Humanitas

EFL STUDENTS' PERCEPTIONS OF USING PARAPHRASING TOOLS IN WRITING COURSES AT AN-NAJAH NATIONAL UNIVERSITY.

Riham Abu Diak

Education is significantly influenced by technological advancements, particularly in the context of plagiarism and paraphrasing tools. This chapter aims to investigate EFL learners' perspectives on using AI-based writing tools, specifically paraphrasing tools, to support their writing at An-Najah National University. A study was conducted to examine the perceptions of English as foreign Language (EFL) students at An-Najah National University regarding these tools in writing courses, utilizing a qualitative approach. The researcher conducted separate interviews with eight students from the department of English at An-Najah National University. These interviews consisted of three open-ended questions to elicit thorough responses and provide qualitative insights. To analyze the gathered data, the researcher adopted the thematic approach. The results indicated a generally positive perception of paraphrasing tools as a means of enhancing writing skills. Additionally, the findings highlighted that EFL students typically had a strong inclination to use paraphrasing tools when writing academic articles, as these tools play a significant role in fostering their self-confidence. However, this chapter did not explore the broader influence of a specific tool on motivation or critical thinking, nor did it compare one of these tools with another AI paraphrasing tool. Recommendations were made for the use of paraphrasing tools to enhance writing skills among EFL students, guiding educators and developers. Future research is recommended to investigate the long-term effects of AI integration in language learning and to conduct comparative studies to understand these effects better.

Francesco Robortello and the theory of epigram

Rui Verdasca

This article presents, for the first time in Portuguese translation, what may be regarded as the first relevant contribution to the shaping of a theory of the epigrammatic genre: Francesco Robortello’s Explicatio eorum quae ad methodum et artificium scribendi epigrammatis spectant (1548). The translation is accompanied by a brief introductory note, annotations, and the Latin text.

The bright side of the flood in the rural world: decoding the Roman rural experience of Nature’s dynamics and environmental knowledge

Nelson Henrique da S. Ferreira

This article offers a semiotic analysis of Roman riverine landscapes to reconstruct how rural communities interpreted water, moisture, and floods as meaningful environmental signs. Drawing on agronomic, historical, and poetic sources – including Cato, Varro, Columella, Pliny, Vergil, Seneca, and Livy – the study examines how observable features such as flow, saturation, alluvium, and drought functioned as culturally intelligible perceptual cues. “Signs of meaning” emerged from shared rural experience and shaped both technical instructions and literary representations of landscape.

Methodologically, the article identifies recurrent sign-patterns in descriptive passages and evaluates how they were codified in literary language. Particular attention is given to the contrast between agronomic treatises, which reduce explicit symbolic language when addressing practical procedures, and poetic or historical texts, which preserve richer layers of symbolic and emotional meaning. This comparison reveals how different genres articulated the same environmental knowledge with distinct expressive aims.

The analysis shows that water operated simultaneously as a material resource and a semiotic agent that structured notions of fertility, balance, risk, and disruption. The study concludes that Roman conceptions of landscape were shaped by a culturally transmitted environmental awareness rooted in agricultural routines, and that literary texts indirectly preserve the perceptual world of the rural “silent people.” More broadly, the article demonstrates how semiotic methods can recover traditional ecological knowledge embedded in ancient representations of rivers, floods, and cultivation.

Télefo, grego e bárbaro. Um paradoxo de identidade

Fátima Silva; Marisa Henriques

The confrontation between Greeks and Barbarians enjoyed considerable popularity in ancient Greek literature. The course of history itself provided countless opportunities to reflect on the subject, from the moment that phenomena such as colonisation and armed conflict – to mention two of the most relevant – brought different cultures into direct contact with one another. Euripides' Telephus, a particularly well-received play in Euripides' production, returned to the subject in a particularly original way, superimposing the two statuses on a single character, who took on the characteristics of a paradoxical identity.

En torno a Sobre las salazones de Eutidemo de Atenas: un recorrido por las fuentes paralelas de Ath. 3.116 A-C

Fernando Pérez Lambás

La obra Sobre las salazones de Eutidemo de Atenas es únicamente conocida gracias a los pocos fragmentos transmitidos por Ateneo de Náucratis. En Ath. 3.116 A-C, se transmite un fragmento que formaba parte de la mencionada obra de Eutidemo, quien a su vez lo atribuyó a Hesíodo, una autoría cuestionada incluso por el mismo narrador del banquete. Un análisis más detallado de los puntos en común entre estos versos y la poesía didáctica de temática gastronómica, especialmente la Hedypatheia de Arquéstrato de Gela, puede ayudarnos a entender mejor la temática de la obra de Eutidemo, así como la relación de este tratado con la literatura gastronómica de temática similar.