Site Interiography and Geophysical Scanning: Interpreting the Texture and Form of Archaeological Deposits with Ground-Penetrating Radar

The remarkable potential of geophysical scanning—to assess the internal variability of sites in new ways, to highlight important phenomena in the field, to exercise co-creation of interpretation and commitment to minimal destruction of community partners’ resources, and to aid in the practice of due diligence in avoiding desecration of the sacred—continues to be underutilized in archaeology. While archaeological artifacts, features, and strata remain primary foci of archaeological geophysics, these phenomena are perceived quite differently in scans than in visual or tactile exposures. In turn, new registers of site exploration afforded by geophysical prospection may be constrained by the language of site excavation and visual observation, requiring adjustments in the ways of thinking about and describing what the instruments are measuring. The texture and form of site deposits as rendered in ground-penetrating radar scans can be examined in detail prior to making interpretations of cultural features or stratigraphy. Far more than simple “anomalies” demanding our attention for excavation, patterns in geophysical data can be the focus of extensive archaeological analysis prior to, in conjunction with, or independent from excavation

Intercultural ethics: questions of methods in language and intercultural communication

This paper explores how questions of ethics and questions of method are intertwined and unavoidable in any serious study of language and intercultural communication. It argues that the focus on difference and solution orientations to intercultural conflict has been a fundamental driver for theory, data collection and methods in the field. These approaches, the paper argues, have created a considerable consciousness raising industry, with methods, trainings and ‘critical incidents’, which ultimately focus intellectual energy in areas which may be productive in terms of courses and publications but which have a problematic basis in their ethical terrain. Dieser Artikel untersucht wie ethische und methodische Fragen nicht nur ineinander greifen, sondern in keiner ernstzunehmenden Studie ueber Sprache und interkulturelle Kommunikation ausgelassen werden duerfen. Es wird hier argumentiert, dass der Schwerpunkt auf Verschiedenheit und Problemorientierung im interkulturellen Konflikt einen wesentlichen Einfluss auf theoretische Entwicklungen, Datenerhebung und Methoden in diesem Bereich hatte. Dieser Artikel legt auch dar, wie diese Ansaetze eine betraechtliche ‘Bewusstseinsbildungs – Branche' erzeugt haben, mit Methoden, Trainings, und ‘kritischen Interaktionssituationen’, welche letztendlich allen intellektuellen Arbeitseifer auf Bereiche konzentriert hat, die zwar ertragreich sind in Bezug auf Kurse und Publikationen, jedoch eine problematische Grundlage im ethischen Bereich aufweisen

Competences for democratic culture: An empirical study of an intercultural citizenship project in language pedagogy

This article reports on a pedagogical intervention in foreign language teaching in higher education. It analizes the competences developed by Argentinian and UK-based students as they used Skype to design a leaflet that addressed a real world issue: the Argentinian military dictatorship and its manipulation of the 1978 Football World Cup. The data consists of students’ discussions of this highly disturbing human rights issue. A first level of analysis focused on identifying evidence of competences using the Council of Europe’s conceptual model of ‘competences for democratic culture’ (2016). In a second level of analysis, the data was categorized within the framework of Article 2.2 of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training (2011). This research study provides an empirical test of these two frameworks in the field of language education, an aspect that has not been investigated before. It also contributes to our understanding of the potential of intercultural citizenship projects in achieving the goals of human rights education in foreign language teaching. Results indicate the development of substantial competences for democratic culture defined in the Council of Europe’s model

Competences for democratic culture: An empirical study of an intercultural citizenship project in language pedagogy

This article reports on a pedagogical intervention in foreign language teaching in higher education. It analizes the competences developed by Argentinian and UK-based students as they used Skype to design a leaflet that addressed a real world issue: the Argentinian military dictatorship and its manipulation of the 1978 Football World Cup. The data consists of students’ discussions of this highly disturbing human rights issue. A first level of analysis focused on identifying evidence of competences using the Council of Europe’s conceptual model of ‘competences for democratic culture’ (2016). In a second level of analysis, the data was categorized within the framework of Article 2.2 of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training (2011). This research study provides an empirical test of these two frameworks in the field of language education, an aspect that has not been investigated before. It also contributes to our understanding of the potential of intercultural citizenship projects in achieving the goals of human rights education in foreign language teaching. Results indicate the development of substantial competences for democratic culture defined in the Council of Europe’s model

Changes in the long term intensity variations in Cyg X-2 and LMC X-3

We report the detection of changes in the long-term intensity variations in two X-ray binaries, Cyg X-2 and LMC X-3. In this work, we have used the long-term light curves obtained with the All-Sky Monitors (ASMs) of the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE), Ginga, Ariel 5, and Vela 5B and the scanning modulation collimator of HEAO 1. It is found that in the light curves of both the sources, obtained with these instruments at various times over the last 30 years, more than one periodic or quasi-periodic component is always present. The multiple prominent peaks in the periodograms have frequencies unrelated to each other. In Cyg X-2, RXTE-ASM data show strong peaks at 40.4 and 68.8 days, and Ginga-ASM data show strong peaks at 53.7 and 61.3 days. Multiple peaks are also observed in LMC X-3. The various strong peaks in the periodograms of LMC X-3 appear at 104, 169, and 216 days (observed with RXTE-ASM) and 105, 214, and 328 days (observed with Ginga-ASM). The present results, when compared with the earlier observations of periodicities in these two systems, demonstrate the absence of any stable long period. The 78 day periodicity detected earlier in Cyg X-2 was probably due to the short time base in the RXTE data that were used, and the periodicity of 198 days in LMC X-3 was due to a relatively short duration of observation with HEAO 1.Comment: 11 pages, 7 postscript figures include

'Why Should I Study English If I'm Never Going To Leave This Town?' Developing Alternative Orientations To Culture in the EFL Classroom Through CAR

This article describes the progress and findings of a collaborative action research project on the cultural dimension in primary levels of EFL education in Valencia (Spain). Its aim was to explore whether the EFL subject tended to ignore the students¿ native cultural background, and if so, whether this omission brought negative pedagogical consequences. It involved ten student-teachers who were carrying out their practicum placements at schools in the region, ten EFL school teachers, and a university researcher. Collective meetings were held to critically analyze the school experiences, and design experimental interventions to give a different orientation to culture in the EFL class. By the end of the CAR, the STs had become better teachers and researchers: they were more aware of the need for the learners¿ cultural background to become integrated into the communicative aims of the EFL subject, and more prepared to improve their theoretical and practical understanding of this dimension through research on their own teaching

Cultural relativism and the discourse of intercultural communication: aporias of praxis in the intercultural public sphere

The premise of much intercultural communication pedagogy and research is to educate people from different cultures towards open and transformative positions of mutual understanding and respect. This discourse in the instance of its articulation realises and sustains Intercultural Communication epistemologically – as an academic field of social enquiry, and judgementally – as one which locates itself on a moral terrain. By adopting an ethical stance towards difference, the discourse of intercultural communication finds itself caught in a series of aporias, or performative contradictions, where interculturalists are projected simultaneously into positions of cultural relativism on the one hand and ideological totalism on the other. Such aporias arise because the theoretical premises upon which the discourse relies are problematic. We trace these thematics to a politics of presence operating within the discourse of intercultural communication and links this to questions of judgement and truth in the intercultural public sphere. We propose that the politics of presence be set aside in favour of an intercultural praxis which is oriented to responsibility rather than to truth