A LEXICOLOGICAL STUDY OF ARABIC AND JUDAEO-ARABIC IN IRAQI HEBREW NOVELS.

Sami Michael (b. Baghdad, 1926), Shimon Ballas (b. Baghdad, 1930) and Eli Amir (b. Baghdad, 1937) are three Iraqi Jewish authors who immigrated to Israel, having left Iraq during the mass migration of Jews from Arab countries during the 1950s. Although their mother tongue is Arabic, these three Iraqi Jewish authors felt that they needed to write in Hebrew if they were to have successful literary careers in Israel. Nonetheless, Arabic still appears in their literary works. Yet, the Arabic variety employed in their literary works belongs, in many aspects, to the so-called Iraqi Judaeo-Arabic. This study investigates the Judaeo-Arabic lexical items used in six modern Hebrew texts written by the three Iraqi Jewish authors mentioned above. The novels were published between 1964 and 1993. A semantic field analysis is applied to a corpus of six hundred pages, in which the first 100 pages of each novel are taken as a sample. The study shows in numerical statistics the portion of each semantic field used in the corpus followed by a discussion of the data in the view of the linguistic analysis of the phonological, morphological, syntactic and ethnographic aspects of the Iraqi Judaeo-Arabic lexical items in accordance with the texts

XML Annotation of Hebrew Elements in Judaeo-Arabic Texts

The main aim of this study is to introduce a model of TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) annotation of Hebrew elements in Judaeo-Arabic texts, i.e. code-switching, borrowing and Hebrew quotations. This paper will provide an introduction to using XML (Extensible Markup Language) to investigate sociolinguistic aspects in medieval Judaeo-Arabic texts. Accordingly, it will suggest to what extent using XML is useful for investigating linguistic and sociolinguistic features in the Judaeo-Arabic paradigm. To provide an example for how XML annotation could be applied to Judaeo-Arabic texts, a corpus of 300 pages selected from three Judaeo-Arabic books has been manually annotated using the TEI P5. The annotation covers all instances of code-switching, borrowing, and Hebrew quotations in that corpus

Comparative perspectives on initial primary teacher education and training in England and Pakistan

This study explored the extent to which initial teacher education and training programmes provide an adequate preparation for the needs of the primary school teachers in England and Pakistan. An integral part of this exploration was the identification of particular aspects of ITE programmes which had a significant impact in enhancing the professional development of teachers, the effectiveness of the ITE programmes and then overall quality. The second notable feature is that this study is a comparative one. The researcher chose two countries where initial teacher training programmes were being implemented, albeit in different ways. England and Pakistan are two contrasting countries from different global regions and having different cultural and social contexts. This is not a problem for comparison because the issue is whether they provide an adequate and enriching professional preparation for beginning teachers in their respective contexts. The study also aims to explore how far the English experience has potential for development and improvement in the Pakistani initial primary teacher education programme. The issue was examined in detail in different teacher education institutions located in England and Pakistan. For this purpose the researcher used Bereday‘s comparative methodology to investigate the juxtaposition of these two initial teacher education programmes. The researcher hopes thereby to add to the stock of theory through the use of a cross-national study.The study indicated to what extent the beginning teachers were adequately prepared for the demands of work and the responsibilities expected of them as perceived by the profession and other stakeholders. A number of factors were found to contribute to the perceived adequacy of the professional preparation of student teachers. An enriching curriculum together with availability and quality of physical facilities and educational resources contributed to this situation. At the same time, the support from the principal stakeholders in terms of funding and staff professional development was also cited as impacting upon the quality of pre-service teacher education provided to the beginning teachers in England and Pakistan. The aim of this research was to investigate initial teacher education in Pakistan and England to gain insights into two initial teacher education systems with a view to improving initial teacher education in Pakistan. To achieve this aim, a cross-cultural study using a multi-method approach was adopted. This research revealed how questionable it can be to merely state what the similarities and differences really are between two initial teacher education systems. Nonetheless, it did identify some important differences as between the two initial teacher education systems, namely in terms of:- cultural differences affecting initial teacher‘s attitude and values;- differences in governmental vision, political will, and government policies and institutional provision;- teacher education curricula, policies and delivery;- traditional and economic disparities; and theoretical underpinning.Having conducting this research, it is the view of the writer that it is possible for Pakistan to gain from certain aspects of the experience in England, especially in administration and quality control

Tel Aviv Mizrah: The potential of Iraqi cultural identity within two generations

Before immigrating to Israel, first-generation Iraqi Jews were deeply attached to their identity as Mizrahi Jews. Their mother tongue was Arabic and they had grown up in an oriental environment. Therefore, it was not easy for them to adopt the Euro-Israeli identity that the dominant Ashkenazi-European stratum in Israel compelled them to accept. Despite strong Westernizing tendencies in Israeli society, the first generation of Iraqi Jewish immigrants maintained strong links to the Iraqi customs and traditions they had acquired in Iraq, particularly with regard to the musical folklore and oriental cuisine. On the other hand, second-generation Iraqi Jews were more familiar with Israeli society than their parents; they grew up in Israel and learned Hebrew in Israeli schools along with Ashkenazi Jews and other ethnic groups. This paper establishes connections between the historical realities of Iraqi Jewish immigrants and the literary representation of their world in the trilogy Tel-Aviv Mizrah (Tel Aviv East) written in 2003 by the Iraqi Jewish author Shimon Ballas, through a comparison of Ballas's literary vision with the historical realities of Iraqi Jewish identity in Israel over the course of two generations

Sorptive removal of phenolic endocrine disruptors by functionalized biochar: Competitive interaction mechanism, removal efficacy and application in wastewater

© 2017 Elsevier B.V. Sorptive removal of six phenolic endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) estrone (E1), 17β-estradiol (E2), estriol (E3), 17α-ethynylestradiol (EE2), bisphenol A (BPA) and 4-tert-butylphenol (4tBP) by functionalized biochar (fBC) through competitive interactions was investigated. EDC sorption was pH dependent with the maximum sorption at pH 3.0–3.5 due to hydrogen bonds and π-π interactions as the principal sorptive mechanism. Sorption isotherm of the EDCs was fitted to the Langmuir model. Sorption capacities and distribution coefficient values followed the order E1 > E2 ≥ EE2 > BPA > 4tBP > E3. The findings suggested that EDC sorption occurred mainly through pseudo-second order and external mass transfer diffusion processes, by forming H-bonds along with π-π electron-donor–acceptor (EDA) interactions at different pH. The complete removal of ∼500 μg L−1 of each EDC from different water decreased in the order: deionised water > membrane bioreactor (MBR) sewage effluent > synthetic wastewater. The presence of sodium lauryl sulphonate and acacia gum in synthetic wastewater significantly suppressed sorption affinity of EDCs by 38–50%, hence requiring more fBC to maintain removal efficacy

Competitive sorption affinity of sulfonamides and chloramphenicol antibiotics toward functionalized biochar for water and wastewater treatment

© 2017 Elsevier Ltd Competitive sorption of sulfamethazine (SMT), sulfamethoxazole (SMX), sulfathiazole (STZ) and chloramphenicol (CP) toward functionalized biochar (fBC) was highly pH dependent with maximum sorption at pH ∼4.0–4.25. Equilibrium data were well represented by the Langmuir and Freundlich models in the order STZ > SMX > CP > SMT. Kinetics data were slightly better fitted by the pseudo second-order model than pseudo first-order and intra-particle-diffusion models. Maximum sorptive interactions occurred at pH 4.0–4.25 through H-bonds formations for neutral sulfonamides species and through negative charge assisted H-bond (CAHB) formation for CP, in addition to π-π electron-donor-acceptor (EDA) interactions. EDA was the main mechanism for the sorption of positive sulfonamides species and CP at pH  7.0 was regulated by H-bond formation and proton exchange with water by forming CAHB, respectively. The results suggested fBC to be highly efficient in removing antibiotics mixture