درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

This study tries to critically unravel the way Islam is represented in western discourse through establishing the relationship between language and ideology, the forms it takes and its potential effect. To that end, headlines from widely circulated print media of the west including the Independent, the New York Times, the Herald Tribune, and The Times from January 1, 2008 to December 30, 2012 were selected and Islam and Muslim reproductions were studied therein. This study was carried out using a synthesis of Edward Said's notion of "Orientalism" and Van Dijk's notion of "ideological square", characterized by "positive self-presentation" and a simultaneous "negative other presentation". The analysis demonstrated that Islam is repetitively stereotyped and Muslims are negatively represented, both through various types of linguistic choices selected and via special construction of the headlines.  The educational implications of critical discourse analysis in general and the present study in particular are discussed in relation to teaching, learning and translating the English language.

The present study investigates the central concerns of the use of visuals within the four EFL textbooks taught at Iranian high schools which have been prescribed by the Ministry of Education. To do this, the four EFL textbooks were evaluated and analyzed. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze data quantitatively. The analysis indicated that over the four textbooks, 95.71 percent of all visuals were drawings and 4.29 percent were photos. The analysis revealed, then, among three fundamental categories of pictures function (i.e. Illustrative, Stimulus-Response, and Student-Generated), stimulus-response pictures constituted the largest percentage (70.50%) which tend to focus on low-level language skills; illustrative pictures constituted 29.49%, while none of them were used for the student-generated purposes. The visuals, furthermore, were largely being used for fairly grammatical part of language practice (87.45%). Moreover, all the pictures within each of the four textbooks under consideration were used for the purpose of 'talking about a picture'; no exercises were found to meet the 'talking with the picture' criterion. Findings of the study pedagogically call for using appropriate pictures of real people and real environment which provide sufficient input for language learners

The aim of this study was to describe and find out motivational English language learning strategies through computers among Iranian EFL learners and find out how learners’ motivations change towards English language learning through computers.The mixed method approach (quantitative and qualitative) was employed in this study. A total of 84 (out of 130) female freshman university learners from a university in Isfahan were randomly selected to fill out the questionnaire reflecting their motivational English language learning strategies through computers.They were aged between 18 and 20 years old and were native speakers of Persian. They were all in intermediate level based on their English proficiency levels. Also, a group of 6 out of these 84 learners were purposefully selected for the semi-structured interview in order to get more in-depth information. The descriptive analysis revealed that the learners all used high level of motivational strategies while learning English as a foreign language. It also demonstrated that the learners' motivational strategies related to the use of learners' general feelings towards computers were more frequently identified. The findings of the interviews also revealed that the use of computers motivate and stimulate learners to learn their courses as well as to communicate with one another more effectively. The implication of this study is to use computers as a teaching tool in classes and the learning motivational strategies through computers should be utilized in learning environments

Alternative assessment approaches received considerable attention soon after a discontent with traditional, one-shot testing. These approaches, however, have been used only to improve learners’ linguistic ability despite communicative models of language which pointed that knowledge of language also involves pragmatic ability (Bachman, 1990; Bachman & Palmer, 1996). The present study tries to explore the effect of two alternative assessment approaches (self-assessment and conference) on students’ production of four speech acts (apology, complaint, request, and refusal) plus politeness markers. A sample of 64 EFL students participated in this study. Metapragmatic explanations were given to three groups of university students studying English as a foreign language. The two treatment groups received instruction through self-assessment and conference and a comparison group was exposed to the conventional one-shot testing. The results of the One-Way ANOVA conducted after the treatment revealed an outperformance of alternative assessment approaches to the conventional one in the production of the four speech acts and politeness markers in WDCTs. A qualitative analysis of students’ self-ratings in the self-assessment group revealed that they focused more on linguistic criteria during the initial sessions and on pragmatic ones by the end of the treatment. It can be concluded that alternative assessment approaches are beneficial to students’ production of speech acts and politeness markers. In the end, the applicability and the positive effect of alternative approaches in pragmatic assessment are emphasized.

This study examined the Iranian EFL learners’ multicultural developmental trend in light of Investment Hypothesis as they furthered their academic studies from BA toward postgraduate levels. In so doing 117 BA, 92 MA, and 35 Ph.D. EFL students at AllamehTabataba’i University, Tarbiat Modarres, and Islamic Azad Universities, Tehran, Iran, were randomly selected to provide answers to Multicultural Personality Traits Questionnaire (MPQ) that measures individuals’ Multicultural Personality Traits (MPTs: Cultural Empathy, Open-Mindedness, Social Initiative, Emotional Stability, and Flexibility). Ph.D. students’ MPTs mean was found to be 277.77; MA students’ MPTs mean score was 272.20; and BA students’ MPTs mean score was 267.96. The ANOVA conducted revealed that EFL Iranian students’ MPTs improved as they furthered their academic career from BA to MA and from MA to Ph.D. levels. The study concluded that advancement in EFL students’ academic career resulted in a concomitant development in their MPTs and among the five MPTs, cultural empathy and social initiative were found to have been significantly improved at Ph.D. level. Among the MPTs, Social initiative provides the highest contribution to social interactions and its significant development at Ph.D. level is confirmatory of the discursive-constructionists’ approach to L2 learning.

Foreign Language Reading Anxiety (FLRA), distinguished as a distinct phenomenon from general language anxiety, has been shown to have a negative impact on reading comprehension skill especially for less proficient EFL learners. FLRA is believed to originate from "unfamiliar writing system" or learners' difficulty in pronouncing words and sentences (Saito, Graza, & Horwitz, 1999). Slow or word by word readers are often anxious while trying to read unfamiliar words. In addition, readers experience anxiety when they want to relate texts' message to their background knowledge; FLRA comes from "unfamiliar cultural materials" (Saito, et al., 1999). Pedagogical implications of FLRA studies usually suggest anxiety free situations as well as anxiety reducing strategies to help low level learners overcome their reading anxiety and better develop their reading skills. This study was conducted to find the possible effect of an amalgamate of scaffolded and extensive reading (SER) to relieve FLRA. Fourty low-ability readers were divided into two groups, control and experimental groups. Experimental group read 10 story books during ten weeks in a scaffolded environment, whereas control group continued their traditional reading class. Analysis of the results of the study indicated that after treatment, the experimental group was significantly less anxious than the control group and confirmed the effectiveness of the program to reduce FLRA of Iranian low proficient readers

این پژوهش به بررسی تأثیر میزان انگیزه ی یادگیری زبان انگلیسی، میزان تماس با زبان انگلیسی و مدت اقامت برروی مهارتهایِ منظورشناسی دانشجویان کُره ای در مقاطع تحصیلات تکمیلی پرداخته است. در این مطالعه تلاش گردید تا سیر متمایز پیشرفت مهارتهایِ منظورشناسیِ 50 دانشجوی کُره ای تحصیلات تکمیلی در ارتباط با عوامل ذکرشده در نظر گرفته شود. داده های لازم، با استفاده از سه ابزار تحقیق، جمع آوری گردیدند: یک پرسشنامه ی کتبی بمنظور کسب اطلاعات زمینه ای، یک آزمون تکمیل گفتمان، و یک نیم آزمون رویکرد/انگیزش. همچنین، از آمار توصیفی و تفصیلی برای تحلیل مجموع داده ها استفاده گردید. نتایج پژوهش حاضر آشکار ساخت که: الف) ارتباط متوسط و مثبتی بین میزان انگیزش و دانش منظورشناسیِ فراگیران زبان انگلیسی بعنوان زبان دوم وجود دارد و ب) میزان تماس با زبان دوم (انگلیسی) و طول مدت اقامت تأثیری ضعیف و غیر معناداری برروی دانش منظورشناسیِ شرکت کنندگان این مطالعه داشته است.