درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Cognitive linguistics gives the most inclusive, consistent description of how language is organized, used and learned to date. Cognitive linguistics contains a great number of concepts that are useful to second language learners. If-clauses in English, on the other hand, remain intriguing for foreign language learners to struggle with, due to their intrinsic intricacies. EFL grammar books are paying focal attention to present explanations of if-clauses in terms of their form not meaning, hence not giving attention to their contextual meaning usage. Cognitive linguistic insights on if-clauses discuss their complexity in such a way that could be very beneficial for L2 learners. This study aims to investigate the effect of two different ways of teaching (cognitively-oriented and task-oriented) on learning English if-clauses. A sample of 60 non-English postgraduate students in three groups, two experimental groups (cognitively-oriented and task-oriented) and one control group participated in our study. The results indicated that participants from the cognitively-oriented group performed better than those in task-oriented and control groups and proved a higher degree of comprehending English if-clauses in different contexts. The findings have implications for curriculum and materials developers, as well as the English language teachers in incorporating insights from cognitive linguistics in second language materials.

Nowadays, intercultural communication via email among various groups and societies has been increasingly important as an aspect of communication. This research aims at investigating aspects of politeness meaning negotiation via emails exchanged between English and Persian speakers with different cultural backgrounds. The present study also reveals the potentials for using emails to experience culture as a process of meaning negotiation. To do this, 18 English and Persian speakers (aged 22-60) were asked to exchange emails for 12 weeks. After collecting the required samples, the interplay between the computer-mediated communication, speech act and politeness is explored by using the analytical frameworks of Hyme’s ethnography of communication (1974), Searle’s speech act theory (1969) and Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory (1987). The methodology of this research is descriptive analytical. The results of this research show that “politeness” is not a stable construct. Rather it is constantly (re)negotiated by the interactants who take into account the relevant contextualization cues. In addition saving the face of the sender and the receiver is concerned simultaneously in the process of email exchanging.

This study sought to examine the relationship between the use of formative -efficacy. Moreover, this study investigated the relationships and interactions between the EFL use of formative assessment strategies, their gender, level of experience, and sense of self-efficacy. This is a descriptive ex post facto design study which employed a three- assessment strategies f self-efficacy. In order to collect data, sixty-one EFL teachers, including thirty-one female and thirty male participants who were selected through convenience sampling, completed the questionnaire. Multiple statistical strategies were employed to analyze the research questions of the study. The use of formative assessment strategies was positively correlated with their sense of self-efficacy. However, the results of eta correlation coefficients revealed that there formative assessment strategies and two other variables of gender and level of experience. Finally, the results of a three way factorial Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) evinced that there was no statistically significant interaction between the strategies -efficacy, their gender, and level of experience. Therefore, when the teachers become more aware of the ways to implement formative assessment strategies to inform instruction, their sense of self-efficacy can increase. This study has some implications in language testing, English pedagogy, and syllabus design and materials development.

Code-switching is known to be a widespread phenomenon among bilinguals and in ESL/EFL teaching/learning process; it refers to any alternate use of two codes or languages within the same conversation or even the same utterance. The present study is an attempt to investigatethe functions, types and frequencies of code switching in students discourse in the context of ELT classrooms.The study also explores the relationship between the language proficiency level of the students and their use of code switching. To achieve this end, two groups of students (at two different levels of proficiency) from two classes of general English courses in an institutional program in Oil Ministry Center of Isfahan were selected as participants. All sessions of an entire semester were videotaped. A coding scheme was developed for classifying students’ instances of CS into relevant functions.The data were tabulated, and frequencies and percentages were conducted by SPSS program. The findings indicate that the majority of CS in the classroom is highly purposeful, and related to pedagogical goals. Also, the research found that pedagogical functions were more frequently fulfilled through CS compared to social functions. The findings of this research suggest that code switching is a necessary tool for teachers due to a number of pedagogical considerations in ET classrooms and can give teachers a clue to have a better understanding of student code switching in ELT classrooms and use CS in the direction of teaching and effective learning.

Genuine Criticism (GC) is an evaluative expression of annoyance with an attribute in the interlocutor, whose realization may threaten the positive image of both interlocutors. The current study investigates facework and politeness in performing GCsin different contexts and for interlocutors with low social distance and high status in terms of GC realization strategies and mitigation devices that the speakers employ to soften their criticisms. Data were collected from 70 situations from movies in which GCs arise between interactants. The interactants deal with topics that happen in their daily life. The data were transcribed, categorized and analyzed based on the adapted version of criticizing categorization developed by Nguyen (2005, 2013).The results indicate that interactants with low social distance between them and the speakers who possess higher status employ direct strategies more than indirect strategies when they carry out criticism. Besides, the speakers with higher social distance utilize direct criticizing strategies more often. With regard to mitigation strategies, both groups tend to mitigate their criticisms less often. Exploring the strategies that English NSs employ can help EFL material developers realize and depict a better picture of the strategies in learning materials so that potential learning problems are prevented.

متن هر سندی با توجه به هدفی که از آن انتظار می رود، متشکل از جملاتی است که از نظر اصول گفتار به منزله ابزاری هستند که برای نیل به یک هدف خاص از آن ها استفاده می شود. در این مقاله ویژگی های ارتباطی جملاتی مورد تجزیه و تحلیل قرارمی گیرد که در آن ها از فعل «درخواست کردن» استفاده شده است. جملات نمونه از بین آن دسته از متون حقوقی انتخاب شده است که تشکیل دهنده مجموعه قوانین منطقه ای هستند. بر همین اساس، در این کار تحقیقی بخش نامه ها و مقررات به عنوان نمونه متون اداری، اظهارنامه ها و اقرارنامه ها، درخواست ها، سفارش نامه ها، استعلام ها، معرفی نامه ها، آگهی ها، یادداشت های اداری و مانند این ها به عنوان نمونه متونی که بار اطلاع رسانی دارند، برای تجزیه و تحلیل انتخاب شده اند. برای توصیف دقیق و کامل نحوه شکل گیری زنجیره گفتار در چارچوب هدف تعیین شده در این مقاله، عواملی که به نحوی در شکل گیری جملات انگیزشی دخیل و مؤثر هستند نیز بررسی شده است. از نظر عوامل محیطی، جملاتی انتخاب شده اند که در موقعیت گفتار رسمی به کار می روند. از نظر مشروط بودن، آن دسته از جملاتی انتخاب شده اند که جنبه خلاقانه دارند. مهم ترین نکته ای که در انتخاب نمونه متن ها لحاظ شده است، آزادی عمل مخاطب یا گیرنده، تأثیرگذاری و سطح متون است؛ زیرا این ویژگی ها با توجه به هدف یک سند ممکن است در اسناد گوناگون با همدیگر تفاوت داشته و تعیین کننده سطح استاندارد بودن یک متن باشند.

From the view point of the classical structural semiotics, the "empirical experience" is considered as a pre-semiotic alien to any signification of the world, and it's based from there, by nature, below the threshold of the analyzable. While structuralist semioticism has given "narrative discourse", that is, what conveys the empirical life to "narrate", and while giving it a "textual" effect, this makes it susceptible to be the subject of the analysis of a semiotician, which justifies the great slogan of Greimas "out of the text point of salvation". On the contrary, we have the opinion that these are two processes of meaning production that the one does not necessarily exclude the other. As a result, we have two sets of views on the world that each have a specific design regime. By giving examples of a variety of domains, and more particularly of literature, the purpose of this series is to demonstrate that the "empirical experience", as well as the "discourse of the narration "both relate to the rejection and semiotic analysis.