العدد الثاني

Foreword

The collection of articles published in the present periodical is the culmination of academic work undertaken by active and committed members of the laboratory values, Society and Development (LVSD). This testifies the involvement of dedicated researchers with varied specialties and academic interests. It also reflects the richness and diversity of the laboratory, in which the teachers form an interdisciplinary research community.

As might be noticed, the contributions to this book do not address a specific theme. It was considered that the ambition fuelled by the laboratory to create a specialized magazine in the short term, with its Scientific Committee and its independent funding, should be preceded by a publication of a general nature. This would hopefully be a springboard for regular scientific productions and academic activities (conferences, study days, colloquiums and others) spread over the entire year.

In addition, the proliferation of such initiatives is the guarantor of the distribution and conservation of a number of documents that could remain locked in drawers or become obsolete, and ultimately perish if they are not promptly published. The foundation of all research is to first see light and then generate debate and criticism.

The articles, whose contents were chosen freely by their authors, are in the form of reflections and studies spanning a range of disciplines. They investigated the fields of linguistics, applied linguistics, translation, media and the issue of ethics in economy.

In her article entitled “Long head movement in Amazigh and Standard Arabic”, Omari addresses the workings of long head movement (LHM) and the problems it raises vis-à-vis the principle of ‘Shortest move’ within the framework of the Minimalist program (Chomsky, 1992, 1995). It is suggested in her analysis that the head movement across Negation is not problematic if a relaxed version of the Shortest Move requirement is adopted. Accordingly, non-local head movement is legitimate if the position skipped does not check features of the moved head. This is argued to solve the head skipping in the context of negation in Amazigh and Standard Arabic.

Still within the same framework of Chomsky’s (1995) Minimalist Program, Elghazi investigates the syntax of negation and its interaction with the imperative verbal form in Standard Arabic. In his analysis of the data, it has been proposed that, contrary to previous analyses, the negative imperative is expressed by the prohibitive ‘laa’ in conjunction with a verb in the imperfective form. It is suggested that there are salient symmetrical properties exhibited by the morphology of the imperative and the negative imperative as well, which entails a similar syntactic treatment.

However, in the realm of media studies, particularly in a survey targeting the media and its effects on the social and political arenas in the region, Skouri examines the relationship between the Qatari-based Arabic news satellite channel, Aljazeera and the 2011 Middle Eastern uprising, commonly known as ‘The Arab Spring’. The findings of this case study suggest that exposure to ‘Aljazeera’ channel is not the only catalyst of the ‘the Arab Spring’, but there are other factors related to other media technologies, viz. the union of mass media, technological devices, and social networking.

In another area of research, namely within the arena of translating religious discourse, Amine tackles the challenges of translating the holly Quran by looking into the structural peculiarities of Arabic in terms of style, mood and discourse. Upon her examination of four English translated versions of the Quran, Amine suggests that translating discourse entails a thorough understanding and careful adoption of strategies to translate the original text in terms of language use taking into account the constant link between context and discourse in various dimensions.

In his article on ethics and the market, Elkharbaoui studies the notion of the market in terms of the interplay between the economic, social and cultural elements. It is argued that the study of such a theme (the market) includes not only economic modes of thought but also social constellations. Ethics as such correlates these two broad frameworks of thought, determining the socioeconomic approach through which the notion of the market has to be analyzed and conducted. Within such an approach, economic concepts and theories are applicable; reference is also very often made to the social and cultural setting within which the category of the ‘market’ is used.

To complete the overview on the content of the articles in this collection, Ghaicha, in his article on language assessment and evaluation, attempted to establish an articulated theoretical framework for the main concerns that seem to induce a certain difficulty to both novice and professional EFL practitioners with regard to understanding the working mechanisms of such a perplexing task of assessing EFL students language achievement. Particular aspects of his review article target the definitions of the concept of assessment, the value, functions and purposes of assessment, levels where assessment occur, assessment research literature synopsis, and classroom assessment research. This endeavor culminates in the pedagogical potential of formative assessment and some of its classroom procedural applications inspired from research into formative assessment.

In the end, I hope that you will like and find useful the content and, above all, the support the book will give to your own research.

Redouane Madaoui

editor