درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

This paper takes a critical look at the news reports of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Saudi Arabia on Mina stampede. Previous studies have indicated that media discourse contributes to public opinion and ideology. Little, however, has been mentioned on how variation in media discourse affects the process. This study analyzed 24 news reports from the two countries from 24 to 31 September 2015 using the components of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The results indicate differences in the reports from the two countries in using variation patterns which in turn have the potential of changing and monitoring readers` ideologies through influencing their opinions on the nature of power relations and interactional structures. The paper tries to contribute to the area of research on media discourse and ideology construction by arguing that discourse variation has not been sufficiently theorized. An attempt will also be made to offer a tentative theorization of such variation

In this study, the researchers investigated a critical aspect of EFL/ESL writing pedagogy-the impact of teacher written commentary on student writer’s earlier drafts. Compositions of 80 Iranian undergraduate English majors were commented on using a trio of imperatives, statements, and questions on both content and form. Overall, the results indicated that the comments in the imperative form helped students improve their EFL/ESL writing ability more than the other two types. However, the difference between statements and questions was found not to be significant. The findings of this study, once again, emphasized the need for EFL/ESL writing instructors to communicate to learners with appropriate types of written comments. Moreover, employing imperative sentences can orient student writers towards a more accurate (i.e. form-focused) and appropriate (i.e. content-focused) composition writing.

مطالعه حاضر کاربرد گفتگوی با خود توسط فراگیران زبان انگلیسی را در ساماندهی فعالیت های ذهنی آن ها بررسی می کند. برای این هدف موارد گفتگوی با خود 30 زبان آموز سطح متوسط بزرگسال در حین انجام فعالیتی حاوی معماهای چالش برانگیز به زبان انگلیسی ضبط شد. سپس موارد گفتگوی با خود زبان آموزان از نظر شکل، محتوا و کاربرد مورد بررسی قرار گرفت. نمونه های متعددی از بلند خوانی، تکرار، توضیح برای خود و همچنین مرور مطالب نشان می دهد که گفتگوی با خود در هدف گذاری، مدیریت ذهن، انگیزش و کنترل اضطراب نقش دارد. به علاوه، نتایج کاربردهای مفید گفتگوی با خود از قبیل هدف گذاری، مدیریت ذهن، انگیزش و کنترل اضطراب را در میان بسیاری دیگر نشان می دهد. این مطالعه بر آموزش کاربردهای گفتگوی با خود به زبان آموزان تاکید می کند و همچنین مدرسین را به هنگام سکوت فراگیران در فرایند آموزش زبان خارجی به صبر دعوت می نماید.

This study was inspired by VanPatten and Uludag’s (2011) study on the transferability of training via processing instruction to output tasks and Mori’s (2002) work on the development of talk-in-interaction during a group task. An interview was devised as the pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest to compare four intervention types for teaching the simple past passive: traditional intervention as the comparison group and three task-based groups were processing instruction, consciousness-raising, and input enhancement. The interviews and the interactions during the treatments were also analyzed qualitatively. Task-based instruction (TBI) proved significantly more effective than traditional intervention and processing instruction significantly outperformed all others on both posttests. Furthermore, processing instruction was the only task-based intervention to retain its improvement till the delayed posttest. Qualitatively, processing instruction led to true negotiation of meaning and deep-level learning, consciousness-raising led to massive negotiation over the function of the target structure and deep-level learning, input enhancement led to enormous unfocused interaction about meaning, and traditional intervention just led to interaction about the forms. It was concluded that a well-planned processing instruction is a promising intervention for focusing on language form; however, due to the strong points cited for the other two tasks, their roles should not be ignored.

تحلیل بینافرهنگی کنش های گفتاری از جمله مسائل داغی بوده است که نظر پژوهشگران مختلفی را به خود جلب کرده است و تحقیقات زیادی تا امروز پیرامون این موضوع صورت گرفته است. یکی از کنش گفتاری هایی که اصلاً مورد مطالعه قرار نگرفته، کنش «تبریک» می باشد. پژوهش زیر به این پرسش که آیا ملیّت افراد بر انتخاب این که چهنوعی از دسته های کنشهای گفتاری در فضای فیسبوک مورد استفاده قرار می گیرد تأثیر معنی داری دارد یا خیر می پردازد. داده های برگرفته از پیام های تبریکی که تعداد 60 ایرانی و 60 آمریکایی در فیسبوک ارسال داشته اند مورد بررسی قرار گرفته اند. بر اساس داده های جمع آوری شده، تعداد 7 دسته غالب و اصلی که عبارتند از: ابزار شناساندن نیروی منظور، آرزوهای خیر، جملات دعایی، شعر و قطعات ادبی، ابراز احساسات، و تمجید به دست آمدند. ضمناً، تفاوت های احتمالی بین دو گروه از لحاظ کاربرد این دسته ها نیز مورد بررسی قرار گرفتند که معلوم شد در کاربرد 5 دسته از مقولات کنشهای گفتاری، تفاوت معنی داری بین دو گروه وجود دارد و در کاربرد دو مقوله آرزوی خیر و ابزار شناساندن نیروی منظور تفاوت مهمی مشاهده نشد.

The importance of input has been a broadly documented concept in the field of second or foreign language acquisition. However, kinds of input and ways of its presentation are among the controversial issues in L2 classroom research. Therefore, this study was designed to compare the effects of three kinds of input-based instruction on intake and acquisition of the English causative structures by Iranian EFL learners. A total of 105 university students in four intact classes were randomly assigned to four different conditions: processing instruction (PI), textual input enhancement (TE), consciousness-raising (C-R), and control (CO). A pretest/posttest (immediate and delayed) design was used, where participants’ ability to interpret and produce the target structure was assessed through administering a multiple choice interpretation test and a sentence-level production test. Moreover, a grammaticality judgment test was run to assess the amount of intake. Results revealed that learners in the PI group significantly outperformed learners in the other groups on both immediate/delayed production posttests. The findings also indicated that, C-R group could not retain the significant effect of instruction on delayed production posttest and TE tasks were not effective in improving the learners’ production of the target structure. Moreover, the PI group outperformed the other groups on grammaticality judgment test too. Based on these findings, we can conclude that PI which encompasses the most outstanding features of both focus on form and meaning instruction might be a more effective approach in helping EFL learners to acquire the target grammatical forms.