درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

This study examined academic articles and journalistic reports in 5 disciplinary areas to explore how similar contents might attitudinally be realized in two different genres. To this end, 25 research articles and 210 news reports were carefully selected and underwent detailed discourse semantic and grammatical analyses with the purpose of identifying the evaluative linguistic patterns. The findings showed that academic texts are attitudinally charged with appreciation rather than other categories of attitude. This suggests that markers of appreciation are responsible for detachment, impersonality, and objectivity. On the contrary, notwithstanding the frequent use of appreciation in journalistic texts, other categories of attitude (affect and judgment) are also effectively used. This suggests that affective and judgment markers account for the subjectivity of journalistic texts. One of the findings emerging from this study is that frequent instances of appreciation in the different parts of an RA might be attributed to the development of language use within an individual which does not lead to lowering the level of objectivity in academic texts but enhancing interpersonal communication.

The current study, setting a two-fold goal, attempted to see whether the preemptive focus on form (FonF) under either planned or unplanned conditions could contribute to increasing lexical diversity in written narratives and, second, to find whether there was a trade-off between the lexical diversity and accuracy. To this end, 32 beginner learners were selected following a Quick Oxford Placement Test and assigned into two groups to receive preemptive FonF under no-planning and pre-task planning conditions. The analysis of the results through a set ofrepeated measure ANOVAs and independent-samples t-tests revealed that the first group with unplanned condition outperformed the one with pre-task planning in lexical diversity. The results also revealed the trade-off between the lexical diversity and accuracy. That is, both lexical diversity and accuracy were significantly taken care of under unplanned preemptive condition whereas pre-task planning hindered attendingto lexical diversity and, thus, both aspects simultaneously. It was concluded that providing learners with appropriate conditions through form-focused instruction can set the ground for activating their linguistic knowledge and letting them attend to different linguistic aspects during writing.

The present study investigated the effect of pragmatic eliciting tasks on EFL pre-intermediate learners speaking proficiency. Thus this study aimed at comparing the English language learners who practiced pragmatic eliciting tasks and the ones who used traditional speaking activities such as questions and answers, discussion, etc. In doing so, 40 learners out of 80 were selected through Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT) with the band score of 30 to 39. Then they were non-randomly divided into two equal experimental and control groups through convenience sampling method. Both groups took a teacher-made pre-test on speaking proficiency and the scores were recorded. The experimental group received pragmatic eliciting tasks including explicit uses of pragmatic functions of speech (i.e., greeting, thanking, etc.) while the control group received these pragmatic tasks implicitly. Finally, both groups took a posttest which was the modified pre-test. Data were analyzed through independent and paired sample t-tests and the results showed that explicit instruction on pragmatic eliciting tasks were effective than the implicit ones in the control group. Implications of the study suggest that the learners should learn pragmatic eliciting tasks for effective uses of language functions in their conversations.

The competitive academic atmosphere of the higher education worldwide along with the current trend in producing research-oriented knowledge by universities has made research publication the first priority for doctoral students. In this study, we addressed the conceptions of purpose, process, and product of publishing research articles among Iranian doctoral students of applied linguistics. To this end, thirty students were interviewed and the data were analyzed using the grounded theory approach. The findings demonstrated that doctoral students publish papers to prepare a competition-winning resume, significantly contribute to the ELT community, turn into life-long learners and problem-solvers, and fulfill their course requirements. Furthermore, with regard to the research publication process, they highlighted the role of mixed-methods in spotting real problems in context and getting their papers published in prestigious journals. Additionally, the students believed that publishing in international journals grants them the opportunity to gain international recognition, attract an international audience, receive expert quality feedback from professional reviewers, publish in journals specific in focus and scope, and avoid publishing in cheap predatory journals. Finally, the findings suggest that the doctoral students need more systematic coaching to successfully conduct and publish their research.

This quasi-experimental study aimed to investigate the effect of task repetition under four conditions on the three dimensions of oral production (accuracy, complexity and fluency) and grammatical knowledge gain of learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). 40 young learners of English as a Foreign Language in four classes were randomly assigned into one of the following groups: repetition in three successive sessions during a week, repetition once a week over three weeks, repetition with one week interval in between over five weeks, and repetition with two weeks interval in between over seven weeks. A Grammatical Judgment Test (GJT) including the prepositions of movement as the target structure was designed to measure learners’ grammatical knowledge both before and after the study. Also, tasks were developed for measuring oral performance of the participants. The findings indicated significant differences in the performance of the groups from pre-test to post-test in terms of accuracy (ratio of error-free clauses) and complexity (syntactic and lexical) dimensions of oral production as well as gains in grammatical knowledge; they however failed to show significant effects for fluency development across distinct time intervals. The paper discusses further findings and implications.

The present study set out to delineate to what extentfive intermediate learners engaged in structuring and problematizing scaffolding in two writing tasks. The study aimed at illuminating how the participants engaged with structuring and problematizing scaffolds cognitively, behaviorally, and affectively.  Learners’ written essays, think-aloud protocols, and interviews shaped the data sources which were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Modifications made in the final drafts were quantitatively analyzed to provide insight into the behavioral engagement of participants with scaffolds. The profundity of cognitive engagement was gauged by the interview questions designed to elicit the depth of processing and illuminate whether participants had merely noticed the existence of a problem or they had understood what was required to be done. Researcher also compared the use of cognitive and metacognitive operations after learners were presented with structuring and problematizing scaffolds through the analysis of think-aloud protocols generated in final drafts each session. Finally, attitudinal and affective engagement was gauged qualitatively through interviews.  The results indicated that structuring scaffolds engaged learners more behaviorally, cognitively, and affectively compared to problematizing scaffolds. Implications for instructors and material developers are discussed.

This research studied the creativity in Persian translation of The Remains of the Day by Najaf Daryabandari and the influence of creativity on a more successful literary translation. To this end, Schjoldager (2008) and Holst (2010) models were introduced and definitions of the micro-strategies and macro-strategies of these models were presented. The main questions with regard to the purpose of the study were whether the Persian translation of this novel is creative and whether creativity is influential in a more successful literary translation. In this study, the translator's creativity was studied through examples that were obtained by means of comparative analysis of the source and target texts as well as features defined in the eight creative micro-strategies of the Holst model. In addition, the features of translated text in terms of using Qajar prose were considered the macro-strategy, which was adopted by the translator. The findings of the study were as follows: The Persian translation of The Remains of the Day by the translator, Najaf Daryabandari, was a creative translation. In the research process, it could be inferred that the translator was able to present a successful literary translation in a meaningful and tactile manner in the target language by using creativity and by comparing and understanding the similarities of the nineteenth century classic English and Qajar dialects. Among extracted samples in this study, the most frequent one was the micro-strategy of adaptation, which was one of the most creative micro-strategies of the Holst model.