محمد غضنفری

Abstract: This study explores emotive language in lyrical nature writing from the perspective of ecolinguistics in four nature textbooks. In fact, embodied mind style is explored by considering emotive language as a linguistic phenomenon that can inject into the readers' minds the sensorial, emotional, and psychological experiences of the lyricist. The interrogation of emotive language is based on Attitude subsystem of Appraisal Analysis, which consists of Affect, Judgment, and Appreciation (Martin & White, 2005). The analyses of the linguistic portrayal of Affect -based on the modified Affect system sub-categories, including Un/Happiness, Dis/Satisfaction, In/Security, Dis/Inclination, and Surprise -revealed the prevalence of Insecurity in the textbooks by contemporary nature writers and Happiness in the textbooks by their predecessors. Moreover, the Judgement and Appreciation analyses suggest that moral sentiment and aesthetic emotion are indispensable parts of lyrical nature writing that can awaken humility and sympathy in the minds and hearts of the readers.

پژوهندگان بسیاری درباره جنبه های گوناگون سبکهای یادگیری نوشته اند. اما درباره پیوند میان مفاهیم سبک یادگیری و دستاوردهای به اصطلاح ""زبان آموزان موفق"" پژوهش چندانی صورت نگرفته است. پژوهش حاضر به کاوش سبکهای متداول یادگیری در میان دانش آموزان سال آخر دبیرستان و مقایسه آنها با سبکهای یادگیری ""زبان آموزان موفق"" جامعه مورد مطالعه می پردازد. بدین منظور، پرسشنامه شاخص سبک یادگیری فلدر _ سولومون(ILS) در میان دانش آموزان توزیع گردید. از میان جمعیتی 3310 نفری که مشغول به تحصیل در شهر سبزوار و پنج شهر همجوار آن بودند، 1307 دانش آموز (711 پسر و 596 دختر) به طور تصادفی برگزیده شدند و در تحقیق حاضر مشارکت کردند. بر مبنای نمره های امتحان نهایی درس زبان انگلیسی سال سوم دبیرستان دانش آموزان یا همان (آزمون پیشرفت تحصیلی)، تعداد 343 نفر، که نمره های بالاتری کسب کرده بودند، بطور قراردادی با عنوان ""زبان آموزان موفق"" و 964 دانش آموز دیگر با عنوان ""فراگیران متوسط زبان"" دسته بندی شدند. نتایج حاصل از تحلیل شاخص سبک یادگیری نشان داد که بیشتر شرکت کنندگان سبکهای "" 'انعکاسی""، ""حسی""، ""دیداری""، و ""متوالی""، را از بین چهار بعد سبکهای یادگیری ترجیح میدهند. علاوه بر این، آزمون تحلیل واریانس دوسویه نشان داد که تفاوت میان نمره های میانگین دانش آموزان ناشی از هم جنسیت آنها و هم سبکهای یادگیری ""دیداری/کلامی"" و ""متوالی/ کلی"" آنان است. یافته ها در مورد رابطه بین سبک های یادگیری و نمرات امتحان نهایی زبان انگلیسی شرکت کنندگان نشان داد که به جز در بعد "" فهم"" سبکهای یادگیری ، بین سه بعد دیگر سبکهای یادگیری و نمرات امتحان نهایی زبان انگلیسی شرکت کنندگان رابطه معناداری وجود ندارد.به علاوه، آزمون مجذور کای تفاوت معنی داری بین ترجیحات سبک یادگیری "" زبان آموزان موفق "" دبیرستانی با زبان آموزان متوسط نشان داد.

The current study was carried out to investigate the functions of the ritual speech act of ‘ya Allah’ (literally meaning ‘O God’) employed by Iranians in social interactions. To this end, sixty-two Persian native speakers of different age groups, ranging from 35 to 85, of both genders were observed in 250 natural situations such as daily interactions, gatherings, public or private places and local TV programs until the saturation point. Their verbal interactions were recorded, transcribed and later analyzed. Moreover, in order to corroborate the representativeness of samples, ten people were interviewed and were asked directly when they utter ‘ya Allah’. It was concluded that the speech act may be employed in either religious or non-religious contexts to serve two major functions: to ask for permission (to enter a place) or call for an action. Moreover, the two major functions of the speech act in question may be broken down into nine minor functions: (1) Declaring one’s entering a house/apartment/orchard, tent or the like to be allowed or welcomed by the owner/insiders; (2) Warning intimate women to observe their hijab, when a strange man is to enter; (3) Entering a place in general, especially employed by men; (4) Being late to join community prayers; (5) Greeting someone who has just joined a group; (7) Commencing an action; (8) Asking someone to hurry up and (9) Doing something difficult with the help of others unanimously.

The present study is an attempt to find out whether there is a significant relationship between EFL teachers’ Big Five personality traits and their self-concept. In addition, ittried to examine if there is any significant relationship between teachers' teaching experienceand their self-concept. 112 EFL teachers participated in this study. They were asked to complete NEO Five Factor Inventory and Teacher Self-concept Evaluation Scale. Data were analyzed using Correlation, Multiple Regressions, and ANOVA. Results indicated thatself-concept was significantly correlated with four components of the Big-Five personality traits.It was positively related with ""Neuroticism"", ""Openness to experience"" and ""Conscientiousness"", but negatively related with ""Agreeableness"". It was also revealed that there was not any statistically significant difference among the three groups (low, mid, and high experience EFL teachers) with respect to their self-concept. The overall results of the study were discussed, and the implications for policy and practice were made.

Almost little is known about creative writing. In this research, creative writing has been introduced as an alternative to academic writing. The aims were to introduce creative writing as an alternative to academic writing to boost the participants’ attitude towards writing in general. The participants were 32 senior university students studying English Translation at Islamic Azad University, Tehran. The study includes two phases: quantitative and qualitative. For the quantitative phase, the participants were given a questionnaire so that the researchers could measure their attitudes about writing. Then, a creative writing pretest was administered, followed by a posttest to see to what extent the treatment could help the participants improve their writing skill. For the qualitative phase, a videotaped oral interview with the participants was closely examined to find out about the participants’ attitudes towards writing. The means of the pretest and posttest indicated a three-fold increase in the scores after the treatment was over. The oral interview, furthermore, showed that most participants had a negative attitude towards creative writing. It was finally concluded that creative writing might be considered as a useful asset in academic contexts, expected to alleviate the negative attitude of learners towards writing to feel more confident.

The study aims at investigating the influence of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students’ perfectionism and anxiety on their Willingness to Communicate (WTC) in EFL classes. To do so, a set of questionnaires, namely “Willingness To Communicate” (MacIntyre et al., 2001), “Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety” (Horwitz et al., 1986) and “Multidimensional Perfectionism Scales” (Hewitt & Flett, 1991) were distributed among 120 (50 males and 70 females) Iranian EFL university students. Stepwise multiple regression analysis was conducted to indicate the extent to which each independent variable (perfectionism and anxiety) could predict the dependent variable (WTC). The results showed that both EFL     students’ anxiety (B=-.586, p<.0.05) and their perfectionism (B=-.224, P<.0.05), had a significantly negative influence on their WTC in language classes. These two independent variables could explain .456 percent of the variance in the dependent variable (WTC).  The results of the study were discussed and the implications were made.

The present study has aimed at finding out whether or not students’ language background and gender bring about a distinction between the frequency and types of metadiscourse elements occurring in their papers. To this end, a dataset of 40 student papers in four series written by native male, nonnative male, native female, and nonnative female writers was analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively in terms of the use of metadiscourse resources following the metadiscourse model proposed by Hyland and Tse (2004). The results of the frequency count and chi-square tests (p-value

Learning in every context is influenced by the social factors such as the people with whom the learners are communicating in that specific learning environment. As the role that social factors can potentially play in the process of education seems not to have been explored comprehensively in the field of English language teaching, in general, and in the Iranian educational context, in particular, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the impact of both social goals and achievement goals on emotional, behavioral, and cognitive engagement, in an academic context. The participants of the study consisted of 302 undergraduate students (88 females, 206 males, 8 unspecified), majoring in English literature at two state universities and two private universities in Iran. The data were collected through one questionnaire consisting of items relating to different types of social goals and various types of engagement. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Regression Analysis were conducted to analyze the data. The results of CFA confirmed the validity of such goals in our context. Also, regression analysis showed that mastery goals, social status goals, and social concern goals predicted variance in different facets of engagement.

Cognitive diagnostic models (CDMs) have received sustained attention in educational settings because they can be used to operationalize formative assessment to provide diagnostic feedback and inform instruction. A large number of CDMs have been developed over the past few years. An important component of all CDMs is a Q-matrix that specifies a particular hypothesis about the relationship between each test item and its required attributes. The purpose of this study was to construct and validate a Q-matrix for the reading comprehension section of the Islamic Azad University English Proficiency Test (IAUEPT), as an advanced English placement test designed to measure language ability of Ph.D. candidates who tend to pursue their studies in the IAU. To achieve this, using item responses of 1152 candidates to twenty items of the reading section of the test, an initial Q-matrix was constructed based on theories and models of second/foreign language (L2) reading comprehension, previous applications of CDMs on L2 reading comprehension, and brainstorming and consensus of five content experts. Then, the initial Q-matrix was empirically validated using the method proposed by de la Torre and Chiu (2016) and checking mesa plots, and heatmap plot. Five attributes were derived for the reading comprehension section: vocabulary, grammar, making an inference, understanding specific information, and identifying explicit information. Finally, the analysis of the Generalized Deterministic Inputs, Noisy “and” Gate (GDINA) regarding absolute fit at item- and test-level as well as three residual-based statistics showed the accuracy of the Q-matrix and a perfect model-data fit.

The purpose of this study was to compare the functioning of five restrictive CDMs, including DINA, DINO, A-CDM, LLM, and RRUM, against the G-DINA model to identify the best-fitting CDM which can better explain the interaction underlying the attributes of the reading comprehension section of an Iranian high-stakes language proficiency test. To achieve this aim, item responses of 1152 examinees to the items of the test were examined. The six CDMs were initially compared in terms of relative and absolute fit statistics at test-level to choose the best model. It was found that the G-DINA model outperformed compared to the restrictive models; thus, it was selected for the second phase of the study. Concerning the second purpose of the study, the G-DINA was used to identify strengths and weaknesses of the examinees. The results revealed that making an inference and vocabulary are the hardest attributes for examinees of the test, and understanding the specific information is the easiest attribute. Finally, the models were also compared at item-level. The presence of a combination of L2 reading attributes was found.