درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Language and culture are now deemed to be co-constitutive; hence English language teaching (ELT) textbooks should incorporate cultural aspects and promote intercultural competence. However, careful decisions should be made as regards to the cultural content of materials and the ways in which culture is represented. This study was an attempt to deconstruct the patterns of cultural representation and intercultural interactions in Interchange textbooks, an ELT textbook series taught to English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in Iran. Using content analysis of texts and images and with the focus on nationality, gender and race, it examined how different cultures were reflected in Interchange 1, Interchange 2, Interchange 3, and whether cultural bias or inequality was present. The quantitative and qualitative data analysis revealed that the white male group was dominant in all three textbooks. And, to use Kachru’s (1985) terms, inner, outer and expanding circle nationalities were represented in the textbooks, with the expanding circle constituting the major nationality, but American culture of inner circle was predominant. Additionally, the interactions were mainly limited to superficial aspects of the target culture although these textbooks sought to show various intercultural interactions. Dominance of male and white characters and the US culture indicated inequality in race and gender, and the superficial treatment of culture in the textbooks. Less attention to the hybrid culture and deeper level of intercultural aspects, i.e. critical reflections, in the textbooks suggests that the materials be supplemented by EFL teachers’ constructive discussion of the cultures that interact.

This study aimed to investigate the use of interactional metadiscourse markers in 168 comments made by 28 university students of engineering via an educational forum held as part of a general English course. The students wrote their comments on six topics, with a total of 19,671 words. Their comments during educational discussions were analyzed to determine their use of five metadiscourse categories (hedges, boosters, attitude markers, engagement markers, and self-mentions), making up interactional metadiscourse in Hyland’s (2004) model. Following descriptive analysis of the use of metadiscourse categories, chi-square tests were used to investigate the possible differences in the whole sample as well as gender-based differences. The findings showed that although female EFL learners used more metadiscourse markers than males did, the differences were minor and hence gender did not significantly influence the use of interactional metadiscourse markers. However, while male and female participants used all types of interactional metadiscourse, how they used them varied. They used engagement markers and self-mentions more frequently than boosters, hedges, and attitude markers. Since metadiscourse markers play crucial roles in mediating the relationship between what writers intend to argue and their discourse communities, the results of the present study have obvious importance in increasing students’ awareness of the way they organize their writings.

هدف از پژوهش حاضر، بررسی چگونگی بهره مندی زبانآموزان ایرانی با سطوح متفاوت هوش هیجانی از آموزش مهارتهای تفکر انتقادی و تاثیر این آموزش بر استفاده آنها از راهبردهای یادگیری مناسب زبان میباشد. یکی دیگر از اهداف این پژوهش، بررسی ارتباط میان تفکر انتقادی، راهبردهای یادگیری زبان، و هوش هیجانی زبانآموزان ایرانی است. جهت انجام این پژوهش، به 88 زبانآموز از آموزشگاههای خصوصی زبان انگلیسی واقع در شهر شیراز، چهار ابزار جهت جمع آوری دادهها داده شد. این ابزارها عبارت بودند از آزمون تعیین سطح آکسفورد، آزمون مهارتهای تفکر انتقادی کالیفرنیا، پرسشنامهی هوش هیجانی بار - آن، و پرسشنامهی راهبردهای یادگیری زبان. نتایج حاصل از تجزیه و تحلیل آماری نشان داد که تدریس مهارتهای تفکر انتقادی تاثیر معناداری بر استفاده از راهبردهای یادگیری زبان در زبانآموزان با هوش هیجانی متفاوت دارد. همچنین این پژوهش نشان داد که هیچ تفاوت معناداری در میزان استفاده زبان آموزان با سطوح هوش هیجانی بالا و پایین از راهبردهای یادگیری زبان وجود ندارد. بعلاوه، ارتباط مثبت و معناداری بین تفکر انتقادی و هوش هیجانی، و تفکر انتقادی و راهبردهای یادگیری زبان بدست آمد. نتایج حاصل از این پژوهش می تواند به درک هرچه بیشتر معلمان زبان انگلیسی نسبت به مهارت های فکری مورد نیاز جهت استفادهی موفق از راهبردهای یادگیری زبان در زمینههای یادگیری زبان خارجی کمک کند

A community of practice may shape and reshape the identity of members of the community through providing them with situated learning or learning environment. This study, therefore, is to clarify the salient learning-based features of the language teaching community of practice that might formulate the identity of language teachers. To this end, the study examined how learning situations in two communities of practice (English and Arabic) developed the professional identity of language teachers. The results of the semi-structure interviews with 5 language teachers highlighted some differences between English and Arabic language teaching communities of practice in terms of the situated learning activities they provide for language teachers to develop their professional identity. Furthermore, since the community of practice can be considered a potential curriculum that may be learned by newcomers with legitimate peripheral access, it would be considered as a main source of identity formation of both English and Arabic language teachers. The findings of the study can be used to better understand the nature of being a professional language teacher in non-native contexts. They have implications for novice and experienced language teachers as well as for teacher educators to review the content of the teacher training courses

The present study was aimed at examining concerns about the social effects of EFL learning, a challenging area of research which has not been discussed sufficiently. It tried to investigate the relationship between EFL learning and national identity. In addition, attempt was made to find a relationship between language motivation types and national identity. Furthermore, the role of two demographic variables, gender and age was examined. To this end, a sample consisting of 350 undergraduates studying at Allameh Tabataba'i University in Tehran took part in the study. A questionnaire on national identity and another one on language motivation types followed by an interview were the instruments used. The questionnaires had already been developed. However, there were some major modifications for the former which consisted of 30 items measuring national identity for all participants. The latter contained 42 items measuring language motivation types for only EFL learners. The Regression analysis, independent samples t-tests and a one-way ANOVA were run. The results revealed that claims over the harmful social effects of EFL learning were not arguably significant and it was found that among the eight language motivation types, going abroad and social responsibility were correlated with national identity. Furthermore, gender and age indicated significant differences among the participants' tendencies. The findings indicated that the social concerns about EFL learning are too pessimistic. So, materials developers, syllabus designers and teachers might consider the potentiality of some social elementsand demographic variables for the development of EFL learning.

خلاصه سازی متن در کلاس های رشته های مهندسی و تخصصی دانشگاه ها و موسسات صاحب نام و همچین در آزمون های بزرگ استخدامی و دولتی به خصوص در آی. ان. پی-اچ. بی یاموسوکرو جایگاه مهم و خاصی دارد. اما متاسفانه فرایند خلاصه سازی متن برای دانشجویا اغلب مشکل آفرین است. از میان مشکلات و نواقصی که وجود دارد، فرایند تفسیر عبارت برای دانشجویان و مدرسان دغدغه ای بسیار جدی و حقیقی است. موضوع اصلی پژوهش حاضر بررسی فرایندهای زبانشناختی است که قادرند متن را به سمت و سوی نوعی تفسیر عبارتی مطلوب رهنمون سازند. در پایان یک آزمون گرفته شده از دانشجویان، مشخص گردید که حداقل پنج متغیر از نمونه های ممکن تفسیر عبارت وجود دارد. این نتایج می تواند در جهت بهبود روش شناسی آموزش خلاصه سازی از متون به کار گرفته شود. اگرچه این موارد به هیچ روی نمی توانند کلیت روش های متفاوت بازگویی یک متن را که در عمل وجود دارد، در بر بگیرند.

Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) has stood the test of time as a model of text analysis. The present literature contains a plethora of studies that while taking the ‘clause’ as a unit of analysis have put into investigation the metafunctions in research articles of a single field of study or those of various fields in comparison. Although ‘clause complex’ is another unit of SF analysis, by far there has been only one study on research articles where it was the unit of analysis (Sellami Baklouti, 2011). Therefore, the purpose of this study was to put into analysis the ‘taxis’, ‘expansion’ and ‘projection’ deployed in Applied Linguistics research article abstracts (RAAs) by native (N) and non-native (NN) writers. To this end, 20 Applied Linguistics RAAs (10 by N English writers and 10 by NN English writers on the sub-fields of Discourse Analysis and Language Assessment) were analyzed according to Halliday & Matthiessen’s (2013) ‘clause complex’ framework. The results indicated that there is a significant difference in the use of ‘projection’ by Ns and NNs, while the distribution of ‘taxis’ and ‘expansion’ is the same. The findings also showed what types of ‘taxis’, ‘expansion’ and ‘projection’ were deployed by Ns and NNs