从跨文化交际角度谈中学英语习语教学必要性

英语习语及其文化内涵分析对于培养学生的跨文化交际能力非常重要,本文主要从英语习语的概念和特点、习语的文化渊源、习语在跨文化交际中的作用,以及中学英语习语教学缺失现状等几个方面探讨中学习语教学的必要性。     

Factors influencing military recruitment in South Africa: the voices of Cape Town high school learners

This research sets out to establish how the youth in South Africa view military service, and what factors affect the ability of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to attract suitable recruits to staff its modern, technologically advanced military. Due to high levels of youth unemployment, South Africa has sufficient persons volunteering for military service. The problem lies with recruiting sufficient quality personnel with the right profile and abilities. To establish what affects enlistment, focus group discussions were conducted with learners from eight schools to determine what influences their career choices, what deters them from or attracts them to military service, their perception of the military profession, their knowledge of the military, and the influence of factors such as race and gender. The conclusion is reached that the SANDF is not considered an employer of choice due to poor service conditions, a decline in the prestige of the military, unfavourable aspects associated with military culture, a growing ‘knowledge gap’ and disconnect between the military and South African society, the estrangement of certain race groups, and the masculine nature of the military. These aspects need to be addressed if the SANDF wishes to attract learners with good academic credentials.     

基于建构文化的我军第一代营房建筑解读

从建构文化的发展历程与内涵入手,透过建构的视角审视我军第一代营房,对其在材料与技术的选择、建构表现以及建造者与建筑的关系等方面进行了分析,发现第一代营房在建设经费短缺的条件下重视建筑材料、建筑结构、构造技术等建筑本体内容,展现出建筑的朴素真实之美,并在无形中蕴含了建构的精神。这不仅反映出我军一些优良的营房建设传统,也反衬出当下营房建设的一些不良倾向。希望借助建构这一有力工具,在完成对第一代营房重新审视的同时从中获得启示,对今日方兴未艾的我军现代营房建设提供有益借鉴。     

现代居住环境文化研究

消费者对居住环境除了继续要求不断扩大“生活空间”外,更要求高品位的文化环境。提高居住环境的质量、营造自然和人文和谐的生态文化、提升居住文化环境的质量和品位,使人居活动与社会活动、文化活动、生态活动完美地结合在一起,无疑将成为现代居住环境建设的一大亮点。     

Learning ‘Under Fire’: Israel’s improvised military adaptation to Hamas tunnel warfare

What organisational attributes enhance a military’s ability to effectively adapt on the battlefield? Upon the outbreak of war in July 2014 between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) encountered an expansive network of tunnels from which Hamas was launching large-scale assaults into Israel. This article illustrates that the IDF’s ability to successfully adapt ‘under fire’ to this battlefield surprise was facilitated by several important attributes related to its organisational learning capacity: a dynamic, action-oriented organisational culture, a flexible leadership and command style, specialised commando units which acted as ‘incubators’ for learning and innovation, and a formal system to institutionalise and disseminate lessons learned.     

Explaining the security paradigm shift: strategic culture,epistemic communities,and Israel’s changing national security policy

The paper’s main argument is that Israel’s security policy, which traditionally focused on defending its territorial integrity against regular Arab armed forces, was, by the 2010s, transformed into one that focuses on facing a variety of state- and non-state-based threats. Neo-realist explanations could neither account for the contested nature of the security debate during this period, nor the inconsistent evolution of the policy. The present study aims to solve this conundrum by introducing an alternative approach known as 4th generation strategic culture research. The paper is comprised of four parts. First, the origins and evolution of strategic culture are reviewed, with emphasis placed on the commonly accepted weaknesses that, to date, have prevented it from being used as a testable theoretical concept, and subsequently as an explanatory factor for security policy changes. The second part presents the “modernist constructivism” approach that bridges the gap between traditional constructivism and hypothesis-driven research design. Next, the paper introduces the emerging fourth generation in strategic culture literature, followed by a conceptual framework designed to resolve the inherent weaknesses of the more traditional approaches. Finally, this conceptual framework is applied to analyse the transformation of Israel’s security policy between 1982 and 2014.