درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Implicatures are the implied meanings that people communicate to their listeners. They may differ from one culture to another, making translations more challenging. The purpose of this study was to examine how implicatures were treated in the English translations of Persian texts and the extent of pragmatic equivalence. To this end, implicatures in four Persian children's stories written by Hooshang Morādi Kermāni were identified and compared to their English translations, translated by Caroline Croskery. The Gricean Cooperation Principle served as the theoretical framework of the study, and four maxims of quality, quantity, relation, and manner were used to analyze implicatures. Chesterman’s strategies of pragmatic equivalence were also used to determine the strategies used in translation. According to the results, the translator was largely successful in achieving pragmatic equivalence. Additionally, literal translation, explicitness, equivalence strategy, and illocutionary change were found to be used more commonly than the other pragmatic strategies. The findings of this study could have benefits for translators to deal with pragmatic issues and for syllabus designers to create more practical content.

Since language is an integral part of a culture, inspecting linguistic expressions can unveil the hidden cultural memes of a society, conceptualized as cultuling (culture in language) analysis. The present study examined the cultuling of ‘making accreditation with English’ used by Persian native speakers from the upper, middle, and lower social classes. To this end, 623 pieces of natural utterances, embracing this cultuling, were extracted from people's conversations in public and private places and from Iranian movies. Then, 279 utterances were analyzed from linguistic, cultural, and psychological perspectives based on the cultuling analysis (CLA) model. Additionally, more data were acquired through semi-structured interviews with 198 participants aged 19 to 54. The results of the study revealed that Iranians use English for various purposes in their conversations, including accreditation, power, education, superior identity, and higher social class in public/ private and formal/ informal contexts. Moreover, the analysis of Iranians’ different reactions to hearing English words in conversations manifested their hidden cultural patterns, including indirectness, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, high context, collectivism, low trust, and overstating

Textbooks play a crucial role in English language teaching and learning. One of the methods for selecting the most appropriate textbook for a particular educational purpose is comparing two or several similar textbooks with each other. Textbook evaluation can provide useful information about the strengths and weaknesses of textbooks and can lead to the selection of the most suitable materials for specific purposes. The present study is a critical comparison of Prospect 2, taught in junior high schools in Iran, and English Net 6, taught in junior high schools in Turkey, in terms of their physical and utilitarian attributes, efficient outlay of objectives and supplementary materials, learning and teaching contents, and language skills. The participants of the study were 20 English teachers who completed two evaluation checklists. The textbook evaluation checklist that was used in the study was based on the guidelines and framework of AbdelWahab’s checklist (2013)with 123 items. The results of the study indicated that the Turkish textbook surpassed the Iranian one in many aspects of the text book evaluation checklist. The results revealed that in comparison with English Net 6, Prospect 2 had more weaknesses in terms of physical and utilitarian attributes, efficient outlay of objectives and supplementary materials, learning and teaching contents, and language skills.

This study is aimed at examining the role of gender, and years of teaching experience in Iranian EFL teachers’ awareness of the code of ethics in research. 272 Iranian EFL teachers were chosen based on convenience sampling and were assessed through the Iranian EFL teachers’ awareness of the code of ethics in research scale inventory. After gathering the questionnaires, data was analysed by SPSS. An independent-samples t-test was performed to examine whether the teachers' awareness of the code of ethics in research differs significantly between genders. In addition, Pearson correlation was performed to find the connection between years of teaching experience and the aforementioned factor. The findings showed substantial positive relationships between all five sub-constructs of the code of ethics and experience. Besides, the findings revealed that there were considerable differences in the degree of knowledge among EFL teachers of research codes of ethics and its sub-constructs between male and female teachers. The mean score of the female teachers in all sub-constructs was higher than the male teachers. This study may be the only piece of research that has investigated the EFL teachers’ knowledge regarding factors affecting their awareness of the code of ethics in research in Iran.

One of the controversial issues in learning English is the appropriate use of formulaic sequences as one of the effective factors in pragmatic production. Not merely the language proficiency level, but also the individual’s capability to adapt to a new culture plays a significant role in the appropriate use of formulaic sequences. First, this study intends to find the relationship between cultural intelligence and the use of formulaic sequences. Second, it seeks to identify whether there is a significant difference between the second language learners with different proficiency levels in the appropriate use of formulaic sequences. From the Universiti Sains Malaysia, a total of 50 Malaysian students participated in the study. First, the participants completed an oral Discourse Completion Task (DCT) test, and then they were required to fill a Cultural Intelligence Scale (CQS). The statistical analysis revealed a significant correlation between the level of proficiency and the production of formulaic sequences. However, no relationship was found between the level of cultural intelligence and the production of formulaic sequences among the participants. The results obtained from this research would benefit the curriculum designers by boosting the communication skills of ESL learners. However, more studies should be conducted with different instruments and methodology to ensure more accurate results.

This study is an attempt to evaluate certain areas of the Iranian ESP program through the lens of its immediate stakeholders, i.e. policy implementers, authors, teachers and learners. Using questionnaires, interviews and classroom observations through a quantitative-qualitative mixed-method design, the collected data were analyzed. The results of the study indicate that the program is suffering from lack of systematic observation and evaluation policy, and its stakeholders especially in the users’ strand are not satisfied with the program’s current status, goal, methodology and textbooks. The origin of the problems and dissatisfaction in the program was found to have varying shares from different sources. Contextual factors, improper policies, unprincipled teaching methodology, and old fashioned spiritless textbooks were found and concluded to have their impeding roles in the Iranian ESP program achievement and satisfaction. The findings of the present research are hoped to provide the concerned communities in both strand of providers and users with clear insights around the common flaws and drawbacks in the program along with possible clues for the program improvement.

Vocabulary and grammar are two significant components of English which learners often find challenging in their process of learning English as a foreign language (EFL). Therefore, finding the best way to teach grammar and vocabulary has always been a controversial issue among English teachers and researchers. The present study is an attempt to investigate the effect of dictogloss (DG) task, as one of the focus on form techniques, on EFL learners’ vocabulary versus grammar development. To this end, a quasi-experimental design was utilized to examine the effectiveness of the treatment. In this design, two classes were chosen, one as the experimental group (n=20) and the other as the control group (n=20). The participants were 40 female learners of English as a foreign language at intermediate level. In the experimental group the selected grammatical structures and vocabulary were taught using the DG technique, while in the control group the traditional method of teaching, present-practice-produce was used. The results gained from comparing pretest and posttest scores indicate that, although the experimental group outperformed the control group in learning vocabulary, there was no statistically significant difference between the experimental and control group regarding grammar scores. Therefore, it can be concluded that using DG task was more effective on vocabulary learning of learners than grammar development. The findings of this study will be of help for both English teachers and learners regarding finding the best method of teaching and learning English grammar and vocabulary.

Based on the controversial beliefs among L2 teachers about effective corrective feedback (CF) strategies, recast and prompts as 2 kinds of CF have drawn the attention of L2 researchers(e.g., Braidi, 2002; Iwashita, 2003; Loewen & Philp, 2006; Panova & Lyster, 2002; Sheen, 2004). Despite these numbers of studies, debate continues to exist about their usefulness as a CF technique. Whereas recasts provide a correct reformulation of L2 learners’ nontarget utterance, the other alternative type of feedback in L2 classroom settings is referred to as prompts (Lyster, 2004) because they provide signals that prompt L2 learners to self-repair rather than provide them with a correct reformulation of their nontarget utterance. Hence, the focus of this study was to examine the effect of recasts in comparison to prompts on the learning of English third person singular marker “s” by Iranian preintermediate L2 learners. Two CF techniques of recasts and prompts were utilized in 2 experimental groups in response to their errors in using the correct form of the verb for third person singular subject. In the third group as the control group, No-CF was provided by the L2 teacher. The results revealed that the Prompts Group had outperformed the Recast Group and No-CF Group. Thus, it could be concluded that prompts as a CF strategy led to more gains than CF that provided the L2 learners with the correct form (recast) than No-CF.  

The present study examined the effect of mobile assisted language learning (MALL) on Iranian EFL learners' idiom learning and perceptions of classroom activities. To do so, this study was carried out in six classes at Imam Reza International University in Mashhad, Iran. The participants included 114 BA students of Teaching English field. The present study was quasi-experimental that utilized a mixed methods research design. It contained a control group with 45 participants and an experimental group with 69 participants. MALL for teaching idioms via Telegram was considered as a treatment in experimental group. In the present study, Telegram app was chosen because the researcher, the teachers, and the participants had similar experience of using this app. Pictures, texts, audio, and video files, were used as the materials in teaching idioms. Students’ Perceptions of Classroom Activities scale designed and validated by Gentry and Gable (2001) and translated into Persian and validated by Ghanizadeh and Jahedizadeh (2015) was used for assessing students’ perceptions of classroom activities (interest, choice, joy, and challenge). Twelve students in experimental group sat for an interview which was audio and video recorded. In the interview sessions, students were asked about the experience of informal learning in this research, the materials used, pros and cons toward the channel and MALL. The results demonstrated the effectiveness of mobile phone usage in enhancing EFL university students’ idiom learning as well as in students’ perceptions of classroom activities with the highest differences observed in challenge and joy perceptions. The results of the qualitative phase were also in line with those of the quantitate phase.