A discourse perspective on figurative expression in literary works with reference to English/Arabic translation

This dissertation is intended to fulfil two main objectives, firstly, to examine the function of figures of speech or figurative expression from a discourse point of view, and secondly, to assess whether English/Arabic or Arabic/English translators take into consideration this discourse aspect, and if they do, to what extent. The division of figures of speech is based on Arabic (Barigha) Rhetoric. The dissertation develops along the following lines. It examines the "anatomy" of each individual figure of speech with the aim of establishing their respective merits. It afterwards highlights their collective, social function in a wider sense. The research narrows down their social role concentrating on one main role: creating a bond of intimacy between the speaker and the audience. It further examines the mechanism on which intimacy is based, i.e. politeness. Politeness is a strategy adopted and exacted by a rational speaker on a rational audience and enables him to get them persuaded. It is concluded that each figure of speech presents the speaker with an ideal tool for addressing a particular audience. It follows, therefore, that the having recourse to a particular figure of speech is a stance or an attitude by the speaker towards his audience. Meanwhile, figures of speech collectively present the speaker with a tool which enables him to express a mobility of (discoursal) tones and attitudes. The dissertation develops the theme of attitude through "critical" discourse. Critical discourse fleshes the attitude of the speaker by denaturalizing the orderliness of talk and by providing social accounts which are intended to probe the social roots of language. Critical discourse also accounts for why things happen the way they do, by whom and the motive for their doing. It, therefore, establishes a link between verbal interaction and three social phenomena which determine and are determined by verbal interaction. These factors are: action, institution and higher social formation. Action is at the social base and is presupposed by social structure, institution is the loci of power and provides its subjects with motive and with a frame of work to act within, while higher social formation stands for a series of elements and their interrelations which conjointly define the persistence of a social formation and distinguish one society from another. The study develops an integrated model of critical discourse for the analysis of figurative expression. The model is composed of three components: (i) syntax, (ii) an interpretative guideline, and (iii) an explanatory framework. Finally, figurative expression is examined and a translation assessment based on an empirical approach is made. The dissertation examines figures of speech in literary works where they abound. Nevertheless its findings can be applicable to other discourse types. This is because it deals with figurative expression as a transaction that is negotiated between the two parties to the verbal interaction. The implication of the critical approach towards the study of discourse for the translator-trainee is two-fold. First, he should make a thorough linguistic analysis of figurative expression before he embarks on translating, and second, he should consider language as a social practice that has its roots in the society from which it emanates. He, therefore, has to try to account for all factors that might have a bearing on the meaning of the text he is going to handle. The findings deduced from this study are summed up as follows. First, figures of speech are functional in that they specifically help discourse to emerge and help to distinguish one discourse type from another. Second, figures of speech form an ensemble of thought which can express a body of (discoursal) attitudes and tones. Third, the dissertation corroborates that negligence or unawareness of the discourse aspect weakens the effect of figures of speech and sometimes distorts the meaning. Four, the present studies by both theorists and experimenters of figurative expression are not sensitive enough to its discourse function, nor are the translators of the two novels which form the data for this study.University of Jorda

US Policy Toward Establishment of Independent Palestinian State

The study had concluded that the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian lands is illegal pursuant to International law stipulations and rules, and it ,in no way, may result in the termination or denial of palatine international identity though it prevent the Palestinian people from practicing their presidency over their national region. There are some legal and political bases and foundations supporting the claims and ambitions of the Palestinians to establish their independent state. As for the legal orientation of Palestine establishment and international recognition, they are available and fulfilled by the Palestinian party as for the legal and political aspects. Besides, the study had concluded that there are high degree of coherence and agreement between the US and Israeli visions towards Palestine establishment and consequently, there is a gap between US and Palestinian attitudes towards the same; despite the positive development of the US attitude as for accepting (not recognizing) the Palestinian estate establishment, provided that it results from the Israeli -Palestinian negotiations. This is typical to the Israeli perspective and makes the negotiations pending according to power balance which is totally unbalanced in favor of Israel. Key terms: US policy, Palestinian State, Madrid Peace Conference, OSLO Agreement, Road Ma

The Role of Acknowledging National Security Threats in Making Security Policies

The study had concluded the great importance of how to realize national security threats and their impact on making security policies in countries. The study had tackled various intellectual trends of national security concept and its different levels. In this context, the study recommends adopting comprehensive and integrated concept which links security to development while making security policies. As for security policies, the study reached that policy making is greatly affected by the way security threats are acknowledged and determined as well as studying proportional volumes of national capacities and setting security strategies capable of facing these threats procedurally and factually. Consequently, security policies become the link between cognition and perception, on the one hand, an procedural fact in the other.  Thus, the study recommends that national security policies to be built by the component agencies not depend on value system of decision maker. In general, developing cooperation relations with other countries greatly participate in overcoming ambiguity, doubt and uncertainty related to the security issue. Keywords: national security threats, national security policies, national security concept, national security levels and national  security elements

Dynamical signature of a domain phase transition in a perpendicularly-magnetized ultrathin film

Domain phases in ultrathin Fe/Ni/W(110) films with perpendicular anisotropy have been studied using the ac magnetic susceptibility. Dynamics on time scales of minutes to hours were probed by quenching the system from high temperature to the stripe phase region, and varying the constant rate of temperature increase as the susceptibility traces were measured. The entire susceptibility peak is observed to relax slowly along the temperature axis, with the peak temperature increasing as the rate of heating is decreased. This is precisely opposite to what would happen if this slow relaxation was driven by changes in the domain density within the stripe phase. The data are instead consistent with a simple model for the removal of a significant density of pattern defects and curvature trapped in the quench from high temperature. A quantitative analysis confirms that the relaxation dynamics are consistent with the mesoscopic rearrangement of domains required to remove pattern defects, and that the experiment constitutes a "dynamical" observation of the phase transition from a high temperature, positionally disordered phase to the low temperature, ordered stripe phase.Comment: 8 two column pages, 5 figures, full article with extra data figure

Implementing Assessment Policy: Considering the Bifactor Teachers' Satisfaction Criterion

The study examined teachers’ general satisfaction and specific satisfactions in implementing assessment policy. First it confirmed the validity of a four-factor teacher’s satisfaction construct. Next it identified the best-fitting measure of teacher’s satisfaction among four theoretically viable measures, namely a uni-dimension satisfaction construct, four-factor construct, second-order factor construct, and a bi-factor measure that comprised general and specifics factors. Finally, the study tested whether teachers’ agreement with the implementation of nation-wide assessment policy related to the best-fitting satisfaction model, which was the bi-factor model. A total of 2,374 teachers nested in 300 randomly selected schools in Malaysia were surveyed using a 15-item instrument. The results supported the hypotheses that the four-factor measure was adequate to explain the variability of teachers’ responses to the satisfaction items, the bi-factor model was the best-fitting model, and teachers’ endorsement of the implementation of assessment policy supported the teachers’ general satisfaction, satisfaction towards workload, and satisfaction towards pay and benefits

Implementing Assessment Policy: Considering the Bi-factor Teachers' Satisfaction Criterion

The study examined teachers’ general satisfaction and specific satisfactions in implementing assessment policy. First it confirmed the validity of a four-factor teacher’s satisfaction construct. Next it identified the best-fitting measure of teacher’s satisfaction among four theoretically viable measures, namely a uni-dimension satisfaction construct, four-factor construct, second-order factor construct, and a bi-factor measure that comprised general and specifics factors. Finally, the study tested whether teachers’ agreement with the implementation of nation-wide assessment policy related to the best-fitting satisfaction model, which was the bi-factor model. A total of 2,374 teachers nested in 300 randomly selected schools in Malaysia were surveyed using a 15-item instrument. The results supported the hypotheses that the four-factor measure was adequate to explain the variability of teachers’ responses to the satisfaction items, the bi-factor model was the best-fitting model, and teachers’ endorsement of the implementation of assessment policy supported the teachers’ general satisfaction, satisfaction towards workload, and satisfaction towards pay and benefits

Drivers of Secondary School Students' Intention to Enroll in Science Studies

This paper reports on a survey conducted in selected secondary schools in Malaysia to explore students' intention to enroll in science studies and establish whether intention would be influenced by attitude towards science, science-efficacy, subjective norm, and perceived difficulty of science subjects. Another aim of the survey was to determine if gender, ethnicity, and school location moderated the associations between intention and its predictors. The data were collected randomly from 398 15-year-old students from 38 secondary schools in Malaysia using a 15-item questionnaire. To address the research objectives, the data were analyzed with confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The results supported the hypotheses that the four predictors were adequate to explain intention to pursue science studies, particularly attitude and science-efficacy which were the most influential predictors. Additionally, gender, ethnicity, and school location did not moderate the predictor-intention relationships. The results suggest that the planning, implementation and evaluation of efforts to enhance science participation among students should consider how to develop more science-efficacy and positive attitudes towards the subjects

An efficient shortest path routing algorithm in the data centre network DPillar.

DPillar has recently been proposed as a server-centric data centre network and is combinatorially related to the well-known wrapped butterfly network. We explain the relationship between DPillar and the wrapped butterfly network before proving a symmetry property of DPillar. We use this symmetry property to establish a single-path routing algorithm for DPillar that computes a shortest path and has time complexity O(klog(n))O(klog⁡(n)), where k parameterizes the dimension of DPillar and n the number of ports in its switches. Moreover, our algorithm is trivial to implement, being essentially a conditional clause of numeric tests, and improves significantly upon a routing algorithm earlier employed for DPillar. A secondary and important effect of our work is that it emphasises that data centre networks are amenable to a closer combinatorial scrutiny that can significantly improve their computational efficiency and performance

Non-Arrhenius relaxation of the Heisenberg model with dipolar and anisotropic interactions

The dynamical properties of a 2D Heisenberg model with dipolar interactions and perpendicular anisotropy are studied using Monte Carlo simulations in two different ordered regions of the equilibrium phase diagram. We find a temperature defining a dynamical transition below which the relaxation suddenly slows down and the system aparts from the typical Arrhenius relaxation to a Vogel-Fulcher-Tamann law. This anomalous behavior is observed in the scaling of the magnetic relaxation and may eventually lead to a freezing of the system. Through the analysis of the domain structures we explain this behavior in terms of the domains dynamics. Moreover, we calculate the energy barriers distribution obtained from the data of the magnetic viscosity. Its shape supports our comprehension of both, the Vogel-Fulcher-Tamann dynamical slowing down and the freezing mechanism