Category: Uncategorized

Executive Summary

In the current study, the author evaluated conflict management with respect to the available options for its resolution. From the onset, mediation is outlined as the preferred option in resolving conflicts and other forms of disagreements in the society. To this end, a historical perspective of this alternative form of settling disputes is outlined in the introduction chapter. The topic is further expounded on in the literature review section. The research undertaking sought to explain the rationale behind mediation based on the resolution efforts made in Cyprus and Northern Ireland.

The study was carried out based on an exploratory research design. Secondary sources of data were used to obtain the necessary information. In light of this, peer reviewed journals and books relating to conflict management and resolution were used. A total of 82 sources were used to support the discussions made in the study. The case study of the conflicts in Cyprus and Northern Ireland also helped to advance the thesis statement.

The analysis of the two case studies revealed a number of issues relating to mediation. In the first instance, this form of conflict resolution was seen as the preferred mechanism owing to its ability to improve relations between the various stakeholders involved. However, based on the failure of mediation efforts made in Cyprus, the study indicated the need to adhere to the theory of Ripeness. In addition, the study found that public participation is necessary to enhance the effectiveness of mediation processes.

Introduction

Overview

The current chapter lays the foundation for conflict and the various resolution strategies used to handle it. There are a number of aspects that relate to conflict and its resolution. However, the current study emphasises on mediation as a suitable dispute resolution mechanism. The strategy is associated with a number of benefits to the warring parties and other stakeholders involved in the dispute.

The author of the current study is alive to the fact that conflict is inevitable in any modern society.¹ In fact, it is part of human nature. In addition, it is noted that conflict can be resolved using a number of different processes. However, the current research undertaking outlines the rationale for mediation as the preferred conflict resolution mechanism. Background information on the subject matter highlights the problem for the study. The research undertaking intends to illustrate the successes and failures of mediation as the ideal conflict resolution strategy. A comparative analysis of two conflicts will help in the realisation of this objective. The two are Cyprus and Northern Ireland disputes. They act as the two case studies for the current study.

Background Information

Conflict is a major component of the human interactions in a given society. Considering the dynamic nature of human interactions, conflict is assumed to have a similar nature.² What this means is that different forms of disputes exist between members of a particular community. Conflict occurs from the rudimentary unit of a society, which is the family. It extends to larger set ups of the community, such as countries and regions.³ A number of studies conducted in this field indicate that conflict is a paradoxical concept. In essence, it is assumed that disputes are some of the forces that destroy relationships in the society. Consequently, the need for conflict resolution mechanism arises. The strategies are used to enhance peaceful coexistence between different individuals and parties.

With respect to the magnitude of conflicts, it is possible to have an escalation of the same on an international level. The result of such crises is instability and an endangerment to the existing systems in a given society.⁴ To this end, conflict resolution is seen as an avenue through which crises, of whatever magnitude, can be averted. The study focuses on mediation, as a preferred technique for conflict resolution.

Problem Statement

Conflict is a common phenomenon in any setting. In the business and political landscapes, there are various issues that destabilise the harmony among various parties. The result is a conflict that brings about instability of the immediate environment.⁵ The current paper is developed with the intention of providing a framework of conflict resolution through mediation. Notwithstanding the success rate of mediation efforts, there are cases where the same has not been a success. To this end, the paper seeks to evaluate how best the same can be applied in various conflicts to ensure an amicable solution is obtained.

The research undertaking, while supporting the efficiency of mediation, evaluates the mediation initiatives in two main conflicts. The conflict in Northern Ireland is considered one of the most phenomenal in terms of the duration and resolution.⁶ The mediation process was successful and the information will prove important in helping to resolve other conflicts of a similar nature. Separately, the mediation process in Cyprus is outlined

The major problem, with regards to conflict resolution, is when certain techniques fail to yield the desired expectations. An example is the conflict in Cyprus where mediation efforts did not achieve the intended objective of peace.⁷ The same informs an analysis of the mediation process in Cyprus to determine what went wrong. The problem statement of the current study is based on the ineffectiveness of the mediation efforts. To this end, the current study is carried out based on the thesis statement that, addressing the flaws made in mediating the Cyprus conflict will develop a suitable template for mediation in future conflicts. The same forms the basis of the comparative analysis between the mediation processes in the two main conflicts highlighted in the current study.

Research Methods

Research design

The current study is a comparative analysis. Such a research undertaking requires a unique design. According to Creswell, adopting a suitable research design allows the activities of the study to yield the expected results.⁸ The current study intends to examine mediation, as a preferred conflict resolution mechanism. The same will be examined based on the mediation efforts in two separate conflicts. To this end, the study makes use of a hybrid research design based on exploratory and case study techniques.

The method of research adopted for the current study intends to exhaust all the information pertaining to mediation. The case study will expound upon the existing concepts of mediation. The various techniques of mediation used in both conflicts are discussed in the cases study. The exploratory research design allows for the use of secondary information to argue the fundamentals of the study. The same is evident in the literature review provided upon in the study. The information obtained will form the basis of the discussion of the results of the comparative analysis of the case study.

Research context

The current study focuses on the issues surrounding conflict and conflict resolution. There is a need to come up with comprehensive mechanisms of conflict resolution. The study is meant to contextualise mediation as the most preferred technique of conflict resolution.

Procedure

The study largely relies on secondary sources of data from which the information pertaining to mediation is obtained. Secondary information is obtained from books and journals on the subject of mediation. The necessary adherence to ethics was taken into account. The resources used for the study based on their relevance and currency.⁹ The sources used were from as early as 2005. However, there are others, published much earlier, which are used owing to the information they contain.

Methods of Data Collection

As already mentioned, the data necessary for this study is sourced from secondary sources. The fists step involves identification of the sources relevant to the research undertaking. The primary method of data collection will involve a web based search.¹⁰ To this end, there are a total of 100 sources which were obtained. From the web based search. There were also a number of printed materials used for the study. However, due to the evaluation criteria outlined, only 82 sources were used to carry out the research.

Data analysis

The data is analysed in two phases. The first phase involves a comparative analysis. In this phase, mediation efforts in both Northern Ireland and Cyprus are outlined. The analysis involves comparing the techniques of mediation that are shared in both cases.¹¹ At the same time, the respective points of departure will be analysed. The second phase of data analysis will involve a comprehensive discussion of the findings from the comparative analysis. The discussion is based on how the findings of this study relate to the information sources from the secondary sources.

Research Objectives

Mediation, as already discussed, is one of the many techniques that are used to resolve conflicts. The current study intends to illustrate its effectiveness based on the comparative analysis of mediation in Cyprus and Northern Ireland. To this end, the study has one major objective and four main objectives.

Major objective

To establish the effectiveness of mediation in conflict resolution

Main Objectives

1. To explain mediation with reference to conflict resolution
2. To establish the techniques of mediation
3. To analyse conflict resolution in Cyprus and Northern Ireland.
4. To find out why mediation in Northern Ireland was a success.
5. To find out the mistakes made in the mediation process in Northern Ireland.

Chapter Summary

The first chapter is the introduction chapter where key aspects of the study are outlined. A background on conflict and conflict resolution is outlined. Also a thesis statement is provided alongside specific objectives and research questions to be addressed. Details of the research methods are also illustrated. The chapter also highlights the research perspective to be undertaken by the study. The necessary objectives and research questions are outlined. The second chapter is a review of the literature associated with the subject.

Literature Review

Overview

Conflict resolution through mediation has been developed over a number of styles. In this literature review, the same are explained from a historical perspective on the subject. The studies examined in this section include previous conflicts, where mediation was used as a preferred conflict resolution technique. The literature review also illustrates the various studies that seek to explain the factors that promote success in the whole mediation process. At the same time, there are instances where mediation was not a success. Courtesy of this review, the necessary theoretical frameworks are examined. At the end of the review, the gaps in literature become apparent.¹² The same provides a rationale for the current study.

Historical Perspective

As already discussed in the back ground review, mediation is a form of conflict resolution mechanism. The process involves a neutral third party is involved in ensuring two parties, to a conflict, reach an amicable agreement.¹³There are a number of studies which have sought to illustrate the historical perspective if the concept. Astor and Chinkin argue that, mediation requires a number of techniques, to ensure parties settle upon a common interest.¹⁴ However, historically, mediation has been confused with arbitration.

The mediation process makes use of mediators as facilitators to an agreement. On the other hand, arbitration involves a third party whose role is to make a decision based on the conflict at hand. In the analysis of the mediation process, there are studies where the distinction between the two is made clear.^{15 16}The main difference is that an arbitrator makes a decision while a mediator does not.

Mediation has been used in a number of instances to solve conflicts in a number of societies. Asia and, by extension, China is one of the areas where the process is known to have been used to solve conflicts.¹⁷Confucius held the opinion that moral persuasion is the best way to resolve any form of conflict.¹⁸Given that arbitration involves a decision made a third party, some sense of coercion is involved. In the traditional Chinese setting, the school of thought derived by Confucius was such that compromise is a core element of dispute resolution. To this end, cultures in China resort to litigation as a last resort when it comes to dispute resolution.

In a country like Japan, the concept of mediation is deeply entrenched. Traditionally, the head of a given village had the role of enabling people arrive at an amicable solution to a conflict.¹⁹ Given the heavy reliance on mediation, in the Japanese society, litigation became highly discouraged. The tradition has carried on to present times, where mediation is used in resolving disputes of a business nature.

In the African cultures, mediation was also practiced. According to Chouliaraki,²⁰ mediation worked so well in the African setting owing to the extended kinship ties within a given community. With respect to Islam, the role of the quadis is evidence of the societys preference for mediation when it comes to resolving conflicts.²¹ Essentially, the quadis are intermediaries in a given conflict. Their role was basically to reach out to parties in a dispute with an objective of bringing about social harmony.

In the twentieth century, mediation was practiced by several civilised societies. At the time, civilisation was largely associated with the United Kingdom (UK). The need for a suitable conflict resolution mechanism saw the institutionalisation of mediation in the UK.²² There are a number of studies that cite the Conciliation Act as a part of the institutionalisation of mediation in the UK society.²³ The same was replicated in the United States (U.S.) where the U.S. Department of labour came up with a body referred to as the Commissioners of Conciliation.²⁴ The commissioners were tasked with coming up with a alternative dispute resolution mechanism with respect to labour related conflicts.

Previous conflicts

Conflict is not a new phenomenon in the current social dispensations. Over the years, conflict has characterised a number of human interactions. In this section, the conflict in Somalia and the role of mediation in resolving the dispute is outlined.²⁵ The section also examines the Mediation efforts in the Middle East, particularly with reference to the Israel-Palestine conflict.²⁶ The conflict between the Kurds in Turkey is also outlined.²⁷ The literature review will outline the techniques of mediations that have been used in each of the scenarios mentioned.

The Somali Conflict

The war torn regions in Somali began to experience conflict as early as 1897. During the period when colonial powers scrambled for a piece of the African continent, Somali was divided among the Italian, French and British colonial powers. The conflict was exasperated by the coup orchestrated by Mohamed Siad Barre in 1969.²⁸ Also, the battle for the control of Ogaden in 1978 plunged the country into more chaos. However, the collapse of the Siad Barre-led regime put the conflict in Somalia on an international watch list. The same necessitated a suitable resolution, in which mediation was used.

The most notable peace accord was arrived at in 2004. Dubbed the Mbagathi Peace Process,²⁹ the mediation efforts were facilitated by the regional and international authorities. The dispute was mainly brought about by the need to control the country by different factions made up by the warlords.³⁰ The nature of the conflict was traced down to the supremacy battles between the different clans. To this end, the mediation process sought to come up with a formula that would ensure power is shared among the clans.

The mediation efforts that gave rise to the Mbagathi Peace Process are regarded as a success. The opinion is shared by various scholars of political science where mediation is outlined as a preferred dispute resolution mechanism.³¹ The success of the mediation efforts is evident since decades after the fall of the Siad Barre administration the country would go back to democracy under a Federal form of government. Courtesy of the mediation efforts, the interests of the parties in disputes are addressed.

The Kurdish-Turkey Conflict

In Turkey, the central government is embroiled in a long standing conflict with members from the Kurd community, based in Iraq. At the heart of the conflict is the role of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the guerrilla attacks experienced in Turkey.³² The Turkish government has accused the Iraq government of supporting the activities of the PKK. Mediation efforts have been on-going for years. Presently, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has been appointed as the mediator between the two parties.

In the process of an on-going conflict, it is imperative that the parties exercise some form of restraint. The mediating party is meant to facilitate a temporary truce between the parties. Unfortunately, the OIC appear not to understand their role as a mediator. In 2007, there were reports which indicated that the Turkish government did not observe a cessation of armed conflict.³³ Both parties engaged in armed conflict leading to the deaths of several civilians. The role of the OIC as an effective mediator was brought into sharp focus.

The objective of a mediation process is to foster goodwill between any two parties. Unfortunately, in this conflict the mediator appeared to have lost the political goodwill essential for an amicable solution to the conflict. The result has been a prolonged armed conflict whose result has been the loss of many lives.³⁴ The development of a suitable framework for conflict resolution will enable the realisation of peace in such areas as the Kurd populated Turkey and Iraq.

Mediation in the Middle East

The Middle East is perhaps the region characterised with some of the longest conflicts. For instance, the Israel-Egypt and Israel-Palestine conflicts are some of the few where mediation has been used.³⁵ As a mechanism of conflict resolution, mediation has some notable successes. That notwithstanding, there are cases where mediation efforts have failed to bear any fruits in the Middle East region.

The notable success of mediation in conflict resolution, in the Middle East, was evident after the 1978 peace accord between Egypt and Israel. There are a number of studies that sight this technique in use within the region. The study by Joffe, for example, examines mediation in the Middle East.³⁶ Jimmy Carter acted as mediator in the conflict where Presidents Sadat and Begin came to a compromise regarding the conflict between the two patties. The success of this accord was attributed to the political will from the parties.

The role of a mediator is crucial in ensuring the parties come to an amicable solution. Presidet Clinton, was mediator seeking to bring to an end, the conflict between Israel and Palestine.³⁷ However, unlike his predecessor, the Clinton-led Mediation efforts were not as successful as the one led by Carter. Several studies have so far examined the reasons that led to the failure of the Clinton-led mediation efforts attribute the same to the absence of a political will. The same can be said for the mediation efforts aimed to quell the crisis in Syria. There have been two mediators since the peace talks began and in both cases, the conflict has not been resolved. Evidently, it boils down to the willingness to cede ground from both parties.

Factors that enhance the success of mediation in conflict resolution

Conflict resolution is regarded as an avenue through which a particular crisis successfully brought to an end. To this end, there are a number of techniques that act as the promoting factors which enhance the resolution of a given conflict. Several studies have been carried out to examine the same. The study by Maney, Ibrahim, Higgins & Herzog examined some of the factors while illustrating the common reasons that bring about failure in the mediation process.³⁸ Mareschal also examines some of factors, albeit from a psychological perspective.³⁹ Understanding the factors that promote the success in mediation enhances conflict resolution holistically.

In the first instance mediation is only as successful as the appropriateness of the mediator involved. The study by Maney et al suggests that every dispute has its unique features.⁴⁰ To this end, the involvement of a mediator with the relevant experience in the matters in disputed upon is tied to the success of the mediation. The experience, skill and tact adopted by a mediator is very important when it comes to the intended outcome of a mediation process. Consequently, studies affirm that mediation is indeed as good as the mediator.

Commitment to resolve a given conflict is, perhaps, the most common factor that influences the success of a mediation process. In most cases, disputes collapse due to the absence of goodwill regarding the resolution of a given conflict.⁴¹ There are cases where one of the parties in a dispute makes it clear on their intention not to carry on with the mediation process. The absence of commitment from both parties brings about frustration in the mediation process. In such cases, it becomes imperative that the mediator ensures there is goodwill from both parties.

The history of the parties also plays a role in resolving a conflict. The mediation process requires an understanding of the root cause of the dispute at hand. The study by Markides and Coufoudakis indicates that mediation efforts succeed in cases where the mediator has a firm grasp of the history of the two parties.⁴² In the absence of the history to a given conflict, the parameters that would necessitate a solution become difficult to identify. To this end, the mediation process stalls or collapses altogether.

The success of a mediation process is also determined by proper preparation. The mediation process requires adequate preparation.⁴³ Lack of preparation becomes evident in cases where the parties fail to disclose the requisite information pertaining to the discussions. Instances where parties to a dispute fail to prepare, delays in the conflict resolution persist. The ripple effect of a prolonged conflict is harmful to both societies. To this end, scholars maintain that preparation is paramount to the success of a mediation process.

The stability of the parties to a dispute is also a contributing factor to the success of a mediation process. The same is discussed in a number of studies which seek to come up with ways to in which mediation can yield results in conflict resolution.⁴⁴ Ideally, the stability of a disputant is brought about by the shifting of goals by respective parties. For instance, a

Incidences where mediation failed in conflict resolution

Conflict resolution, through mediation, has not always yielded the expected results. Conflicts have either escalated or kept the momentum. To this end studies relating on the same have been outlined. According to Meadow, there are a number of conflicts where mediation was suggested as a solution but the same never yielded the required results.⁴⁵ Examples include the following:

1. The Israel-Palestine conflict
2. The Syrian conflict
3. The Somali conflict

Theoretical Perspectives

There are a number of studies that illustrate the various theories relating to the subject. The literature review discusses a number of the theories. They include the following:

Conflict theory

Understanding conflict resolution requires an in-depth analysis of the conflict theory. The theory can be traced back to the Karl Marx. Several studies describe the conflict theory based on its role of coercing disputants to arrive at an amicable solution.⁴⁶ The theory assumes that a society is made up of constituent elements that compete for the available resources. The only way to maintain the social order is through domination. However, there are cases when the harmony in the society is disturbed. Conflict is the result of the destabilised harmony of a society.

The conflict theory assumes that inequality, in a society, whenever there is a disproportionate sharing of the resources. The theory goes on further to explain that the harmony that exist in a society is not due to the shared values but from the coercion that is in the authorities.⁴⁷Under this theoretical framework, social control is important to ensure the stability of a people. To this end, mediation efforts need to employ some form of coercion to achieve the harmony required in a society.

The role of a mediator is meant to ensure that disputants to a conflict are able to arrive at an amicable solution. The conflict theory allows the mediator to use diplomacy to coerce the parties to enter into an agreement. The coercion, referred to in this theoretical framework is not the kind where actual force is used. The parties are made to appreciate the need for peace and the benefits of a mutual coexistence. Conflict theory was advanced in the Northern Ireland mediation efforts.⁴⁸ Both parties were made aware of the ramifications of the armed conflict. Consequently the mediation efforts were able to achieve the intended results owing to the parties having to decide to drop arms in favour of a harmonious coexistence.

The Cooperative theoretical framework

The process of mediation, in conflict resolution is one where the need for cooperation is very important. To this end, the cooperative model was developed with the intentions of fostering reconciliation initiatives between disputing parties. The cooperative model was developed by one Morton Deutsch.⁴⁹ The theory is developed based on the nature of the dispute. Other studies indicate that this model requires that parties identify the respective terms intended to be achieved out of a mediation process. The resolution of the Egypt-Israel conflict can be explained based on this model.⁵⁰ The cooperative theoretical framework requires commitment from both parties in the resolution of the conflict.

The cooperative theoretical framework exists based on competition and cooperation as the main orientations. The two orientations are observed in relation to how the disputants in a given conflict end up interacting.⁵¹ In the advancement of this theoretical model, Deutsch argues that the mediation process is determined based on the nature of the interaction between the parties. Based on the Israel-Egypt mediation, at Camp David, the nature of interaction was laced with political goodwill from both sides.⁵² To this end, cooperation was seen to occur and further foster cessation of conflict. Based on this model, conflicts like the one in Syria can be resolved if the mediators focus more on ensuring cooperation from the disputants.

Cooperation theory has been mentioned in a series of studies. In most of the cases, cooperation is outlined as the backbone to the success of a mediation process.⁵³ The number one reason as to why many mediation efforts do not bear fruit is the absence of goodwill. The cooperation theory is outlined as a means through which disputants can meet each other halfway for the amicable resolution to a conflict.

The Principled Negotiation Theory

The process of mediating a conflict involves negotiations to address the pertinent issues that bring about the conflict. To this end, the principled negotiation framework was developed. The theory is seen as a build up to the cooperation theory and was advanced by Roger Fisher and William Ury.⁵⁴ Under this theoretical framework, conflict is resolved only through a structured process of negotiation. To this end, the principled negotiation framework is understood from the constituent principles.

The primary principle of this theory is the separation of the parties from the problem presented in the conflict. In most cases, conflicts persist when parties retain hard line stances in a dispute.⁵⁵ The detachment of the parties from the issues at hand enables both sides of a dispute to focus more on resolving the crisis. The crisis between Israel and Palestine has been cited in many studies as being prolonged since the parties are not detached from the problem.⁵⁶ The detachment allows for the mediation process to address the substantive issues that are presented.

The second principle of this model is for the parties to focus on the main interest rather than the positions. There are a number of instances where mediation becomes necessary to resolve a political crisis.⁵⁷ At the heart of such conflicts the disputants mostly focus on the positions. An example of such a scenario is after a general election and the dispute that results from the contestation as to who won the presidency, for example. Based on the principled negotiations theory, the parties should ignore the positions claimed in the dispute and focus more on addressing the substance of the dispute.⁵⁸ The other principle of this theory is the generation of a variety of options that will allow for a final agreement to be settled upon.

The Effectiveness of Mediation

Literature on the effectiveness of mediation focuses on three main aspects that relate to the process. The characteristics of the disputants and mediator are paramount to the success of a mediation process.⁵⁹ Also, the characteristics of the dispute feature greatly when there is a need to evaluate the effectiveness of the mediation process. Prior to the actual negotiations in during mediation talks, the parties must critically evaluate the properties of the dispute in reference. To this end, there are a number of studies which separately explain how to realise the nest out of a mediation process based on the three aspects suggested.

Effectiveness based on the characteristics of a dispute

A mediator can easily predict the success of a mediation process based on the nature and characteristics of a dispute. In previous studies, the issues that bring about a given dispute are often evaluated based on their complexity.⁶⁰ There are certain disputes that have multiple issues that require to be addressed. To this end, the characteristics of a dispute ought to be enumerated and categorised based on the urgency to solve.

Addressing a dispute based on the complexity of the issue raised, has been a subject of study by various scholars in the past. For instance, there are negative notions regarding grading the complexity of the issues, in a dispute, based on their complexity. Based on such notions, it is assumed that increasing the complexity of the issues at hand, makes it difficult for an effective resolution of the issue

Police Brutality Essay Introduction

Police officers are allowed to use non-negotiable coercive force to maintain public order and control the behavior of citizens. This provides a loophole for use of brutal force according to Bittner (1970; cited in Cao, 1999). The central problem or area of concern appears to be the proper application of use of this force according to Kerstetter (1985; cited in Cao, 1999).

Research on police abuse of force and brutality on the organizational level are rare or few. Most studies on abuse appear to focus on the individual level of abuse. These studies have also faced several limitations, including the fact that they involve limited number of jurisdiction and inconsistent measures across the studies.

Police brutality refers to the excessive use of force by the police, and which leads to harassment of citizens, annoyance and restriction of their freedom (as posited by Reiss, 1971; cited in Cao, 1999). Other interpretations touch the judgment of citizens that they have not been treated with respect and dignity as would be democratically expected.

The likelihood of the law enforcement agencies including and excluding the police to commit crime is high, one because of the nature of the job. Police are exposed to various situations where they are likely to act in a brutal manner and to react vigorously to situations. However, law enforcement agencies have been required to act in a responsible manner so as to reduce the rates and cases of brutality.

Cases of police brutality in the United States have been reported in history, with increase in the concern of these cases. There are reports that police in the United States have exceeded all other groups in the violation of human rights of minorities. This has led to growing of distrust between the police and the populations. This paper will look at police brutality in the United States and how it can be checked out.

The paper analyzes this situation and how it can be dealt with, including comparison of the cases with human rights concerns. In addition, the paper will try to look at other things such as the causes of police brutality and how it can be achieved.

Proposals of dealing with police brutality have been discussed by groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, ranging from punishment of the officers once they are reported with brutality (Bennett, 2008). Police reforms have been put forward as a means of ending police brutality, such as those proposed in 1970s (Lucent Overview Series, n.d.).

It has been revealed that several complaints of police abuse go unpunished. For instance, a study has indicated of the over 10, 000 complaints recorded between 2002 and 2004 in Chicago; only nineteen received reasonable punishment.

The study has proposed that police department should not be allowed to police itself, but that accountability for every officers conduct an investigation of police abuse reports should be in the hands of an independent oversight board (Ryan, 2007). However, there is evidence, according to the aforementioned author that the greatest number of riots related to the use of force among the police, relate to public perception concerning misuse of force by the police.

This report focuses on use of brutal force by the police as well as the complaints raised by the public, the conflict generated by the problem, the intense and the consequences of police brutality.

Police brutality appears to be a thing existing in the history of the United States. The New York City Police Department used to encounter many incidences of this form of crime in 1990s. Citizens were being injured by breaking their hands, arms and body parts so as to make arrests, and magistrates raised concerns on this trend on the use of force by the police officers.

There was little concern about police brutality in those years than today. The issue of police brutality has come to be widely known and surfaced because of two major incidences that occurred in the history of the United States. One is the criminal law revolution. This was through the leadership of Chief Justice Earl Warren and was started by the star.

Originally known as the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, the Kerner Commission findings were second. These steps allowed the nation to focus largely on police brutality and the use of force by the police. In addition to the national debate, there are studies which have been carried on the subject matter since that time which serve to give detailed illustration.

What is Police Brutality?

Police brutality has been a national debate since the time of Rodney King, and which has involved many issues. This historical event by the Los Angeles Police Department occurred in 1991 and played an important role in changing the situation. Police are engaged in a wide range of activities including keeping law and order. In their duty, they are exposed to a variety of issues that may make them react vigorously or wildly.

Cases of brutality have been linked to behaviors such as racism and battering of citizens, whether they are engaged in crime or not. Research evidence has shown that the police who commit brutality cannot be categorized by race, since there was no differentiation between those who have committed the crime. It was revealed by this study that the black officers crime rate stood at 9.8 percent whereas that for white officers was 8.7 percent.

Police practice is considered brutality when there is excessive use of force. This use of force may itself be controversial, but it is considered the use of force beyond what would be necessary to cope with a situation. The most considered form of police abuse is the physically instituted abuse. However, police misconduct may manifest as psychological intimidation, verbal use, among others.

The latter forms of abuse become difficult to deal with. Although police brutality has been touted as bad and undesirable, it has been applied in historical times to achieve some desired results. For example, police force and brutality was used during the Nazi Germany times and the Industrial Revolution times of the United States. It was common for striking workers and labor activists to be intimidated by police officers in these times.

Policing has become more aggressive following the September 11 attacks in the United States. Use of excessive force in the police is more evident in areas where there are no laws against police brutality. In addition, police brutality has been evidenced in meetings and gatherings such as those by NATO, WTO, and the World Bank/IMF and the group of 8 (G8) (Smith, 2010).

Causes of Police Brutality

The causes of police brutality vary from stress to poor or unfavorable working conditions. In addition, police have faced situations that demand them use extreme force, for example where the members of the public are resistant to peaceful efforts of keeping peace.

Shootings under situations of fear or minor circumstances have been reported, such as where one police man shot dead an unarmed African American man in 1997 arguing that the policeman mistook the key he was carrying for a gun. The said policeman had committed similar crimes eight times prior to the incident.

Several cases may as well have been unreported and therefore raising the possibility that cases of brutality are more than have been reported. Some of the incidences of brutality among police officers have been caused by lack of adherence to the regulations on the use of deadly force and insufficient understanding as well.

In addition, lack of strict following or punishment of the cases known by the Internal Affairs Investigations may have contributed to the lack of adherence to the guidelines against brutality, or the rise of cases of brutality among the police forces. This includes leniency among the police officers concerned with disciplining of the police who have cases of brutality.

The lack of guidelines and indeed the logic describing what is required and what is excessive has also contributed to lack of proper guidelines or measures to deal with brutality cases. There must be allowed some sense or emotional influence as police officers continue with their duty, especially where there requires use of force, since police officers are human beings.

In addition, we must blame the lack of channels to report, or lack of enough of these channels to report police brutality cases. Even in the event of reporting of these cases, the courts have been blamed for lack of seriousness in dealing with the culprits. Citizens dont seem to be aware of their rights and this is to blame. (Pagewise, 2002).

We must put blame on the government, or advice that the authorities must be responsible for letting the citizens to know, and indeed laying out necessary strategies necessary for the education of the public on their rights involving these matters. Concern has been raised over the results of stress and pressure on police officers.

Thus, while the blame of brutality may be placed on the police officers, administrators of the departments as well as the governmental authorities involved in the administration of police officers must be partly held accountable.

Administrators are directly linked with the scheduling and planning for officers duties, remuneration, as well as other issues such as health and sanitations. These directly influence the working of the police officers and may increase the incidences of brutality because they relate to job motivation, morale and attitude.

Police officers may find themselves being engaged with alcoholism and suicide once they have difficulties in managing their families, something that may as well result from poor pay and working conditions. The toughening process is one of the stages that bring a more relaxed attitude hence confidence. However, it has been revealed that stress can occur at any of the stages theorized.

The act of police exposure to stress may be reduced through efforts to have an incorporation of daily plus philosophies in regular activities of the police.

Police officers may therefore feel more confident applying these strategies, which in turn (the strategies) fosters the mentality of us vs. them and citizens come to disrespect the police officers. Therefore, the study of how police officers respond or behave in situations encouraging stress is very important to understand the problem.

There has been an increasing tension between the police officers and such groups as drug abusers and other organized criminals, and this has resulted in the devising of strategies by one group to fight against the police officers. Therefore, in itself, the community is charged with the life of the police officer being more prone to danger as the aforementioned groups grow.

The excessive use of force among the police officers has been also partly as a result of mistakes and errors committed by the forces themselves or their bosses. These mistakes could include decisions on operational strategies as well as planning. Police officers under certain circumstances may find it necessary to use force in order to put things in order after such errors and mistakes.

Therefore, the importance of efficient planning and strategizing among the police staff and departments must be put into debate because it influences the likelihood of the police officers to act in a brutal manner by either creating such situations and incidents or reducing the likelihood of their occurrence. Suggestions have been made that the failure to deal with police brutality has a relation to the police forces insular culture.

In addition, dealing with police officers who are accused of using excessive force is difficult because police officers are allowed to use excessive force in their work. In addition, it is even difficult to determine the situations which were at the scene while the chaos was occurring. The changing nature of the crime to organized one in the 20^th Century made it necessary for changes of policing styles in order to respond to these changes.

Suspects which had information were smacked and punched at times as some of the unlawful ways of responding to rising criminal cases. Police officers and the departments also came to be accused of corruption. A report produced during 1929 known as the Wickersham report focused on the findings of Attorney General George Wickersham viewed that brutal force was being used in policing to gain involuntary confessions.

Apart from this, the report featured inefficiency law enforcement within communities (Canaday, 2008). Historical evidence exist that white law enforcement officers in the United States held scorn against people of ethnic groups which included Asians, Hispanic Blacks. In the United States, brutal force was also utilized to punish demonstrators and this included gassing the rioters with CS riot in order they would be incapacitated, arrested and charged.

Police brutality came to be advanced through the creation, at one time, of a force known as S.T.R.E.S.S. that would be used to police the black in Detroit in 1970s. The force was disbanded by the first black mayor of Detroit.

Abuse of power and privileges by police officers is linked to corruption. All these instances raise issues of distrust among the police officers (Loree, 2006).

Citizens must also be held accountable for causing police to act in a brutal manner. One, open defiance of police orders and authority was, according to Westlty (1949), a cause of the majority of assaults by the police officers. Other cases of assaults occurred when police officers encountered with drug dealers, homosexuals and drunkards.

Occurrence of brutality by police in numerous large metropolitan cities like New York, Los Angeles and San Antonio has caused a concern in the United States (Inciardi, 1990). Recent observation or trend suggests that the cases of police brutality could be occurring as a result of shared norms throughout the police departments as opposed to latter ideologies that brutality was limited to a few bad apples in the police force.

The right to use force within police departments is unrestricted and based on the judgment of the police officers themselves. Therefore, brutality is considered a circumstance of the police officers role. There is lacking definition of this responsibility, or even its limitation especially in terms of its overall application.

The importance of police training in ensuring that cases of brutality are curbed must need focus. This is because proper police force training is important in ensuring that police officers are made aware of the causes and consequences as well as dangers of brutality.

Training comes with concerns for issues such as the available resources and facilities for training. It has been expressed that police departments (many) lack the minimum standards required to train police officers for duty (). These minimum standards cut across issues of research, community relations and planning.

There is need to ensure that the training meets the standards and avails the police officers with the proper skills and competence to deal with brutality. The police authority and how it is challenged by the individuals is an important aspect of understanding police brutality. Challenging the authority of the police officer may cause him or her to react in opposition.

Failure of the citizen to adhere to directions of other sort such as verbal may activate the police officer to act in a brutal manner. Some part of usage of force by the police officers has come as a result of the officers themselves viewing some members of the society as having no value in the community. These groups include the homosexuals and other sexual offenders, gangs and drug dealer, for example.

The police officers may view these groups as needing or requiring no protection. Police are supposed to make very quick decisions at the job place. The quick decisions are a necessity considering the way in which criminal activities may be launched and advanced. Unfortunately, mane loopholes exist that relate to this decision making specifically because fragmented information forms the basis of most of the decisions.

The integrity of the police officers to make sound judgment under these circumstances need attention since one incident may be very different from others. In addition, could an officers long term learning lead to the use of unwarranted force?

Such studies could require knowledge of the learning process conducive for the development of police brutality. The aforementioned learning process begins from conception, through childhood, to adolescence, young adult and until the choosing of law enforcement professional.

There was no evidence from a research study by Earl (n.d.) on whether brutality was a lifelong learning process, but there was evidence that certain things learned could cause certain reactions in individuals including a police officer. Pressurizing officers could therefore cause some learning that influences certain forms of reactions to these individuals.

This research poised a number of recommendations that could reduce the potential of police brutality. Television producers needed to have excitement and conflict presented in peaceful form, yet interesting. This recommendation was poised in observation that there was a major concern on television violence. There was justification of the acts of aggression especially when ones cause was justified.

There a necessity to exercise control measures in children targeted television programs. This could be achieved through certain measures such as putting a limitation to the time that a child could watch television, and watching family-oriented programs together with children as opposed to leaving them to watch them alone.

Other appropriate solutions can include approaches like engagement in sports and personal hobbies instead of joining parents to watch television programs.

The research recommends that there was need to involve the community in the generation of proper and effective law enforcement that is supported by the community. This would reduce the alarming rate of public concern over brutality issues. There are ways through which police departments can help in involving the community to participate in the formulation of the regulation.

One, there can be developed civilian police academies. The public should be made to learn and experience what the officers are taught. Another strategy is the development of the public relations unit. These units establish a contact the police with the community. Establishment of the School Resource Officer Program allows the people to regard police officers as human beings.

Through community policing, the police needed to participate in the activities of the community besides engaging in constant talk. There was need to encourage programs that would increase public awareness on what is taking place within community and department.

The research recommended that there was need of participation of community members (a few) in the reviewing of complains and pass recommendations on what is required or needed to be done. This could be achieved through establishment of Civilian Complaint Review Board

Proper training of officers would play a great role in ensuring that the war and the battle concepts propagated are eliminated. A number of recommendations by Earl (n.d.) would help eliminate these feelings. The instructors of the officers must not instill to the police officers that they are going to the battle and to fight a war-the concept of we against them.

The techniques taught during training should strictly be defensive and not offensive. Through improvement of the process of recruiting, there can equally be remarkable improvement in training.

It was recommended by the covered research that there should be comprehensive investigations covering the background involving polygraph and psychological examination by centres of training regionally.

The departments and the training centers could receive interested applicants, who could pay fees for background investigations. Applicants could choose their department of interest but they must be recruited in the common pool first.

Since there was evidence that stress and fear were partly to blame for brutality. Some of the recommendations poised in the research by Earl (n.d.) include open discussions of fear and stress to have the police officers affected to know that the peers are concerned during the stage of recruitment.

There is also a need to consider fear to find out ways it can be addressed. In addition, it is possible to identify the trainees ability handle fear and stress. Trainees who are unable to deal with stress and fear should be disqualifies from training.

The study posed some recommendations about the news media as relates to law enforcement. Law enforcement was affected by News media and there was lack of well defined ways of checking its impact. The research therefore posed the following recommendations.

Police officers must be cautious while handling media in that they should not be intimidated by the reporters or forced to say what could be offline, since reporters could make news out of what they understand rather than what is true and issued. There was need to sensor the media since it was impossible to change information once it was printed.

Factors Contributing or Leading to Police Brutality

Police officers have faced constant pressure, or felt always under pressure to perform their duty. This has led or contributed to them becoming brutal. Another factor is the consideration of police officers as The Watchman while ignoring such minor problems as domestic disputes.

Curbing Police Brutality

Much amount of money has been spent on police chief and reform agenda where education of police chiefs has become an increasingly important agenda. Law enforcement education has particularly spent large sums of money, with the government seeking to raise the educational level of the recruits.

Sensitivity to citizens, better communication, and effectiveness increases when college-educated police officers are employed. The rate of citizen complaint was related negatively to the average service years. The rate of arrest and the population size were also found to be associated with the rate of citizen complaint. Citizens complaint against the police is significantly related to the average age of a police department with older average age tending to have a lower citizen complaint rate.

The rate of complain was higher with the population being served by the police. A case for the gender relationship with the rate of complaint is supported by the fact that a larger percentage of females in police departments reduce the rate of complaints.

In addition, the average rate of service in a police department has an impact on the rate of complaint, with the latter increasing with the length of service of an officer in a police department. The effect of police officers race on the rate of complaint has been found to contradict the theory prediction. This is because the larger the percentage of African-American officers in the service, the higher the rate of complain.

In addition, complaint rate increases with the increase with the number of arrests a police officer will make. The rate of complaint was negatively associated with the in-service training programs and formalized field training officer programs, which gives an insight into the whole area of police brutality.

There has been an argument that compared to terrorists; police officers pose more danger to Americans. A number of ways have been put across to deal with police brutality, including use of laws and guidelines against police brutality, and people coming together as a group.

For example, Twin-Cities based organization known as Communities United against Police Brutality has been formed to deal with police brutality. Several years of research came up with the conclusion on a number of things that could be implemented at the federal, state, local and universities law enforcement agencies.

The supervisors and line officers need intervene when officers use excessive force. Officers seen utilizing brutal force and beating a restrained person should be arrested and stopped from the incident. Prosecution of an officer who has executed unjustifiable homicide should be considered (Atlansk, 2009). These have been proposed by the Oregon State Police Independent Citizens Review Board.

Studies have pointed out to the reality of discrimination of African Americans arrested over drug dealing. Although white youths still sell drugs in the country, there is evidence that African-American youths are being arrested more than the whites. For example, of the youths transferred to adult court for drug crimes in Illinois, African Americans form 85.5% despite the fact that white youths are participating in drug business.

In fact, a study notes that white youths could be selling drugs at the same rate or more than youths of color (Muwakkil, 2001). A number of commissions have been formed for purposes of investigating police brutality. Unfortunately, these commissions have come up with disturbing or unsatisfactory conclusions. For example, they have concluded that police brutality, or perceived brutality was a trigger (Atlansk, 2009).

These commissions have posed a number of recommendations including the need to eliminate racial disparities and proposed reformation of police practices. Unfortunately, their recommendations have been ignored. There is need to refocus on these There is a need to refocus on these strategies so as to make sure that solutions are sought to end police brutality.

A number of models have been theorized in helping to control the damaging behavior of the police. The professional model put forward by Wilson (1968) focuses on the idea that the officers to be employed are the best-trained and most honest. The issuance and enforcement of rules and regulations during close supervision has been featured in the bureaucratic model brought forward by the aforementioned author.

There has been an argument that the professionalism model of controlling the police misconduct ignores the social and organizational correlates of misconduct and focuses more on the individual aspects.

The aforementioned argument has been posited by Lundman (1980), who continues to argue that what need to be controlled are not individual but organizational climates, and therefore the author is against professionalism as a model of controlling police misconduct.

Departmental characteristics differ across various police departments and this causes the difference in the rates of complaints by the citizens. The negative rule enforcement has been championed by the bureaucratic model.

A number of proposals have been passed by Goldstein (1977) to help curb police brutality, including rewarding proper behavior and providing appropriate role models. In addition, there should be proper avenues for citizen redress and specific training of the police forces so as to reduce the cases for police brutality.

It has been perceived and proposed that in an effort to stop police offensive practices against the citizens, it is appropriate to study the citizen complains at the macro rather than the micro level. In addition, there has been support for the macro level of explanation as the most powerful level and therefore the proposal that more research is needed at the organizational level.

Lack of data has hampered the study of use of excessive physical force at the organizational level. Lack of enough data has partly been caused by the citizens since they do not all report the cases of brutality. In addition, failure of police to collect information at these particular times has resulted in the lack of data.

Although police have defended their practices on the use of excessive force by noting that the subjects have been arrested for legitimate offense, or that they lacked the potential of winning a big law suit, study has shown that revenge motive do not drive the citizen to complain against police brutality.

Citizens themselves have been hampered to report cases of police abuse by a number of limitations, including personal fear of reprisal, possibility of prosecution for making a false claim, cumbersome filling procedures that are also complex, among other limitations. What happens to people and the expected gains are the driving force behind the willingness of the citizens to file a complaint to the police (Bailey and Mendelsohn, 1969; cited in Cao, 2002).

There are a variety of strategies that can reduce citizen complaint rate against the police force. The aforementioned author found that the length of probationary period, field training officer programs, as well as psychological exams taken before admission to police academy have a tendency to reduce citizen complaint rate against the police use of physical force and abuse of power.

However, a negative relation was found between citizen complaint rate and the following; reporting requirements for use of force by the police, written policy regarding use of force, and increment of the number of use of in-service training programs on the use of force.

Another problem regarding the use of excessive force by the police is that the court and many police departments have not defined what brutality is, and what it is not. Some of police departments in the United States have an outlined policy on the use of less lethal force, as well as mandatory reporting systems on the use of force.

The composition of the police force may also influence the behavior of the police force to being more or less brutal. There is evidence that female officers acted to reduce the likelihood of police-citizen encounters as fewer det

A Literature Review on Intelligence-led Policing in Europe

Intelligence-led policing is a relatively new system of undertaking investigation duties that are subsequently used to make law enforcement decisions. Being a new system that is undergoing development has resulted in a lack of clear definition. According to Edmund et al. (2007, p. 150), thinkers in the field have been developing different meanings for intelligence-led policing to an extent that an agreement on a correct definition is yet to be reached. The failure of the academia and stakeholders to agree on a common definition has resulted in a proliferation of definitions depending on the application of this system in writers locality (Flyghed, 2002, p. 13).

There have, however, been some definitions that have been common among academicians and players in this field of study. The first one defines intelligence-led policing as an investigative tool that helps in assessing and managing risk that could be posed by existing and upcoming threats (de Lint, 2006, p. 4; Redcliffe, 2002b, p. 69). This definition is based grounded on the belief that understanding threats potential helps in developing countermeasures. In this regard, members of the police force collect information on threat capabilities and subsequently undertake the necessary measures to help the public prepare themselves. This makes it hard for criminals to unleash threats; police could arrest them before then.

Intelligence-led policing is also regarded as a future-oriented system that helps police departments become aware of societal threats well before they happen (de Lint, 2006, p. 3; Swanstrom, 2007, p. 22). As just mentioned, intelligence officials collect information regarding threats capabilities of destroying public peace. Similarly, these officials also collect data on the possibility of some materials or technology being used to cause harm to the public. Understanding how technology could be used to cause harm helps police departments to be ahead of criminals and therefore prepare adequately. This is regarded as a major advantage of using intelligence-led policing in fighting crime, such as terrorism, which has been threatening peace around the world.

A greater number of countries worldwide including Europe have been using the system as a guide to intelligence operations in respective police departments (Canadian Police, 2007; Sennett, 1977, p. 21). This means increased adoption of the system as a major input in the fight against existing crimes. In addition, it means adopting the system to develop frameworks that would help society develop frameworks that help in dealing with future investigations. In other words, it means using todays intelligence to develop strategies that would be used to develop investigations strategies that would be used in the future. This is beneficial to investigation groups because they become learn from their current procedures on how to develop long-lasting strategies in their work (Pickering, 2004, p. 226).

The system has also been seen as Scott (1998, p. 80) defines intelligence-led policing as a problem-solving-oriented strategy. This means that intelligence officers are in the business of solving unique problems that cannot be handled by regular investigative methods; those that require extensive data that has to be collected over long periods of time and need high degrees of skills and expertise to analyze (McGarrell, Freilich & Chermak, 2007, p. 1509). Intelligence officials that deal with these problems get to hone their skills through the extensive data collecting and analysis that characterize their operations, failure of which leads to greater inefficiencies in the system.

Intelligence-led policing is also seen as an important preventative measure against future crimes (Wright, 2006, p. 120; Eck, Spelman, 1987, p. 120), as well as warning potential criminals against undertaking their illegal activities. The intelligence community in Europe has been using the system as a preventative measure by consequently informing the public on the dangers that could befall the public arena (UNODC, 2007, p. 200). For instance, information regarding possible terrorist attacks that could occur in public places is communicated to the members of the public before the said attack happens. This enables members of the public to protect themselves against such threats. By informing the public, argues Oliver (2006, p. 61), terrorists are warier of undertaking their attacks, because people would be watchful.

This system has also been regarded as a guide to operations of different activities in a policing organization (Zaitch, 2003, p. 10). This is because data that is collected regarding criminal activities helps in designing preventative frameworks. For instance, understanding the new kind of threat facing a society helps in developing measures that would be used by law enforcement organizations to arrest the culprits; forceful measures are employed on hardcore criminals whereas softer means are applied when dealing with some simple law enforcement issues. As mentioned earlier, intelligence departments in different European countries are quick to inform members of the public regarding possible dangers. This leads to communities preparing themselves for those risks adequately. However, this definition is faced with major opposition, the reason being that the definition is backward, that is it is normal intelligence operations should provide guidelines to the system (Hobbs, 1998, p. 410; Krebs & Holley, 2002, p. 9 and Bagley2004, p. 40).

Another definition for the system is that intelligence officials are provided with materials to develop crime-fighting tactics that would improve enforcement of the law and prevention of future criminal activities (Mauire & John, 2006, p. 70). According to Young (1999, p. 155), crime and criminal data that is collected during intelligence processes help police organizations to develop frameworks that deter criminals from undertaking their illegal activities. This is specially made successful through the comparison of processes being taken currently, current results, and the desired results. Should current results be lower than expected, then the collected data is used to implement new strategies.

Intelligence-led policing also helps police agencies to improve their focus on identifying, analyzing, and managing risks as they arise in respective communities (McGarrell, Freilich & Chermak, 2007, p. 150). This is because the Intelligence community understands better the kind of threats they will be dealing with in the near and far future. All this is done through the collection of information relevant to the threats in question. Having all the data in one place helps intelligence agencies to understand linkages between these threats and therefore develop mechanisms that would lead to efficient solutions for problems at hand at both the intelligence and public level.

Swanstrom (2007, p. 22) has combined all the above definitions into a concise one: intelligence-led policing is a system that helps develop crime-fighting strategies through the collection, storage, and analyzing data regarding criminal activities. Kenny (2007, 240) agrees with this definition and adds that efficiency in the system can only be achieved through sharing of information by stakeholders who include members of the public. This calls for intelligence personnel to include the public in decision-making processes. Collaboration between members of the public and intelligence officials should happen at all levels: data collection, analysis, and dissemination of information to stakeholders.

The Application of Intelligence-led Policing in Europe

Intelligence-led policing is applied on various fronts at European levels. The fight against narcotics is an example criminal issue that is being solved through intelligence-led policing (Cope, 2004, p. 202). This is done through a collection of information regarding drug traffickers, drugs traded, and potential markets. Information regarding those aspects of drug trafficking and trading helps intelligence officials to analyze and understand possible routes for the drugs and their fore embarks on developing measures that would lead to the apprehension of criminals in this trade. Equally, informing members of the public regarding any exposure to the crime of drug trafficking helps parents and interest groups to protect venerable members of the society against drugs vice. According to a United Nations report on measures against drug trafficking, intelligence policing is listed as one of the most successful measures that have enabled European societies to reduce exposure (UN, 2000, p. 45).

The second area that intelligence-led policing has been used is in the fight against terrorism. Indeed, various studies (Heaton & Uglow 2004, 293; Brodeur & Dupont, 2006, p. 10; Erickson & Stehr, 2000, p. 90 and Heaton, 2000, p. 338) have shown that this system o policing is most effective in enabling European security agents to stay ahead of terrorist elements in pinpointing most venerable areas or facilities. As a result, European countries have been able to detect possible attacks and therefore take necessary measures in eradicating or minimizing the effects of any possible attacks. Even studies critical of the success of the system in helping societies avoid terrorist attacks are quick to note that the effects of terrorist acts would be greater were it not for intelligence-led policing. For instance, Christopher (2004, p. 180) has argued that the system failed miserably in protecting England against London bombings and Spain against the Madrid train attacks. However, continues Christopher, information held by intelligence officials helped greatly in apprehending those behind the attacks, as well as helping affected individuals and societies to deal with the aftermath.

The third application of intelligence-led policing in Europe is in money laundering activities (Thurlow, 1994, p. 94). Intelligence agencies are keen on collecting information regarding individuals suspected of taking part in such activities. This is done through greater collaboration between agencies in different countries. The sharing of information is done in databases owned by different countries; each country allows others to fetch data under the agreement of reciprocation (Goldsmith & Sheptycki, 2007, p. 107). When that happens, intelligence agencies are therefore able to follow on how individuals have been laundering money from one country or region to another. This partnership is mutually beneficial because both participating countries can meet the desired goals.

Fourth, European countries use intelligence-led planning to deal with human trafficking cases. This is also achieved through sharing of information between different intelligence agencies. Sharing of information between agencies helps in an understanding process that human traffickers take, from origin countries to the destination countries in Europe. By making such information available to law enforcement agencies, it becomes possible to apprehend the involved persons, as well as rescuing the affected individuals. In addition, the provision of data and analysis to countries of origin helps in developing mechanisms to help in a reduction, and finally total eradication of this activity in the source countries.

The increased integration in Europe provides intelligence agencies in member countries to improve the collaborationist of their systems. Some studies such as Cooper, Nelson & Ronezkowski (1999, p. 51) and Haggerty & Erricson, (2002, p. 607) have argued that an increase in the Collaboration between member countries would help states with weaker intelligence systems to strengthen them. On the other hand, states with stronger intelligence agencies would benefit from accessing more data from the new member countries. Sharing information with greater populations in the region will help them well understand the threats resulting from European Unions expansion, and thus help in the development of measures to cope with the same.

According to Edmund et al. (2007, p. 148), European countries are increasingly depending on intelligence-led policing to collect information used in law enforcement activities. This is further shown in ICAP (2002, p. 51; Fahlman, Robert, Peterson, 1997, p. 25) which asserts that the success of the system in individual countries and at the EU level is leading to a situation where agencies at the local level are adopting the system. Indeed, Gottlieb, Arenberg, and Singh (2004 p. 11) have noted that in some countries like France, Germany, it is the intelligence agencies at the local and regional level that are pushing national agencies to adopt the system, meaning that efficiency has been seen even at the lowest level of agency organizational stricture.

Since most European countries use the system throughout their intelligence agencies, it has become more possible for cooperation to be enhanced in law enforcement processes. According to Morselli and Petit (2007, p. 110), the cooperation between different levels of intelligence agencies leads to efficiency within the system. This is because the increase in data to be analyzed provides intelligence agencies with more information to be analyzed, which according to Chilvers and Weatherburn (2001, p. 39) increases accuracy probabilities that are used to develop solutions. This cooperation thus leads to the provision of highly useful information that helps members of the public to develop preventative measures. The culminating analysis also keeps criminals well warned that law enforcement officials are aware of pending criminal activities and thus well prepared and determined to take necessary measures.

Apart from focussing on the use of intelligence-led policing at the national and regional levels, Godson and Williams (1998, p. 70) have observed that European countries are increasingly using the system at the international level. This is being done through sharing of information with agencies from other countries. However, the only information that endangers a European country is shared by the other countries, who could not be willing to providing data. Just like it happens at the regional level, countries outside European Union also provide data on an agreement that they would be allowed to access the recipient countrys data. However, Ruggiero (2000, p. 201) notes that before European countries started to get information from other countries, it had been a common phenomenon to send local individuals to collect the data themselves; informants were also common. Some European countries have continued to use their intelligence agencies in collecting information that would be deemed sensitive by foreign countries.

The continued use of intelligence-led policing within European communities has resulted in a situation where members of the police force are tasked with the maintenance of law and order with more trust to their intelligence colleagues (Ratcliffe, 2008, p. 116). This has resulted in increased collaboration between two branches, which leads to success in their respective activities. The faith in intelligence agencies has also resulted in the police helping with information collection as they go on with their activities. As a result, intelligence agencies afford the time to concentrate on other activities, especially analyzing the data and disseminating it to the relevant authorities and members of the public.

The use of intelligence-led policing in following activities of high rate offenders enables intelligence officials in European countries to follow the culprits and arrest them. This is especially enhanced by sharing of information between agencies within countries and the region, which enables people to understand trends of certain offenses. In addition, information on international connection, which is collected through sharing of data with other countries, enables intelligence and law enforcement officials to bring to book greater numbers of criminals as well as dismantling their international cartels (Duyne et al, 2003, p. 10). The continuation of collaboration in intelligence-led policing international thus can bring down even the strongest criminal gangs (Levi, 1998, p. 341).

The use of intelligence-led policing in the European countries is also a systematic process that never comes to an end even when criminals are apprehended; indeed the system continues to collect, analyze and disseminate information that is used for other intelligence purposes (Kenny, 2003, 200; Weick, 2004, p. 95). The assessment of information on criminals or criminal activities helps intelligence to understand any connections between different criminals. This is important because the agencies can develop a mechanism that enables societies to deal with problems that could occur in the future. In addition, should it happen that there is no connection between crimes or criminal activities, agencies are able to hypothesize on future connections and thus develop measures beforehand (Klerks, 2001, p. ).

Fact that intelligence officials keep data for long periods of time means helps in future intelligence activities. Pearce and Woodwiss (1993, p. 213) found that developing interconnected databases within-country regions and between nations in Europe lead to greater efficiencies because more data developed from various sources increases accuracy rates. In agreement with that claim, Edwards and Gill (2002, p. 250) add that European countries efficiency in sharing criminal data helps in understanding crime trends in the continent and possible connections with other countries. When accompanied by greater collaboration between parties within and between countries, intelligence agencies are more able to accomplish their goals, chief among them being keeping law and order (Willard, 2006, p. 55).

As illustrated in the introduction, intelligence-led policing developed from community policing that had been seen as less efficient in feeding law enforcement agencies with desired information (Audit Commission, 1993, p 26). Community policing was integrated into the by having members of the public provide the necessary information. This lesser role provided by the members of the public has resulted in some dissatisfaction from interest groups. Unfortunately, intelligence agencies have done little to ensure that members of the public understand the reasons behind the current scenario, as well as seeing that the publics role is increased to satisfactory levels (Audit Commission, 1993, p. 11).

Intelligence agencies have provided the excuse that tasks performed in this process as too complicated to be handled by regular civilians (Tilley, 2003, 321). This has resulted in critics arguing that such excuses help intelligence agencies to expand their operations, much to the expense of civilians in their position as taxpayers (Hale, Heaton & Uglow, 2007, p. 303). Hale and colleagues have added that excuses provided intelligence agencies with reasons to increase bureaucracy in their operations. The intelligence community in the regions has kept mum of the accusations, which have been aired for some period now. However, a study done by Anderson et al. (1995, p. 47) illustrates that penetration of intelligence-led policing helps in reducing secrecy in Intelligence agencies.

Problems Associated with Intelligence-led Policing in Europe

Despite the success achieved in the application of intelligence-led policing in European countries, several thinkers have found gaping holes in the systems, some of which have to be sealed before matters get out of hand. Indeed, Pawson and Tilley (1997, p. 211, HMIC (2002, p. 36), and Weatherfo (1997, p. 119) have suggested that failure to deal with problems facing the system today could lead to greater failures that would compromise efficiency. According to Labrousse (2003, p. 28), the biggest problem has been the failure of intelligence-led policing is the failure to involve members of the public in the decision-making process, especially on matters pertaining to data collection. Processes used in data collection are sometimes characterized by the gross abuse of individual liberty (Redcliffe, 2002a, p. 64 ), the reason being that authorities feel justified in employing all measures possible.

Treverton (2002, p. 1) argues that the abuse of individual liberty in data collection could be avoided if members of the public are involved in the development of procedures to be followed. However, authorities tend to just develop data collection mechanisms with little regard for individuals they would be dealing with in the field (Ronezkowski, 2003, p. 16). According to Ryan and Rush (1997, p. 101), intelligence agencies use the pretext of national security to justify their forceful collection of data. Involving members of the public in developing mechanisms to collect data would lead to lesser abuse of liberties. In addition, members of the public would feel more obliged to help authorities with data collection, which would help in improving efficiency in processes involved. Adamoli (1998, p. 216) added that intelligence officials should consider taking members of the public as key stakeholders in data collection processes. Having intelligence-led policing working in such a manner has the benefit of being an all-inclusive process that would lead to greater efficiencies in the countries and around the greater European region.

Implementation of the system has also proved difficult at the beginning stages due to the number of resources and manpower needed to make the system work (Reuter, 1983, p. 111, p. 54; Passas, 2001, p. 53). This means that regions and countries must be willing to spend lots of resources in the system, failure of which would lead to the demise of their policing activities. For instance, law enforcement agencies must understand that manpower with greater skills and knowledge in collecting data will be required. In addition, departments will need data analysts. These two groups of individuals (data collectors and analysts) do not come cheap; agencies have to invest enough resources to get such expertise. In addition to the hiring costs, agencies have to ensure that the employees are constantly updated on trends recent trends in their respective fields, which could be done through re-education, participation in conferences, and activities that serve as refresher programs.

The lack of a universal definition and framework guiding intelligence-led policing activities in Europe, as well as worldwide, reduces the possibility of integration of different countries operations (Gressy, 1997, p. 11; Reuter, 1983, p. 111, p. 54; Passas, 2001, p. 53). This problem of failed integration means that intelligence agencies between European countries are not well-positioned to take the advantage of increased data occasioned by enlarging the membership of the European Union (Caldera, 2001, p. 65; Ratcliffe, 2005, p. 56). Failure to cooperate in intelligence operations has the danger of providing criminals with a free hand in their activities. This is because law enforcement agencies would not be in a position to get information regarding connections between local criminal activities and those of other countries or regions (Coles, 2001, p. 550; Deflern, 2002, p. 82).

The delegation of duty is a key requirement for efficiency in the system (Lupsha, 1981, p. 97; Cope, 2004, p. 189; ACS, 2000, p. 15. ). However, law enforcement organizations in several European countries fail to delegate data collection and analysis duties to the experts hired for that purpose, which could result in the de-motivation of the officers (Woodiwiss, 2005, p. 28; Dunningham & Norriss, 1999, p. 68). Having such a scenario happen at the lowest level of intelligence organization makes collaboration with other agencies more difficult (Sherman, L, 1998, p. 86). Indeed, Maguire and John (1995, p. 31) have found that internal failures in respective intelligence departments are replicated at national levels, the reason being that overall decision-makers do not have the necessary information needed to make effective decisions.

In addition, concurrent studies (Maguire, 2000, p. 332; Albanase, 2004, 111; UNDOC, 2002, 120; NCIC, 2000, p. 203; CALEA, 1999, p. 51) have found that specialists employed in data collection and analysis departments of intelligence organizations tend to develop cliques that seclude themselves from colleagues performing other tasks. According to Paoli (2003, p. 34), the specialists take their positions as highly important and colleagues work as less important in respective organizations. As a result, the specialists may display some arrogance towards other employees. De Lint (2006, p. 5) and Laycock (2000, p. 77) agree with Paoli and add that employees in law enforcement organizations tend to respond by displaying their operations as also important in battling crime. According to Held (1995, p. 112) and Weatherburn (2001, p. 23), countermeasures applied by other officers lead to the creation of work turfs within law enforcement organizations. This does not happen within departments alone. Two independent studies, Powell (1990, p. 30) and Walker (2000, p. 76) observed that protection of working turfs between law enforcement organizations among European countries has contributed to low integration and partnership levels. This happens as each agency tries to protect internal operations from being copied by others, which are seen as rivals instead of partners.

Another problem involves the usage of data collected in intelligence-led policing. Some studies (Zuboff, 1988, p. 25; Goldstein, 1990, p. 340) have found that lots of data has been collected through the system and has been saved in various databases. However, agencies do not have enough time at their disposal to deal analyze all that information, meaning that data that took so much time and resources just lie without being used. Instead of analyzing all that data and developing solutions to problems facing society, intelligence agencies have chosen to continue with the collection of more information, and thus increase backlogs (Europol, 2007, p. 115; Mathiesen, 1997, p. 220). This further means that authorities have to employ more analysts to work on the increasing loads of data, but the limitation of finances does not make this possible.

In that case, argues McGrew (2002, p. 211), intelligence organizations should consider developing mechanisms that would help reduce the backlog and get scent analysis that would help develop solutions to societal threats. Intelligence authorities stand accused of collecting inconsequential information that is filling their databases without credible reason (Gill, 2000, p. 17; Maguire, 2000, 319). This has especially been caused by the increased risk of terrorist activities worldwide, which has made intelligence authorities expand the amount of information collected from the field (Vellinga, 2004, p. 380; Sheptyeki, 2002, p. 15). However, there are studies that have come strongly in support of intelligence agencies increased data collection. For instance, Held (1995, p. 74), HIMC (2001b, p. 19), and Gill (1998, p 289) have noted that collecting lots of information through intelligence-led policing should not raise alarm because advancement in information technology will provide greater efficiency and productivity during analysis and dissemination stages, a sentiment shared in Ratcliffe (2001, p. 164; 2004, p. 81).

References

Anderson M., Walker N., Raab C., Boer M., Gilmore W.C.& Cullen P. (1995). Theory and Practice in EU Policing. Oxford: OUP.

Barltzell, D. (1989). Protecting the Upper Class New Brunswick: Transaction. Caldeirra, R. The Walled City (2001) Berkeley: UCP.

Christopher S. Strategies in Intelligence Thinking. Annadale: Federation Press.

Coppe N. Intelligence-Led Policing. (2004) Criminology Journal 44, :185-213.

Deflem M. (2002). World Society and Policing. Oxford: OUP.

Donner F. (1980). Surveillance Age.. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Ericsson R. & Stehr N. (2000). Intelligence in Modern Societies. Toronto: UTP.

Flyghed J. (2002). Normalising Intelligence Collection.. Policing and Society. 13, 2147.

Gill P. (2000). Developments in Intelligence Collection and Contemporary Law Aldershot: Ashgate.

Sheptycki, J. and Goldsmith, A. (2007). Transnational Policing and Police Reform. Oxford: Hart.

Ericsson, R. and Haggerty K. (2000). Surveillant Assemblage. British Sociology Journal, 51, 604623.

Held, D. (1995). Cosmopolitan Governance. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Held, D. and McGrew A. (2002). Anti globalisation verses Globalization. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Maguire, M. (2000). Risks and Targets in Police Operations. Policing and Society, 9, :314337.

Mathiesen, T. (1997). Exploring Viewer Society. Theoretical Criminology, 1, :214235.

Woodiwiss, M. & Pearce F. (1993). Global Crime Connections. London: MacMillan.

Ratcliffe, J..(2004). Criminal Intelligence. Annandale: Federation Press.

Ruggiero ,V. (2000). Crime Markets. Oxford: OUP.

Sennett, R. (1977). The Loss of Privacy. New York: Alfred Knopf.

Sheptycki, J. (2002). Transnational Policing. Aldershot: Ashgate.

Thurlow R. (1994). The Secret State. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Walker N. (2000) Evolving Constitutional Order. London: Sweet & Maxwell.

Weatherford J. (1997). Moneys History. New York: Three Rivers.

Woodiwiss M. (2005) Gangster Capitalism. New York: Graf & Carroll.

Young J. (1999). The Exclusive Society. London: Sage.

Zuboff S. (1988). Smart Machine, Work and Power. Oxford: Heinemann.

Robert, C., Fahlman, & Marilyn B. (1997). Recommendations in Intelligence Analysis. IALEIA Journal , 10, 23-35.

Ronczkowski, M. (2003). Intelligence Gathering. London: CRC Press.

Gottlieb, S. Arenberg, S. & Singh, R. (1994). Crime Analysis. Montclair: Alpha Publishing.

Treverton, G. Homeland Security, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence. Washington: Century Foundation.

CALEA (1999). Trends in Law Enforcement Standards. London: CAMEA.

Ronczkowski, M., Cooper, J., and Nelson, E. (20

Early American Poetry

Poetic tradition in America followed that in Britain for nearly 200 years. The Puritan poets, like Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor, likened their work to the British metaphysical poets, and followed in the footsteps of Milton, Spenser and Donne, among others. Their poetry was highly didactic, mostly for use in teaching Puritan ethics. Bradstreet, the first published American poet, broke from it in some ways, merely because she was female, and it was considered that she should devote herself to home and family.

In The Prologue (1650), Bradstreet writes, I am obnoxious to each carping tongue / Who says my hand a needle better fits, / [than] A poets pen.& Bradstreets instincts were to love this world more than the promised next world of Puritan theology, and her struggle to overcome her love for the world of nature energizes her poetry. (Miller, Wendell 2009) Miller (2009) notes that the colonial poets mostly circulated their work privately, like poetic letters, so the writing was more private work. Taylors work was very meditative. In Gods Determinations Touching His Elect (written 1680?), one of Taylors most important works, he celebrates Gods power in the triumph of good over evil in the human soul. (Miller, Wendell 2009)

We must remember that the colonists were considered to be lower class for more than 200 years by the British and many critics thought American literature was nonexistent. However. American poets, such as Ebenezer Cook and Richard Lewis, were known to poke back at the British snobbery, as in the poem The Sot-Weed Factor (1708) However, by the time of the American Revolution, the poetry got more serious, almost lambasting British poets, and celebrating independence and the new American ideals in epic poetry, still following British forms, however.

Phillip Freneau, The Rising Glory of America (1772)and Barlows The Vision of Columbus (1787) were examples of revolutionary poetry. Phyllis Wheatly was one of the most important early black poets, who remained mostly unknown until the twentieth century. She also followed British poetics tradition, but expressed her frustration at her station as a slave, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), published in England. Other poems by early black poets were not published until the nineteenth century.

Nineteenth Century Innovation

It really wasnt until the mid-nineteenth century that an American tradition began to emerge with the new poetics of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickenson. Leaves of Grass (1855)broke tradition in both content and form. Whitman stepped out of the Victorian modesty into bold American frank expression and praise of things unmentionable before. In it he praised the body and the senses in a most immodest manner.

Dickenson wrote volumes, but most were self published in manuscript books she mailed to correspondents during her life time. Most of her work was not publicly published until after her death. She began writing in traditional styles, but as time passed, Dickenson played with form and content, altering meter and rhyme schemes, developing her own distinctive style. She also added visual elements that contemporary readers of ordinary printed copies of her poetry did not see until they were published as written originally.

The Fireside Poets followed, called so because they often used this as a symbol of family unity and home. William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes and John Greenleaf Whittier were the most prominent of these and Longfellow was the most popular. They created an American epic style which equaled the British poetry forms and, more or less, put American poetry on its own multiple feet. They were followed by the Abolitionist poets, both black and white, and some became part of this tradition.

The Twentieth Century Opened New Doors

By the last part of the 19^th century, regional schools began to spring up, including the black poets, like Dunbar, who was the most prominent of the dialect poets. Other poets, like Masters and Robinson represented their own regions. Robert Frost is often thought of as the New England poet. Frost seems to have tried all the different forms over his career, but then developed his own blank verse, using a conversational meter, mostly plain words of simple conversational English and centered around simple themes and subjects, many of which dealt with nature.

His work was likely the largest break with traditional poetry in the history of American poetry, and he was a bridge to the modernist American poetry of poets like Pound, Eliot, Williams, Hughes and many more. These poets still used some parts of traditional form, but poetry suddenly blossomed off the standard columned page. They wrote in free verse without any forced rhyme in a conversational rhythm, and poets like Langston Hughes experimented with different voices and dialects, sometimes using two or more within the same poem, as in Weary Blues (1926), adding oral tradition to standard English writing to create almost a conversation between his two heritages. This set the stage for the modernist poets, who experimented with form, sound and content.

These modernist poets explored visual and sound cues, with William Carlos Williams painting with words and Pound and Eliot using sound to create musical poetic schemes almost as modern ballads with punctuated drums. Gertrude Stein delved deeply into language and its various aspects and meanings to self. Poets like Marianne Moore began to experiment with forms until they explored all the different ways poems could be created. These were carefully created and new, often strict, forms followed.

The middle of the twentieth century saw a lot of change as poets branched out into new territory. Poetry exploded in many different direction and schools, until mid-century when innovative poets began to imitate themselves. Then suddenly the Confessional Poets appeared on the scene, bringing with them a more introspective, and frankly expressive of their reality, style which moved poetry into a new role. They were the first generation to teach the writing of poetry in America, as if anyone could learn to do it. Poetry was not some mystical art bestowed upon the few and read by even fewer, but the language and concern of the many.

Poets like Robert Lowell, Randall Jarrell, John Berryman, and Theodore Roethke took poetry into the totally new territory if the realistic self, introspection of the reality of the self as it is and not as they wanted it to be. Some say that the Confessional Poets wrote to relieve themselves of their demons. It is confirmed by the APA that rereading ones work changes the cognitive processes and it may offer some insight into this kind of poetry. Anne Sexton famously said, Poetry led me by the hand out of madness. (Marx, Patricia 1966)

John Berryman

John Berryman struck out in a new direction with his Homage to Mistress Bradstreet (1956),which was a conversation with Anne Bradstreet that went on from her trip across the Atlantic at the tender age of eighteen to her death. This long poem departs totally from any previous poetry in its form and content. Berryman creates a conversation with Bradstreets ghost and narrates their imagined life together, without getting rid of her husband as it is the poet, Berryman, who is a ghost in the poem, unseen except by her. He did not consider her a great poet, but he hints that she might have been were it not for the constraints of her Puritan feminine form. He talks of love, sometimes noting her husband, but hints that her husband ignored her. Instead we hear hints that Berryman imagined trysts with Bradstreet.

The poem begins with Berrymans admiration for Bradstreet as a person. He shares a kinship with her as an outcast. Both of our worlds unhanded us. (verse 2, line 8) He imagines that he is with her on her trip to America. He speaks of himself all through the first part, even seeming to actually experience the difficult ocean voyage and the harsh hard times in the wilderness.

Then his moves into introspection of his emotional well being as if these sufferings connect. I was happy once. (Something keeps on not happening; I shrink?)  (verse 10, line 5) It is often difficult to tell which persona is speaking as Berryman moves easily into Bradstreets in verse 15: I am drawn, in pieties that seem/ the weary drizzle of an unremembered dream./ Women have gone mad/at twenty-one Berryman follows the life of Bradstreet through sexual encounters, childbirth and the deaths of her children until he reclaims the narrative in verse 25. Then he seems to move between the two personae almost like a real conversation, imagining things like love and nakedness, things shocking and wicked to her.

Perhaps he is her devil and her lover. I have earned the right to be alone with you./ What right can that be? (verse 27 lines 6 and 7) This conversation continues, punctuated by dashes (  ) as the speakers change until verse 37 returns to Berrymans interior monologue and crosses at some points into undivided dialogue or undivided separate monologues. He follows through the fire and the deaths and mourning until it ends with her death and his mourning.

Zieger (1997) mentions other imagined relationships in Berrymans poetry, so this is uniquely his. I contend that Berryman pursues this late-modernist reconstruction overtly in terms of his imagined relations with male poetic predecessors and contemporaries; I also suggest, however, that this reconstruction is strongly over-determined by new relations in a field of poetic production imagined by Berryman as increasingly invaded or inhabited by talented women, live speakers rather than ventriloquized ghosts, and by the profound impact of at least one of those potentially displacing contemporaries, Sylvia Plath. (Zeiger 84)

This is interesting, considering Berrymans struggle with manic-depression, which is characterized by wide mood swings where the person becomes almost two different people, not separated as in schizophrenia, each one being the same person with hugely different perspectives, brought on by the extremes of the chemical imbalance. (Maruish and Moses 1997) Most manic depressives still go undiagnosed, and diagnosis and treatment were quite primitive in Berrymans time. Many critics, including Zieger (1997), seem to ignore this. Perhaps they simply do not know enough about the aspects of Bipolar Disorder. It is my thought that his bipolarism makes Berryman even more interesting.

I think Berryman has to be read with manic-depression in mind, as his work makes much more sense than most critics will admit when this is part of the context. He changed his name from Smith and left his home in MacAlester, Oklahoma to live in the northeast. Much of the biographical information, as in Poets.org, attribute his problems with alcohol to his inability to get over his fathers suicide in his early childhood, hinting that his own suicide in 1972 stemmed from these problems.

However, the tendency to bipolar disorder is hereditary and this explains both his fathers suicide and his alcoholism and subsequent suicide. Manic depressives often use alcohol to attempt to relieve the deep wrenching and unexplainable depression. Bipolar disorder is chemical so the mood swings have their origin in body chemistry and not in what is happening in the lives of the victims. That is one reason it is so misunderstood, even by the sufferers who always look for a reason for their feelings. Berrymans struggles are easily seen in his work if youre looking.

Henry, the alter-ego in the 77 Dream Songs (1969) seems like another person entirely. Since there is not enough space here to analyze the entire set of Dreeam Songs, I will simply mention a few and point out the hints to manic depression. In number 1: Huffy Henry hid the day/unappeasable Henry sulked/&..But he should have come out and talked./ The sulking Henry is something which slows the magnanimousness of the manic persona.

Song 29, which begins with: There sat down, once, a thing on Henrys heart/ so heavy, if he had a hundred years/ & more, & weeping, sleepless in all them time/&, is an expression of a depression so deep it seems like a black hole. It does not get better in the rest of the poem. In Dream Song 40, Im scared a only one thing, which is me, provides more evidence for his condition. It seems that Berryman was hospitalized once per year from 1959 until his death in 1972. (Athey, Joel )

He was diagnosed with various problems from exhaustion to alcoholism, but never seems to have been actually diagnosed with bipolar disorder, though his poems and his life style provide plenty of evidence via V-Axis diagnostics for a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. (APA 2009) In Gen Lyonss review of Paul Marianis biography of Berryman he said, As early as his 20s, Berryman wrote of his manic depression fits of terrific gloom and loneliness and artistic despair alternating with irresponsible exultation.

The poets entire adult life reads like a case study of that disease. Berrymans boozing, his alternating grandiose and persecutory delusions, his extreme irritability and outbursts of (mostly ineffectual) violence, his history of appallingly crude sexual behavior, even his suicide  as well as his fathers, since mood disorders can run in families  all point toward that diagnosis. Lyons takes the biographer to task, though, for making light of the disease early in the book, Marianis dismissal of those deluded by their own self-complacency and supposed sanity is worse than silly. Its irresponsible. Manic depression is a treatable physical illness, but no more responsive to talk therapy than diabetes is. Berryman may not have known that; his biographer should.

In spite of what had to be extreme suffering, or perhaps because of it, John Berryman created a whole new kind of poetry with variations which could provide analytic fodder for a very large book. One wonders how much more he might have produced had he been properly diagnosed and treated with at least some antidepressants. Lithium, according to some of my acquaintances is not as useful, and probably should be avoided if the victim can control behavior during the manic phases, but the depressive phases can often end in suicide.

Sylvia Plath

The son of the poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath has taken his own life, 46 years after his mother gassed herself while he slept. If ever one considered that clinical depression might be contagious, this family certainly makes it appear so. After Plaths death, her husband, Ted Hughes, took up residence and had a child with Assia Wevill, who subsequently killed herself and her daughter by the same method as Plath has used, because she could never get out from under Sylvias shadow.

Sylvia Plath also suffered from a mood disorder, clinical depression, for most of her short life. Bouts with depression and endured shock therapy in her twenties while at college. Though many of her bouts with depression seem to have had triggers, this is no sign that the depression was psychological. It may be that the triggers simply weakened her defenses to fight off biologically based clinical depression.

In spite of this tortured life, and in spite of burning a great deal of her work after discovering that her husband had been cheating, Sylvia Plath published a great deal of work, mostly after her death. What success she won in the shadow of her British poet laureate husband was well earned. Her poetry shows a displaced persona, caught in a hall of mirrors, not knowing which images are reflections and which one is real. Plath suffered with very low self esteem, so every rejection of her work struck her deeply on a very personal level.

Perhaps that is why she worked so hard to help her husband achieve success. While she was helping him, she could not be simultaneously failing on her own.Plaths earliest work began a long fascination with mirrors. She wrote in her Senior honors thesis about two of Dostoyevskys novels, the appearance of the Double is an aspect of mans eternal desire to solve the enigma of his own identity. By seeking to read the riddle of his soul in its myriad manifestations, man is brought face to face with his own mysterious mirror image, an image which he confronts with mingled curiosity and fear. She saw this other self as both good and talented and evil. Mirrors figure in much of her poetry, as if she tries to examine the concept of mirrors from every angle.

The early poem, Mirror, describes what she fears, growing old alone and never seeing her true reflection. She fears living in delusion. Perhaps that is why she reacted so strongly to her husbands philandering. It was not that he wanted another woman, but the lies and deceit.

He was a beautiful mirror with framed in gilt but fatally flawed, unable to give a true reflection. The end of the poem Mirror Plath takes the persona of the mirror, as if her poetry has also been a mirror. In me she has drowned a young girl, /and in me an old woman/ Rises toward her day after day, /like a terrible fish./ That image of the rising fish in the mirror is one of the strongest ever used. It surprises and shocks. Pamela Annis devoted an entire book to examining the mirrors of Sylvia Plath, so we shall not even attempt a cursory look here.

Annis describes all the various uses of mirrors and mentions especially that the, Shattered or defective mirrors appear in Thalidomide ( 1962), The Couriers ( 1962), and Words ( 1963). In Thalidomide, The glass cracks across, / The image / Flees and aborts like dropped mercury. (Annas 4) Flawed mirros, shattered mirrors, distorted and evil mirrors, Plaths world is a hall of mirrors which she uses to look at and through her entire existence.

Her poetry is almost mystical, and sometimes quite dark. In Aftermath she describes mother Medea after the slaughter of her children and the crowd which wants her blood, wants her tortured, but must be satisfied with only her tears. Plath turns a jaundiced eye on plain home surroundings and simple events. She describes a small boy biting a balloon in Balloons, balloons that they lived with and one which the little boy bit. Little boys bite balloons to see what they are made of and how they will react. Innocent little boys break things.

Plaths poetry is filled with symbols, some of which are not easy to understand. She personifies objects, and sometimes they even threaten her, like the letters in the wastebasket in Burning the Letters. She mentions a pack of men in red jackets, These men will burn the letters that haunt her. Her poetic world is filled with odd talking and plotting things which should not be animated, like her own version of Alices strangely frightening wonderland through the looking glass.

Perhaps all of her poetry is looking through this glass, seeing from a different viewpoint. In Black Rook in Rainy Weather Plath react with wonder, so we know she was not always depressed. She saw beauty, and she saw it just beyond her reach. I only know that a rook/ Ordering its black feathers can so shine/ As to seize my senses, haul/ My eyelids up, and grant/ A brief respite from fear / Of total neutrality. Perhaps that is what she feared most: mediocrity or not caring.

Sylvia Plath may have been the most important female poet of the twentieth century. She turned away from tradition and looked inwards at the outside world. The world within her mind judged the outside, but she seems never to have been perfectly sure of the trueness of her vision. Perhaps she was right about that. She may have been looking at times through her mirrors, at times through a microscope and at other times through isinglass.

Sharon Olds

Sharon Olds was another female poet breaking with tradition, quieter and less obvious, she moved the pace with her interesting punctuation, explored subjects not feminine with a feminine eye. She shares with Sexton a concrete imagination, one that in her case is often visceral. She says of parents, haunting her adult room and life, I dream the inner parts of your bodies, the / coils of your bowels like smoke, your hearts / opening like jaws, drops from your glands / clinging to my walls ( Possessed). (Millier and Parini 664) She is decidedly unfeminine in much of her work, though her perspective is decidedly feminine as she expresses anger over the helplessness of women in this world dominated by men.

Sharon Olds survived an abusive childhood with an alcoholic father and a mother who was helplessly passive. She drew on the wellspring of beat poets and confesssionist poets of San Francisco in the 1960s. Ozzie and Harriet filled the television screens and poets struck out into uncharted territory, writing about all that bad stuff, as George Carlin once put it. He had his Seven Dirty Words and the 60s poets had their poems about sex, incest, violence and other family evils.

Sharon Olds writes stark striking poetry with very simple sharp images, like the dying father in Beyond Harm (1991) She describes the precarious role of caring for a father whom she loves and fears, but whom she does not trust. She has residual pain and rage to resolve, about the rejection and abuse she suffered at his hands and she includes her mother as co-conspirator for not stopping him. She ends the poem with closure of a sort: I suddenly thought, with amazement, he will always/ love me now, and I laughedhe was dead, dead!

Olds writes a great deal about her harsh Puritan upbringing and it figures in most of her poems. In Mrs. Krikorian she tells how she sinned, rushing the work to go spend time in the library, looking up sinful words. Olds refers to herself as a known criminal in sixth grade. Are all poets troublemakers in school? In her poems about her father she objectifies him, makes him an animate statue who commands her to look, to kiss and to be dutiful.

She is surprised to discover that she loves him when he is about to die. This is not really surprising, since it is a common reaction of an abused child. The child cannot help but love the parent, no matter how abusive. It is respect and trust which is lost. Sharon Olds expresses fear of, but not respect for her father in her poems. Even after he died, she did not trust him. She only trusted the fact that he was dead, and so could not stop loving her any more.

Sharon Olds wrote about subjects that were often taboo even within families, or especially within families, such as sex, incest and miscarriages. These were not standard fodder for poets. It is certainly not writing of beauty here, no flowers or stars to delight the senses. Instead the stench of death and dying. These were especially not the fodder of women poets. Olds steps far out of her Puritan beginnings, not is a truly rebellious manner, but simply stepping away, distancing herself from narrow lanes with blinders on and stepping out of the shadows. She points to the ugly reality and still can find something the care about, like the plain Armenian teacher she said saved her in sixth grade.

Sharon Olds expresses rage at the meanness in the world and the subjugation of women. She really rails at passive women who accept their place, as her mother did. She is neither religious nor anti-religious, but she sees the trappings of religion as mere excuses for control. Olds not only never accepted male dominance, but refused to believe in male superiority. If anything she saw men as objects. In fact, she objectifies everything in her poetry, standing aside to observe. Her objectivity and exercising her freedom to look at everything and anywhere she wants separates her from the world, keeps her safe. In The Quest she states that it is her mission to find all the evil in the world,

&..This is my

quest, to know where it is, the evil in the

human heart. As I walk home I

look in face after face for it, I

see the dark beauty, the rage, the

grown-up children of the city she walks as a

child, a raw target. (Olds 1987)

The poetry of Sharon Olds is not about beauty or spirit, but rather more practical things, like how to insure that a parent will not changes his mind about loving the child. (See to it he dies before he can leave that brief moment of love.) We find in Olds poems that she manipulates, just as she learned to do as a child to survive. She manipulates her environment and shows us only what she wants us to see, from the special angle she selects and she manipulates the relationship of the object to herself and to the rest of the scene. The red balloon in Balloons is first freely floating, living with her, then held up to the boys eye as he looks through it and finally in his mouth leaving shreds in his tiny fist after it bursts.

Her early works steered her into more concrete directions, examining the physical. Roland Flint calls her our poet of the body. She has been panned by some critics and praised by others for her choice of subjects and plain language, sometimes referred to as vulgar. Some have said she is too shallow and centered upon self, but others comment that this allows the audience to approach what might otherwise be too daring. While Sharon Olds writes quite bluntly about the body and body functions, it is seldom her body from within that we read. It is an object observed, though it is her reaction, or more often merely observation, that we share. She has changed the body from a forbidden thing of sin into an ordinary part of life to be explored.

Where is this Going?

These three and many other poets, such as Ginsberg and Sexton changed poetry of the twentieth century. Some might say it became to prose-like, or lost its charm. But poetry has never been about charm, not to poets anyway. Poetry is about what we see, what we hear, smell and touch. It is our subliminal connection with the physical world and it is a way of communicating the deepest feelings and ineffable truths. It may have started out aimed at beauty, as in love poems, or praise, as in the metaphysical or the Puritan poetry, but it evolved. The reason poetry exists is because it can convey so much more than simple description. The poets tries to touch the audience on a deeper level and elicit a reaction which leads to a brief moment of sublime understanding.

Poetry in America began top separate itself from England in the late nineteenth century, and continued well into the twentieth. However, the development of the connection between bars and poetry began in the 1960s and continued to grow. Many bars host poetry open mikes to attract new talent. This has helped to develop performance poetry and created a whole new genre called SLAM poetry. It connects more than ever before with ordinary life and ordinary people. It is not snobbish high culture any more. Rap and Hip Hop use ordinary poetry for their creations. It is simply a matter of availability.

These three poets, and others who inspired, followed or were contemporary with them, laid the groundwork for the future of poetry. It will not disappear, but has, instead, become very popular, even in small towns. These poets broke with tradition and created new forms and explored new areas. Sadly, many of our brightest and best are plagued with problems and Plath, Olds and Berryman were no exception. Olds was, possibly, the odd man (woman) out, since she uses a more objective perspective. She also is the healthiest of the three, as evidenced by her longevity. She has managed, if not to slay the tigers, to keep them in abeyance.

It is a sad thing that treatment for bipolar disorder and clinical depression was not better while Berryman and Plath were alive. They might have produced many volumes of work for us. The biological imbalances from which they suffered still cannot be cured, but the bottom of the depression can be raised a bit with few side effects, generally allowing many such sufferers to live rather normal lives. Some of the current drugs do not dull the senses as lithium (often prescribed for the manic phase of bipolar disorder) did and ridlin (a treatment often prescribed for ADHD) is said to do. We also seldom, if at all, use electric shock therapy for depression, as it is primitive and painful. Modern pharmacology can help many sufferers of mood disorders to live normally with much less pain.

In any case, during their short lives, Plath and Berryman helped to change the entire landscape of American poetry and make it accessible to the masses, for which it is usually written. Poets may do some writing for themselves, but they write more to connect with others and touch them, possibly in very profound ways. Poetry is meant to be shared. Sharon Olds is carrying this even further in exploring taboo areas and writing very plainly with extremely graphic imagery. The American poetry of the nineteenth century was still built upon British tradition with still soft edges, somewhat flowery language, as seen in some of the earliest work of Robert Frost. Then he, like other poets began to experiment with style, form and content.

What followed these changes were the early experiment of poets like Ginsberg, Eliot and Pound. The Black Mountain Poets followed the Modernist poets, like those mentioned, creating the very visual performance poetry of the mid-twentieth century that was seen in coffee houses and bars.. The Confessional poets I have discussed appeared on the scene at that point, moving from poetry as art to poetry as expression.

American poetry of the twentieth century became free of the previous trappings and American poets ceased to be led by a tradition which was not theirs. They have created their own tradition, led by their own poets, of whom the three discussed her are quite outstanding and important. These were the pioneers of todays poetry. Tomorrows pioneers are already on the scene.

There is really no way to predict where the art is going, except that it will become more and more popular. Poetry has gone in many directions from the published book to organized SLAMs. While many critics do not consider rap and hip hop music as either music or poetry, there is no denying that much of this work is indeed poetic. Poetry

Introduction

Research Background

Since time in sundry, the art of movement and gesture were the main tools of communication among human beings (Assalahi, 2013). Basically, as a visual language, art has expressive and receptive components through which different ideas may be communicated void of any audible speech (Amin, Benachaiba, & Guemide, 2013). This means that art is an integral teaching tool, especially in teaching learners with disabilities in verbal communication. As a structure of language and technique of expression, art can be used to catalyze proactive sensitivity on the side of learners in terms of feelings and communication of own ideas (Birks & Mills, 2012). Specifically, the relevance of art in English language learning for deaf students functions on its ability to give such learners the means of focusing on what is visible to the eye as opposed to what the ear can hear. Art activities compliment the interactive relationship among deaf learners in a classroom setting since it gives the learners an opportunity to visualize and share their experiences (Faruk, 2014). For instance, handicapped learners with special art talents who are recognized among their peers are likely to develop enhanced social, emotional, and cognitive skills (Ching & Fook, 2013).

In the elementary classroom setting, the drawings by young learners create a cognitive corridor towards nurturing their own understanding. It also allows the instructor to review the level of a learners understanding of correct syntax and new vocabulary (Cullen, Harris, & Hill, 2012). Since art is both a verbal and visual language, its application is dynamic and learner-oriented. The verbal component of art as a language consists of expressive and receptive elements. According to Faruk (2014), the receptive language involves comprehension of words that others use through encoding and decoding of any verbal symbol. On the other hand, expressive language is the proactive communication of ideas through writing or speaking of the coded symbols.

In application of visual language, Gass and Mackey (2012) elucidate that learners should be in a position to read and accurately interpret any visual symbol that is encoded in a form of art. This indicates that verbal language forms constitute words, sounds, and the arrangement of each set of words (Cullen et al., 2012). In comparison, the component of the visual language should consist of the principles and elements of an artwork. On the basis of visual and verbal art languages, the context of English language should be tuned to embed the symbols that are used to arrange the creative meaning and conscious intention (Hii & Fong, 2013). According to Hajhashemi, Aref, and Anderson (2012), visual language is more efficient and holistic than spoken language as a form of knowledge disseminator in communication. Since children can actually understand some words before they are in a position to say them, it is easy to use visual language to teach young learners because of their ability to identify and recognize visual images (Amin et al., 2013).

Based on the synopsis of proactive learning, art is a system consisting of symbols and language that is used for encoding and decoding information. For instance, the visual expression of young learners is a significant factor in their ability to develop repertoire of visual symbols (Hajhashemi et al., 2012). Therefore, they should be instructed through the use of visual language since they are unable to correctly perceive and make meaning of any sounds (Faruk, 2014). This speech auditory challenge should not be an impediment to proactive learning process since such learners rely on what is visible (Mulnix, 2012). The background study has indicated that a deaf student is a visual learner who should be given quality education based on using appropriate visual forms of art. The proposed handbook will integrate the Artful Thinking approach to integrate visual aid as part of the effective English learning strategy. This will be achieved through the creation of a standardized model for visual language aid in teaching deaf learners.

Research Problem Statement

In the public schooling system in Saudi Arabia, English language is taught just like any other subject and not as a communication tool (Alharbi, 2015). At present, the use of Arabic and Grammar-Translation in teaching English is common in most public schools. The content of many textbooks and curricula are angled on deductive activities and unrelated topics (Assalahi, 2013). The use of archaically traditional teaching strategies has resulted in neglecting critical thinking and communication skills in the classroom environment. The situation has not been different in special needs schools across Saudi Arabia. According to Alharbi (2015), there is an urgent need for a paradigm shift in training of the educators in order to equip them with the necessary skills for creative and relevant instruction delivery approaches in special needs learning environment. For instance, Alharbi (2015) suggests that teachers of deaf learners should have increased access to different modern technological tools for visual teaching to improve the critical thinking skills of such learners. Assalahi (2013) recommends curricula modification through technological integration and use of other visual aids such as pictures and other visual images to holistically fit within the contemporary study life for deaf Saudi Arabian learners. Therefore, there is need to carry out research on the most appropriate instruction delivery methods in teaching English language in a special needs class consisting of learners with impaired hearing problems.

Purpose of the Project

Although there are several past case studies on the merits of illustration and other visual support format in learning and teaching English language in a special needs class, there is very little literature on how the visual aids or art forms are effective in supporting the learning process for learners with hearing challenges. Specifically, this project is constructed to effectively integrate technological tools in the traditional special needs classes in Saudi Arabia. The project hopes to present a conventional and standardized handbook for effective teaching of English language through integration of the Artful Thinking Approach, created by Harvard Universitys Project Zero.

Research Theoretical Framework

The proposed project is based on the Artful Thinking approach created by Harvard Universitys Project Zero and three conventional instruction delivery approaches, which are the Multiple Intelligence, Discourse, and Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). The Artful Thinking approach educates learners on critical thinking with the aid of simple routines as a guidance tool for developing processes of analyzing and observing art. According to this approach, art is viewed as a significant force in nurturing thinking dispositions and skills that are applicable by learners in the curricula (Khaghaninejad & Hosseini, 2014). There are several thinking strategies in Artful Thinking such as Perceive/Know/Care About and Beginning/Middle/End. Since this approach is dynamic and simple, it is adoptable for all grades of learners with hearing disability.

The Beginning/Middle/End aspect is learner-centered since it encourages direct participation and constant interaction with the educator. The learners are expected to share their thoughts on an image from which different interpretations are categorized to represent the beginning, middle, and end of a lesson (Orlich, Harder, Callahan, Trevisan, & Brown, 2012). Specifically, this approach empowers the deaf learners to use the images to create meaning of a phenomenon. The Perceive/Know/Care About also functions on the principle of student-centered learning by attempting to draw a systematic line of thought on perception and actual knowledge to model a routine. Through individual and group work, this approach promotes proactive learner engagement through the use of extra learning materials such as a handout, images, and other illustrations. According to Orlich et al. (2012), the Artful Thinking approach is ideal in promoting dynamic lesson planning and execution through integration of visual language and visual aids to effectively impart English language skills among learners with hearing disability.

As a theoretical framework for effective teaching, the Communicative Language Teaching approach is very broad but has very specific goals. The CLT focuses on achievement of communicative competence through reviewing all aspects of instruction delivery, such as accuracy in linguistics and grammar, context of functional language, and creating a meaningful context in language pragmatics (Obusu, Adu-Agyem, & Opoku-Asare, 2013). This is necessary in complementing the traditional structure and form of lesson delivery by promoting language productively through shifting the dynamics of a special needs classroom to learner-centered as opposed to the current teacher-centered form (Doman, 2014). On the other hand, the Discourse Approach functions on the goal of promoting effective learner communication in relation to context of real life. This approach is angled on teaching English language by use of real life and authentic materials to enhance communicative and pragmatic competences beyond linguistic knowledge (Reid & Walker, 2012). At the end, learners are expected to apply their declarative knowledge to apply and gain systematic procedural knowledge in English as a foreign language (Amin et al., 2013). Thus, the proposed handbook will instigate a communicative guidelines and approaches to guide special needs teachers to incorporate pragmatics and discourse in creating and delivering an effective lesson plan targeting deaf learners. The project champions for awareness creation on the side of the special needs learners towards discourse.

The Multiple Intelligences theory (MI) works on the assumption that measuring intelligence is possible with the aid of an IQ test. The MI theory functions on several intelligence categories such as logical, musical, kinesthetic, and linguistic among others (Al-Shammakhi & Al-Humaidi, 2015). Ultimately, the MI theory functions as a tool for stimulation and extraction of different kinds of creativity and innovation among learners (Larsen-Freeman & Anderson, 2013). Through integration of the component of the MI theory in a lesson plan, special needs English teachers in Saudi Arabia are likely to succeed in addressing the learning style and intelligence of each learner to improve on performance and competence.

Research Questions

1. How can be current instructional delivery methods be modified to integrate visually-aided learning as part of effective and holistic learning process for deaf students?
2. What instructional delivery resources should be integrated in the visually-aided English learning process to make it effective and relevant to the curricula?

Objectives of the Project

From the above research question, the following objectives were generated to address the research topic;

1. To establish the most appropriate instructional delivery strategies that English teachers may use to harmonize the noted discrepancies in terms of visually-aided learning.
2. To determine the effective instructional delivery resources that special needs English teachers can use to improve on visually-aided learning for deaf students in elementary and intermediate English language levels.

Significance of the Proposed Project

The proposed project will systematically introduce authentic English language to learners through the use of pictures and other visual aids. It will also create a framework for lesson planning and delivery, which ensures that the English language learning is learner-centered as opposed to the current teacher-centered approach. Lastly, the project will be a significant bridge-building tool in teaching complex reading for the deaf learners through the integration of different graphic images that they can easily associate with.

Limitations of the Research

The proposed project is associated with several limitations that can be related to design, approach, and scope. For instance, the proposed project is created for elementary and intermediate level of learning language in Saudi Arabia (Creswell, 2013). The communicative and linguistic competences needed in application of this project require relatively low level of proficiency in English language. Since the project proposes the use of visual language, it may not be of much benefit in classroom environments that do not have access to technological applications. Lastly, in order to effectively implement the proposed project, the educators must have the necessary technological skills. Unfortunately, this might not be possible in all Saudi schools for some English teachers do not have adequate skills in a technologically-aided learning.

Research Conceptual Framework

A deliberate attempt was made to review the instructional delivery strategies in order to bridge any existing gap between the current teaching methods and their effectiveness within elementary and intermediate classes for deaf learners. Figure 1 below shows the dependent and independent variables in the conceptual framework of the study (Yin, 2012).

Literature Review

Introduction

When the government of Saudi Arabia approved the English one of the foreign languages to be taught in its school as part of the 1925 official Ministry of Education curricula, there has been steady progress in the integration of English in the public and private schools (Amin et al., 2013). The recent past studies indicate that the attitude of the Saudi Arabians towards English language has been changing for the better because it has become a must-have skill in job search (Faruk, 2014). Despite this progress the Saudi classes remain teacher-centered, and teaching of English language is mostly done via lectures. There are very few instances where a more dynamic and communicative approach is applied, especially in the public schools (Alharbi, 2015; Orlich et al., 2012). This section of the paper reviews the use of photographs of architecture to promote thinking in EFL teaching. The literature review concentrates on EFL instruction to teach deaf students and integration of the project zeros Artful Thinking strategies to enhance thinking and language learning. Specifically, the strategies under project zero include I used to think& now I think, colors/shapes/lines, and connect/extend/challenge.

Using Photographs of Architecture to Promote Thinking

Incorporating visual language, such as visual aids in the form of photographs of architecture, might facilitate a proactive paradigm shift from the instructor-centered traditional classroom into a proactive communicative learning process that is student-centered. In a research study carried out by Yun (2014), on the use of technology in teaching English language in the public schools in Saudi Arabia, the findings revealed that visual art is effective in enhancing the communication skills and transforms the learners from being passive observers to communicative students. Therefore, visual aids such as photographs of architecture are ideal in enhancing authentic conversations between a teacher and the learners.

Since pictures are a replica of the everyday life, their integration in the English language learning process would improve on the learner experience and Meta memory. In a research done by Ching and Fook (2013), on the significance of visual aids on English language skills acquisition, the findings revealed that use of pictures and other illustrations have the potential of improving the learning experience and general vocabulary attainment. The two researchers concluded that attitude of learners is positive on the use of visual aids such as photographs of architecture in English learning. Moreover, Ching and Fook (2013) established that graphic course materials have the potential of magnifying the critical and creative thinking skills among the learners, especially when implemented in the modeling of a lesson plan and language curricula.

According to Saville-Troike (2012), Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is one of the most ideal approaches in teaching English language since its introduction in the late 1970s. The intention of CLT is to create an ideal language acquisition strategy characterized by improved communication skills and innovative use of art within a relevant context. Thus, under the CLT, the language learning programs, textbooks, goals, objectives, and curricula are constructed on the desire to improve communicative competence of a learner through integration of art such as photographs of architecture. According to Alharbi (2015), non-proficiency in English learning with Saudi Arabia can be associated with inconsistent instructional deliver methods such as the Grammar-Translation, which does not incorporate visually-aided learning.

Further, more than 69% of English teachers in Saudi Arabia still use Arabic language in instructional delivery (Alharbi, 2015). According to Verderber, Verderber, and Sellnow (2012), the use of Arabic (L1-first language) in teaching English (L2-second language) is counterproductive since it encourages learners to conceptualize their line of thought in L1 and then translate to L2, which may never be accurate or relevant. The use of L1 in teaching and translation to L2 is common with the Grammar-Translation method and may result in lack of innovation, creativity, and communicating competence. Specifically, excessive use of L1 limits the ability of a learner to consistently practice speaking English (Verderber et al., 2012). The inconsistency in the practice of CLT in Saudi Arabia can be associated with inadequate instructor training that is focused on communicative teaching approaches at the expense of effectiveness in instruction delivery through the use of visually-aided learning such as the use of photographs of architecture.

Using Photographs of Architecture to Promote Thinking in EFL Teaching

Art has been used as a universal communication language. For instance, the use of body movements, pictures, gestures, and paintings among others to carry different symbolic connotation is common, especially in circumstances when verbal equivalent is not possible. These art forms are understandable without using any word. Faruk (2014) established the following:

In the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of the year 1975, the use of the arts as a teaching tool for the handicapped has long been recognized as a viable, effective way not only of teaching special skills, but also of reaching youngsters who had otherwise been unteachable. The committee envisions that programs under this bill could well include an arts component and indeed, urges that local educational agencies include the arts in programs for the handicapped under this Act (p. 176).

Reflectively, proactive use of different forms of visual art facilitates memory, especially in deaf learners who heavily rely on visual communication to build on cognition. According to Khaghaninejad and Hosseini (2014), art forms are significant in developing strong cognition, since they offer a series of opportunities for learners to explain their expectations and activities at hand through visualization. In practical application, visualizing an image would facilitate development of strong memory, which is ideal in good academic growth. As noted by Larsen-Freeman and Anderson (2013), visual arts can be used to impart knowledge to deaf learners even in straight courses such as syntax, grammar, and spelling, especially when its usage is integrated in the lesson plan. Irrespective of the school environment, an education system is imbalanced when the holistic aspect of art integration is missing, irrespective of the learners competency level (Goldratt & Cox, 2016). This means that different art forms or activities enable learners to internalize and continuously participate at varying levels of ability in studying or adapting to a classroom environment (Assalahi, 2013). Therefore, instructional delivery of English language or any other subject would be effective when visual art is included.

The discourse approach functions on utilizing the English language in use through enhancing pedagogy via reviewing the linguistic and pragmatic competences of the learners. The communication skills of a learner are often internalized at infancy. However, the processing of acquiring a new language such as English involves adjustment of the communication skills that were acquired at an early age. This means that incorporation of the discourse approach in grammar instruction and pedagogy requires integration of vocabulary to define a clear context (Cullen et al., 2012). For instance, using art forms would facilitate proactive integration of different concepts in the classroom environment since it promotes creative thinking. Consequently, English language learners in Saudi Arabia will be in a position to accurately use communication and language skills in a simultaneous manner in a discourse.

Using Photographs to Teach Deaf Students

According to Obusu et al. (2013), art forms in the classroom allow learners with hearing disability to proactively initiate a personal line of thought instead of assuming a more passive role. Since deaf learners fall within the category of special needs students, they have a learning challenge, which makes it difficult for them to effectively develop academic skills. Such deficiencies may be addressed through talent and interest development in the different artistic activities that they are able to successfully complete. In the education of persons with hearing disability, art becomes an integral tool for effective instructional delivery (Obusu et al., 2013). Through the use of different artistic mediums in English learning, it is easy to develop the self-concepts and academic skills of the deaf learners. This is possible since art forms, such as pictures, facilitate proactive learner-centered experiences that can be adopted in all areas of English language curricula (Hii & Fong, 2013). Irrespective of the learning environment, visual art is an important tool for teaching learners innumerable skills that foster emotional, social, and intellectual growth. Specifically, visual art is an aid to activity-based learning to promote complete participation in the classroom.

Different forms of foster imagination in the line of thought of a learner through integration of abstract ideas and concrete materials. Since deaf learners have an immature neural system, it is difficult for them to grip abstractions. Therefore, any abstraction in the learning process should be introduced through pictures, objects, symbols, and their bodies (Obusu et al., 2013). Particularly, forms of art give the learners a head start to improve on the motor, auditory, visual, and tactile elements. Through art forms, learners are empowered to align their line of thought, interpret their knowledge, turn well-developed activities into ideas, and compare past experiences to present processes (Faruk, 2014). Reflectively, deaf learners need visual aids in learning English language since their hearing ability is very limited.

When properly integrated into the lesson plan, art has the potential of offering tangible results with the pleasurable learning experience, especially among the students within the elementary competency level (Obusu et al., 2013). For instance, using different shapes, sizes, and color in symbol or picture recognition makes the content verification easier and more interesting. In a typical classroom environment, art instigates the necessary skills for academic excellence among the deaf learners since they are in a position to self-organize and memorize sequence besides gauging what is visible and what can be done. As a form of instructional delivery method, visually-aided teaching is necessary for deaf learners. However, this method is currently not being properly practiced in the public schools in Saudi Arabia.

Using Project Zero Strategies to Enhance Thinking and Language Learning

Since art forms are visual in nature, their usage in language learning enhances memory. For instance, the Artful Thinking program, developed under project zero by the Harvard University, is a vital tool for instructors on how to integrate works of art in the lesson plan to improve on the learning and thinking of the learners. Created between the year 2004 and 2006, the content of the program is applicable in K-12 classes since its focus is on visualizing and interpretation of art but does not concentrate on how the art is made. The program is angled on the goal of facilitating teachers in creating steady interrelationship between the topic or lesson objectives and works of art. The program also empowers the teachers to utilize the influence of art as an instrument for continuous development of a learners line of thoughts for different dispositions. In order to understand the impact of the project zero program, it is necessary to review its strategies, routines, and dispositions. In relation to the research objectives, the strategies that will be discussed are I used to think& now I think, colors/shapes/lines, and connect/extend/challenge.

I used to think& now i think strategy

As part of project zero, the I used to think& now I think integrates the thinking dispositions and how they are developed through thinking routines as a concept of art work in language teaching. According to Tishman and Palmer (2007), the thinking dispositions revolve around ability-centric efforts that foreground reasoning, creativity, and thinking skills at the level of a learner. These efforts are based on the assumption that desired behavior can be achieved through incorporation of the requisite skills. The ground zero program uses the dispositional approach in promoting predictable intellectual behavior through multiple art exploration (Amin et al., 2013).

Specifically, this approach is ideal in teaching learners to thinkers who rely on their own line of thoughts since it concentrates on thinking-centers virtues such as proactive commitment, self-sensitivity, and incorporation of a belief system as part of the thinking skills. These dispositional tendencies are strategic in developing cognitive skills for reasoning, thinking, and open-mindedness in a discourse. As noted by Birks and Mills (2012), having dispositional thinking involves recognition ability from a series of observations and motivation to use that capacity appropriately. Therefore, dispositional thinking is angled on separable elements such as ability, inclination, and sensitivity. The Artful Thinking program focuses on six dispositions, which are reasoning, exploring viewpoints, finding complexity, comparing-connecting, questioning-investigating, and observing-describing (Havard Graduate School of Education, 2017).

The I used to think& now I think routine can be used to gather perceptions on the significance of art works in language learning between teachers and learners. Basically, this routine requests an individual to reflect on their past thinking about a topic and their current line of thoughts on the same. As captured in the findings of the research, Works of art are good things to think about, by Tishman and Palmer (2007), the findings revealed that learners often report their line of thought and are relatively sensitive when different kinds of thoughts are in play. Moreover, learners and instructors are in a position to make different personal and disciplinary connections when having thoughtful experience about art forms. Specifically, some of these connections may be intrinsic to the intentions of the artist or context; some may be unique to the viewer and the moment (Tishman & Palmer, 2007, p. 31).

The authors concluded that different forms of art are gloriously and wildly captivating in their scope and ability to proactively stimulate the senses in the mind in order to make connections to different experiences. It is in order to state that the I used to think& now I think indicates the perception of a learner in terms of expansion of his or her line of thought about art. Apparently, the connection between viewing art work and development of thinking skills is that by default or design, visual art encourages subterranean and broadened thoughts. In the real life, artwork motivates an individual to think about how the piece was created and possible ideas beyond each work. In relation to language learning, art allows learners to conceptualize and deeply think about an object in order to form a concept map as captured in the Artful Thinking palette (Tishman & Palmer, 2007). For example, viewing art allows learners to conceptualize a view point, carry out a comparative review, and internalize interpretations. Thus, learners incorporate different forms of thinking as motivated by viewing of artwork because of improved alertness, creativity, and innovative approach to learning.

Colors/shapes/line

As part of the Artful Thinking approach, the colors/shapes/lines routine encourages learners to conceptualize comprehensive observations through proactive engagement of their attention to different artworks or forms. Specifically, this routine focuses on the formal elements of art in order to categorize each element in terms of what is visible (Obusu et al., 2013). The colors/shapes/lines schedule presents three important visual aspects of art, which are the color(s), shape, and visible lines in every piece of artwork. For instance, learners are encouraged to observe an artwork and accurately identify its color, visible lines, and shape in order to create a line of thought (Penda, Bijelic, & Babic, 2017).

The Artful Thinking approach proposes that the colors/shapes/lines routine is applicable to any visual art form in language learning (Tishman & Palmer, 2007). The use is not limited to art objects or images in teaching language. For example, in the Looking: Ten Times routine, students can use the routine on its own, or prior to having a discussion about an artwork with another routine (Havard Graduate School of Education, 2017, par. 8). In application, the colors/shapes/lines routine is important in language learning, particularly prior to a writing activity, since it enables learners to internalize expressive language.

Connect/extend/challenge

The connect/extend/challenge routine encourages learners to systematically connect a new line of thought to a prior idea or knowledge on a subject, especially in the dynamic process of language learning or acquisition. Basically, this routine motivates learners to create individual connection to a topic about artwork (Pedersen & Kronborg, 2014). In application, the connect/extend/challenge presents three important points touching on how the art connects to prior knowledge, new line of thought and its extension to directional thinking, and potential challenges or ideas that a learner is thinking about. As indicated in the project zeros Artful Thinking, this routine is applicable in a situation where learners have conceptualized a new idea or experience (Amin et al., 2013). Particularly, the application of this ro

Introduction

By introducing students to the Arabic language and improving their skills in different types of speech activity, one should take into account that active perception should be promoted. In the context of working with younger pupils, building an educational program based on emotional contact can help establish contact and identify the members of the study group who are most active and, therefore, can serve as an example for other students.

This type of activity is essential because when differentiating the written system of the Arabic language, children have to learn many nuances and peculiar features. In case a child is not a native speaker, this brings to him or her additional difficulties. For the teaching staff, involving students in active work may also be difficult due to the lack of interest of the target audience and difficulties for pupils in learning the complex language structure of the language.

Today, the development of digital technology allows moving to more advanced and effective teaching methods. For elementary schools, there are special tools that simplify the work of teachers and, at the same time, serve as valuable resources with diverse programs for preparing students. As these instruments, various technological developments are used, for instance, mobile applications or websites with convenient learning modes. Children perceive visual information better, which allows teachers to benefit by offering colorful and interactive tutorials and supporting materials to classrooms.

As a result, the utilization of such digital platforms can simplify the educational regime significantly, and studying the differentiation of Arabic reading can also become a more interesting task, despite the complexity of the learning process. Thus, introducing technological developments can help attract the attention of the target audience consisting of primary school children, and in the case of using these resources capabilities competently, increasing the academic success of pupils may be possible.

This paper includes discussions on why differentiation in reading Arabic is a responsible and important task that should be implemented at an early age. Also, the existing developments in the field of digital technologies will be considered in relation to this topic, and some unique applications and websites will be evaluated comprehensively as targeted learning resources. As examples of the challenges with the implementation of this educational task, special justifications will be offered, including statistical results and feedbacks from real stakeholders. Several targeted websites will be examined in more detail, and their analysis will help identify how to choose the right tool for digital learning.

Despite the fact that some resources offer ineffective tasks, their design, in particular, colorfulness and interactivity, attract childrens interest, which serves as a valuable and motivating driver. The disclosure of differentiation levels in Arabic reading is an important teachers objective, and the use of appropriate online platforms as auxiliary elements may be a successful mechanism to realize teaching potential and help children achieve their intermediate academic outcomes successfully.

Background on the Value of Differentiation in Arabic Reading

The differentiation of education is one of the means of implementing an individual approach to children. This principle is achieved through such an educational process that is characterized by taking into account the personal differences of students in certain skills. Its implementation is possible provided that a teacher possesses the information about the potential cognitive abilities of each pupil in order to monitor the actual level of reading skills systematically.

This is the first step in the introduction of differentiation in teaching reading, which results in the identification of students physiological and intellectual characteristics and monitoring the level of substantive achievements. In this regard, teachers involved in the differentiated practice program should follow an individual approach strategy that is realized through constant interaction with the target audience and allows not only identifying specific features of student learning but also maintaining productive communication during classes.

When teaching the Arabic language to primary school students, differentiation is an important aspect that allows introducing the necessary practical models of interaction with pupils and maintaining the interest of every child involved in the educational process, regardless of his or her individual abilities. According to Deunk, Smale-Jacobse, de Boer, Doolaard, and Bosker (2018), as one of the strategies used in this context, within-class homogeneous ability grouping may be a valuable and convenient technique for distributing the workload among primary school students (p. 36). This approach has several valuable advantages that are revealed during the educational process.

Firstly, students do not feel teacher bias if they receive separate tasks together and can show their strengths in unique types of work. Secondly, the convenience for teachers is manifested since pupils are involved in learning and do not lose time on meaningless and obscure activities that do not bear any practical significance for them because of their high complexity or, conversely, ease. Thirdly, grouping helps increase students personal responsibility for the tasks assigned and offers productive types of individual work. Thus, several significant objectives are achieved, and all educational stages are implemented.

Another value of differentiation in reading is that not only the final learning outcomes are taken into account but also the intermediate academic achievements of students, which is an important indicator of the educational process. As Jefferson, Grant, and Sander (2017) argue, in many primary school classes, the key focus of the workload is on skills of reading fluency and word identification (p. 98).

This means that a unified approach to interaction with the target audience is applied, which does not allow each pupil to realize ones potential and, at the same time, can serve as a brake for some students who do not cope with the curriculum. In the context of teaching the Arabic language, such a unified methodology may be fraught with significant challenges for some children who are difficult to perceive the linguistic system and demonstrate their peers results. In order to prevent such a gap in knowledge, the entire mode of work should be built on an individual approach and the division of educational tasks in accordance with students performance. Differentiation, in this case, is a convenient and unbiased tool for creating the necessary learning conditions.

Based on this value of task separation, it is essential to consider what mechanisms exist for involving primary school students in a reading-based learning mode with the course on differentiation. Today, access to the digital base is free in most educational institutions, and the introduction of special technological innovations can serve as a useful practice that simplifies the structure of the curriculum and helps promote an individual approach.

In such conditions, students perceive the learning material better since any visualization integrated into the educational process makes teaching more productive and interesting, which is important for interacting with younger students. Therefore, the assessment of the existing developments and achievements made by the English department is a valuable task in the context of the proposed issue.

Current Success and Achievements

In order to implement a program of differentiated teaching in Arabic reading, one can pay attention to the experience of colleagues from the English department, who have managed to apply relevant and convenient resources. Since modern curricula allow and encourage the use of digital technologies in learning, specific online platforms are valuable tools to attract the attention of younger students and, at the same time, solve important teaching tasks.

As these supporting resources, some popular websites have been used that offer extensive exercises and training courses for students of different ages. Their convenience lies in the fact that the work process can be designed to correspond with certain skills and knowledge, and the multi-level range of tasks allows differentiating the learning mode of reading quickly and easily.

One of such resources is the Raz Kids platform that contains numerous educational sections and offers many opportunities for solving diverse teacher tasks, including the introduction of differentiated reading projects. In addition, it proposes links to additional sources, for instance, Kids A-Z, which is a convenient and comprehensive service for learning the basics of English reading (Manage students, 2020). According to the information provided on the official website, the resource contains more than 50,000 supporting materials that are in line with modern educational trends and provide an opportunity to develop the necessary reading skills (Manage students, 2020, para. 3).

As these materials, textbooks, tutorials, abstracts of digital lessons, quizzes, and other forms of schoolchildren training are offered (Manage students, 2020). For the English department, this resource is a convenient tool because it contains topics on each aspect of reading, alphabetical classification, and the training of more complex skills (Manage students, 2020). As a result, utilizing the capabilities of this platform allows students to become interested and, at the same time, helps teachers select individual training programs among a variety of supporting materials.

As an alternative resource that one can pass to from Raz Kids, Learning A-Z is the project that also includes a wide range of valuable training materials to create the conditions for introducing a differentiation program in reading. The website indicates that the operating algorithms are configured in such a way that there are 29 levels of difficulty in total, which allows working with students of different ages, including elementary schoolchildren (Reading A-Z, 2020, para. 2).

In addition, dual-language projects are presented on this platform, which is a valuable development for integrated classes (Reading A-Z, 2020). For the English department, this resource is a convenient tool that allows finding not only educational materials but also various teaching standards that, in addition, can be downloaded (Reading A-Z, 2020). Using the capabilities of this digital platform helps expand the range of interventions significantly, and it not only gives a chance to realize the current learning objectives but also contributes to the further development of students skills by presenting all materials in a convenient and accessible form.

Based on the experience of colleagues from the English department, one can argue that the use of the aforementioned resources is of high practical importance and allows solving a number of important teaching tasks. What is more important in the context of the proposed topic, these digital platforms provide access to training programs in accordance with the principles of differentiation in reading. While speaking about the merits of these websites, many experts note a wide variety of tasks and exercises divided by the levels of students knowledge. This option may be utilized with benefits since there is no need to analyze and organize all materials manually.

Ready-made assignments and tutorials are built in an interactive format, and due to an attractive design and ease of navigation, the website interface is understandable to all the parties involved. Thus, these resources are of high practical importance in the topic of differentiation in reading. Studying additional platforms can provide a comprehensive picture of the available formats and draw conclusions regarding the most convenient tools.

Useful Digital Applications to Differentiate in Reading

Modern services that facilitate the task of teachers to implement differentiation programs in reading are numerous, and in the global network, many auxiliary resources may be found. For instance, such a digital application as Rainbow Sentences that is available on the App Store allows primary school students to train their knowledge interactively (Rainbow Sentences, 2019). This resource has more than once been awarded official prizes as a valuable and high-tech instrument providing highly specialized services to a specific target audience (Rainbow Sentences, 2019).

To work on the program of differentiation in reading, this application can be utilized as an auxiliary tool. Despite the fact that the functionality of the program is quite limited and does not have a wide range of options, in the context of the topic under discussion, the application may be used with benefits as a platform for training reading at different levels with advanced design solutions.

Another convenient service that gives primary school teachers an opportunity to implement a differentiation system in reading is designed specifically for grades 2 and 3. This application is called Reading Comprehension Grades 2-3, and its functionality allows children with different levels of skills to apply the necessary knowledge in a game form (Reading comprehension grades 2-3, 2019). Numerous quizzes are a valuable addition to the features of the application, and due to simple vocabulary and convenient transition to various options, the service may be applied both during lessons and at home (Rainbow Sentences, 2019).

In addition, according to the official information, this resource was developed by professional specialists in the field of primary education and can be used by parents as a convenient tool for testing childrens knowledge (Rainbow Sentences, 2019). Therefore, this application may be a valuable mechanism for implementing differentiation in reading due to different levels of the complexity of texts and quizzes.

Addressing the need to promote differentiation in reading is not the only prospect that may be achieved through the use of digital tools. The Reading Trainer application is a convenient resource not only to train visual perception skills at different levels but also develop cognitive abilities (Reading trainer, 2019). A system of quizzes and exercises designed with different categories of complexity allows children to participate in the educational process actively.

At the same time, as the developers of the application argue, their product provides an opportunity to increase memorization skills, form spatial thinking, and help increase attention (Reading trainer, 2019). In addition, the resource is available in different languages, which is also an advantage. Therefore, this digital application may become a convenient auxiliary tool in improving the reading skills of primary school students and act as an algorithm for selecting the optimal exercises in accordance with the differentiation system.

Issue of Differentiation in Arabic Reading in Grades 2 and Grade 3

In the context of studying the Arabic language and, in particular, promoting a differentiation program in grades 2 and 3, the experience of colleagues can be valuable. However, their specificity differs due to distinctive language groups and, consequently, areas of activity. For teachers in primary schools, it is essential to develop a unique strategy for interacting with students to offer them a productive and, at the same time, interesting curriculum. Therefore, the issue of differentiating reading in Arabic is an urgent task that needs to be addressed in the immediate learning environment.

Sound perception is one of the key problems that appear when teaching younger students to read in Arabic. According to Poyas and Bawardi (2018), children have difficulties in distinguishing between similar sounds, and identifying appropriate vowels is challenging for them. The authors also note that visual perception is not easy due to the peculiarities of the Arabic alphabet (Poyas & Bawardi, 2018). Some letters that have similar shapes are not easy to remember quickly and require constant repetition to avoid mistakes.

In this regard, preliminary, teachers need to carry out work on teaching primary school students the basics of the alphabetical composition of the language and elementary words in order to compare and distinguish corresponding units. Poyas and Bawardi (2018) argue that children cannot remember short and long vowels pronounced in Arabic quickly, and the task is to familiarize the target audience with numerous examples of how specific words sound with similar pronunciation. All these aspects create difficulties for younger students and are the rationale for developing the necessary training programs to help children adapt to the peculiarities of the language and reproduce speech orally.

Since in primary school, problems with language perception appear, it is important to create conditions in which every student could have an opportunity to train ones skills individually. In their research, Poyas and Bawardi (2018) state that among the teachers surveyed, 70% report hearing problems that their pupils have, which may be the reason for insufficient attention to childrens health (p. 6). According to the authors, preliminarily, in kindergarten and at home, future students should learn the basics of reading to be ready for the school curriculum (Poyas & Bawardi, 2018). Otherwise, they may have difficulties in adapting to continuous work in group conditions.

Many children go to school with a different academic background, and this is an obstacle to offering common tasks for all students since some of them cannot absorb the proposed materials and demonstrate poor learning outcomes. Thus, the problem of perception is a direct prerequisite for reading difficulties in elementary school. To solve this issue, a differentiated technique may be applied as a convenient mechanism that allows finding an approach to each pupil and contributes to faster adaptation to the learning environment.

For students of grades 2 and 3, a unique system of interaction with teachers is required since children do not have knowledge of advanced learning methods and the importance of self-study. In this regard, the tools for interaction should be convenient and understandable. If a teacher uses complex and unified methods, this can complicate the task because the lack of basic knowledge in some pupils is fraught with the loss of their interest in reading.

This, in turn, may affect their further academic results adversely. Therefore, the game form of contact with children is the most acceptable and convenient strategy. In addition, this is a flexible algorithm that allows realizing the possibilities of differentiated learning. In case children from the same class have different reading skills in Arabic, a teacher can resort to digital content with interesting and categorized tasks. A focus on the weaknesses of individual students should be made in order to create a learning environment in which they can hone and improve their skills. Thus, differentiation in Arabic reading is an important aspect of teaching practice in the case of problems demonstrated by individual pupils.

Examples of the Issue in the Educational Environment

In the educational environment in which differentiation in reading is applied through the introduction of digital technologies and special online applications, there are unique approaches to the organization of the learning process. Teachers promoting this strategy of interaction with the target audience use modern developments not only as auxiliary tools but also as accompanying algorithms for solving other tasks, for instance, building social relationships among students. By utilizing individual case studies and findings as examples, one can see how digital programs and other online resources can help promote active teaching and achieve effective outcomes of interventions through convenient academic instruments.

The use of digital developments may be a convenient program to help primary school students with reading difficulties. Parenti and Chen (2015) give an example of a case study in which they describe an intervention based on the implementation of a virtual learning technique by using Internet resources. In accordance with the results of the review, the proposal of such a program of work has proved its effectiveness for children with poor academic results (Parenti & Chen, 2015).

In particular, in addition to improving reading skills, additional benefits have been identified. Parenti and Chen (2015) note that special Internet platforms were offered to students not only as an auxiliary tool for learning but also as a place for building social relations in their educational environment. As a result, children have managed to achieve the necessary results not only due to frequent training but also an opportunity to communicate with one another in writing, thereby improving personal reading skills and replenishing their vocabulary. These outcomes prove the convenience of utilizing digital developments as tools that can bring significant benefits in case of competent use and help teachers motivate their pupils.

The practice of working jointly, in particular, shared reading, may have positive consequences and can become a convenient methodology for implementing the differentiation program. Jones, Conradi, and Amendum (2016) consider this principle of the organization of the educational process and note that creating the conditions for the formation of reading skills in younger students can take place in teams. The authors note that the technique of imitation, which is achieved by repeating materials by pupils, has a positive effect, and children become more self-confident if supported by peers and a teacher (Jones et al., 2016).

Unlike traditional forms of choral reading, Jones et al. (2016) suggest paying attention to more modern mechanisms of training visual perception and recommend applying a group intervention strategy with separation by skill levels. In this case, digital auxiliary materials can also be useful since the game environment created by using virtual technologies during classes attracts children and helps them to realize their abilities to the maximum. Thus, shared reading in separate groups, which is supported by the introduction of digital tools, may be a convenient strategy for working with primary school students.

Teaching primary school students with various developmental disorders is a particular cause of introducing differentiation in reading. Elazab Elshazly (2016) provides reasoning on how the educational process should be structured if pupils with dyslexia are the target audience. This disorder involves problems with the visual perception of written information, and teachers need to follow special strategies to involve children in their work and help them to adapt. Elazab Elshazly (2016) suggests integrating modern technology into the learning process in order to simplify the studying of students with similar disorders and argues that technology is facilitating and making it easy to differentiate instructions among diverse students (p. 40).

The utilization of digital tools in education may be accompanied both by work on online platforms and operating with the help of modern gadgets with a touch screen function. According to the author, these devices help pupils complete assignments individually, which is one of the conditions for differentiation, and contribute to faster material learning due to the widespread use of digital technology (Elazab Elshazly, 2016). Therefore, such a mechanism of teaching may be useful in the context of the issue under consideration.

Interested Parties Experiences

The experience of teachers in working on differentiation programs in reading is a valuable background, and interested parties direct opinions regarding the features and difficulties of implementing this activity can help determine the best ways of interventions. Snijders (2017) describes the techniques developed for introducing reading enhancement projects among primary school students. In addition, the author cites interviews with teachers who answer questions related to the specifics of activities in this mode and possible recommendations concerning the optimization of all related procedures (Snijders, 2017). According to the findings, some teachers express uncertainty about the correctness of their approach to the differentiation program, and for some, preparing for this work is a difficult task (Snijders, 2017).

Moreover, the convenience of using appropriate tools that simplify the process of working in the differentiation mode depends on employees experience directly. Despite the success of individual teachers, many of them report problems caused by unusual conditions of interaction with students, and Snijders (2017) notes that these challenges may be caused by insufficient skills in utilizing digital technologies. Therefore, preliminary familiarization with relevant educational tools is an important working aspect that should be respected thoroughly.

The experience of literary critics can also be valuable in determining which challenges both teachers and students may encounter while working in the differentiation mode in reading. One of the sources that offer relevant information on this topic is an interview with Kevin McCloskey, which Salvadore (2019) conducts as an experienced expert in the early childhood education sphere. The author notes that unique approaches to creating fascinating childrens works may be helpful as strategies for creating convenient educational materials for pupils with different levels of reading skills (Salvadore, 2019).

As one example, Salvadore (2019) clarifies that her respondent, the author of many childrens works, uses an alphabetic technique to describe various representatives of the fauna, which, in turn, develops the horizons of younger students and, most importantly, helps them better understand spelling of specific names and how they look in texts. This mechanism of work stimulates pupils interest and helps teachers categorize the available literature used as textbooks and supporting materials for differentiated reading. Thus, the application of suitable preparatory print and digital textbooks is an important task in a dynamic and differentiated learning environment.

Finally, it is essential to raise the issue of the possibilities of introducing a differentiation strategy in the learning environment, taking into account training modes based on teachers experience. Stewart (2016) provides a detailed study of school employees skills concerning their perception of this working methodology. In particular, the author pays particular attention to the methods that teachers use as stages in establishing the necessary working environment and analyzes the answers to interview questions about the principles of differentiation in relation to improving reading skills of the target audience (Stewart, 2016).

In accordance with the results, the predominant number of teachers confirms that the implementation of relevant programs is possible only if they have enough time to develop and incorporate the necessary materials (Stewart, 2016). This means that in conditions of high workload, it is difficult to monitor available digital materials, prepare the necessary tools, and think out a strategy for delivering materials. Therefore, one of the prerequisites for competent work in relation to differentiation in reading is a sufficient amount of time that should be spent on preparing lessons with the integration of digital developments in the educational process.

Basic Conditions for Implementation

Introducing a differentiation strategy in reading in Arabic requires planning in order to avoid the aforementioned problems with the implementation of the provisions of the course. In addition to the practical nuances of work, for instance, finding the necessary academic background, budgetary issues should be taken into account. In particular, the use of any advanced digital equipment is costly because, in most cases, popular and efficient programs have a paid subscription.

As a rule, this money is not too big, and the school budget may provide for this expense item in advance. The entire implementation process will take place without any preparatory procedures since the vast majority of students of grades 2 and 3 are familiar with Internet technologies. On the basis of a regular school, lessons can be held several times a week, and at the end of the course, the corresponding results will be summed up and discussed. All this set of measures can improve the quality of childrens reading, and choosing an optimal application is a crucial task.

Existing Valuable Websites and Their Content

In order to evaluate potentially valuable digital platforms for promoting a differentiation strategy in reading in Arabic among students of grades 2 and 3, special websites will be reviewed with informational content intended for students of this age group. One of such resources is the Asafeer project with convenient supporting materials that may be utilized in the learning process (Asafeer, n.d.).

The peculiarity of this website is that in addition to individual sections dividing training materials by the categories of difficulty, teachers can use detailed reports that indicate key errors and potential areas for improvement, which might be taken. In addition, on this digital platform, a wide range of fascinating comics is presented, which will be of interest to younger students due to their vivid plots. Asafeer offers a free trial version, which is convenient if several resources are planned to be compared in order to choose the optimal working strategy (Asafeer, n.d.). This resource encourages pupils continued communication with teachers and helps establish a supportive learning environment.

Another digital resource that can help introduce an Arabic reading program among younger students is the Lamsa app designed specifically as a support platform for teachers and parents (Lamsa, 2019). This project offers various topics for study and sections in which educational materials are collected. In the context of implementing a differentiated approach to reading, the application offers children various stories and games. In addition, the website is updated with new tasks constantly, and the content is varied in order to consolidate the material covered and learn new techniques (Lamsa, 2019).

However, as a disadvantage of the website, one can remark that to implement the project of differentiation in Arabic reading, teachers need to choose the necessary tasks themselves because the content does not involve dividing by difficulty levels (Lamsa, 2019). The developers argue that Lamsa is suitable for children from two to eight (Lamsa, 2019). Nevertheless, there is no special classification, which complicates the search mode.

As a convenient and thematically rich digital resource, such a website like Ijana may be chosen as a platform to simplify reading tasks for primary school students (Ijana, n.d.). In addition to a simple interface and categorization in accordance with the types of tasks, this site is one of the recognized leaders, while taking into account the awards and prizes it has received during online activities (Ijana, n.d.). Children understand learning objectives better if they see simple and logical explanations, for instance, the interaction of words and images, pronunciation and letters, and other correlations that the resource offers to study (Ijana, n.d.).

The division of reading modes into separate categories based on difficulty levels makes the learning process as accessible as possible and does not require additional material searches. As a result, the service offers convenient and multitas

Introduction

In the given paper, the issues concerning the way students and teachers in Saudi Arabia access, use and treat the CALL standard in EFL instructions concerning the preparatory year program at the University of Tabuk are going to be considered and the existing approaches are going to be evaluated. Since the world is merging into a single entity and the relationships between various countries are becoming increasingly enhanced, it is necessary to consider the idea of using computer technologies as one of the fastest and the most efficient ways to establish relationships with the other countries and introduce the ESL standards into the Tabul English course curriculum. However, it must be admitted that due to the innovative nature of the CALL procedure, certain complexities concerning the implementation of the given ideas arise. Hence, the necessity to consider the existing CALL and assess its positive aspects and drawbacks, as well as find the root of the problem and offer possible solutions emerges. It is necessary to add that the given paper will contribute to the improvement of the CALL technologies and the development of the existing CALL programs.

Since the study we plan to do is essentially a survey of the available access to, actual use of, and attitudes to computers in EFL teaching, in a particular context (refer to section of ch1 where you told us this), we will review the following areas:

1. the Students Attitudes towards the Use of CALL Programs;
2. The Teachers Attitude towards the USE of CALL Programs;
3. The Comparison of Teachers an Students Attitude towards CALL;
4. The Problems of Accessing CALL Programs in the Arab World;
5. The Existing Computer Applications for ESL Learners;
6. The Teaching Approaches in CALL for ESL Students
7. Concept of Attitude,
8. Attitude and Language Learning,
9. Attitude toward Computers in Instruction,
10. Diffusion of Innovation Theory,
11. Applications of CALL,
12. Studies on Students Attitudes Towards CALL,
13. Studies about students attitudes towards computers in Arab world,
14. Studies on Attitudes of Teacher,
15. Teachers attitudes towards computer in Arab world,
16. Computer Attitude Scales,
17. Variables Related to Teachers and Students Attitudes in Using Computer.

An integrated summary of all the theories and concepts that will be utilized in the study will conclude the chapter.

Concept of Attitude

This study shows that attitude is very essential for the achievement of the goals and success of an individual with regards to their future endeavors and career. With such importance, it can also be derived that studying attitude in its entirety is best to gain insights on the complexity of its idea and how could it help ones goal to be achieved.

Eagly & Chaiken (1993) purported that the concept of attitude was the central theme when social psychology emerged and they argued that it is important that in any concept to be discussed it should be started where it begins. It is essential to add that in the given case, social psychology is not the object of the research, but rather the tool that allows to approach the issue in a more efficient way and consider it closer, since the research in social psychology permit to narrow the scope of the research since AL has learned from attitude research in social psychology. Thus, taking this argument into perspective the concept of attitude must be discussed in the light of Social Psychology.

Thurstone (1946), a pioneer of attitude research, offered a useful definition of attitude as follows: the intensity of positive or negative effect for or against a psychological object. A psychological object is any symbol, person, phrase, slogan, or idea toward which people can differ as regards positive or negative affect (p. 39). Hence, it is obvious that by analyzing peoples attitudes towards the idea of using computer technologies in language studying, one will be able to come to a certain conclusion concerning the efficiency of using computer technologies in ESL teaching and the issues that arise in the course of the CALL application. It is important to mark that Murphy, Murphy, and Newcomb (1937) define attitude in the following way: Attitude is primarily a way of being set toward or against certain things (p. 101). In another context, English and English (1958) defines attitude as an enduring, learned predisposition to behave in a consistent way toward a given class or objects; a persistent mental state of readiness to react to a class of objects as they are conceived to be (p. 42).

Mantel-Bromely (1995) further suggests that attitude has both emotional and evaluative nature as it indicates the level of ones liking or disliking a certain object. Such a contention was affirmed also by other researchers such as Rajeski, (1990) and Zimbardo and Leippe(1991) who believe that attitude is comprised of three components and these are: affect (the degree of liking of the object the person has); cognition (that means the persons knowledge about the attitudinal object); and behavior (reactions and intentions regarding the object).

Two basic definitions of attitude that will form the basis of this research are from Palaigeorgiou, Siozos, Konstantakis, Tsoukalas (2005) and Smith, Caputi, and Rawstorne (2000). The former is a general one, encapsulating the earlier ones mentioned above: attitude is a positive or negative sentiment or mental state, that is learned and organized through experience and that exercises a discrete influence on the affective and conative responses of an individual toward some other individual, object or event (p.39). The second is specific to our object of interest: it defines attitudes toward computers as a persons general evaluation or feeling of favorableness or unfavorableness toward computer technologies (i.e. attitude toward objects) and specific computer-related activities (i.e. attitudes toward a behavior) (p. 61). The choice of these particular definitions has been determined by the fact that they offer a versatile presentation of the concepts they denote, the definitions are up-to-date, and the wordings are applicable to the context of the proposed study.

Attitude and Language Learning and Teaching

It is during the twentieth century that the study of attitude came into prominence (Smith, 1971). Smith (1971) commented that something had been overlooked in the past which is an important factor that is only now beginning to be investigated  and that is attitudes. Attitude is considered one of the affective variables that have a great role in second or foreign language acquisition (Ganschow et al., 1994).

Much has been researched about the role of attitude, in conjunction with motivation, as an individual difference of learners which may influence their language learning success (refer to Gardner, etc) maybe say a bit more but not a lot about that. However, in our study, the focus is on the role of attitude, of teachers as well as learners, in syllabus development/evaluation of a new method of teaching/learning (i.e. computers&) refer to materials evaluation/syllabus development literature. In classic research on motivation (Dornyei&) one reason for students being motivated, that emerges strongly is what has been termed intrinsic motivation. This is the motivation that arises from students having positive attitudes to the teaching methods and materials and so forth used in their course. Clearly, if students (and teachers) have positive attitudes to the involvement of computers in ELT, even if not much has yet been implemented, this suggests a great potential for students to be intrinsically motivated if more computer use was deployed. Hence the exploration of attitudes to computers in ELT is an important area to investigate while computers are being innovated into so many teaching situations. Elaborate on the use of attitude in syllabus/curriculum development studies and in program and materials evaluation.

The great importance of attitudes in language learning and acquisition has been emphasized by a number of other researchers (Ellis, 1985; Gardner & Lambert, 1972; Merisuo-Storm, 2006; Savigon, 1976). Savigon (1976), for instance, treated attitude as the most valuable factor in second language learning. Attitude plays an important role in the formation of motivation toward language learning itself; this means that attitude has an important connection with other affective factors (Gardner & Lambert, 1972). The same researchers, Gardner & Lambert (1972:134), mentioned that the learners motivation for language study, it follows, would be determined by his attitudes and readiness to identify and by his orientation to the whole process of learning a foreign language (p. 134). The same idea was supported by Merisuo-Storm (2006), who established a direct connection between motivation in language learning and stable attitudes in the mind of a learner.

Masgoret and Garden (2003) in their meta-analysis study explored and confirmed the significant relationship between second language achievement to five attitudinal or motivational variables adapted from Gardeners previous model on social education in comparison with the factors of availability of language in community and the age of learners to check if they have any moderating effect. The five variables under study were: integrativeness, attitudes towards the learning situations, motivation, integrative orientation, and instrumental integration. The study was based on 75 independent samples comprising 10,489 individuals. Fifty-six samples came from published sources while 19 were from unpublished articles and dissertations. The study results based on three hypotheses categorized three relationships under study: first, it showed that the 5 variables under study were found to be positively related to achievement in a second language learning. Second, it has been observed that motivation has a higher correlation in relation to second language achievement in contrast with the other variables. Finally, the results indicated that neither the availability of language in the immediate environment nor the age of the learners moderated language learning.

The role of affective factors such as attitude and motivation in language learning turned out to be a possible answer to the following paradox: how it is possible for some people to learn a second language perfectly and proficiently while other learners, though the same opportunities and setting to study language are available for them, fail their studies since all other answers attributed to teaching methods, knack, or pedagogical matters have failed (Gardner & Lambert, 1972).

Relevant to our concerns, Mantle-Bromley (1995) stated that attitudes influence the efforts that students expend to learn another language, then language teachers need a clear understanding of attitudes and attitude-change theory in order to address these issues in the classroom (p. 373). The change theory can be illustrated by its main hypothesis that says that the behavior of potential recipients is constrained or controlled by their attitudes towards the various aspects of a certain objects (Steinberg, 2000). Thus, the investigation of students attitudes would help educators figure out the learners, improve their teaching methods, probably, bringing positive changes and modifications to the course syllabus on the whole. This is precisely our goal in exploring student and teacher attitudes to computer use in ELT in our university.

In addition, it is necessary to discuss the Monitor Theory of Krashen as it is a valuable theory for second language acquisition that emphasizes motivation that is created by positive attitudes of a learner towards the knowledge and its acquisition which is relevant to the proposed study. The theory presents particular interest since it is greatly appreciated and criticized a lot at the same time. For instance, Omaggio-Hadley (1993) questions the propriety of the authors strict distinction between learning and acquisition and proves that the monitor fails to work as prescribed. The theory suggests that the affective filter in language acquisition has had a large impact on the role that affective factors play in language acquisition (Bacon & Finnemann, 1990). The hypothesis of Affective Filter by Krashen (1987) deserves some more attention as it is related to students attitudes in the form of variables that largely affect the situation along with the successful acquisition of language.

Krashen (1987) further stated in his study that the Affective Filter hypothesis reflects the link between the different affective variables and the course through which a second language is acquired by putting forth that learners vary based on the strength and effectiveness of their affective filters. Learners that do not have a positive outlook towards learning a second language will not only be weak at grasping existing instructions but will also be less likely to ask for input; however, they will also have a considerably strong affective filter. What this means is that such individuals, even if they comprehend the instruction, will not be able to process it to the parts of their brain that retain language acquisition. It was deemed from the study that those learners who have a more positive outlook towards the second language would not only learn faster but would also get more input and hence have a considerably weak filter which basically makes them more open to learning so that they will be able to get deeper( p. 31). Thus, it shows the value of the studied theory is in its establishment of the connection between effective factors and language acquisition.

Hence, the importance of the research conducted in the sphere of ESL teaching is one of the most crucial issues to consider. Once improving the teaching strategies and allowing students to use the modern technologies to acquire the necessary skills, one is likely to succeed in teaching English. Eliminating the existing problems is, therefore, the most important task for ESL teachers.

Attitude toward Computers in Instruction

Following the definition of Smith et al., (2000) (see the end of 2.1), attitudes could be applied not only to all aspects of computer technologies like attitude towards computer programs, training, and games but also to computer-related activities, such as taking certain computer tests to check the students progress, helping the students plunge into the atmosphere of the English culture, providing them with certain audio or visual activities aimed at mastering English communicational skills, etc. In fact, Mitra and Hullett (1997) found in their study that attitudes toward computers consist of many elements like attitudes toward computers in instruction, technical support for use of the computer, and attitude toward access to computers. Palaigeorgiou et al. (2005) illustrated that computer attitude evaluation usually involves statements that assess the persons interactions with computer hardware, software, other people relating to computers, and activities that include computer use. In the given study, the issues concerning peoples attitudes towards the new methods of teaching ESL students are going to be considered and commented on; in addition, probable solutions for the emerging problems are going to be offered.

The use of computers in instruction has opened the door for research to discuss all aspects of computer use in teaching. Students are one of the main sources that researchers have addressed to get more understanding of integrating the use of technology in classrooms. Students attitudes toward using technology in classrooms are crucial to the success of the implementation of technology. Al-Khaldi and Al-Jabri (1998) stated that students attitudes toward computers are significant determinants that might affect the success of computer implementations. The success of any integration of the use of computers in instruction depends greatly on learners and teachers attitudes toward them (Selwyn, 1999, cited in Palaigeorgiou et al., 2002). It is also essential to add that in the given paper, the actual studies of various manifestations of peoples attitudes towards the issues of CALL are going to be reviewed. Hence, the paradigm of the way people react to the novelties in the given sphere can be traced, which will lead to realizing the true concept of CALL that modern teachers and students have. Therefore, it becomes possible to provide the necessary changes to the existing CALL methods, adjusting them to the needs of the students and making the existing CALL means of teaching most efficient and providing the most fruitful results. Creating the auspicious atmosphere for studying the language, teachers will be able to help students absorb the knowledge better and faster, thus, contributing to the development of the students academic life and enriching their academic experience.

CALL Use and its Diffusion

Change is inevitable and this extends to language learning and teaching methods as much as anything else. Since the 1980s, there has been tremendous interest in the role of new technologies in the improvement of English teaching and learning processes. This has led to the development of many CALL applications such as we reviewed in (section& currently 2.5). One aim of our study is to explore reported access to and use of CALL in our context at the present time. As described in (refer to the section of ch1), this might help guide those in whose hands future teaching and learning development lie. In this connection it is useful, then, to review the way in which innovations spread.

Everett Rogers (1983) proposes a theory of the diffusion of innovation that can form a framework for understanding the rate of adoption of computers, the Internet, and CALL. According to Rogers and Scott (1997) diffusion is the course through which an innovation is dispersed through some defined channels over a period of time to different members of a particular social structure (see Figure 1). Rogers theory proposes that the classical S-curve is a good model of the cumulative rate of penetration of innovation (such as CALL) throughout a population (such as teachers and learners of EFL, in the world, or more specifically in KSA). Rogers was especially emphatic about the fact that innovation spreads at different rates: A slow advance, at the beginning, followed by rapid and uniformly accelerated progress, followed again by the progress that continues to slacken until it finally stops: These are the three ages of&invention&if taken as a guide by the statistician and by the sociologists, (they) would save many illusions. (Tarde, 1962, p.127) In Figure 1 the three innovations might be different teaching methods, such as communicative or task-based, or they might be different technologies, such as audio tape recorders, overhead projectors and computers. Or they might represent different specific CALL applications.

Figure 2 clarifies the theory that a tiny number of innovators are first to adopt the new idea, followed by early adopters. As the early majority climbs on the bandwagon, two things occur. First, the median point of the community or population is reached. Second, the new idea diffuses to the late majority and laggard segments of the population at about the same rate it spread to the innovators, early adopters, and early majority. The result is the classical bell curve (see Figure 2). Add here something about what point on the curve you think CALL is at in the world? In KSA in general? and In your university? (The last you promise to further illuminate from your study).

Although thinking more about economic and technological innovation than pedagogical change, Dodgson and Bessant (1996) brought up the key issue of absorptive capacity and defined seven stages of diffusion. The authors proposed that making resources available or distributing the new technology far and wide counts for nothing if the prospective beneficiaries do not possess the capability to put the resource to good use. This would be especially true of CALL too. As to the stages of innovation diffusion, their analysis was as follows:

1. The opportunity or need must exist and be recognized;
2. The change proceeds with a search for alternatives;
3. Comparison of available innovations, ideas and practices take place;
4. Opting for the most promising alternative
5. Acquisition or purchase;
6. Putting the innovation to use;
7. Re-learning and adapting after initial use.

Rogers conceded that early innovation is very often associated with the right attitude, as well as the intellectual and financial advantages, though there is nothing inevitable about the adoption of innovation. Hence in our study, we research attitudes of teachers and learners, as well as their current access to and use of the innovation.

Viewing sociology as he did  a dynamic mass of minute interpersonal transactions  Tarde realized the primacy of imitation and innovation (Place-Based Education Evaluation Collaborative, 2003). Other contributions by Tarde that resurfaced in the Chicago School were the group mind (underlying herd or crowd psychology) and economic psychology.

Diffusion theory essentially addresses the communication problem: how rapidly do new ideas enter the mainstream, as it were, and gain universal acceptance? As originally conceived, the theory glossed over the practical usefulness of a new idea or the balance of costs and benefits. Mass marketers and advertisers saw the potential, however, of being able to displace innovation curves to the left, i.e. induce a faster rate of acceptance in a community or national market. For us, understanding better, through our study, the current availability and use of CALL in our context might lead to us also being able to make proposals that would displace to the left the innovation curve in our institution, i.e. accelerate the adoption of useful CALL applications especially in relation to ELT.

As per the diffusion theory, there are over five varying stages during which the process of adopting any type of innovation occurs. To start the very first stage is of knowledge where one receives the idea of the existence of an innovation, ergo becoming aware of its existence. During the first stage, an individual will simply be aware of, but not have any real knowledge on the subject. The second stage is the stage of persuasion, where the individual then becomes highly interested in gaining knowledge on the innovation. The third stage involves decision-making for the individual as he/she looks at the pros and cons of the innovation in order to come to a conclusion on whether he/she should go forth towards acquiring it or not. The fourth stage has a more practical approach as it involves implementing the decision made in the third stage. The fifth and final stage involves confirmation.

There is a myriad of factors that help in determining the probability of an individual or a group of people actually adopting an innovation, along with the time frame within which they may adopt it. In general, terms, if a new innovation is of higher quality and utility than the corresponding one to precede it, the likelihood is that it will be adopted in eventuality. On the other hand, if the innovation is not aligned with the moral values of its target audience then it is most likely going to go ignored.

In the context of internet and computer innovation in Saudi Arabia, it was deemed by Sait, Al-Taweel, and Hussain (2003) that there has been already a considerable influence of the Internet and computer on Saudi social, economic, and education systems. Specifically, Saudi education systems are the first that had adopted and accepted innovation in the internet and computer since they had realized its importance in educating their students and broadening to knowledge. Early investigations of Internet adoption and diffusion in Saudi academia demonstrated that professors are in the early stages of adoption (Ghandour, 1999). More recent studies have reported similar trends (Al-Asmari, 2005). This only shows that there is now a huge and extensive growth coupled with slow adoption of innovation in the internet and computer in different sectors of the industry.

Types of CALL Application

Computers in learning can be used in different ways. Taylor (1980) and Levy (2006) both propose that computers in learning are used in three different methods: computer as a tutor, computer as a tool, and computer as a tutee. Computers as a tutor mean that students get tutoring from the computer, which attempts to play the role of teacher. For example, the computer provides material, gets the students responses, assesses those responses, then decides what to present next based on the learners responses (Taylor, 1980). Using computers as a tool means that students seek help from computers in different subjects by accessing the internet, or use computers as word processors, or the teacher uses it to present Powerpoint slides. Using computers as tutee refers to the process in which the student or the teacher gives the computer some information or talks in a language that the computer understands and the computer in some way responds. All these have been implemented for English teaching and we may expect to find some of them in use in our context.

Slightly differently, Warschauer (1996) divides CALL typology and applications in language learning into three different types: computer as tutor; computer as stimulus; and computer as a tool. Using computers as a tutor again means that the computer teaches things such as grammar, listening, reading, vocabulary, text reconstruction, writing, and comprehension. Using the computer as a stimulus means that the computer is used to help learners generate discussions, or synthesize critical thinking. Communication in support of collaborative writing, the internet, grammar checkers, word processing, concordance, reference, and authoring programs are again typical uses of computers as a tool (Warschauer, 1996).

Currently, CALL takes many forms that meet different learner needs in relation to many different language skills, whether via CDs or the internet on a computer, or most recently on mobile phones.

Warschauer and Healey (1998) illustrate different applications of CALL. Speaking applications incorporate voice recording and playback to allow learners to compare what they said with the model. Another application is the drill application which contains games that use the power of computers and competition for collaboration to motivate language learning. Writing applications involve programs that help learners in the pre-writing stage to create and outline their ideas.

Other writing applications are word processing, spell checkers, and dictionaries. Sokolik (2001) states that computers offer language learners six applications: drills, adaptive, testing, corpora and concordance, computer-mediated communication, and multimedia production.

Literature applications mean giving learners different literature from different disciplines (Beatty, 2003). According to Beatty (2003), literature has a high degree of fidelity, or authenticity, in that the learning materials are both extensive and taken from real-world source (p. 57). Collie and Slater (1987) look at the use of literature in language teaching as authentic material, language enrichment, and personal involvement. Literature applications offer learners exposure to different styles, genres, contexts, terms, vocabulary, and acronyms in different fields in the language they learn.

Another application of CALL is corpus linguistics which refers to the study of a body of texts (Beatty, 2003). It involves the examination of linguistic phenomena through large collections of machine-readable texts (Cheng et al., 2003, p. 174). The main goal of corpus linguistics is to figure out the models of authentic language use through actual usage analysis (Krieger, 2003).

Another application is computer-mediated communication (CMC). CMC is seen today as one of the computer applications that have the greatest impact on the field of language learning (Warschauer, 1996). Warschauer (2004) points out that extensive interaction is seen as a tool to help language learners enter new societies and communities and familiarize themselves with new discourses and genres. He believes that it is no longer sufficient for learners to communicate with others merely to practice what they learned in language classrooms. Peterson (1997) mentions that one of the main advantages of CMC is promoting autonomy in learning by providing an environment for learning that is less restrictive than the one in the conventional classroom. It enables language learners to communicate inexpensively with native speakers of the target language as well as with other language learners 24 hours a day and from different places like classrooms, home, or work (Warschauer, 1996). CMC also makes learners from different levels, backgrounds, types, and learning styles equal. Warschauer et al. (1996) state that CMC applications provide more equal participation to learners who are often discriminated against or excluded, including minorities, shy students, women, and learners with strange learning styles.

There are two kinds of CMC, Synchronous and Asynchronous; Synchronous CMC means that the interaction is taking place in real-time. An example of that is when learners sit in front of the computer, read, respond, and discuss topics with each other via a chat or messenger facility or Skype (Chapelle, 2003). This type of CMC could also take place over a mobile phone through text messaging, voice messaging, or both (Chapelle, 2003). Smith et al. (2003) mentioned that the internet is the representative of synchronous communication Internet Relay Chat (IRC) exemplifies synchronous communication (p. 705).

The second kind of CMC is Asynchronous communication which is the opposite of synchronous and means that interactions do not take place in real-time. Examples of Asynchronous communication are bulletin boards (Chapelle, 2003) and e-mail (Smith et al., 2003). Bulletin boards are where learners and teachers post and share their messages with others. The advantage of bulletin boards is that the messages can be viewed, shared, and commented on with different people around the world and not necessarily with other learners or teachers, which gives it an extra advantage over email (Beatty, 2003). Email is considered one of the most common activities that learners use on the int

Introduction

The rise of violence in cities is an issue that affects a wide layer of the population. In that regard, Rockville, a large coastal city in North Queensland with a population of 100,000, is no different. The city, despite being a coastal tourists attraction, has distinct problems of poverty and violence, specifically with Aborigines and youth, which are clearly seen in several areas in the city, where these problems are prevailing.

A reported upsurge of violent assault, property offences, defacement with graffiti and chroming (generally, inhalant abuse, with particular reference to sniffing petrol, glue, and chrome paint), has largely affected the community. In addition to being a policing issue, the matter of street gang violence and delinquent acts deserves prominence presumably because their incidence exceeds national and state benchmarks, the numerous stakeholders involved, and because some of the offenses are not so much illegal as social and health matters.

Clearly, such offences require an approach, which involves the perspective of all the stakeholders involved. In that regard, this report analyses the problem proposing a response taken from strategies based on several policing models, such as Zero tolerance and broken Windows theory, the proactive framework, the fire engine approach, and prevention strategy. The model chosen for solving the presented problem is the SARA model which implies scanning and identifying the problem, along with outlining a proper response. According to the analysis, the report will present an implementation plan which will be based on the options that were outlined through the analysed alternative models strategies.

Scanning

According to the SARA model, which abbreviation refers to the systematic process of problem-solving involving Scanning, Analysis, Response and Assessment (Centre for Problem-Oriented Policing, 2009a), the first scanning stage implies the identification of the problems occurring in Rockville. The scanning stage includes the given facts of the case that concern the police and the public at large in Rockville.

The Problem

For the nation as a whole, the AIC (2009a) has tracking data showing that juvenile offences have been twice as prevalent, proportionally speaking, as adult crime, and the former has rebounded whereas that of adults was flat. After declining from 3,965 per 100,000 per year in 1996-97 to 3,023 in 2003-2004, juvenile offender rates resurged in 200607 to 3,532 per 100,000. In 2006, by comparison, the adult offender rate was the lowest ever recorded in the history of the nation, 1,492 per 100,000. These numbers are instructive, not only to establish the scale of juvenile offenses but because the benchmark for common odds reporting is exactly the population of the test community, Rockville.

By way of comparison, Powers (2008) reports that children (in the culpable age range 10 to 17 years of age) comprised one-sixth of the 156,455 offenders identified in Victoria in 1998 and 1999. Children were observed to be over-represented primarily in theft offences  theft of bicycle (42.2% of offenders versus the 18% they represented in the offender population), burglary (24.7%), auto theft (32.6%), other theft classes (23%), robbery (23%), and apprehended with equipment for stealing (20.6%)  but also in potentially deadlier offences such as arson (39.6%), for property-related offences (33.7%) and disturbances to regulated public order (27.2%).

Chroming and inhalant abuse, on the other hand, are not per se illegal. Only the sale of addictive inhalants to juveniles is prohibited by law if the retailer has reason to believe the product will be abused. Arguing against proposed criminalisation after a two-year upsurge of volatile substance abuse earlier in this decade, Cleary (2003) asserted that the police already sufficient powers such as urging loitering gangs to move on, being able to seize utensils used to chrome, and charging adolescents if they have been witnesses to an offense. (Cleary, 2003)

The Stakeholders

The stakeholders involved in the aforementioned problem might include Police Community Consultative Councils, the juvenile justice and corrections system, the parents of adolescent offenders, property owners who must repair or clean up vandalised property (including the operators of ferry services), the victims of violent assault and, by extension (since many of the victims fell afoul of in inter-gang violence), all the youthful offenders themselves. Additionally, in terms of the crimes committed by Aboriginal part of the population, the stakeholders might include Indigenous community members as the solution of the problem involves interaction and partnership with the police.

Analysis

Analysis, the second stage of the SARA model, is primarily intent on understanding the roots of juvenile offending and taking stock of how Queensland and other states have responded to the problem.

Conditions

It should be mentioned that the 1992 Acts may be flawed for an over-emphasis on children being solely responsible for their behaviour and the earnest hope that administering appropriate punishment will deter juveniles from future offences. Empirical research suggests, moreover, that it is not the knowledge of guaranteed, swift and severe punishment but the upbringing and morality of the minor that differentiates offenders from those who never come to the attention of the juvenile system (Schneider, 1990; Braithwaite 1989).

If the state is to pursue meaningful and sufficiently-funded whole of government social justice strategy, it should recognise that rigorous research has found that the risk profile for juvenile offenders is statistically skewed toward boys, the Indigenous, and those who are severely and continually maltreated. Specifically, the risk is highest where maltreatment last occurred in adolescence or in fact continues at this crucial life stage. By type of maltreatment, sheer neglect and physical abuse are more strongly associated with juvenile offending than emotional or sexual abuse (Dennison, Stewart and Hurren, 2005).

Being included in the facts of the case, one accepts that the prevalence of these petty crimes is confirmed. Equally implicit is that Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander minors are overrepresented in the commission of the stated offenses, though OConnor (1992) refers to this in an analysis of the antecedents for the Juvenile Justice and Childrens Court Acts of 1992.

Constraints

Other than assault, the offenses that concern police and other stakeholders in Rockville defy easy solutions because they are either elusive or not illegal. For instance, owner and neighbourhood vigilance against the intractable problems of vandalism and graffiti  at least those that deface areas open to public view, are only part of the solution because the offense is not limited to gangs, the perpetrators readily move elsewhere when police presence is increased, and cleanups invite repeated defacement sooner or later. Hapless property owners may naively believe graffiti is not really a crime and therefore fail to report such to the police. Nor do movies, television and print media help by seeming to glamorise urban street art (Weisel, 2002).

Solutions

In that regard, it can be outlined that the sought solution should not be solely attached to the legal enforcement actions, as they cannot handle the issues which are, on the one hand legal, and on the other are taking a large scale and has serious consequences. Additionally, several offences lie in a risk zone, which comprises of offenders that might step up toward committing more serious offences, if no interventions are made. Thus, the strategies that will be addressed should derive from a framework that not only outlines the legal status of the offenders and the punishment, but also contributes to the prevention of more serious crimes in the future.

Trends and issues

In the long run, crime rate is bound to go up since an analysis conducted jointly by the Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission and the Australian Institute of Criminology and covering all juvenile offenders under supervision (in youth detention centres) in the state as of 1994 and 1995 revealed that eight in ten became adult criminals as well. For Dr. Paul Mazerolle, Director of Research and Prevention at the Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission, such astonishingly high recidivism can only mean that the rehabilitation services offered child offenders were wrong or woefully inadequate (Townsend, 2003).

Response

Objectives

Considering the tension between the justice system in Queensland and the supporters of the welfare model, which is operative since 1982 according to OConnor (1992), this tension strives to attain long-term mitigation of juvenile offending rates, and thus the shift to justice system in holding the youth accountable for the their actions implies different objectives to achieve. On the other hand, those who believe in the welfare model, believe that attacking the roots of juvenile offending  alienation, marginalisation and rebellion  are bound to get better results in the long run than hailing juveniles to the police, neighbourhood watch, security grills or installing CCTV systems everywhere. The Juvenile Justice Act of 1992 established the principle and a corollary objective, if you will, that cautioning and other punishments for children should give offending minors the opportunity to develop in a responsible, beneficial and socially acceptable way (Office of the Queensland Parliamentary Counsel, 2008).

Thus, it can be seen that a central point between the two approaches should be sufficient to address the issues of the youth. Such objectives include:

• Putting an emphasis on the youth at risk.
• Reducing the crime rates.
• Educating the community, in order to take a larger role.
• Achieving a balanced system of differentiation of the committed offences, and accordingly the punishment of the young offenders involved.

Performance indicators

It is quite obvious that the main performance indicators in the presented issue are the crime rate statistics. The trends of the crime, however, are to be measured on the long term, where the official statistics, although can be misleading in terms of overstating the performance and understating the weaknesses in favour of other variables, will show the expected improvements in this area. Nevertheless, the overall perception of the stakeholders involved might give a general view of the trends in the rate of offences on the streets, giving a different perspective on the general picture.

In that regard, a number of surveys, which might trace the undocumented effects of the plans implementation, can fill the gap of information regarding the performance. Such effects might include local unreported offences, the perception of safety, the cleanness of the streets, and etc. Additionally, surveys of the neighbourhood safety and fear can be useful, where There are several theoretical and empirical investigations of how incivilities influence crime and fear at the neighbourhood level. (Crime Prevention Indicators)

Strategies

The strategies proposed can be seen through a representation of the strengths and the limitations of several policing models which will be overviewed in the following section. The strategies include the following:

Zero Tolerance and the Broken Windows Theory

The Broken Windows theory (Wilson and Kelling, 1982) was based on the strong logic of the observation that neglecting to replace a few broken windows in an occupied building attracted vandals to shatter other windows. Unless attended to, this cascaded to breaking and entering, illegal occupation of unoccupied buildings, and arson. The authors also contended that a little litter on a sidewalk leaves pedestrians and tenants in the area complacent about littering some more, leaving trash in piles and breaking into parked cars. The theory appealed to those who believed in more stringent policing as the answer to petty crime and unrestrained vandalism.

The Proactive Framework

Applied to the Rockville case, proactive Knowledge Management (KM) is an outgrowth of both community-based and problem-oriented policing strategies. This has great intuitive appeal for law enforcement agencies because, by leveraging the collective knowledge of the local police force and what is applicable from experiences in the rest of the state, proactive KM can be shown to directly lead to greater productivity. Subsequently, Rockville residents and the media have more positive perceptions of police effectiveness.

Far from compiling just the obvious databases of incidents and suspects, knowledge management directs a more comprehensive view of the micro-environments in which police officers walk their beats, maintain order and exert maximum effort to control crime. Proactive KM strengthens enforcement by replacing raw intuition with empirical insights and supplementing the experience of police officers who have long watched over an area.

Proactive management promises to attain distinctly improved clearance rates and citizen satisfaction (with all the concomitant community support that implies). How is this concretely achieved in practice? If a painstakingly compiled knowledge base of crime and disorder incidents were to be compiled with relevant demographic and socio-economic information into a free-form relational database and inter-correlations calculated, decision rules and artificial intelligence could then predict with reasonable probability when a local area or neighbourhood may be deteriorating, evincing the signs of greater youth gang activity, and being more prone to outbreaks of offenses in the near future. If, for instance, one of the signposts were graffiti and defacement, police officers could intervene early and forestall the (probable) downward spiral into car theft and breaking-and-entering by enjoining residents and shopkeepers to form a community watch at an early stage (Wormelli, 2005).

The other great potential of proactive policing, provided the knowledge base is updated with success achieved down the road, is that the force gains data-based insights as to which responses work better at addressing the problem. Going forward, it is certainly more efficient use of police resources to know that community watch, stricter truancy supervision, and working hand-in-hand with Aborigine community agencies stabilise matters better than simply putting more officers on patrol.

The value of proactive knowledge management was already recognised in the 1960s. Lack of implementation, the Stanford Research Institute found, was most certainly not due to lack of information because police forces routinely showed they already possessed 95% of what was needed. To make the promise of proactive KM a reality, the Rockville force needs an analyst who can zealously cull the information from case files or from officer recall, patiently encode these into an accessible database, and incorporate an AI-strengthened relational system that a police officer could query in plain language and get results that are all relevant to a situation being investigated. Month by month, technology continues to advance to the point where police officers can query powerful systems remotely from mobile platforms, i.e., laptops and Smartphones.

All in all, the computing power, intelligent systems, map-based displays and logic-driven processing have been available for some time. And total cost of acquisition and operation has driven steadily downward. Hence, acquiring the components for proactive policing is no longer a question of resource constraints as much as supportive policy and administrative decision-making.

For all the potential benefits of proactive policing, there are drawbacks. The strategy provokes civil libertarian concerns, including in the Australian local context (OMalley and Sutton, 1997), where mistrust and dominance seem to characterise race relations from day to day.

Reactive Policing (the fire engine approach)

Besides proactive policing, the other prominent facet of Australian police practice is the reactive approach. The latter is perhaps more traditional since, OMalley and Sutton (1997) relate, the fear of mobs and riots that attended the Age of Industrialisation led to the formation of formal, state-controlled forces that could be called on at need. Before then, in fact, communities relied on parish constables and local watchmen (McKay, 2009).

In the modern era, reactive policing retains a place because civil libertarians fear unnecessary enquiries that violate the rights of the innocent and law-abiding. Where violence and disturbances take place on private property, reactive policing means officers must be invited in, either in person or (more likely) over the phone. Thus, the second half of the 20^th century saw an emphasis on enhancing crime fighting capability through acquisition of better technology and giving patrols greater mobility, thereby improving efficiency, response times, and clear-up rates.

The drawback is that enhanced crime-control expertise and reactive policing per se do not bring crime rates down. Going by experience in-country and in the United States, it may well be that implementing more frequent and visible police patrols using marked cars in Rockville will reduce neither the apprehensions of the law-abiding nor the propensity of juveniles to try and get away with petty crime (Wilson, 1975). Speedier response rates did not materially alter crime rates, citizen satisfaction with police service or clear-up rates. As well, assigning many more investigators bore no relationship to solving crimes.

Prevention

The viability of the following strategy, prevention, is highlighted by the Attorney-General Department (2009a) launching as early as 2004 a National Community Crime Prevention Programme. Essentially, the Programme involved funding project proposals of citizens and non-government organizations that could enhance community security, forestall crime and anti-social behaviour, generally promote safety, and in all other ways diminish the fear of crime. A fund of $65 million was made available nationwide, with special provision made for the Greater Western Sydney region. Three years later, in May 2007, this was followed by a fast-track Small Grants Programme to accommodate the many proposals that had come in.

Within Queensland itself, initiatives that were approved for offering better prospects of preventing the petty offenses within the scope of this paper were: (Attorney-Generals Department, 2009b; 2009c):

Implementation plan

Taking a cue from the SARA model, one crafts a response by first assembling the alternatives. In particular, this means idea generation informed by investigating what other towns have done with problems that are surely universal.

Having already covered ground on the strategies based on the policing models, this paper offers the working hypothesis that the aforementioned offenses can be traced to the combination of the universal juvenile impulse for social rebellion and the special circumstances of Aboriginal youth exposed to many instances of discrimination and abuse in earlier life.

Moving forward, the plan must reject central government policy drift, evident in funding patterns for local responses. These have been largely of the preservationalist persuasion, meant to protect property and persons, as well as to show that crime rate can at least be stabilised (if not brought down) in the near term. Given the accumulated body of knowledge about the circumstances preceding or associated with juvenile offending, there ought to be greater thought given to fashioning diversion, mentoring and counselling interventions. Any community convinced of the essential humaneness of engaging with juveniles as individuals eager to grow into esteemed citizens, will surely agree with the value of saving and reshaping lives. To get started, all it takes may be reconceptualising the objective as reducing, not the overall crime rate, but the offending rate amongst at-risk juveniles to that of mainstream adolescents, those who do not come to the attention of the justice system.

Presuming that offenders in Rockville can be apprehended and adjudged guilty, the first intervention available to the justice system is that of letting them off with a formal caution delivered by a senior police officer in the presence of parents or guardians. Victoria had recourse to this for just under one-third of juvenile offenders in 1998/99 but did so in precisely half of miscellaneous theft cases, one-fourth of burglaries, 28% in property damage cases, and 19% in the case of assaults. Powers (2008) notes that, notwithstanding the absence of applicable law, this is allowed in the Police Manual for all offences by children where there is enough admissible evidence to commence judicial proceedings and where the child has admitted guilt.

Since 2002, another type of intervention ran in Victoria is the ROPES challenge program, where young offenders coming from a formal caution or those with pronounced anti-social tendencies are invited to participate in an outdoors physical challenge test in partnership with a police officer. A kind of team-building exercise that requires teamwork, encouragement and trust to successfully complete, ROPES aims to steer juveniles away from further criminal or anti social acts. Post completion, youth agencies and family counsellors may do their part to resolve issues raised by the youthful offenders (OMeara, 2007).

Yet a third step that suggests itself is based on the straightforward recommendations of the broken window theory. Kelling and Coles (1998) maintain that, as with repairing damaged windows or clearing sidewalks of litter in quick order so as to prevent the situation from deteriorating, zero tolerance is the key to stop petty crime and anti-social acts from becoming more prevalent. Specifically, the theory puts forward community policing and hyper-vigilant protection of public areas as the best way to prevent juvenile offenses from worsening. In fact, the authors argue, the fine net cast for petty offenses has also resulted in the apprehension of those who commit more serious crimes.

The Role of Stakeholders

The stakeholders, previously mentioned in the report, might include in addition to their formal duties, providing support to community groups, which if provided by the police can be beneficial to both parties. It should be mentioned that the role of the stakeholders, which are part of the legal enforcement has a wider array of roles, including patrols, and night shifts, both of which contributes to the effectiveness of the cooperation. Additionally, the roles of other stakeholders such as the parents of the offenders and the offenders themselves are no less important, and can be seen through the cooperation, monitoring, and education. As to envisioning the stakeholders involved, it is all often the case that crime prevention groups put priority on time spent with the legal and other institutional agencies concerned with juvenile offenses. In the case of the Cairns Neighbourhood Watch, for instance, the objectives consisted of strengthening crime prevention and improving community safety. To achieve the aforementioned, it was thought sufficient to work in partnership with the Police Department, Emergency Services, Department of Housing, Community Renewal, City Council and Ministers Office for e.g. the CBD and Environs Management Plan (Attorney-Generals Department, 2009c).

Resources and Funding

The physical resources, which are necessary for the implementation of the proposed solution implies the usage of educational materials which will be made available in police departments, various support groups and parents. Additionally, the interventions such as the proposed by the ROPES programs might be funded through non-governmental organization, and on the local level, where stakeholders affected by the crime rates might contribute to the project. A fund made available, first on the local level, and then nation wide can fill the gap for the necessary resources for the program to be implemented. It should be mentioned that in certain offences, such as the misuse of the substances, can be funded with the cooperation of police powers, youth mental health and other welfare services. (Gray et al, 2006)

Assessment

The SARA model calls for post-intervention assessment concerning whether a plan was implemented, comparing pre- and post-intervention behavioural benchmarks, investigating whether the overarching goals were met, and resolving continuing gaps with fresh strategies.

The evaluation process will be difficult specifically in cases related to community interventions and police initiatives, which are unrecorded. In that regard, a vital part of the implementation can be seen through documenting the activities performed, whether on the polic

Abstract

Proverbs are one of the most interesting fields of study when it comes to examining languages because of the characteristics they hold when it comes to their musical quality and aesthetic sounds they create in each language. This paper focuses on different Emirati proverbs and the assortment of techniques that can be used to translate them into English. It delves into what problems are commonly encountered, what solutions can be utilized and what sort of outcome translators can expect. Overall, this paper contributes to the understanding of proverbs across different languages and cultures.

Study Background

Introduction

Translation plays a significant role in transmitting culture across regional and social boundaries. In fact, many use translation to either narrow the gap or otherwise highlight the great differences between cultures in order to foster greater understanding. Based on this, one of the cultural aspects that gives a glimpse into peoples lifestyles, social interactions, and past experiences is the proverb. Proverbs are language elements that are memorable, short, have a musical sound and deliver profound meaning for a set of identifiable, culture specific actions. They are used in various conversations and social situations because they reflect what many perceive as universal truths. According to Mieder (2004), proverbs do not take a straightforward approach, but have hidden meanings, which bring out the real meaning of a proverb. For this reason, they need interpretation and, if stated in other languages, proper methods of translation need to be implemented. Translation of proverbs enhances knowledge of other peoples cultures, languages and literature in general. As stated by Wardhaugh (2010): differences between different cultures are symbolized by the elements of language such as idioms and proverbs, and studying these languages and the similarities which exist between them.

The United Arab Emirates is known to be a young country that has just reached the age of 43 years. Before the discovery of oil, the society was divided into urban and rural communities. Urban communities lived near the coast and relied on fishing and trading in the sea, while the rural ones followed a nomadic style of living. Rural people or Bedouins  used to change their location based on the availability of water. This unique way of life had a significant impact on the cultural development of the local population and influenced the creation of local proverbs. The proverbs of the rural community have a Bedouin flavor that distinguishes them from urban proverbs which reflect the lifestyle of the coast and the sea. Proverbs also reflect the crafts practiced by carpenters, farmers, sailors and merchants. Even housewives from both communities have their own proverbs, which are based on their work and daily life experiences.

Objectives of the study

This study aims to:

1. Discuss major translation problems that face the translator in translating Local Emirati proverbs.
2. Identify possible strategies for translating those proverbs.
3. Identify the criteria that would determine the translators choice of the best strategy for translating such problems.

Study Questions

The present study attempts to answer the following questions:

1. What are the major problems encountered in translating Emirati proverbs?
2. What are the strategies that can be used in translating those proverbs?
3. What are the criteria that should be used by the translator for selecting the best strategy for translating those proverbs?

Significance of the study

The significance of this study emanates from the following:

1. The study will provide exposure to the Bedouin culture in the UAE and highlight the similarities it has with other local cultures from the point of view of proverbs. Translated texts in this area are almost non-existent.
2. The study will contribute to the extremely limited material available on the problems of translating texts in this genre from Arabic to English.
3. The study will provide a reference for students who intend to conduct further studies on Emirati proverbs.

Limitations of the Study

This study is concerned with the problems and strategies of translating Emirati proverbs into English. Sources on proverbs in the UAE are extremely limited; hence the researcher will draw her examples from a single book written by Obaid bin Sandal and is titled Local Emirati Proverbs and Folkloric Riddles in the United Arab Emirates. This study is also constrained by a specific time frame; hence, it will have to be restricted to a specific number of proverbs.

Review of Related Literature

Translating Proverbs

In this section, the strategies often utilized by translators in tackling the translation problems they encounter in rendering proverbs from Arabic to English will be discussed. Since these problems are rooted in the rather unique nature of this genre, further analysis is needed in determining the functions of proverbs, their special characteristics and what methods can be utilized in order to understand them. Then, strategies will be discussed in rendering proverbs from Arabic into English.

Definition and Functions of Proverbs

A proverb can be defined as a wise statement highlighting a brilliant idea, situation, know-how, values and other probable applications. They are statements that indicate suggestions in a given context and can reveal the cultural creativity and innovation within a society. Different cultures have evolved a wide array of characteristic attributes as expressed by the proverbs they use (Al-Zoubi & Al- Hassnawi, 2002). Having a moral component, proverbs are sentences that deliver the folklore of the cultures and often have a lesson that they attempt to impart to the reader. They are considered to be fully constructed sentences despite the fact that many are only a few words long. Interestingly they mostly maintain their form or shape when they are transferred from one generation to another with a few changes often being adapted based on changes to the local dialect over time. Norrick (1985) points out that, Proverbs, like other linguistic expressions, have form and meaning(as cited in Elyassin, 2005, p.161). Form is a defining characteristic of proverbs, since they are usually said to have a fixed form and often involve different aspects, including linguistic and cultural ones. Since most proverbs can be considered as a representation of certain cultural characteristics of a society, analysis of proverbs helps people of other cultures to understand and appreciate the human experience of individuals from other regions. Most cultures adopt proverbs that modify behaviors and beliefs of its people. Among the definitions of proverbs offered by scholars is that of Norrick (1985). He defines a proverbs as a traditional, conversational, didactic genre with general meaning, a potential free conversational turn, preferably with figurative meaning(p.78). Hence, as Mieder (2004) states proverbs do not take a straightforward approach but have hidden meanings, which bring out the real meaning of a proverb.

Proverbs occur in literary works such as prose, poetry, and songs have a musical quality that manifests itself in the alliteration, rhyme and rhythm, which make them close to poetic instruments. Also, these features make the proverb memorable and appealing to the audience. Writers tend to use proverbs due to the emotional effect they leave on the reader. Since proverbs can serve several functions, they are convenient to use in daily conversations among many cultures. These characteristics facilitate memorization and persuasion and help to spread their general usage.

Formal and Stylistic Features of Proverbs

One of the main reasons that make proverbs memorable is the possession of form elements such as rhyming words and alliteration. They also have certain stylistic features such as repetition and dialogue. Russo (1983) points out that:

English proverbs display marked phonetic and structural devices that serve to sharpen verbal expensiveness and thereby point up the proverbs statement of truth. Most prominent are (1) Rhyme, alliteration, assonance (2) patterned rhythm usually in the service of the balanced structure, (3) binary and sometimes oppositional; (4) repetition of the same word or same grammatical-syntactic structure; (5) vowel harmony (p.121).

What Russo says above applies equally well to Arabic proverbs.

Rhyme

Rhyme is created when two or more words and sentences end in the same sound. It is established by having a similar sound between the words endings. Many local proverbs have rhyme manifested in a stop to divide the proverb into two parts. This aspect provides the proverb with an aesthetic value that makes it memorable and poetic as illustrated in the following example of a Emirati Arabic proverb:

‘0F EF 7JF H ‘0F EF 9,JF

Literal Translation: An ear of mud and an ear of paste

This proverb is said for a person who doesnt listen to peoples advice and he/she does whatever suits them. The rhyme is clear in the two clusters 9,JF EF #0F / 7JF EF #0F.

Alliteration

Alliteration is a repetition of the initial sound that occurs in the first word to create an aesthetic value to the text as shown in this Emirati proverb:

’DE,GH/ EF (‘DEH,H/ ‘D,H/

Literal translation: The effort is made with what we worked hard to make.

Elljood b elmawjood min elmajhood

Meaning: A person should do their best, the better their work is, the greater the benefit they get.

Assonance

Internal vowel-rhyme occurs heavily in the local Emirati proverbs. It means repetition vowel sounds in the phrases or sentences to create internal rhyme. One of the examples that demonstrate this feature is the following local proverb:

‘D4JA) 4JA) H ‘DE9’FJ 69JA)

Literal Translation: The appearance is good but the manners are weak.

Meaning: Appearances might be deceiving.

The Arabic vowel J appears in all the words that make up the proverb to create a sense of internal rhythm.

Dialogue proverbs

A dialogue proverb comes in the form of a dialogue between two characters. These characters can be humans, animals or even inanimate objects. This is demonstrated in the following example:

4H -/C J’DE3E’1 B’D ‘DE71B)

Literal Translation: Who made you do it? The nail was asked. The hammer, it answered.

This proverb is said to describe a person who does something against their will or under pressure.

Figurative Language in Proverbs

Most proverbs cannot be translated literally, hence the translator should interpret the meaning of them. Ghazala (2008) states that:

Proverbs are special, fixed, unchanged phrases which have special, fixed, unchanged meanings. A proverb cannot be translated or understood as a collection of individual meanings of its words. Moreover, proverbs are metaphors that stand for something else (p.144).

Translation of proverbs is essential in bridging the understanding between the origin of a proverb and the reader (Duff, 1989). This is because the figurative language used in proverbs makes it hard to create total understanding by the reader in a discourse involving a social level. Abu-Ssaydeh (2013) stated that the problem is aggravated in the metaphorical proverbs that are culture-bound because they reflect the element of culture and the environment of a given context. Local Emirati proverbs are rich with metaphors related to the environment and Bedouin culture. An example of a metaphorical culture-bound Emirati proverb is the following:

5A1′! 1ED 9B1( %F*

Literal Translation: You are a yellow desert scorpion

This metaphorical proverb describes a sneaky, manipulative and deceiving person.

Personification is another figurative feature of some Emirati proverbs. Personification is to give some human attributes to an idea or an animal as shown in the following example:

CD #16 41(* E’G’ 

Literal translation: Every land drank its water

Meaning: When there is a problem and more than one person tries to solve it, it will be solved.

Equivalent English proverb: One hand doesnt clap

Irony is a further figurative characteristic of some proverb; it refers to an expression that is said to mean the complete opposite of something else for humorous or sarcastic effects. Example:

DE7DBG’ */9J H1JDG’ 9F/ *’CD

Literal Translation: She eats with her husband and prays for her divorcee

Meaning: This proverb is used ironically to criticize a person who does not appreciate the kind treatment offered by some people to him/her and tends to favor their opponents.

Humor is also used to create the feeling of amusement or provoke laughter. Some of the local Emirati proverbs show humorous elements. Example:

5.DG 9BD ‘D9BD H F.D) 7HD ‘D7HD

Literal translation: One is as high as a palm tree, yet his mind equals that of a goat.

Equivalent English Proverb: Tall people have no minds

This proverb indicates that the intelligence of a person is not measured by their height.

Like metaphors, proverbs are culture-bound. They pose a major challenge to the translator because they are deeply rooted in the culture. Richards and Schmidt (2002) define an idiom as, an expression which functions as a single unit and whose meaning cannot be worked out from separate parts. Some Local Emirati proverbs are idiomatic as illustrated in the following example:

JHE J4J( 1J4 ‘D:1′(

Literal Translation: When the feathers of a crow turn grey.

Equivalent English Proverb: when pigs fly

Strategies of Translating Proverbs

Baker (2011) illustrates the following strategies for translating proverbs:

Translation by Cultural Substitution (p44): To change a culture-specific word or phrase with a TL culture related word. This process creates the same impact on the reader because they can relate the meaning based on the word from their culture; e.g. the owl has a negative connotation in the Arab culture, its equivalent in the Western culture: The crow: which has the same negative connotation

3,’,JFG C+1* ‘D,ED 7’- DJ

Literal translation will be When a camel falls down, many knives are raised to butcher it.

Meaning: This proverb refers to a situation when a man of virtue falls in trouble many people turn against him.

An Equivalent English Proverb is the Following: When Strong will fall, Haters shall rise

*D9( -5’FJG’ AJ :J(‘* 0J(G’

Literal translation: The fox will play when the wolf is away.

Equivalent English Proverb: when the cats away the mice will play

2-Translation by paraphrase using unrelated words (p51): Translators have the freedom to paraphrase the word from Language A to language B. They can also explain or add more words to make the reader familiar with the meaning. Example:

-D’) ‘D+H( 1B9*G EFG H AJG

Literal translation: The beauty of a dress, is that its patch is from its fabric.

English Translation of the Proverb: Its better to patch a dress with a similar fabric.

Baker (2011) also proposes some strategies that can be used to translate both idioms and fixed expressions including proverbs:

• To find a proverb in the TL that is close in meaning and form to the SL proverb

Some of the Emirati proverbs have an equivalent proverb in the TL. This makes it easy for the translator to achieve his work with less effort.

e.g.’D9JD) (‘D9,D)) EF ‘D4J7’F

Literal Translation: Haste is of the Devil.

• Substitution: To have a proverb that has the same meaning, but it is not same in the form.

Some of the proverbs in the TL can convey the same meaning as the proverbs in the SL, but they are different in form. In such cases translators should be aware of the meanings of the proverbs in both languages to create the perfect match.

e.g. ‘D5(1 EA*’- ‘DA1,

Equivalent English Proverb: Patience is a virtue.

e.g. ‘D9H6 HD’ ‘DB7J9)

Equivalent English Proverb: Half a loaf is better than no bread.

Bahameed (2007) refers to a further strategy which involves changing the local proverbs informal version into a standard one after which the standard language will be translated into the target language. (p.89)

e.g. (H 7(J9 E’ J,H2 9F 7(9G (informal)

Literal Translation: A man with a habit cant lose it.

9’/* -DJE) D9’/*G’ ‘DB/JE) (formal)

Literal Translation: Halima went back to her old habits

Equivalent English Proverb: Old habits never die, a Leopard cant change its spots

With regard to translating proverbs that have metaphorical meanings, Al-Najjar (1984) proposes the following strategies:

1. Translate the SL metaphoric expression literally into the TL
2. If the SL metaphoric proverbial expression is ambiguous between its literal meaning and figurative meaning (as cited in Bahameed, 2007,91), the translator can translate the metaphoric proverb literally and add a paraphrase that will explain the meaning.
3. The translator can translate the proverb as it is and add a story that underlies the proverbs figurative meaning.

In his work, Venuti (1998) suggests the strategy of Foreignization in translation. That means that the author of the original text is in peace and the reader is dragged to his zone that makes him feel the cultural and linguistic differences of the foreign text. Another translation strategy discussed Venuti (1998) is domestication technique that makes the translated text sound and read like the original.

Methodology

Data Collection and Analysis

A total of 60 local Emirati proverbs will be randomly selected from a book titled Local Emirati proverbs and folkloric riddles in the United Arab Emirates by Obaid bin Sandal (2001). The researcher will take the first two proverbs under each letter in the alphabetically arranged list of proverbs included in the book.

Sources

The sources that will be used in this thesis are:

1. Monolingual and bilingual Dictionaries.
2. Online sources and book for appropriate equivalents for the proverbs in the source text.
3. Translation papers/books in dealing with proverbs.

Procedures

The procedures that will be followed in conducting this study are the following:

1. Collecting the Arabic Emirati proverbs that are appropriate for the study.
2. Providing explanations for each proverb in Arabic and English.
3. Examining the characteristics of those proverbs and identifying potential problems for translating them into English.
4. Discussing possible strategies for translating those proverbs.
5. Determining the best strategies for translating those proverbs based on certain criteria suggested by the researcher.

Translation and Commentary

Emirati Proverb:

(C ‘DCD’E (C EF J3E9G

This proverb is often used by the elderly especially grandparents who are fed up and frustrated for giving advice to their young sibilants, relatives, neighbors and friends but receiving little positive response and finding only very few people who actually head their advice. It reflects what may be termed as the generation gap which exist in every society and manifests itself in different perceptions and attitudes held by older and younger generations. On the other hand, old people believe that by virtue of their wisdom and enormous experience accumulated over the years the young generation should head their advice and obey their orders. However, young people believe that they are mature enough to determine their own affairs hence they resist any attempt made by the elderly to impose their views, give advice or issue orders.

The Emirati proverb can be divided into two parts: (C ‘DCD’E and (C EF J3E9G. It characterized by the lexical repetition of the word (C . The repetition of this word has an alliteration effect that makes the proverb easy to remember.

Meanwhile, this slang expression makes the proverb semantically opaque to Arab who are unfamiliar with the colloquial Emirati dialect. This difficulty is augmented by the fact that knowledge of the meaning of this slang expression is crucial to understand the overall meaning of the proverb.

The phrase (C ‘DCD’E actually means:

it is not just to say something to ensure that it should be listened to

In the second part of the proverb, a rhetorical question is asked:

(C EF J3E9G who is listening?

The implied response for this question would be:

no one is listening

As regards to the rendition of this Emirati proverb into English, the slang expression (Cwould constitute a challenge to the translator since s/he would not be able to understand the meaning of the proverb unless s/he decodes the meaning of the lexical item (C preferably with the help of a native speaker of the Emirati dialect or by consulting one of the very few sources available on the local Emirati proverbs. As a speaker of the vernacular used in the UAE, the writer of this thesis has faced no difficulty in understanding the meaning of the proverb.

In understanding the proverb into English, the researcher has the following two options:

A. to prepare an equivalent in English that convey the exact intended meaning of the Emirati one. Hence, the proverb may be translated as follows:

To knock on a deaf mans house.

This rendition is perhaps considered as the best one as it would be intelligible for not only to the Emirati speaker, but also to an average reader for whom the English is a second language.

B. To paraphrase the meaning of the Emirati Arabic proverb as follows:

You may give a piece of advice but find no one to head it.

This rendition may be resorted to the translator only if s/he fails to track down the equivalent English proverb mentioned above.

Emirati Proverb:

%(DJ3 ED9HF HCD JD9FG

This proverb is often used in cases where a person makes multiple mistakes involving a particular action or event. It is often a term utilized when someone feels frustrated or even irritated and is actually a very common Emirati proverb that is used across multiple age groups due to the simple fact that people often encounter situations that can frustrate or anger them.

Using direct translation, this Emirati phrase becomes Cursed be the Devil. This is meant to imply that the origin of the problem is based on the actions of the devil. Do note though that when an individual does state this, they do not literally mean that the event is the fault of the devil. Rather, it is more accurate to state that they are expressing their frustration through a phrase and not necessarily implying that the devil is causing the mistakes to occur.

However, the problem with the direct translation is that it lacks the cultural backdrop necessary to truly understand the lesson that the proverb is attempting to convey. For example, the English proverb When the going gets tough, the tough get going, when taken literally implies that the tough should flee. This is of course a mistaken interpretation since it is meant to imply that people should not give up.

In this case, when interpreting this Arabic phrase, it should be based on the implied lesson from the proverb. This can come in variety of different interpretations such as:

You cannot blame Satan for your mistakes

This interpretation takes the word Satan from the translation and utilizes it as a means of implying that the devil is not responsible for all the negative aspects that occurs in a persons life.

Another interpretation comes in the form of:

A man should be responsible for his actions

This interpretation focuses more on the lesson learned from the proverb rather than a direct translation of the proverb itself. This is similar to another Emirati translation of the proverb Do not make excuses, make good, which implies that a person is blaming outside circumstances more than actually developing some means of resolving the problem.

Some distinct features of the phrase can be seen in the use of the phonological repetition in the words ED9HF and JD9FG which focuses on the concepts of cursed and actions. This is a good indicator for translators when it comes to appropriately interpreting the phrase since these features show that proverb focuses on the results of actions.

The translation strategy that should be adopted when encountering this phrase focuses on keeping the cultural element of the proverb while paraphrasing the terms utilized. This means that the interpretation is not necessarily strict since it focuses on the concept of taking responsibility for your actions which can be described in a large variety of ways such as We will be known forever by the tracks we leave and other similar proverbs that focus on responsibility. Utilizing the word the devil is not necessary, only conveying the concept of responsibility for your actions is important.

From a linguistical perspective, the Emirati proverb does have a somewhat equivalent English cultural counterpart in the form of the slang phrase God Dammit! or in its more linguistically appropriate equivalent: God Damn It!. This phrase is similarly utilized when an individual feels frustration or anger over a series of mistakes or when they are feeling particularly irritated over a particular situation. However, given the level of reverence that Emirati culture places on Allah, uttering the English cultural equivalent phrase is considered to be highly inappropriate. This is why instead of the word God the Devil is used instead as a more culturally appropriate means of expressing frustration.

Emirati Proverb:

‘(F /E #3H/ 1’3

This proverb is utilized in situations when it comes to describing the greedy nature of man and is one that is not necessarily used in everyday conversations. This phrase is used in situations where a person has shown himself to act in a way that is exceedingly selfish or greedy and neglects to take other individuals into consideration.

It should also be noted that this particular proverb has little in the way of a direct translation since it utilizes a considerable amount of historical/religious exposition in order to express what it is stating. A direct translation of the proverb would come out vaguely as the Blackness in the Sons of Adam. This would cause a considerable amount of confusion for translators since the concepts of blackness and sons of Adam could refer to a wide variety of different potential translations. It is due to this that the problem faced by translators when presented with this phrase is its general ambiguity and vagueness since it does not refer to something specific.

Before proceeding

Distributional Semantics

As has become known by now, semantics characterizes the discipline concerned with the study of word meanings. High interest in the term persists not only because determining the semantic mechanisms of the human mind allows a more profound definition of brain potentials but also because the issue of machine learning is becoming increasingly urgent. Arrays of textual data, whether lyric texts or databases, are characterized by an almost uncountable array of semantic meanings encapsulated in lexical units (Xue et al., 2018).

Semantic folding is a valuable tool of computer logic to fragment substantial data sets into individual, semantically meaningful units that allow easier management and information retrieval of data in such large databases. Until now, the definition of the essence of semantic folding, in which individual terms, whether isolated words or word constructions, have been defined as closely and logically related, even though they are spelled differently, has remained an important issue. In fact, the training of computer systems for semantic retrieval is human since the basic mechanisms of semantic folding have been copied and replicated from the human brain device (Stanford, 2009; Webber, 2015).

Thus, for reasons as yet undescribed at this point, the individual clearly understands that the words computer and laptop are somewhat related and have a similar, but not identical, meaning. In an attempt to explain word recognition and interpretation mechanisms, the academic community has formed several fields within which computational semantics exists. Distributional and formal semantics in terms of computational linguistics stand out among them in particular.

In a sense, one can point out that both units of semantics are exceptional cases of a general semantic structure since each of them generalizes its unique domain of knowledge. This fact, in turn, encourages researchers to make attempts to combine distributional and formal semantics into a single artificial system in order to improve the parameters of information retrieval (Boleda & Herbelot, 2016). However, a discussion of the functionality of such search should be preceded by an in-depth discussion of each type of computational linguistics. Therefore, according to some authors, semantic understanding of word relatedness is based on a foundation of distributional semantics, a simplified interpretation of which can be reduced to the unconscious use of all contexts with which the terms being studied are associated (Kuzmenko & Herbelot, 2019; Karlgren & Kanerva, 2019).

To put it another way, the human brain compares the semantic cores of laptop and computer to some individual contexts of each concept and, through this comparison, concludes that the words are related. The same algorithms apply to computer systems because when trying to train machine intelligence to understand and operate on semantics autonomously, it is necessary to design a model of all varieties of contexts based on an extensive text corpus (Cortical.io, 2017). In that case, simplistically speaking, if two database words constantly have the same neighbors, in this case, with high confidence, one can state that such words mean approximately the same.

Traditional distributional semantics uses vector-statistical models of computation. More specifically, each lexical unit in textual data is assigned a context vector, with its set forming a word vector space (Schutze, 2019; Wang & Jin, 2006). Distributional representation functions that represent words in the form of a vector with given numerical coordinates are standard for word2vec transitions (Church, 2017). For example, numerical constants can be calculated based on the frequency of occurrence of specific terms in a text corpus. Such linguistics is established on the hypothesis that words with a similar distribution of context vectors are most likely to have a close meaning (Webber, 2015).

In this sense, it is essential to emphasize what is meant by a similar distribution of context vectors. As a measure of the semantic coherence of terms, the remaining words in the text block serve as a measure, and the quantitative measure is the frequency of co-occurrence between a particular word and a benchmark from the database (Cortical.io, 2017). In other words, the higher the value of these frequencies, and the more similar they are, the more likely the two words are semantically related. Notably, the rules of classical geometry work in this text corpus: for example, the direct distance between vectors can be determined using cosine distance formulas (Webber, 2015; Karlsson, 2017).

In other words, the degree of lexical proximity between terms lies between 0 and 1, where one means identity (Karlsson, 2017). Interestingly, one of the properties of such a vector space is the impossibility, or to be more precise, unjustifiability, of measuring the distance between unrelated words. In practice, such vectors are rarely counted in tens but instead range from tens to hundreds of thousands (Boleda & Herbelot, 2016). Moreover, the smaller the distance between neighboring vectors in the field, the closer the linguistic units-carriers of vectors.

An alternative is a formal approach to the study of semantics, traditionally associated with natural language. Formal semantics is based on inductive logic, which allows obtaining the meaning of multisyllabic linguistic constructions based on the meaning of their individual parts (Boleda & Herbelot, 2016). As was the case with distributional semantics, the formal model also retains the continuity of human consciousness since the mechanism for recognizing previously unknown meanings was also copied from the brains semantics device (Stanford, 2009). More specifically, the learning of new concepts and notions for the individual is based on an inductive method, which interprets unknown words as possible. In terms of classical semantics, this induction is an example of extension, in which the meaning of words is scaled into broader clusters.

Strictly speaking, formal semantics works on the principle of finding the meaning of each word in a text corpus. In an attempt to determine the overall meaning of the text, this model combines the different meanings of words among themselves (Boleda & Herbelot, 2016).

This approach allows for increasing the scope of the compositions being studied through gradual scaling. At the same time, such semantics is not perfect: when focusing too much on individual lexical meanings, a deeper understanding of expressions can be lost, as Boleda & Herbelot (2016) have shown. Thus formal semantics have a severe gap between the interpretation of meaning, which is often accurate, and the explanation of that meaning on subjective levels. In turn, this leads to the problem of the psychological validity of the final interpretation. In other words, formal semantics is still not perfect, and therefore its use in isolation does not carry a high application value.

It is only natural that, following the goal of improving the available models of meaning, there is an ongoing attempt to define an integrated approach between formal and distributional semantics. Distributional semantics has made more progress in teaching computer intelligence to the principles of linguistics (Boleda & Herbelot, 2016; Kuzmenko & Herbelot, 2019). However, the cognitive plausibility of the individual models is still not perfect, and thus, attempts to combine them seem to be well-considered measures. Formal distributional semantics is not yet a fully formed subfield of semantic analysis, so its study is fraught with potential controversy. One of the most critical questions in this context remains the definition of the primary basis of formal distributional semantics: it is not entirely clear whether formalism or distribution is the core (Boleda & Herbelot, 2016).

It is not difficult to understand that formal distributional semantics have wide application in fields more related to natural languages. Thus, such models can be used to measure the semantic proximity of words, generate dictionaries of terms used, and determine the subject matter and keywords of the document being analyzed (Webber, 2015). An interesting use practice is determining the tone of an utterance, determining the possible message the writer was putting forward. In turn, such functionality opens broad horizons for literary analysis and bridges the gap between the authors semantics and the readers perception (Leavy, 2019).

Concerning the industry under study, a formal and distributional approach to semantics allows for the management of ontological database schemas to improve the quality of tax advice. For example, one way to apply such semantics could be to predict the following steps when identifying a tax-related problem. In addition, if foreign dictionaries are connected to the semantics, it allows for more accurate management of the cross-national team and more competent delivery of the exact instructions to employees with different cultural and ethnic codes.

Semantic Folding Theory

One particular example of distributional semantics is semantic folding. The central core of this theory is the need for an HTML page layout that accurately reflects the meanings of individual blocks. The blind user experiment is a good explanation of this need. For example, a user with normal vision can usually easily explore different Web sites by clearly understanding the boundaries of individual blocks, such as header, the main text box, or comments under a post (Potluri et al., 2021; FCC, 2019).

The relatively easy ability to distinguish unique blocks is often dictated by design features in which each block is visually separated. In contrast, in the case of a blind user, visual familiarity with the posted information is not possible, so screen readers are used. These are specially designed programs that allow the contents of web pages to be read aloud so that a blind user can perceive this information through hearing (Yesilada et al., 2004). For such devices to read text blocks correctly, it is necessary to layout them intelligently, which is what semantic folding is used for. However, it is a mistake to assume that semantic folding solves only for people with disabilities, although it is workable in their case.

On the contrary, the functional spectrum of such a method is much broader and allows automated systems, whether search engines or computer intelligence, to perceive and process the information on a site (Webber, 2015; FCC, 2019). Consequently, the need for semantic folding was justified by the need for accessible site usage and increased relevance and integration with search engines.

Semantic folding emerged as a natural response to the outdated model of using the divergence operator, div. The stylistic tag allows the entire HTML document to be split into separate blocks, but the quality of this splitting cannot compare to semantic differentiation (FCC, 2019). More specifically, the divergence operator noticeably complicates the code and does not allow the semantic linking of individual lexical units as made possible in HTML5. At the same time, the use of semantic tags improves interaction with search engines since the algorithms of Google and other machines, having studied the layout of a particular site, can perceive the location of specific lines of code and, therefore, the visual elements of the page.

The computer mechanism underlying the theory of semantic folding should again be turned to the language of distributional semantics. Vectors assigned to each word in the text set represent a sparsely distributed space with different distances between them (Webber, 2015; Cortical.io, 2017). Notably, the term semantic fingerprints is often found in the literature, referring to word vectors (Webber, 2015; Han et al., 2017).

To put it another way, semantic folding describes the procedure of encoding textual data into machine-readable SDR code, widely used by HTM networks in layout. Cortical.io (2017), the creator company of SFT, provides a handy analogy to further understand the theorys essence. Thus, information about a particular cat, its appearance, the shape of its muzzle and ears, and its coloring is fragmented into individual traits and then recorded as semantic fingerprints. Consequently, each cat with a different appearance will have a different final code in SDR format. Comparing the semantic maps of two expectedly close objects will have a high application value for evaluating from proximity because each of the bits of the code has a strictly assigned value. In other words, with such a system, it becomes possible to determine a semantic similarity between terms (Schutze, 2019).

A consequence of this approach is the ability to make quantitative statistical comparisons of textual variables translated into a suitable numerical format for this purpose. As already noted, measuring the distance between semantically close vectors, for example, using cosine theory, allows estimating the lexical similarity of words (Karlsson, 2017). Therefore, semantic folding helps to solve problems of comparing words, sentences, and texts with each other for specific application tasks of researchers.

Notably, there is a transparent connection between semantic folding theory and the principles of human brain neurobiology. In particular, Douglas Hofstadter, a prominent American physicist and computer scientist, developed analogy as the core of human perception of information. According to Hofstadters idea, the human brain uses similarity as an unorthodox premise for identifying unknown phenomena (Stanford, 2009).

Thus, each time an individual is introduced to a previously unexplored phenomenon or process, the brain automatically fragments it into unique but self-contained parts and compares them to the individuals internal cognitive base. Such a process allows the nature of the entity being studied to be primarily determined through personal experience. An important consequence of this idea is that the broader the researchers initial knowledge base, the more likely it is to match the object being studied.

By the current moment, it becomes possible to fully generalize the theory of semantic folding to provide a further critical evaluation of its practical and theoretical applicability. To this end, it should be said that the entire theory under discussion is built on the principles of hierarchical temporal memory, which is directly borrowed from Hawkins neurobiology (Webber, 2015). The HTM model describes the properties of the neocortex to learn algorithms to solve models, investigate causes, and hypothesize about causes (Luo & Tjahjadi, 2020). In this context, Bayesian network theory comes to mind, and indeed, there are ideational similarities between the two models (Ding, 2018).

Progress in mapping the brains neural networks has, in a sense, inspired machine learning experts to produce complete semantic maps that allow a computer to analyze and perceive written text at the level of human perception. However, while large amounts of human memory can be processed relatively efficiently by the brain center, serious amounts of textual data cannot be analyzed with the same performance (Lutkevich, 2021).

To speed up processing, SDR code is used to translate verbal encoding into binary encoding. The compression of stored-memory objects is realized by saving only the positions of the set bits, and the error potential of bit-drop is negligible. In addition, SDRs can be combined according to the principles of formal semantics into larger subunits, preserving the identity of the fragments included in the new semantic map (Webber, 2015). To put it another way, the use of SDR coding in semantic folding networks dramatically simplifies the work with the layout.

The basic procedure of constructing a semantic map proposed by the author of the theory is based on the gradual conversion of textual information to vector information with the help of numerical functions that set unique coordinates. For example, the initial text block at the first stage of preparation is completely cleared from all non-text elements, whether visual or audio. The text is divided into separate fragments with an independent meaning: by analogy with academic works, separate fragments can be paragraphs or paragraphs. Each of the lexical units, a semantically isolated fragment of the source text, gets its pair of coordinates placed as a vector on the semantic map (Cortical.io, 2017).

The critical point of semantic folding is to define the methodology that underlies the translation of a word from textual to statistical representation. To do this, the system analyzes all fragments of the source text to identify the content of a particular word. If a text fragment does contain a given term, it gets unique coordinates on the map. The aggregate of such points becomes a personal footprint for a particular word, and the set of footprints is a dictionary (Webber, 2015; Cortical.io, 2017). In this field, those fragments with closely related meanings will be placed closer to each other while less related elements proportionally move away: clustering occurs.

If there is no doubt in the definition of connectivity between distributional semantics and semantic folding theory, since the latter is a consequence of the former, it is intriguing to compare the theory under study with another model. This no less significant model is called Knowledge Graph Embedding (KGE). Primarily, knowledge graphs are visual representations of the relationships between elements in a system, indicating the semantic essence of their relationships (Cai et al., 2018; Sabrina & Axel, 2021). This graph, for example, can explain the nature of relationships and authority in a large multinational company. KGE, in turn, is a method for transforming a graph into a vector while preserving the topology of the entire graph (Cai et al., 2018). Various functions can be used to make this transition, among which the representative TransE model is often used (Hogan et al., 2021).

Without going into deep details of the mathematical apparatus of this function, TransE performs a linear transformation by assigning a specific variable to each term (Ying, 2018). This transformation results in a single vector field reflecting the mutual relationship of terms in the original text fragment. It is easy to see that there are some parallels between semantic folding and KGE. Thus, both models use the concepts of low-dimensional vector spaces to obtain information about the relationships of field components. In both KGE and semantic folding, the distance between vectors is proportional to the type of relationship between terms.

At the same time, both models are widely used to predict causal relationships between the processes being studied, and therefore their development has practical value for applied sciences (Webber, 2015; Cai et al., 2018). However, it is impossible not to notice a difference: while KGE uses graphs as raw materials, semantic folding can work with text. In other words, folding has a broader range of quick uses and requires almost no preprocessing of textual information into a graph.

In this context, it is impossible not to discuss the well-known case of the American company Numenta, which develops its areas of machine intelligence. Like Cortical, Numenta aims to reconstruct the human neocortex, but such research focuses on improving machine learning systems (Numenta, 2020). Numentas promising product, the open-source NuPIC software code, uses the same HTM-based SFT system (Webber, 2015). Interestingly, the source word (N) of a given length using Corticals Retina functions can be reworked with machine learning algorithms to improve the prediction quality of related (N+1) words. As a consequence, the two mechanisms can effectively complement each other, improving the functional quality.

Critical Appraisal of the Semantic Folding Theory

It is appropriate to begin evaluating the applicability and effectiveness of semantic folding theory by discussing the domain of knowledge in which this algorithm is used in the framework under study. It is worth recalling that the company under observation is a multinational agency providing tax consulting and customer service. Thus, the subject area of the organization in question is reduced to financial management. It is a mistake to think that finance-oriented companies operate only with numerical data, because in reality, the actual industry must also consider the text in addition to numbers. The spectrum of tax companies responsibilities that require the use of text is heterogeneous: it can be communicating with customers and business correspondence, as well as reading and processing technical and legal documents written in a one-word language (Taylor, 2017; Webber, 2016).

The situation gets seriously complicated when a company moves to the level of an international agent hiring employees with different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Conducting dialogues in different languages, using non-standard approaches to work, and the need to maintain a unified corporate culture impose essential constraints on information retrieval mechanisms (Sabrina & Axel, 2021). It is not out of the question that employees will have to perform complex searches on a single database for a particular document, whether a quarterly report or a municipal ordinance. Alternative examples of practical work tasks might be analyzing a text document to establish its topic, especially for electronic correspondence (Han et al., 2017).

Reading large volumes can take time, and information retrieval based on textual analysis is expected to optimize these costs. Consequently, an efficient, fast, accessible, and accurate search algorithm based on machine learning  with a modification of NuPIC  is a priority goal for the organization in question.

As a particular example of distributional semantics, Semantic folding is the kind of breakthrough tool that is qualitatively different from existing offerings. While most linguistic processing mechanisms are based on statistical calculations, semantic folding operates on natural language terms. Simulating the work of the interconnected structures of the human brain, which Webber (2015) wrote about, in the limit indicates much higher reliability of the created folding system than other artificial algorithms.

The consequence of such a system becomes a natural ability to self-learn and determine solutions to the generated problem. For example, by classical methods of statistical language processing, the word organ could be counted in all text fragments, and the final result could indeed highly precisely identify the ideational theme of the analyzed text and the keywords. However, such tools would hardly cope with a semantic analysis describing several lexical meanings of that word. Semantic folding theory perfectly covers this need by comparing binary vectors for each word in the source text. Thus, in textual analysis, a particular words context is prioritized (Webber, 2015).

Invisible to the human eye, the resulting semantic map determines the degree of relatedness between terms and delineates the texts themes. In this case, the organ receives a multisyllabic description, and the analysis operator receives information about the semantic meanings of a given term found in the text. Another advantage of the semantic folding theory is comparably high performance in analyzing large arrays (Webber, 2016; Luo & Tjahjadi, 2020). By packing bits densely in a vector field and using a unique approach of storing only meaningful, different bits, the amount of memory required for computation is significantly reduced (Cortical.io, 2017). This makes it possible to process terabytes of text data at high speed.

At the same time, the idea essence of the semantic folding system is highly adaptive. Such algorithms are successfully embedded and incorporate systems designed to perform specific tasks, be it document search or business email processing with automatic sorting (Taylor, 2017). One can expect improved content personalization algorithms using this system if one extrapolates the potential of applying semantic folding to business processes in the coming years. Selecting targeting vectors with key user interest vectors may allow intelligent ad customization and increase its commercial effectiveness (Taylor, 2017).

Automatically processing customer inquiries based on the question entered can also improve customer interaction and give them a more complete and, importantly, correct response without engaging support services. Exploring email content can identify the possibility of fraud and data tampering with high accuracy, which is especially relevant for companies in the financial services sector (Levine, 2021). Finally, the possibilities of semantic folding are incredibly enhanced when a translator is used as a modification (Webber, 2015; Cortical, 2021). Thus, the mapping of semantic meanings occurs in parallel in several dictionaries, which increases the completeness of the given response.

However, it is fair to admit that despite all the apparent advantages for business, the theory of semantic folding is not without essential drawbacks. However, the disadvantages described below are hardly sufficient grounds to refuse to invest in this information retrieval technology. The fact of their existence imposes limitations on the financial, time, and technological resources of the enterprise. First, this system is still too young to be widely used in different markets and a highly competitive environment. This algorithm is a product of the past decade, from which the main difficulties stem from the relatively high cost of maintenance, potential imperfections, and the need for regular updates (Webber, 2015).

Second, semantic folding is still not a universal solution to semantic analysis since it aims to process only textual data. Thus, audio and visual content cannot be analyzed using this technology (Luo & Tjahjadi, 2020).

Another disadvantage comes from the processing of initial inputs for verification (Webber, 2015). Although there is no need to remove pictures manually and other non-text material from the input message, and even though the semantic folding process is generally autonomous, the possibility of erroneous readings cannot be excluded. Hidden text encoded in images can be accidentally read during analysis, which will affect the quality of the output. At the same time, the increasingly popular voice format, including in business correspondence, is not affected by semantic folding procedures due to the inability to read the audio format (Prist, 2020). It is possible to modify the program with an audio-to-text translation system, but the quality of the such translation will also not be highly accurate.

It should be said that it is a breakthrough technology that significantly expands the possibilities of textual analysis. The underlying idea of copying the functioning of the neocortex allows even the most detailed, highly specialized tasks to be reconstructed, using nature as an example to follow. Semantic folding solves most of the pressing issues associated with textual analysis and provides excellent opportunities for business processes.

Processing digital correspondence, searching for documents in a database, identifying keywords and semantic units of complex and large texts, and identifying potential themes and message directions are just some of the promising applications of this technology. At the same time, the main disadvantages of its use concern the limitations of using only text corpora or the relatively unaffordable price. Consequently, semantic folding algorithms do an excellent job and will potentially evolve and expand.

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