مطالب

There is an emerging hierarchical order in the Middle East that is both unstable and is also a source of instability. In the current regional setting, the inherent instability of this order is the result of a confluence of four mutually reinforcing developments. First, the global context has entailed a steady departure, or weakening, of the United States as an active interested power in the Middle East, opening up space among local aspirants for regional hegemony. A second factor is the competition among regional powers not only for the expansion of regional influence but also their power and position in the larger global order. Israel and Saudi Arabia seek to maintain the global status quo, while Turkey and Iran perceive of themselves as counter-hegemonic powers and seek to undermine the Western-engineered global order and hierarchy. Third, while some regional middle powers are more pragmatic in their foreign policy choices (i.e. “pragmatic” middle powers), some form alliances on the bases of ideological or identity affinity (i.e. “allied” middle powers), further deepening and prolonging tensions. Fourth and finally, the collapse of central authority in several Arab states following the 2011 uprisings—in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen—has provided the perfect opportunity for the regional powers, and even some of the secondary regional states, to expand their influence through local proxies and non-state actors. The combined features of the regional order in the Middle East are likely to inhere instability and tensions for the foreseeable future.

The problem is how ideas and ideologies intended to liberate the peoples from misery and oppression were reversed into oppression just in the name of freedom. The reason is the reduction of equality to a numerical concept, which was a milestone in world history but finally ended up in obscene inequalities to such an extent, that the social fabric of the Western societies is dissolving, far-right and populistic movements are gaining momentum and the corruption of our values can no longer be ignored. The crisis of the (neo)-liberal world order is returning from the margins to the center. For too long we thought that modern absolute or numerical equality would supersede the former aristocratic concept of proportional equality. But in the end this understanding of equality created a kind of blind spot in our perception – a prominent example is Thomas Jefferson who included the dignity of all people into the American declaration of independence and was virtually blind to realizing that this value contradicted his own practice of possessing slaves.  Therefore we re-invent proportional equality in the footsteps of Aristotle, but transgress his aristocratic concept by balancing it with reversed-proportionality – we propose therefore to understand justice as a pair of scales between freedom and equality.  

  Extreme measures to reduce the number and cost of refugees and immigrants belong among the recent examples of the Kingdom of Denmark’s illiberal responses to crises in the wake of third party armed conflict. Politically, the process of tightening the law and having a transparently unwelcoming attitude towards foreigners began in 2001, at least according to some experts on Danish foreign policy, e.g. Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen. While the causes are controversial, the effects are clear. Denmark is undercutting its own history. However popular the current VLAK-coalition government’s Minister of Immigration, Integration and Housingmay be among the Danes, the ongoing series of restrictive policies cannot but result in Red Flags. Irrespective of any motivationally deeper or underlying reasons for their adoption, the relevant legal and other measures constitute international relations events and changes; and, as such, they affect the order among states. In terms of regional and global politics, the question is whether there is an analogy between post-2013 Qatar and post-2001 Denmark? More precisely, the question is whether Denmark should be listed under past as opposed to present “small and influential states”? By using Mehran Kamrava’s work on Qatar as a platform for a role reversal claim, the authors present a muted subtle power argument for the need to downgrade Denmark, too. Furthermore, a tension between the official Danish image and the climate of cultural values in Denmark creates a complex us versus them disconnect which, in turn, makes it possible to provide or, more to the point, explain some aspects of the evidence for the state’s precarious human rights capacity. Part of the argument derives from pre-2001 literary whistleblowing concerning Danishness – a strategy that accords with the popular Danish Minister’s own use of satire as a truth-recognition methodology. 

Textbooks play a crucial role in English language teaching and learning. One of the methods for selecting the most appropriate textbook for a particular educational purpose is comparing two or several similar textbooks with each other. Textbook evaluation can provide useful information about the strengths and weaknesses of textbooks and can lead to the selection of the most suitable materials for specific purposes. The present study is a critical comparison of Prospect 2, taught in junior high schools in Iran, and English Net 6, taught in junior high schools in Turkey, in terms of their physical and utilitarian attributes, efficient outlay of objectives and supplementary materials, learning and teaching contents, and language skills. The participants of the study were 20 English teachers who completed two evaluation checklists. The textbook evaluation checklist that was used in the study was based on the guidelines and framework of AbdelWahab’s checklist (2013)with 123 items. The results of the study indicated that the Turkish textbook surpassed the Iranian one in many aspects of the text book evaluation checklist. The results revealed that in comparison with English Net 6, Prospect 2 had more weaknesses in terms of physical and utilitarian attributes, efficient outlay of objectives and supplementary materials, learning and teaching contents, and language skills.

Classroom climate has been demonstrated to associate with individuals’ various attributes and outcomes. Recent research has also confirmed students’ goal orientations deserving to be recognized as a significant achievement-related outcome. In this line, the current study intended to examine the relationship between Iranian EFL students’ perceptions of their classroom environment and their achievement goal orientations. The study also aimed to see whether different genders held different perceptions concerning the main study variables. To accomplish this aim, 570 high school students were randomly recruited and the two scales of students’ perceived climate questionnaire (WIHIC) and achievement goal orientation questionnaire (AGQ) were applied. The results indicated that learners held distinct perceptions of classroom climate and different goal orientations with gender having a significant influence on some of their components. Furthermore, correlations were obtained among diverse factors of the study scales. The findings provide implications for understanding the EFL learners’ perceived classroom climate and their achievement goals and hence planning the learning environments taking into account the students' goal orientations and the significant role of gender.

This paper addresses the issue of culture specific references in translating a literary work taking as a case study the novel Cette aveuglante absence de lumière written originally in the French language by Taher Benjelloun and translated into the English language under the title The Blinding Absence of Light by Linda Coverdale . The study offers insight into the distribution of these references in the novel eliciting data related to Moroccan, French, American, Oriental and other culture specific references along with their comparison. There is also room for a theoretical background regarding the procedures and strategies that have been elaborated by translation theorists to account for the translation of cultural references. My analysis focuses on the strategy adopted by the translator and procedures employed in the translation of these references into the English language. The paper ends with a discussion of the attained results taking into consideration cultural attractiveness and its impact on the perception of the characters and their future desires.

This study investigated the effects of prompts as corrective feedback strategy on teaching /θ/ and /ð/ sounds to Iranian EFL learners. To achieve this objective, after 30 students studying English at a language institute took a placement test, the intermediate-level students were selected based on their scores on this test. They were randomly assigned to one experimental group and one control group. The experimental group was instructed these two sounds giving prompts as corrective feedback, while the control group received no feedback. In this experimental study, two teacher-made tests on sounds /θ/ and /ð/ were administered to the participants before and after the treatment. After collecting the data and confirming normality of them; through employing two independent-samples t tests and two paired-samples t tests, the collected data were analyzed. The results indicated that language learners in the experimental group did not significantly outperform in the posttest; thus, it can be concluded that prompts were not an effective feedback in teaching these two sounds to Iranian intermediate EFL learners. Findings of the present study can help language teachers and teacher trainers in teaching these complex sounds to Iranian EFL learners

This study aimed to investigate the relative effectiveness of consciousness-raising tasks and structure-based production tasks in comparison with the traditional teaching in learning comparative and superlative forms, following a task-based approach to teaching English grammar. To this end, from among 82 female elementary-level high school students having taken a Solutions Placement Test (2010), 72 students being homogeneous regarding their language proficiency were assigned to one control group experiencing traditional grammar learning and two experimental groups that were instructed using consciousness-raising tasks and structure-based production tasks. The study was a quasi-experimental one following a pre-test post-test control group design. All groups took a multiple-choice researcher-made pre-test measuring their knowledge of comparative and superlative forms at the outset, and after six weeks, the three groups took part in the corresponding post-test. At last, the results of ANCOVA indicated that consciousness-raising task group had the best grammar performance, but no significant differences were found between the participants in structure-based production tasks and traditional teaching. Therefore, it is recommended that other EFL teachers consider consciousness-raising tasks as an option in teaching comparative and superlative forms in their high school classes.

Für den byzantinisch-christlichen Theologen und Mystiker Gregorios Palamas, Erzbischof von Thessaloniki und einen der bedeutendsten Vertreter des Hesychasmus , und den islamischen Mystiker und Sufimeister Ibn ʽArabī bezieht sich die Erkenntnis der Wirklichkeit Gottes allein auf die göttlichen Energien oder Eigenschaften und nicht auf die unzugängliche und verborgene Wesenheit Gottes, die alles Sein und damit auch alle Erkenntnis auf unaussprechliche Weise übersteigt. Die göttliche Wesenheit und die göttlichen Energien oder Eigenschaften sind aber nicht voneinander getrennt, sondern innerhalb der göttlichen Wirklichkeit nur unterschieden; und sie bilden trotz dieses Unterschiedes eine unauflösbare Einheit. Diese Lehren vom innergöttlichen Unterschied bilden sowohl bei Gregorios Palamas als auch bei Ibn ʽArabī die Grundlage für ihre mystische Gottesschau. Im Folgenden werden die Grundzüge dieser Lehren dargelegt und einander gegenübergestellt. Die Gegenüberstellung soll vor allem der wechselseitigen Erhellung dienen. Dabei gilt es zu beachten, dass beide Mystiker verschiedenen Religionen und damit verschiedenen Offenbarungskreisen angehören, die hier aber nicht nur äußerlich einander gegenübergestellt werden. Vielmehr geht es darum, den inneren Aufbau der innergöttlichen Unterscheidung zwischen göttlicher Wesenheit und göttlichen Energien oder Eigenschaften von Gregorios Palamas und Ibn ʽArabī in ihrer grundlegenden Bedeutung für die Richtigkeit des geistigen Weges zur Gottesschau mit Blick auf die innere und transzendente Einheit der Religionen aufzuzeigen. Zuvor aber werden einige kurze Angaben über Leben und Werk von Gregorios Palamas und Ibn vorangestellt.