ناصر جنانی

Call of Duty is a popular first-person shooter (FPS) game. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2007) was the first game in the franchise which did not focus on the World Wars’ history. It was also the first Call of Duty which had a continuous interactive digital narrative (IDN). This article attempts to take a comparative approach to the game. As a cultural product, the game is susceptible to postcolonial and orientalist discourses. This article attempts to apply Edward Said’s theories to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare in order to prove that the game’s IDN was shaped by postcolonialism and orientalism. The game functioned as a cultural medium which disseminated orientalist discourses amongst its player base. As such, this article tries to not only shed light upon a lesser-known aspect of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare but also to demonstrate that computer games are not exempt from external cultural forces.

Despite the fact that interpreting has long existed in history and predates translation, the interpreter training as an autonomous discipline is non-existent at the graduate level in Iran. The paramount focus of this study was to probe into the status quo of interpreting courses in the Iranian academia and subsequently delve into the possible expediencies to establishing such a discipline in the higher education. To this end, 15 professional interpreters (9 from Iran and 6 from other countries), 10 interpreter trainers (4 from Iran and 6 from other countries) and 118 English Translation Studies students (32 M.A. and 86 B.A.) who were selected through convenience sampling participated in this study. The students filled out a 20-item researchers-designed Likert-scale interpreting status quo questionnaire and the interpreter trainers and interpreters were invited for a formal semi-structured interview. Findings, analyzed quantitatively by SPSS software version 28 and qualitatively by inductive codification process, revealed the existing situation of the interpreting courses in the Iranian academia in terms of needs analysis, objectives and syllabus, methodology, materials as well as course contents and ensured the significance of establishing interpreter training as an independent discipline in the higher education among all stakeholders, i.e. interpreters, interpreter trainers (teachers) and interpreter trainees (students) for a number of expediencies including non-existence of this discipline in Iran, the need for academization, its multidisciplinary nature, dearth of specialization, addressing stakeholders and researchability, generating pertinent activities, glocal reputation, and employability.

Background & Purpose: By the advent of video games as an inseparable part of technology and education, the impact of such games on enhancing the level of teamwork has reached an unprecedented attention. The uppermost objective of this study was to investigate the miscellany of aspects influential on the improvement of teamwork among Iranian Air Force freshmen cadets.Methodology: To this end, 50 freshmen cadets participated in this research by playing Counter Terrorist Game in groups of five (10 groups). They were randomly assigned to each of the groups, however, they all were chosen from among volunteers to play the game with no specific randomization (convenience sampling). Each group played four rounds of the game in two consecutive days (each day two rounds) competitively against the computer. After the second day, participants were in depth interviewed about their lived experiences of playing video games with their coursemates utilizing semi-structured questions concerning various aspects of teamwork.Findings: The researchers also observed the participants playing games and employed field notes in order to record the phenomenon under study. The data collected were meticulously transcribed and analyzed and data-driven themes were obtained using NVivo qualitative data analysis software version 12. Conclusion: By conducting this study, it was revealed that there are ten main themes or categories in the context of game playing that can potentially lead towards learning teamwork features. The themes are goal-setting, identity-formation, premeditation, interaction, implementation, leadership, esprit de corps, companionship, trait and tact.