bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
History of English-as-a-Second-Language Teaching in the Middle East and the Current Scenario in Bahrain
Authors: Journal Arab World English , Ponnuchamy Gita
Published: July 2018

In the Middle East, independence from the colonial powers was synonymous with ‘Arabization,’ making Arabic fundamental to education (Findlow 2006). With the member nations of the Arab League striving to promote Arab-Islamic culture and the Arabic language, Arabic came to symbolize tradition and Islamic values and the English language and Western culture, modernity and materialism (Al Zeera 19990; Charise 2007; Findlow 2006). While government-run schools adopted Arabic as their medium of instruction relegating English to the status of a second language, most of post-secondary education continued to be imparted through the medium of English, leaving English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) learners inept at coping with the academic demands of higher education. The introduction of ESL in Grade Four in primary schools is partly to be blamed for the ESL learners’ inadequacies. Rising criticism from tertiary level educators and employers necessitated the introduction of ESL in Grade One in 2004 in Bahrain (Bahrain Ministry of Education, 2003). Sweeping national reforms in the educational arena in Bahrain have led to the revamping of curriculum, instruction and assessment standards in an attempt to ensure Bahrain’s educational system is of international standards (Quality Assurance Authority for Education & Training 2011). The purpose of this review article is to trace the way English Language teaching has changed since the colonial days in the Middle East, especially in Bahrain and the reasons necessitating the change. This paper also has implications for research on the English proficiency levels of freshman students today who have learned ESL since Grade 1.
Another science war: fictitious evidence on women's fertility and the "egg aging" panic in 2010s Japan
Authors: Tanaka Sigeto
Published: July 2018

In the early 2010s, Japanese society recognized and experienced a panic about increasing infertility and people's lack of knowledge about human reproduction. This paper focuses on several graphs that misrepresented or distorted scientific findings that were used in the campaign related to this panic and explores (1) how the graphs were made, used, and authorized, and (2) how they contributed to changes in discourses and policies. Findings are the following: (1) The graphs were made in the field of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive medicine by questionable methods, including falsifying, trimming, and misunderstanding of data. (2) Researchers in the field of fertility study relied on secondary and tertiary sources thus ignoring and compounding errors. (3) Such inauthentic research was approved and politically mobilized by professional organizations, rather than being penalized or criticized. (4) Discourse based on such unscientific knowledge may have encouraged a pronatalist policy of promoting early marriage and education about human fertility and life planning, targeted at teenage girls.
Being a ‘citizen’ in the smart city: Up and down the scaffold of smart citizen participation
Authors: Cardullo Paolo , Kitchin Rob
Published: July 2018

This paper critically appraises citizens’ participation in the smart city. Reacting to critiques that the smart city is overly technocratic and instrumental, companies and cities have reframed their initiatives as ‘citizen-centric’. However, what ‘citizen-centric’ means in practice is rarely articulated. We draw on and extend Sherry Arnstein’s seminal work on participation in planning and renewal programmes to create the ‘Scaffold of Smart Citizen Participation’ – a conceptual tool to unpack the diverse ways in which the smart city frames citizens. We then use this scaffold to measure smart citizen inclusion, participation, and empowerment in smart city initiatives in Dublin, Ireland. Our analysis illustrates how most ‘citizen-centric’ smart city initiatives are rooted in stewardship, civic paternalism, and a neoliberal conception of citizenship that prioritizes consumption choice and individual autonomy within a framework of state and corporate defined constraints that prioritize market-led solutions to urban issues, rather than being grounded in civil, social and political rights and the common good. We conclude that significant normative work is required to rethink ‘smart citizens’ and ‘smart citizenship’ and to remake smart cities if they are to truly become ‘citizen-centric’.
Public engagement and the influence imperative
Authors: Cohen Philip N.
Published: July 2018

A review essay discussing three advice books for social scientists. Sociologists, in responding to the imperative to make their work more influential, must go beyond doing “public sociology” to embrace doing sociology “in public” (Healy 2017). Rather than using public engagement primarily for publicity – to make our research matter – we should use engagement to help us do research that matters in the first place. Next, I caution that the drive to be professionally rewarded for public intellectualism is fraught with conflicts that may be irreconcilable. To be a public intellectual today requires being both public in one’s intellectual life and intellectual in one’s public life, and for academics in the era of the “market university” (Berman 2011), trying to get paid for that leads to a neoliberal trap. Finally, I argue for a move beyond personal strategies toward the development of the open scholarship as an institutional response that ultimately may be responsible for sociology’s survival.
Landform boundary effects on Holocene forager landscape use in arid South Australia
Authors: Marwick Ben
Published: July 2018

Landscapes throughout any region vary in the resources they contain. We investigate how Holocene forager populations adapted to this variation in the linear sand dune desert of arid South Australia. We use data from surface scatters of stone artefacts collected during pedestrian survey to compare behaviours at landform boundaries to behaviours at the centers of landforms. We propose a model of human use of the landscape that predicts the prehistoric occupants of the study were sensitive to the different economic potential of subtly dissimilar landscapes. In evaluating the model we find that there are different densities of archaeological sites in each landscape type. We also find indications of a boundary effect resulting from people having used marginal areas of each landscape type in response to the resource characteristics of adjoining landforms. In addition, we make some observations on our field data collection methods, identifying the general conditions where mobile GIS may be optimally efficient for archaeological survey
New Insights into Rental Housing Markets across the United States: Web Scraping and Analyzing Craigslist Rental Listings
Authors: Boeing Geoff
Published: July 2018

Current sources of data on rental housing – such as the census or commercial databases that focus on large apartment complexes – do not reflect recent market activity or the full scope of the U.S. rental market. To address this gap, we collected, cleaned, analyzed, mapped, and visualized 11 million Craigslist rental housing listings. The data reveal fine-grained spatial and temporal patterns within and across metropolitan housing markets in the U.S. We find some metropolitan areas have only single-digit percentages of listings below fair market rent. Nontraditional sources of volunteered geographic information offer planners real-time, local-scale estimates of rent and housing characteristics currently lacking in alternative sources, such as census data.
Victim or Villain? Racial/ethnic Differences in News Portrayals of Individuals with Mental Illness Killed by Police
Authors: Frankham Emma
Published: July 2018

A revised version of this working paper is forthcoming in The Sociological Quarterly. This paper is not the copy of record and does not exactly replicate the final, authoritative version of the article. Please do not copy or cite without permission of the author. As a social problem, little is known about how individuals are portrayed in the news when race/ethnicity and mental illness intersect. This is important because of the ability of news to influence perceptions and policies about mental illness across race/ethnicity. This article examines how individuals with mental illness who were killed by police during 2015 and 2016 were portrayed in the news. Content analysis of 301 online news articles indicates that stereotypes associated with mental illness were differentially applied by race/ethnicity. Findings have implications for public attitudes about mental illness across race/ethnicity.
The New Racial Politics of Welfare: Ethno-Racial Diversity, Immigration, and Welfare Discourse Variation
Authors: Brown Hana
Published: July 2018

Preprint, final version in Social Services Review available at: http://doi.org/10.1086/673171
Multigenerational Attainment and Mortality Among Older Men: An Adjacent Generations Approach
Authors: Wolfe Joseph D. , Bauldry Shawn , Hardy Melissa A. , Pavalko Eliza K.
Published: July 2018

BACKGROUNDRecent work in stratification and demography argues for the importance of multiple familial generations in status attainment and other transmission processes. Health disparities research in this area generally assumes that the rewards of attainment are paid forward across generations, meaning grandparent and parent achievements give children a health advantage. However, an emerging literature suggests that mortality risk in old age may be more closely related to the attainments of parents and adult children. OBJECTIVEWe develop a new approach to understanding family attainments and mortality in later life and test the multigenerational structure of health disparities suggested by the long arm, personal attainment, and social foreground perspectives. METHODSThe analysis uses nearly complete mortality data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Older Men, a representative sample of U.S. men aged 45 to 59 in 1966. RESULTSWe find that older men with parents who farmed had a median age of death that was 1.3 years higher than those who had parents with manual occupations, and men with adult children who had 16 or more years of schooling had a median age of death almost 2 years higher than those with children with 12 or fewer years of schooling. CONCLUSIONSWe find evidence of a three-generation model in which parent occupation, personal wealth, and adult child attainments are independently associated with older men’s mortality. CONTRIBUTIONThese findings highlight the relevance of adjacent generations for health and mortality in later life and the importance of historical context for accurately measuring socioeconomic attainments in different generations and cohorts.
Compliments across Gender and Power Relation among Indonesian EFL Learners
Authors: Journal Arab World English , Indah Rohmani Nur
Published: July 2018

The purpose of this research is to investigate the complexities of compliments faced by English as foreign language (EFL) learners. It covers several aspects such as how interpersonal relationships relate to complimenting behaviour. In addition, it examines how the culture of complimenting is relevant with some conditions such as power relation, and gender. The significance of the study is to explore the cultural transfer might appearing in complimenting. The subjects of research in this study are EFL learners at State Islamic University of Maulana Malik Ibrahim, Indonesia. It employs ethnographical method to gain the explanation for the phenomenon underlying the complexities in complimenting behaviour. The complexities concern with the interference of culture, the influence of gender and power relation. The finding shows that female learners tend to use more complimenting strategies compared to males. The complimenting expression is also various affected by the relation with the hearers. Some variations occurring in complimenting cover overstatement, mixed language, non-sensical, no compliment and question. The context of Islamic institution also results in specific expression related to power display in complimenting strategies used. However, in EFL context, complimenting becomes an issue as there is lack of authentic English examples in course books and the inefficient instructions English learners receive which particularly expose them to variation in English compliments. Therefore, further studies are needed to develop teaching construct that accommodates the improvement of pragmatic competence particularly in complimenting for politeness awareness which today becomes a significant value.
Racing through the Halls of Congress: The “Black Nod” as an Adaptive Strategy for Surviving in a Raced Institution
Authors: Jones James R.
Published: July 2018

Although there is an impressive body of research on the U.S. Congress, there has been limited discussion about the central role race plays in the organization of this political institution. While some scholars have documented Congress’ racist past, less is known about the present significance of race in the federal legislature. Throughout the day, African Americans routinely nod to one another in the halls of the Capitol, and consider the Black nod as a common cultural gesture. However, data from over sixty in-depth interviews suggest there is an additional layer of meaning to the Black nod in Congress. From the microlevel encounters, I observed and examined, I interpret the nod as more than a gesture that occurs in a matter of seconds between colleagues or even among perfect strangers in the halls of Congress. The Black nod encompasses and is shaped by labor organized along racial lines, a history of racial subordination, and powerful perceptions of race in the post-Civil-Rights era on the meso-, and macrolevels. Using this interpretive foundation, this article will show how the nod is an adaptive strategy of Black staffers that renders them visible in an environment where they feel socially invisible. The nod becomes an external expression of their racialized professional identity. I argue that the congressional workplace is a raced political institution and that the microlevel encounters I observed delineate and reproduce its racial boundaries. This article represents perhaps the first sociological study of Congress and provides an unprecedented view into its inner workings and the social dimensions that organize workplace relationships.
Status and the Demand for Visible Goods: Experimental Evidence on Conspicuous Consumption
Authors: Clingingsmith David , Sheremeta Roman M
Published: July 2018

Some economists argue that consumption of publicly visible goods is driven by social status. Making a causal inference about this claim is difficult with observational data. We conduct an experiment in which we vary both whether a purchase of a physical product is publicly visible or kept private and whether the income used for purchase is linked to social status or randomly assigned. Making consumption choices visible leads to a large increase in demand when income is linked to status, but not otherwise. We investigate the characteristics that mediate this effect and estimate its impact on welfare
How Do Indonesian Professional English Teachers Develop Their Pedagogical Competence in Teaching Implementation?
Authors: Journal Arab World English , Irmawati Dini Kurnia , Widiati Utami , Cahyono Bambang Yudi
Published: July 2018

This article aims to investigate what kinds of Professional Development (PD) activities done by Indonesian professional English teachers in developing their pedagogical competence dealing with teaching implementation as well as to identify how those activities contribute to their competence development. This qualitative study was done in two stages namely subjects selection and investigation on the subjects’ professional development for their pedagogical competence in teaching implementation. The criteria of subjects selection have reflected the four competences that professional teachers need to possess which include personal, social, pedagogical and professional competences. The data collection was done by using questionnaire, interview guide, observation sheet. This study involves four selected professional English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers from Malang city, Malang Regency, and Batu town. The results show that PD activities done by the subjects include having discussion with colleagues, joining teacher association forum, attending seminars and workshops, taking courses, doing research, reading relevant sources, surfing the net,and doing team teaching. The ways how the subjects learn cover doing reflection, taking and giving feedback, discussing, broadening knowledge, researching, and problem solving. Referring to the limitation of this study, future researchers are recommended to do further study involving other aspects of pedagogical competence development, particularly the ones dealing with teaching preparation and evaluation on students learning.
The Unit of Translation
Authors: Studies AWEJ-tls for Translation & Literary , Al-Titinchy Asim Ismail Ilyas
Published: July 2018

This paper tackles the topic of the Unit of Translation (UT) with the aim of making a number of suggestions that might bring up new insights into this thorny issue. UT has been differently tackled by scholars and related to general text types, or functions. In this paper, UT is related to the micro text levels and a number of text-functions. It concludes that the UT issue cannot be tackled in terms of wide generalizations of macro text types and that many practical factors interfere in the choice of UT such as text length, text complexity, time pressure, translator’s experience, and degree of conformity between SL & TL languages and cultures.
Textual Architecture of a Selected Hard News in English: A Discourse Analysis Approach
Authors: Journal Arab World English , Kadhum Suadad Fadhil
Published: July 2018

This study deals with the analysis of a selected hard news through the adaptation of an eclectic model of analysis by the use of Van Dijk (1988), Bell (1991) and Halliday (1976) models of discourse analysis. Writing news stories is a problematic process because it is not a process of merely putting words together to form a text or report, but it involves the choice of the words and markers that conditioned by the purpose, place, and the readers. The study aims at proposing a theoretical framework for the macro- level analysis of news discourse. It covers the macro level analysis of the chosen hard news. The data of the study is an English news story taken from Washington Times newspaper published on 20th of August 2016. The results of the study display that English hard news stories show certain complexity in their structure. The writer of this hard news story aims at not only conveying information but arising the voice of protest against the government and the court of justice. Such analysis reaches to a conclusion, which emphasizes the idea that the field of discourse can be used for better understanding of the media.
Conceptual and Methodological Aspects of Documenting the History and the Future of Monuments Restoration – Towards an Interdisciplinary Perspective
Authors: Zacharopoulou Georgia
Published: July 2018

http://www.recentonline.ro/no_049.htm_The objective of the paper is the methodological presentation of the basic principles towards a critical interdisciplinary approach for studying the history of monuments restoration, valid for different cultures. The proposed integrated framework offers the possibility to study and document monuments restoration in various spatial levels e.g. global, continental, international, national, regional, and local. The conceptual and methodological aspects are based on the following fundamental pillars a) the development of science and technology, including relevant history of education, b) the evolution of the restoration philosophy, c) the incorporation of the above in restoration projects at a lower level, d) the infiltration of the above in restoration interventions at the lowest level. The author expects that the above successive and/or parallel levels of scientific branches can contribute effectively to the analysis, synthesis and comparative assessment of the aspects and criteria that influenced monuments restoration timeline. The challenge for the researcher of the monuments restoration history is the adjustment of the whole process to his own –under research- level in such a way as to take advantage of all the interdisciplinary inputs creating, thus, inventive links and stimulating new information and knowledge. The above are briefly tested in the case study of Thessaloniki, Macedonia, Greece.Such an inductive approach will enable all disciplines to devote their finest efforts towards understanding, documenting and studying monuments restoration history and, thus, support effectively a sustainable future for the world’s cultural heritage.
Effective Solutions for Reducing Saudi Learners’ Speaking Anxiety in EFL classrooms
Authors: Journal Arab World English , Rafada Suzan Hammad , Madini Abeer Ahmed
Published: July 2018

Foreign language anxiety plays an essential role in language learning and negatively impacts on the whole learning process. This research aims to explore the Saudi learners’ perceptions of speaking anxiety in language classrooms and provide some effective and helpful solutions for reducing it. The sample of this study involved 10 Saudi female students, studying their foundation year at the English Language Institute (ELI), King Abdulaziz University. Their ages range between 18 to 20 years old. To reach a richer insight and better understanding of the research phenomenon, a qualitative approach was conducted. For gathering data, ten semi-structured interviews with ten Saudi female students from levels 102, 103, and 104 were used and then thematically analyzed using Nvivo 10 software. The qualitative data found that Saudi female students do feel worried and anxious in foreign language classrooms when speaking the foreign language. However, they showed a positive attitude and a willingness to improve their English speaking proficiency level as a way of reducing anxiety by watching English movies, using English internet sites, traveling abroad and talking to native speakers, doing more presentations, practice reading English books and joining English institutes during summer vacation.
The Effect of Gender and Proficiency Level on Writing Strategy Use among Iraqi High School Students
Authors: Journal Arab World English , Mutar Qusay , Nimehchisalem Vahid
Published: July 2018

This study aims to 1) explore the extent Iraqi high school students’ use of writing strategies; 2) identify the contribution of proficiency level to writing strategy use; and 3) compare male and female students’ writing strategy use. This study employed a quantitative approach, whereby a total of 132 high school students were randomly selected from the Karkh’sdistrict of Baghdad to constitute the sample of the study. A 30-item 3-point Likert scale questionnaire on writing strategy use that was adapted from Petrić&Czárl’s (2003) writing strategy questionnaire served as the instrument of the study. The results of the study reveal that the frequency of strategy use was low among the participants. In addition, no significant difference was found between high and low proficiency students’strategy use. Finally, it was found that there is significant difference between female and male students’ strategy use. Female students were found to use writing strategies more than males. The paper concludes with a discussion on the implications of the findings.
Scholastic Achievement and Computer Attitudes among Moroccan University Students
Authors: Journal Arab World English , Ghouati Azize EL , koumachi Bani
Published: July 2018

In Morocco, like any other parts of the world, the government has enormously been an enthusiastic supporter of technology to uplift the education quality. However, without students' positive computer attitudes, students will not be successful nor will be prepared to acquire new knowledge to achieve good results. To this end, the present study (1) identifies the potential relationship between computer enjoyment (CE) and students' English achievement (EA), (2) explores the type of relationship between computer anxiety (CA) and achievement in English, (3) examines the nature of relationship between computer utility (CU) and English achievement (EA), and finally investigates the type of relationship between computer familiarity (CF) and English achievement among Moroccan university students. Therefore, the main instruments, questionnaires and achievement tests, are analyzed and interpreted quantitatively; whereas the semi-structured interviews are treated qualitatively. The statistical tools used in order to help analyze and interpret data make use of percentages, frequencies, and Correlation tests. Following what has been hypothesized, the quantitative findings reveal that there is no statistically significant correlation between CE, CA, CU, CF and EA. Likewise, the qualitative data results confirm the quantitative findings.
Surveillance in Africa: Politics, Histories, Techniques
Authors: Donovan Kevin P. , Frowd Philippe M. , Martin Aaron K.
Published: July 2018

African countries are home to dense sociotechnical arrangements of registration, monitoring, and spying that are increasingly transnational as well as digital. Despite decades of work devoted to the politics, histories, and techniques of surveillance and control in Western societies, there is very little work on the local exigencies and manifestations of surveillance in African contexts. This special forum on surveillance in Africa seeks to analyze some of the subtle and diverse political implications of identification and observation across the continent.
Problems of Pre-service Teachers during the Practicum: An Analysis of Written Reflections and Mentor Feedback
Authors: Journal Arab World English , Moussaid Rachid , Zerhouni Badia
Published: July 2018

Knowledge of pre-service teachers’ problems during the practicum is supremely important to the design and implementation of an effective field experience. Based on this, the current study aimed to explore the most frequent problems of a cohort of English as foreign language (EFL) beginning teachers (n = 60) enrolled in a training program. Results of an in-depth content analysis of post-lesson written reflections (n = 1511), mentor feedback (n = 1624) and end-of-each-practicum reports (n = 337) reveal 23 frequent problems with teaching methodology, class control and time management as the top concerns. Results also indicate that trainees’ development seems to go through five distinct stages. These findings offer for the first time an insight into the most pressing needs of Moroccan EFL pre-service teachers. Interpretations of the results and recommendations are discussed in relation to the context of the study.
Knot and Tonk: Nasty connectives on many-valued truth-tables for classical sentential logic
Authors: Button Tim
Published: July 2018

Prior’s Tonk is a famously horrible connective. It is defined by its inference rules. My aim in this paper is to compare Tonk with some hitherto unnoticed nasty connectives, which are defined in semantic terms. I first use many-valued truth-tables for classical sentential logic to define a nasty connective, Knot. I then argue that we should refuse to add Knot to our language. And I show that this reverses the standard dialectic surrounding Tonk, and yields a novel solution to the problem of many-valued truth-tables for classical sentential logic. I close by outlining the technicalities surrounding nasty connectives on many-valued truth-tables.Published in Analysis.
Omnivorousness as the Bridging of Cultural Holes: A Measurement Strategy
Authors: Lizardo Omar
Published: July 2018

Recent research and theory at the intersection of cultural sociology and network analysis has converged around the notion of cultural holes: patterns of cultural choice that position the person as a bridge not between other persons but between cultural worlds. This is an approach that promises to open up new vistas in our conceptualization of the relationship between social position and cultural taste, but which so far lacks operational grounding. In this paper, I draw on Breiger’s (1974) formalization of the idea of the duality of persons and groups along with classical formalizations of brokerage for sociometric networks (Burt 1992) to suggest that the “cultural ego network” of a typical survey respondent can be reconstructed from patterns of audience overlap among the cultural items that are chosen by each respondent. This leads to a formalization of the notion of omnivorousness as relatively low levels of clustering in the cultural network: namely, omnivorousness as cultural network efficiency. I show how this metric overcomes the difficulties that have plagued previous attempts to produce ordinal indicators of omnivorousness from simple counts of the number of cultural choices, while providing novel substantive (and sometime counter-intuitive) insights into the relationship between socio-demographic status markers and patterns of cultural choice in the contemporary United States.
The Gender Gap in Employment Hours: Do Work-Hour Regulations Matter?
Authors: Landivar Liana Christin
Published: July 2018

In all developed countries, women, especially mothers, work fewer paid hours than their spouses. However, the magnitude of the gender gap varies significantly by country, ranging from 2 to 20 hours per week in this study. Using data from the 2002 International Social Survey Programme, this article investigates whether work-hour regulations have a significant effect on household allocation of paid labour and gender work-hour inequality. Two main types of work-hour regulations are examined: standard weekly work hours and the maximum allowable weekly work hours. Results show that households in countries with shorter maximum weekly work hours had less work-hour inequality between spouses, as each additional allowable overtime hour over the standard workweek increased the work-hour gap between couples by 20 minutes. These results indicate that couples’ inequality in work hours and gender inequality in labour supply are associated with country-level work-hour regulations.
‘As British as fish and chips’: British Newspaper Representations of Mo Farah during the 2012 London Olympic Games
Authors: Black Jack
Published: July 2018

This article examines British newspaper representations of the ‘Team GB’ athlete Mohamed ‘Mo’ Farah during the 2012 London Olympic Games. In particular, attention is given to examining how representations of Farah were related to discourses on British multiculturalism. A brief discussion of recent rejections of multiculturalism is provided, with specific reference given to political and public calls for immigrants to assimilate with ‘British values’. By turning away from a dichotomous understanding of assimilation, this article suggests that processes of assimilation reflect a complicated coalescence of national inclusion and exclusion. That is, rather than simply highlighting how the national press serve to reproduce simple ‘us’ and ‘them’ binaries, this article draws upon Elias and Scotson’s established–outsider perspective in order to examine how the discursive construction of the ‘nation’ rests upon a dynamic process of identifying and managing ‘outsider’ individuals. As a result, while ‘outsider’ groups are frequently subjected to negative media portrayals, it is argued that Farah’s significance was underscored by discourses that sought to highlight his assimilated Britishness and through his promotion as a symbol of Britain’s achieved multiculturalism.
Classroom Discourse Failure among Algerian Secondary School Learners
Authors: Journal Arab World English , CHOHRA Houria , HAMERLAIN Souâd
Published: July 2018

Teaching English to non-native speakers today necessitates conducting conversations where learners interpret and decipher linguistic and nonverbal aspects of interaction, in other words, preparing learners to use English to participate in conversations inside and outside the classroom. However, this is not the case in Algerian Secondary school English classes. Regular observation indicated almost no continuous teacher-learner conversation while lessons. This paper intends to observe language use between the teachers and students; what instruction is used and how is it dealt with by learners. The results would aim at revealing the shortage learners show in the speaking skill and confirm the effectiveness of observation for classroom evaluation. Adopting a systematic observation, six classes at secondary school level in two different cities in Algeria were observed and audio-taped through a quantitative and qualitative method. Data is analysed from the amount of teacher’s talk, types of classroom discourse structure and questioning. Based on data analysis, the findings showed that most of the talk is approximately initiated by the teacher; learners act only when asked display questions and keep silent when are challenged by influential questions. It also showed display questions dominate the classroom for they maximize learners’ participation. Yet, this learner’ short output would limit the learners’ critical reflection and lessen the classroom interaction among participants. Therefore, this paper urges teachers to adopt a student-centred approach to FL learning that enables students’ to talk more and participate in conversations negotiating meaning with their teacher and peers. For further research, the author puts forward some guidelines to build on new research.
Law as a user: design, affordance, and the technological mediation of norms
Authors: Diver Laurence
Published: July 2018

Published version available at https://doi.org/10.2966/scrip.150118.4 (open access)Technology law scholars have recently started to consider the theories of affordance and technological mediation, imported from the fields of psychology, HCI, and STS. These theories have been used both as a means of explaining how the law has developed, and more recently in attempts to cast the law per se as an affordance. This exploratory paper summarises the two theories, before considering these applications from a critical perspective, noting certain deficiencies with respect to potential normative application and definitional clarity, respectively. It then posits that in applying them in the legal context, we should seek to retain the relational user-artefact structure around which they were originally conceived, with the law cast as the user of the artefact, from which it seeks certain features or outcomes. This approach is effective for three reasons. Firstly, it acknowledges the power imbalance between law and architecture, where the former is manifestly subject to the decisions made by designers which mediate and transform the substance of the legal norms they instantiate in technological artefacts. Secondly, from an analytical perspective, it can help avoid some of the conceptual and definitional problems evident in the nascent legal literature on affordance. Lastly, approaching designers on their own terms can foster better critical evaluation of their activities during the design process, potentially leading to more effective ‘compliance by design’ where the course of the law’s mediation by technological artefacts can be better anticipated and guided by legislators, regulators, and legal practitioners.
Global Banking and the Spillovers from Political Shocks at the Core of the World Economy
Authors: Cunha Raphael , Kern Andreas
Published: July 2018

When do political shocks in core countries reverberate across the global financial system? We identify cross-border banking as a distinct transmission mechanism for political shocks. Democratic processes that advance (undermine) the interests of the global banking industry in core economies benefit (hurt) countries with closer banking ties to these economies. Empirically, we leverage the unanticipated outcomes of the 2016 US presidential election and the Brexit referendum to identify the role of cross-border banking in transmitting these shocks. We show that US global banks benefited disproportionately from the US election surprise. Accordingly, countries with closer ties to US banks fared relatively better; exposure to US bank flows cushioned the negative effect of the election. Evidence from Brexit reinforces the banking-channel hypothesis. The findings further our understanding of the role of global banks in the international financial order and underscore the need for more research on the political economy of global banking.
Testing a Digital Inequality Model for Online Political Participation
Authors: Büchi Moritz , Vogler Florian
Published: July 2018

Increasing Internet use is changing the way individuals take part in society but research on the mobilizing effects of the Internet for political participation shows mixed results. The present study takes a digital inequality perspective and analyzes the role of political interest and Internet expertise for the social structuration of online political participation. Analyses are based on two-wave nationally representative survey data from Switzerland and use cluster analysis and structural equation modeling. A distinct group of political users emerged characterized by high education and income. Further, online politi-cal participation is predicted by political interest and Internet skills, which increasingly mediated the effects of social position. Digital information policies should therefore include the promotion of Internet skills and effective use, particularly in marginalized social groups, to avoid reinforcing traditional participatory inequalities in the digital society.
The Regional Dimension of Statebuilding Interventions
Authors: Brast Benjamin
Published: July 2018

In the post-cold war era, liberal statebuilding interventions have become a major tool of global governance. Yet, the variation in outcomes is still poorly understood. This article draws on state formation theory to elaborate a causal mechanism that can explain the successful monopolization of the means of violence in statebuilding interventions. Insights from the state formation literature suggest that the regional political system is crucial for state formation and statebuilding. In order to test the hypothesis, a novel process-tracing method is applied to the case of Sierra Leone. The case study suggests that only a cooperative regional setting enables interventions to succeed.
The White Working Class and Voter Turnout in US Presidential Elections, 2004—2016
Authors: Morgan Stephen L. , Lee Jiwon
Published: July 2018

Through an analysis of the 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016 Current Population Surveys as well as the 2004 through 2016 General Social Surveys, this article investigates class differences and patterns of voter turnout for the last four U.S. presidential elections. After developing some support for the claim that a surge of white, working-class voters emerged in competitive states in 2016, a portrait of class differences on political matters among white, non-Hispanic, eligible voters between 2004 and 2016 is offered to assess the electoral consequences of this surge. These latter results are consistent with the claim that racial prejudice, anti-immigrant sentiment, concerns about economic security, and frustration with government responsiveness may have led many white, working-class voters to support an outsider candidate who campaigned on these themes. However, these same results give no support to the related claim that the white working class changed its positions on these matters in response to the 2016 primary election campaign or in the months just before the general election.
Reflexive Transformation of Intimacy in Late Modernity Theories: Some Critiques and Conceptual Alternatives
Authors: Rezeanu Cătălina-Ionela
Published: July 2018

The last decades have seen a growing trend towards researching intimacy. A considerable amount of literature has been published based on the reflexive transformation of intimacy framework. This paper starts from the premise that, recently, more and more scholars have criticized the idea that detraditionalization and individualization led to the transformation of intimacy during reflexive modernity (late modernity). Critics question the ability of late modernity concepts to offer a cross- cultural and nuanced image of contemporary particularities of private life and intimate relations. The purpose of this study is to show the current state of knowledge in the social sciences on individualization thesis and detraditionalization thesis, the main theoretical criticisms of the two theses and conceptual alternatives to them. To achieve these goals, we conducted an interpretive synthesis of 16 articles from international literature, published between 1999-2014, in the thematic area of social changes brought by late modernity into the domain of private life and intimacy. In the Introduction section, we briefly present the two theses as reflected in the two of the most cited books on these themes: The Transformations of Intimacy. Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies (Giddens, 1992) and The Normal Chaos of Love (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1995). In the body of the paper, we synthesize the arguments sustaining the criticism of the two theses and show some conceptual alternatives to these criticisms, as stated in the literature. In the concluding section, we resume the main arguments to open directions for future studies.
Another frame, another game? Explaining framing effects in economic games
Authors: Gerlach Philipp , Jaeger Bastian
Published: July 2018

Small changes in the framing of games (i.e., the way in which the game situation is described to participants) can have large effects on players' choices. For example, referring to a prisoner's dilemma game as the "Community Game" as opposed to the "Wall Street Game" can double the cooperation rate (Liberman, Samuels, & Ross, 2004). Framing effects are an empirically well-studied phenomenon. However, a coherent theoretical explanation of the observed effects is still lacking. We distinguish between two types of framings - valence framing and context framing - and provide an overview of three general classes of theories that may account for the observed changes in behaviour.
‘Barbary’ Mahometans in Early American Propaganda: A Critical Analysis of John Foss’s Captivity Account
Authors: Studies AWEJ-tls for Translation & Literary , Boulahnane Saad
Published: July 2018

This article analyzes the first immigrating images of the North African ‘Mahometan’ in the American imagination via John Foss’s (1798) captivity account. It examines the agenda-led discourses and ‘othering’ images establishing the ideological split between the notion of the American “us” and the Muslim “them” through various discursive associations in John Foss’s (1798) A journal, of the captivity and sufferings of John Foss; several years a prisoner at Algiers: together with some account of the treatment of Christian slaves when sick:-- and observations of the manners and customs of the Algerines. The account’s embedded myths, stereotypes, and clichés served as the ‘West’s’ first impression of the Muslim ‘corsair’; they rendered more vivid the perceived aberration of the ‘Orient;’ and they reinforced the symbolism of strength and glory forcefully associated with the newly nascent America. The article further discusses the breadth of circulation and propagation of the constructed ‘West-Orient’ disparity and the celebration of the confrontation with the ‘othered’ enemy. American venues—e.g. museums, galleries, and circuses—as well as works of art—e.g. novels, paintings, and cartoons—constituted a major accomplice in the dissemination of the propaganda in the American public space.
Rural plastic emissions into the largestmountain lake of the Eastern Carpathians
Authors: MIHAI Florin Constantin
Published: July 2018

The lack of proper waste collection systems leads to plastic pollution in rivers in proximity to rural communities. This environmental threat is more widespread among mountain communities which are prone to frequent flash floods during the warm season. This paper estimates the amounts of plasticbottles dumped into the Izvoru Muntelui lake by upstream rural communities. The plastic pollution dimension between seasonal floods which affected the Bistrita catchment area during 2005–2012 is examined. The floods dumped over 290 tonnes of plastic bottles into the lake. Various scenarios are tested in order to explain each amount of plasticwaste collected by local authorities during sanitation activities. The results show that rural municipalities are responsible for 85.51% oftotal plastic bottles collected during 2005–2010. The source of plastic pollution is mainly local. The major floods of July 2008 and June 2010 collected most of the plastic bottles scattered across the Bistrita river catchment (56 villages) and dumped them into the lake. These comparisons validate the proposed method as a reliable tool in the assessment process of river plastic pollution, which may also be applied in othergeographical areas. Tourism and leisure activities are alsofound to be responsible for plastic pollution in the studyarea. A new regional integrated waste management system should improve the waste collection services across rural municipalities at the county level when it is fully operational. This paper demonstrates that rural communities are significant contributors of plastics into water bodies.
Using the Rasch Model for the Affective Assessment of EFL Learners
Authors: Journal Arab World English , Mariam Siti , Saleh Mursid , Warsono  , Mujiyanto Januarius
Published: July 2018

Affective assessment is one of the components of authentic assessment which requires English teachers to assess the students comprehensively.This study aims to (1) explain the ways in which affective aspects improve students’ English achievement, (2) explain the formulation of an affective assessment for EFL learners using the Rasch model. This research and development approach was employed as the basis to develop rating scale model as an instruments measuring the students’ affective aspects in EFL classroom. The data were analyzed using the Rasch Model. The validity and reliability, in the small–scale field tryout were item reliability 1.00 and person reliability 0.93. Meanwhile, item validity are 0.90 and person validity 0.87 were used in the large-scale field one. The results of this study indicate that: (1) there are five affective dimensions or variables developed in this study. They are attitude, motivation, interest, self-concept, and personal value. The five dimensions consist of 24 aspects or sub variables and 35 indicators that become the basis of constracting the 120 item instrument, and as inventory rating scale model. It can be inferred that the affective measuring instrument with the 120 items of statement has a model fit with the data. It means that the model is able to estimate population covariance matrix which is not different from the sample covariance matrix so that the estimation result becomes a basis for generalization.
Against Multiple Agreement – Evidence from Standard Arabic
Authors: Journal Arab World English , Alazzawie Abdulkhaliq
Published: July 2018

This paper provides evidence, based on the Case properties of verbless copular clauses in Standard Arabic (SA), against the Multiple Agreement Hypothesis proposed for languages such as Japanese (Hiraiwa, 2001), English (Chomsky, 2005b; Radford, 2006), and SA double-accusative structures (Al-Horais, 2013). It argues that the mismatch in Case value between the two nominal constituents – the DP “subject” and the DP or AP predicate - of verbless copular clauses is incompatible with the claim that a single probe can simultaneously agree with more than one goal. Rather, the Case phenomenon within the copular contexts considered appears to be consistent with, and follows from, an Agree relation between a single active probe and a single active matching goal. Some SA copular clauses which include a modal-like negative element - laysa - will also be used to address the key issue under investigation.