, the small size of minority communities, lack of (sufficient) institutional and parental support, migration and absence of close ties with families and linguistic peers are behind different stages of language maintenance and shift among older migrant groups. Linguistic russification, hostility, instrumentality of both Arabic and English and top-down language policies enacted by the Jordanian government contribute to the limited visibility of minority languages in the LL. Although foreign workers’ minority languages tend to be maintained, the instrumental functions of both Arabic and English, Islam, and the small sizes of economic minority groups have each played a key role in the limited visibility or invisibility of minority languages in the LL