درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

This article was written based on the key concept of polysystem theory which, in translating any literary text, emphasizes the transference of the social systems in which a text is embedded. As stated by Tynjanov (1978a), polysystem theory saw translated literature as a system operating in the larger social systems of the target text. Thus, the task of understanding as well as transferring such systems in their translations, which can certainly affect the readers’ adequate understanding of texts, is a challenging job for most of the literary translators. After identifying three main social systems in The Great Gatsby as the corpus which was ranked second in the lists of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century, the source and the target texts were studied attentively, to study the way the respective systems were translated by the Iranian literary translators. Therefore, the prominent element of Nord’s textual analysis (1991), macrostructure, was focused throughout data collection procedure. Then, it was demonstrated that especially through an appropriate transference of the major conflict between the two predominant classes in the novel, the translator has managed to suitably convey most of the text’s social systems in his translation. Finally, it could be deduced that most of the literary translators in Iran, somehow transferred the concerned systems into some significantly adequate equivalents in their works.

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.

توسعه توانشهای زیر مجموعه زبان دوم تحت تاثیر عوامل مختلفی چون عوامل شناختی، فردی، و اجتماعی است ( الیس، 1994) که در این میان طیف وسیعی از عوامل فردی در مطالعات آموزش زبان مورد تحقیق و بررسی قرار گرفته اند لیکن تاکنون در این مطالعات هوش هیجانی به عنوان یک عامل فردی مورد توجه جدی قرار نگرفته است (پیشقدم، 2009). از سوی دیگر برخی از کنشهای زبانی که از جمله عناصر اصلی توانش کاربردشناسی زبان بینابین به شمار می رود دارای ویژگی «تهدید وجهه» می باشد. این نکته تاثیر و یا ارتباط هوش هیجانی - که ارتباط مستقیم با توانایی و مهارت افراد در مدیریت و کنترل احساسات دارد – را با توانش کاربرد شناسی زبان بینابین بسیار محتمل می سازد. در مطالعه حاضر محقق به بررسی این ارتباط محتمل می پردازد و با این هدف پرسشنامه «بار-آن» به عنوان معیار هوش هیجانی ، آزمون تافل به عنوان معیار سطح مهارت و توانایی زبانی و دو آزمون کاربرد شناسی زبان بینابین بر روی 52 زبان آموز ایرانی اجرا شده است. نتایج حاصل از تجزیه و تحلیل داده ها نشانگرعدم وجود ارتباط موثر و معنا دار میان هوش هیجانی و توانش کاربرد شناسی و سطح مهارت زبانی زبان آموزان می باشد در حالی که میان توانش کاربرد شناسی زبان بینابین و سطح مهارت زبانی ارتباطی معنا دار و موثر وجود دارد. افزون بر این نتایج به دست آمده بیانگر آن است که هوش هیجانی نمی تواند به عنوان معیار مناسبی برای پیش بینی میزان توسعه توانش کاربردشناسی زبان بینابین و یا سطح مهارت زبانی مورد استفاده قرار گیرد و در نتیجه با استناد به نتایج تحقیق حاضر می توان گفت که در فرآیند یادگیری زبان دوم به طور عام و توسعه توانش کاربرد شناسی زبان بینابین به طور خاص نمی توان هوش هیجانی را به عنوان یک عامل فردی تاثیر گذار و مهم به شمار آورد.

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.

The current study attempts to explore the characteristics of author-assigned keywords in research articles as important constituents of targeted search in academic communities. To this end, the keywords of 200 research papers in the field of applied linguistics, in terms of domain, degree of specificity, and relation to the titles, were analyzed. To supplement the findings, the keyword choice strategy of a number of researchers with publishing experience in the field was also investigated. The analysis revealed a considerable rate of title-keywords match, especially with respect to field-specific keywords. This finding points to the importance of users’ field-specific background knowledge in locating relevant information on the web. The examination of authors’ viewpoints and strategies, on the other hand, helped to bring to light the complex and non-clichéd nature of keyword selection. The significance of authors’ diverging and converging attitudes and their implications for enhancing the success rate of keyword search are discussed.

In response to the increasing interest in and need for a practical brief measure in language testing, this study explored the properties of an offline short-form test (OSF) versus a conventional lengthy test. From the total of 98 vocabulary items pooled from the Iranian National University Entrance Exams, 60 items were selected for the conventional test (CT). To build the OSF, we created an item bank by examining the item response theory (IRT) parameter estimates. Data for the IRT calibration included the responses of 774,258 examinees. Upon the results of the item calibration, 43 items with the highest discrimination power and minimal guessing values from different levels of ability were selected for the item bank. Then, using the responses of 253 EFL learners, we compared the measurement properties of the OSF scores with those of the CT scores in terms of the score precision, score comparability, and consistency of classification decisions. The results revealed that although the OSF generally did not achieve the same level of measurement precision as the CT, it still achieved a desired level of precision while lessening the negative effects of a lengthy test. The results also signified an excellent degree of correspondence between OSF and CT scores and classification results. In all, findings suggest that OSF can stand as a reasonable alternative for a longer test, especially when conditions dictate that a very short test be used.