درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Second or foreign language (L2) learners’ development of interlanguage pragmatic (ILP) competence to understand and properly interpret utterances under certain social and cultural circumstances plays a pivotal role in the achievement of communicative competence. The current study was designed to explore the effects of synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) and asynchronous computer-mediated communication (ACMC) course modules delivered through social media networks (SMN) on the development of the Iranian L2 learners’ comprehension of implicatures. The participants of the study were 90 English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) undergraduate students attending three intact classes. The classes were randomly assigned to one control and two experimental (SCMC and ACMC) groups. An open-ended implicature comprehension test was used to assess students’ ILP development in this pretest-posttest comparison-group study. The control group received the traditional teacher-fronted instruction, and the S/ACMC groups received instruction via synchronous and asynchronous modules of SMNs for 4 months, respectively. Students’ attitudes towards the CMC-based courses were also sought. Split-plot ANOVA results indicated that both experimental groups developed significant ILP ability to comprehend and interpret L2 implicatures after the instruction; however, by comparison, the ACMC group improved more considerably. It is concluded that, first, comprehending L2 implicatures is not impervious to computer-mediated instruction and, second, different CMC affordances may result in differential ILP developmental effects in teaching L2 pragmatics. The findings can help L2 teachers decide how to use CMC affordances and SMN modules to raise L2 learners’ pragmatic awareness

Lexical bundles are known as important elements of coherent discourse that have been the subject of much research. While the previous research has been mainly concerned with exploring variations in the use of these word sequences across different registers and disciplines, very few studies have addressed the use of some particular groups of lexical bundles within some types of academic writing. To probe in to the possible generic variations, this research focused on anticipatory it bundles as a particular structural group of these word sequences. More specifically, this study chose to investigate range, frequency, and function of these word clusters in applied linguistics published and unpublished writings. Through the use of two big corpora and text analysis programs, this study found that it bundles were used relatively frequently in both published and unpublished writings. Functional analysis also showed that it bundles served a wide variety of functions in both types of writings. Notwithstanding these findings, this study also revealed that some it bundles commonly used in unpublished writing did not count as bundles in published writing.

Despite consensus in focus on form (FOF) instruction over the facilitative role of noticing, controversy has not quelled over ways of directing EFL learners’ attention towards formal features via implicit techniques like input-enhancement or explicit metacognitive feedback and interactive peer-editing on the output they produce. This quasi-experimental study investigated the impact of input enhancement (IE), metalinguistic feedback (MF), and peer-editing (PE), on 73 intermediate female Iranian EFL learners’ recognition of relative clauses (RCs). The participants, in three intact classes ranged in age between 18 and 30, were randomly assigned as IE (N=23), MF (N=29), and PE (N=21) groups. The 18-session treatment in all groups was based on identical teaching materials and methodology following a reading to writing orientation focused on RCs. The only difference was related to the focus on form that was through enhanced reading texts in the IE group, metalinguistic feedback on discussion of content in the MF group, and peer-editing in pair-discussion of the content in the PE group. Two parallel sets of 40-item multiple choice researcher-made validated tests focused on RCs were employed to measure the participants’ recognition of RCs at the onset and the end of the study. The one-way between-groups analysis of covariance demonstrated significantly higher gains in the MF and PE groups compared to the IE group; the MF achieved higher levels of mastery. The findings highlight the effectiveness of MF and offer implications for more effective teaching of RCs to Iranian EFL learners.

Development of science and academic knowledge has led to changes in academic language and transfer of information and knowledge. In this regard, the present study is an attempt to investigate lexico-grammaticality in academic abstracts and their full research papers in Linguistics, Chemistry and Electrical engineering papers published during 1991-2015 in academic journals from a diachronic perspective through quantitative research design. The focus of this paper is on transitivity, mood and theme analysis in the corpus according to Halliday's (1994) systemic functional linguistics model. So, all the attempts are to find the changes in abstracts and research papers of these disciplines and how they are to be positioned in different linguistic contexts over time. The results revealed that research papers employ the spectrum of possible lexical realization quite differently as compared to general English, especially concerning the use of specific lexical items. Also, the results of chi-squares of each discipline showed that there are significant differences between papers over time at .05 level of significance (.000< .05) with regard to the transitivity, mood, and theme. 

هدف این تحقیق مقایسه موردی و مقابله ای تاثیر فعایتهای نوشتاری مشترک بر کیفیت نوشتار فردی دانشجویان ایرانی و مالزیایی می باشد. برای این منظور هشت نفر دانشجوی سال اولی (چهار نفر دانشجوی ایرانی و چهار نفر دانشجوی مالزیایی چینی تبار در یک دانشگاه غیردولتی در شهر کوالالامپور) که بر اساس مولفه های سن، جنس، سطح دانش انگلیسی مشابه و رشته دانشگاهی مشترک انتخاب شده بودند در قالب چهار گروه دو نفری تقسیم بندی شدند (دو گروه ایرانی و دو گروه مالزیایی). در مدت زمان تقریبی دو ماه و درطی پانزده جلسه هرکدام از گروها تعداد پانزده متن مربوط به قسمت 1 نوشتار آکادمیک آزمون آیلتس را بصورت مشترک (دو نفره) با هم انجام دادند. پانزده جلسه مزبور در واقع شامل پنج سیکل متوالی و مجزا بودند به طوری که در هر سیکل متعاقب هر سه جلسه نوشتار مشترک یک جلسه نوشتار انفرادی وجود داشت. پر واضح است که در پایان جلسه پانزده (یا سیکل 5) هر کدام از شرکت کنندگان تحقیق پنج نوشتار انفرادی تولید کرده بود. تمامی نوشته های انفرادی هشت نفر شرکت کننده به تبعیت و با استفاده از باروم نمره دهی استاندارد آزمون آیلتس بر اساس چهار مولفه ""میزان کفایت توضیحی متن"" (Task Achievement) ""میزان انسجام و پیوستگی متن"" (Cohesion and Coherence) ""میزان غنای دستوری و صحت گرامری متن ""(Grammatical Rang and Accuracy) و"" میزان غنای واژگانی متن ""(Lexical Resources) مورد ارزیابی و سنجش کیفی قرار گرفتند. نتایج حاصله نشان دادند که بیشترین تاثیرکیفی مثبت که در طول مدت مطالعه در نوشته های انفرادی همه دانشجویان مشهود بود به ترتیب مربوط به پارامترهای ""کفایت توضیحی متن"" و ""انسجام و پیوستگی متن"" بودند در حالیکه بهبود واژگانی خیلی جزیی و صرفا محدود به نوشته های سه نفر از دانشجویان مالزیایی می شد و نوشته های هیچکدام از دانشجویان در بعد دستوری پیشرفت قابل اعتنایی نداشتند. شایان توجه اینکه پیشرفت ها و پسرفتهای متناوبی در کیفیت نوشته های انفرادی در طول مدت تجقیق قابل مشاهده بودند. نتایج متنوع حاصله در این مطالعه را می توان در ارتباط با اصول پارادایم فرهنگی-اجتماعی ،نظریه آشوب ، تیپولوژی متن های مورد تمرین و همچنین سطح دانش زبانی دانشجویان شرکت کننده در تحقیق توضیح داد.