تحقیقات کاربردی زبان انگلیسی - Applied Research on English Language

To date, a number of studies have investigated the use of euphemism in media to classify and analyze the euphemisms of different categories. However, these studies were mostly based on political contexts and the corpora have been limited due to the qualitative nature of the studies. Moreover, few studies have investigated the use of euphemism in countries where English is practiced as a foreign language. This study was an attempt to not only compare and contrast Iranian-published English newspapers and the New York Times thematically in terms of euphemistic expressions but also to ascertain the most frequently used ones in both.To this end,three corpora of all the sections of three journalistic materials within (2014-2019) were thoroughly examined. The data were collected using the search section of the three newspapers to look for the euphemistic expressions based on the Oxford Dictionary of Euphemisms as a point of reference. The results indicated that the most frequently used expression in the New York Times was ‘African American’ whereas the most frequently used expression in both Iran Daily and Tehran Times was ‘conflict’.The thematic changes between the three journalistic materials were also examined. The results revealed that the most frequently used category of euphemistic expressions in the New York Times was ‘Commerce, Banking, and Industry’, and the most frequently used category of euphemistic expression in Iran Daily and Tehran Times was similarly ‘Warfare’. The study might inform learners about a rich source of euphemistic expressions and enable them to recognize the most prevalent categories of euphemistic expressions thematically

Exploring various dimensions associated with classroom Willingness to Communicate (WTC) appears to have become a focal issue among researchers. Despite previous studies on WTC, there still exists the paucity of research reflecting actual learners’ WTC behavior via the lens of the Sociocultural Theory (SCT). The present study, therefore, delved into the role task-mediation and teacher scaffolding might play in EFL learners’ WTC, juxtaposing STC, and task-based instruction. Through a multiple case study approach, six types of tasks were applied with 11 Iranian EFL learners over 9 weeks. Relying on triangulation, the authors of the present study collected the data using observation, stimulated recall interviews, and learners’ reflective journals. To treat the data, the qualitative method of analysis was utilized. The results showed that the learners behaved variably in their WTC with respect to the tasks. Furthermore, teacher scaffolding was found to contribute to the learners’ WTC. Mediation via task and teacher scaffolding carry implications for English teachers, which have been discussed at the end of this article.

Grades represent one of the most common sources of evidence of student achievement in classrooms, though their relationship with test scores has remained understudied, particularly in settings such as in Iran, where English is taught as a foreign language. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between graded and tested achievement with respect to gender and proficiency level differences. Teacher-assigned grades and standardized achievement test scores of 693 Iranian learners of English taught by 15 teachers were examined. Primary analyses focused on the validity of teacher grades and the subsequent Pearson correlation coefficients revealed that grades associated positively with externally-validated test scores obtained from reliable tests, an indication of the validity of teacher grading. Additionally, the results of independent-samples t-tests showed that female students outperformed male students on achievement tests, but with fluctuations across proficiency levels. Higher proficiency levels gave male participants an advantage over female participants in achievement tests. Moreover, male teachers were found to grade female participants more accurately than their female counterparts. Implications are discussed for informing teachers about the validation of their grading practices, as well as for teacher education programs and teachers’ professional development.

This study examined the combined effects of two task complexity levels (i.e., high- and low-complex) and two planning conditions including pre-task planning and on-line planning on Iranian intermediate language learners’ speech production regarding complexity, accuracy, and fluency. To this end, 90 intermediate EFL learners from a language institute in Shiraz were randomly assigned into two control and four experimental groups. At first, the language learners in all groups participated in the speaking pretest. Presented with a series of picture description tasks, the participants were asked to narrate a story. During 10 treatment sessions of picture description task performance, the experimental and control groups attempted different planning time conditions including pre-task planning, online planning, and no-planning along with task complexity levels. Finally, following the last session, the posttest was administered to all participants. The narrations analysis, as well as the results of Mixed between-within groups ANOVAs and a series of one-way ANOVAs, manifested that language learners in the pre-task high complexity group outperformed all other groups in terms of complexity. Moreover, the online low complexity group and online high complexity group outperformed the pre-task planning low complexity, no-planning low complexity, and no-planning high complexity groups regarding accuracy. With regard to fluency, the pre-task planning low complexity group significantly outperformed the no-planning low complexity, no-planning high complexity, and online high complexity groups. It was also concluded that pre-task planning affected language learners’ speech fluency. The implications of the results are also addressed.

The United States with its presidents stepping into power from either the Democratic or Republican parties influences global affairs in one way or another. These two main political parties have long been struggling for power and the significance of tapping into the ideological inclinations of the two parties underscores scholars’ accountability toward raising the critical language awareness of the public which could be an initial step toward a change for the better. The presidential inaugural speeches, due to their programmatic and strategic nature, are of significance to researchers. This study employed van Dijk’s (2006b) socio-cognitive framework where he defined two levels of analyses for a political discourse including the micro-level and macro-level text analyses. The former included 25 discursive devices such as polarization, generalization, hyperbole, etc. The latter drew on the dichotomy of ‘positive self-representation’ and ‘negative other-representation’. In the present study, the linguistic features in 16 inaugural speeches delivered by American Democratic and Republican presidents from 1961 to 2017 were examined at both levels. The overall data analysis revealed that Democrats employed ‘norm expression’ and ‘presupposition’ significantly more than Republicans, while Republicans made more use of ‘categorization’, ‘lexicalization’, and ‘populism’. The macro-level comparison of the two parties indicated that both Democrats and Republicans resorted to using ‘positive self-representation’ significantly more than ‘negative other-representation’ while the deployment of ‘negative other-representation’ by Republicans was significantly more than that by Democrats. The findings of this study have some implications for English for political purposes, political studies, as well as attempts in discourse studies.

Despite growing interest in the studies on Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), its operation in the forms of individualized and group-wide has been controversial. To cast some empirical light on the issue, this study was designed to quantitatively and comparatively study the applicability of the two scenarios of ZPD-based instructions to the writing complexity of Iranian EFL learners in terms of learners' types (low vs. high scorers). To this end, 118 EFL learners identified as homogeneous based on the TOEFL ITP test were randomly assigned into two equal experimental groups (individualized ZPD- and group-wide ZPD-based groups) which respectively received compatible instructions utilizing conference writing (as an individual scaffolding technique) and low- and high-structured writing templates (as a whole-class scaffolding technique). The treatments were allocated to the groups in a random manner within homogeneous blocks. Prior to and after the treatments, three tests (two writing tests and one ZPD test) were administered to measure both groups’ writing complexity and their ZPD levels. A ZPD test was also administered in the mid of treatments. The non-parametric analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) revealed that the individualized-ZPD-based instruction is constructive to the writing complexity of the low scorers, while the group-wide ZPD-based instruction shows not much constructive to the writing complexity of the high scorers. The findings pointed to the use of ZPD-based instructions in TEFL writing in meaningful contexts and thereby showing impacts made on the writing complexity of learners. The study, indeed, yields support to the feasibility of group-wide ZPD measurement along with an individualized ZPD approach.