درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

This contrastive study was conducted to contrastively analyze English and Farsi newspaper opinion columns in terms of the frequency of different types of stance markers.60 newspaper opinion columns (30 written in English and 30 written in Farsi) from 10 wide spread newspapers published in the United States and Iran in 2015 were analyzed. Hyland’s (2005) model of stance markers (hedges, boosters, attitude markers, and self-mention) was used as the framework of analysis.The findings revealed that hedges and self-mentions used by English columnists were considerably more frequent than those employed by the Farsi columnists. In contrast, Farsi columnists used large number of boosters and attitude markers. Although, attitude markers were in the last position of sub-categories of stance markers in both corpora.Generally, it could be concluded that the similarities and differences among columnists could be related to the cultural and linguistic preferences of the writers in languages. This study could be beneficial for EFL students and teachers in understanding intercultural linguistic problems in language use, and could be used to lead to creative reading and writing in journalism and ESP courses.

Teacher Evaluation (TE) is a critical and controversial process in the teaching profession and formal education system. Effective TE requires both sound policy implementation and efficient processes, affecting the efficiency of the education system. To present a framework for research and highlight the constructs of TE, this study developed and validated a teacher evaluation questionnaire. To this end, seven TE components were identified after undertaking a comprehensive review of the literature and conducting interviews with domain experts on TE. Then a draft version of the TE questionnaire, consisting of 105 items, was pilot tested with 330 teacher evaluators, who were working for various English language institutes in Iran. The results, using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), led to a 90-item questionnaire with strong estimates of reliability and validity. The results also demonstrated that the questionnaire consisted of a six-factor structure of perception, method, system, content, purpose, and outcome of TE. The subsequent Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) of the data from another 360 Iranian teacher evaluators, selected through convenience sampling, indicated that the six-factor structure of the questionnaire was statistically supported, meaning that the questionnaire’s detected constructs were not the result of random variance in the participants’ responses. The results of the study have presented a framework for research and highlighted the principles of teacher evaluation.

In translation, choosing appropriate equivalent is essential to convey the right message from source-text to target-text, and one of the issues that may have a determinative role in appropriate equivalent choice is the semantic prosody (SP) behavior of words and the relation existing between the SP of a word and semantic senses (i.e. negativity, positivity or neutrality) of its collocations in the context. This research explored the impact of Iranian translator trainees' semantic prosody knowledge on the appropriate selection of equivalents in translation. The probable influence of proficiency level or fields of study on the appropriate selection of equivalents with respect to SP was concentrated as well. To fulfill the aims of the study, a translation test including a number of near-synonym pairs with different SPs was administered among participants with different fields of study as well as different proficiency levels. Findings were analyzed based on Sinclair's (1996) hypothesis of SP as well as Stubbs' (1995) model of SP classification. The study showed where there is more than one equivalent of a word in another language, having the knowledge and being aware of the conditions of semantic prosody is necessary to select the appropriate, accurate equivalents and thus to convey the exact message from a source text to the target one. The results also revealed that proficiency level and field of study among language learners can have an influence on choosing appropriate equivalents with respect to SP. The findings of the present study can be beneficial for the instructors and learners in both fields of translation and Teaching English as a Foreign Language to improve equivalent choice appropriateness. Also, this study by highlighting the essential role of semantic prosody in selecting appropriate equivalents can be beneficial to dictionary compilers to include semantic prosody behaviors in the definition and information of words.

This study explored the EFL teachers’ written corrective feedback (CF) techniques and their EFL students’ ability to integrate the CF while revising their texts. A total of 72 EFL students and 4 EFL teachers participated in this study. The data were collected through explicitation interviews administered to teachers and students, as well as through students’ written productions. A content analysis was carried out employing three pre-established categories: types of students’ errors (Guénette & Lyster, 2013), types of teachers’ feedback (Guénette, 2010), and types of students’ revisions (Ferris, 2006). Results showed that error identification with error code was the most frequent type of written CF used by the two teachers in the pre intermediate groups and one of the teachers in the upper intermediate group; whereas, the other teacher in the upper intermediate group used mainly direct error correction without comment when providing feedback. In addition, results showed that although students from different levels undertook revisions of their errors in different ways, most were ultimately able to correct their errors.

Despite the importance of author engagement in the literature review of academic articles, many writers fail to publish their academic articles due to being incompetent in using conventional engagement resources. In view of this problem, the present study aimed to study linguistic representation of engagement as a dimension of evaluation in academic articles published in international and Iranian local journals. To do so, the literature review section of eighty psychology and applied linguistics articles as representatives of humanities and mechanical engineering and medicine articles as representatives of hard science articles published between 2008 and 2017 in the international and Iranian local journals formed the corpus of the study and were analyzed on the basis of the engagement resources proposed by Martin and White’s (2005) Appraisal Theory The findings indicated that monoglossic resources were used more frequently in articles published in local journals than those published in international ones. Regarding heteroglossic resources, intra-vocalizing resources (countering, denial, pronouncement, and entertainment) were found more frequently in articles published in international journals. However, extra-vocalizing resources (endorsement and attribution resources) used in local journals outnumbered those used in international ones. The findings can provide insights for teaching academic writing in EFL contexts.

Drawing on Norton Peirce's (1995) theory of investment and Darvin and Norton's (2015) expanded the model of investment, the present study aims to research investment in second language (L2) learning among Iranian English language learners. The participants included 852 male and female English language learners belonging to different age groups and English language proficiency levels. A 42-item questionnaire, developed and validated by the present authors (forthcoming), was administered online and by hand. The results showed that Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners moderately invested to learn English language and that there were significant differences in the extent of investment between male and female participants and different language proficiency levels (low- and high-proficiency learners). Moreover, the results of the study demonstrated that there was no significant difference in the extent of investment between different age groups (teenage and adult ones). The study concludes with suggestions for future research on investment in L2 learning and a discussion of how such research can impact language education policy in EFL contexts.

This study investigated the effect of role-play and simulation approach on Malaysian Polytechnic engineering students’ ESL oral communication skills. In addition, the study examined the students’ perceptions of the effect of the role-play and simulation on their oral communication skills. A mixed method design was employed, using both quantitative and qualitative data collection approaches. The quantitative data were collected from the quasi-experimental study (n=100). The data were collected using a set of questionnaires, a pre and post-test. The data from the questionnaires were analysed using descriptive statistics (percentages and means). The results showed that there was a significant difference between the pre-test and the post-test scores of the role-play and simulation group compared to the traditional group. The findings indicated that the students in the role-play and simulation group had performed better in the post-test compared to the pre-test after the exposure to the role-play and simulation approach in the ESL oral communication skills classes. An implication of the study is that role-play and simulation approach can serve as a possible strategy to improve students’ ESL oral communication skills.