درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Language and culture are now deemed to be co-constitutive; hence English language teaching (ELT) textbooks should incorporate cultural aspects and promote intercultural competence. However, careful decisions should be made as regards to the cultural content of materials and the ways in which culture is represented. This study was an attempt to deconstruct the patterns of cultural representation and intercultural interactions in Interchange textbooks, an ELT textbook series taught to English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in Iran. Using content analysis of texts and images and with the focus on nationality, gender and race, it examined how different cultures were reflected in Interchange 1, Interchange 2, Interchange 3, and whether cultural bias or inequality was present. The quantitative and qualitative data analysis revealed that the white male group was dominant in all three textbooks. And, to use Kachru’s (1985) terms, inner, outer and expanding circle nationalities were represented in the textbooks, with the expanding circle constituting the major nationality, but American culture of inner circle was predominant. Additionally, the interactions were mainly limited to superficial aspects of the target culture although these textbooks sought to show various intercultural interactions. Dominance of male and white characters and the US culture indicated inequality in race and gender, and the superficial treatment of culture in the textbooks. Less attention to the hybrid culture and deeper level of intercultural aspects, i.e. critical reflections, in the textbooks suggests that the materials be supplemented by EFL teachers’ constructive discussion of the cultures that interact.

Alternative assessment approaches received considerable attention soon after a discontent with traditional, one-shot testing. These approaches, however, have been used only to improve learners’ linguistic ability despite communicative models of language which pointed that knowledge of language also involves pragmatic ability (Bachman, 1990; Bachman & Palmer, 1996). The present study tries to explore the effect of two alternative assessment approaches (self-assessment and conference) on students’ production of four speech acts (apology, complaint, request, and refusal) plus politeness markers. A sample of 64 EFL students participated in this study. Metapragmatic explanations were given to three groups of university students studying English as a foreign language. The two treatment groups received instruction through self-assessment and conference and a comparison group was exposed to the conventional one-shot testing. The results of the One-Way ANOVA conducted after the treatment revealed an outperformance of alternative assessment approaches to the conventional one in the production of the four speech acts and politeness markers in WDCTs. A qualitative analysis of students’ self-ratings in the self-assessment group revealed that they focused more on linguistic criteria during the initial sessions and on pragmatic ones by the end of the treatment. It can be concluded that alternative assessment approaches are beneficial to students’ production of speech acts and politeness markers. In the end, the applicability and the positive effect of alternative approaches in pragmatic assessment are emphasized.

Academic writing ability is an important goal that learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) or English as a Foreign Language (EFL) try to attain. While ESL students’ academic writings have been widely explored, owing to few studies investigating appraisal resources in EFL students’ argumentative writing, the gap still exists about EFL students’ academic writing. This study aimed to see how Kurdish-speaking learners of English employ appraisal resources in their writings. It further aimed to explore whether the appraisal framework can be utilized as an assessment scale for evaluating the students’ argumentative writing. To this end, the study investigated the argumentative essays written by 15 bilingual Kurdish-Iranian graduates of English within the framework of the appraisal theory. The instruments applied in this study consisted of a modified rating scale for assessing the essays in terms of the macrostructures exploited in them and the framework for the analysis of appraisal resources. Quantitative findings revealed high-graded essays employ more attitudinal items and fewer monoglossic resources than low-graded ones. Qualitatively, the high-graded essays articulated attitudinal values in nominal forms and sometimes in a backgrounded manner while these values were mostly presented by surge of feelings and in a foregrounded way in the low-graded essays. Regarding engagement, unlike the high-graded essays, the low-graded ones were poor in recognizing other voices and alternative positions. Inspired by the strength of the appraisal model evaluating writing, results suggest that high-graded essays are successful in positioning readers attitudinally and clarifying the ethical message to readers.

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.

طراحی تکالیف با سطح پیچیدگی شناختی معقول همیشه ازدیدگاه برنامه ریزان درسی, معلمان , و محققین حائز اهمیت بوده است چرا که تغییر تکالیف (از لحاظ پیچیدگی) می تواند منجر به نتایج متفاوتی در زمینه تولیدات شفاهی گردد. این تحقیق تلاشی در جهت بررسی تاثیر تغییر درتکالیف بر اساس 3 مورد (نیاز به برهان, تعداد عناصر, و موقعیت ""اینجا و اکنون"" در مقابل"" آنجا و سپس"" ) از مدل resource-directing , مطرح شده توسط رابینسون, بر روی نقل داستان از روی تصایر است. این تحقیق شامل 30 زبان آموز ایرانی در رنج سنی 20 تا 34 سال بود. همه این افراد موظف به انجام هردو مدل تکلیف (پیچیده و ساده) برای نقل داستان از روی تصایر بودند. داده های صوتی ضبط و سپس تست پارامتریک MANOVA برروی آن انجام گردید. نتایج نشان داد که افزایش پیچیدگی شناختی در تکالیف منجر به افزایش صحت و پیچیدگی زبانی گردید. یافته های این تحقیق می تواند بینش عمیقی برای تدوین کنندگان مطالب درسی در خصوص تدارک تکالیف و زبان آموزان در راستای سنجش پیشرفت فراهم آورد.

Politeness is a phenomenon which is common to all cultures. Each culture has a different perception of what is polite and each language has various devices for expressing politeness. One of the important aspects of politeness which is the central focus of many studies is the polite behaviors of men and women. The focus of this study is on the politeness strategies of males and females from different aspects. The central aim of this paper is to examine the impact of gender on the politeness strategies of the speakers to see whether females speak more politely to females than to males or not. Therefore, a questionnaire was designed based on Discourse Completion Test which is originally developed for comparing different speech act realization patterns. The questionnaire was distributed to 30 females and 30 males. The result indicated that generally women speak more politely to women than to men; however, males speak more politely to females than to males. Therefore, it can be concluded that the gender of the listener is an important factor on politeness behaviors of the speakers.

Expressing doubt and certainty in academic writings requires a cautious use of hedges and boosters. Despite their importance in academic writing, little is known about how they are used in monolingual and bilingual male and female EFL learners’ academic writings. To shed some lights on the issue, the present study investigated the use of hedges and boosters in research articles written by monolingual and bilingual male and female EFL learners. Based on the collected corpus from twelve academic research articles, the overall rhetorical and categorical distribution of hedges and boosters were identified across four sections of these articles (Abstract, Introduction, Discussion, and Conclusion). The results evinced that the overall distribution of hedges and boosters in research articles written by bilinguals was higher than that of monolinguals. Moreover, there were significant differences between male and female EFL learners in the use of hedges and boosters in their academic research articles. These findings not only paved the way for further studies in the use of hedges and boosters but they also presented some beneficial implications for teaching of academic writing to EFL learners.

Oral participation (OP) in class is an important factor contributing to the development of oral fluency. Recent studies in language learning have addressed the necessity of classroom interaction, or rather students’ oral participation in class. A correlational research study was drawn upon to measure the oral participation and factors affecting oral activities of the ELT students studying at the M.A. level at Islamic Azad University of Ardabil in Iran. An initial pool of 93 participants was selected through purposive sampling. The data analysis was conducted using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results obtained indicated that there is a significant relationship between social and educational factors relative to the oral activities of EFL learners. The findings also showed that in oral participation, educational factors play the most important role in controlling the OP content.

This study examined the Iranian EFL learners’ multicultural developmental trend in light of Investment Hypothesis as they furthered their academic studies from BA toward postgraduate levels. In so doing 117 BA, 92 MA, and 35 Ph.D. EFL students at AllamehTabataba’i University, Tarbiat Modarres, and Islamic Azad Universities, Tehran, Iran, were randomly selected to provide answers to Multicultural Personality Traits Questionnaire (MPQ) that measures individuals’ Multicultural Personality Traits (MPTs: Cultural Empathy, Open-Mindedness, Social Initiative, Emotional Stability, and Flexibility). Ph.D. students’ MPTs mean was found to be 277.77; MA students’ MPTs mean score was 272.20; and BA students’ MPTs mean score was 267.96. The ANOVA conducted revealed that EFL Iranian students’ MPTs improved as they furthered their academic career from BA to MA and from MA to Ph.D. levels. The study concluded that advancement in EFL students’ academic career resulted in a concomitant development in their MPTs and among the five MPTs, cultural empathy and social initiative were found to have been significantly improved at Ph.D. level. Among the MPTs, Social initiative provides the highest contribution to social interactions and its significant development at Ph.D. level is confirmatory of the discursive-constructionists’ approach to L2 learning.

Intercultural communication takes place when individuals influenced by different cultural communities negotiate shared meanings in interaction. As every country has its own cultural value system; consequently, nonverbal communication is different from country to country. Therefore, having knowledge about the similarities and differences of nonverbal communication in different cultures increases the possibility of being understood and reduces the risk of being misunderstood and misinterpreted by people from different cultural backgrounds. The current paper aims to investigate and compare the interpretations of nonverbal messages between the findings of Pease and Pease (2004), two prominent figures in the field of nonverbal communication in Western societies and the Iranian students of English and non-English major as an example of an Eastern society. In this study, 32 body gestures were selected from among 170 pictures used by Pease and Pease (2004) and the Iranian students’ interpretations of those body gestures were investigated. The results showed that the interpretations were significantly different across Western and Iranian students; however, there was no significant difference between English and non-English major students’ interpretations.