درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Aiming at highlighting the important role of print media discourse in the implicit transfer of the dominant ideology of discourse context, the present data-driven paper demonstrates how the lexical features of repetition and synonymy as well as the structural and thematic features of passivization, nominalization and predicated theme were utilized by the discourse producers to mediate between their own underlying ideology and the target readers' understanding of the events of September 11, 2001. Through a comparative statistical analysis of the print media discourse of the data for the study written in two ideologically opposing contexts of Syria and America, we have tried to explicate how the discourse producers utilized various lexical and thematic strategies to produce different impressions of the event and implicitly impose the underlying ideology on the readers.

Several studies of L2 learners’ interlanguage have addressed the complexity of the English adpositional system due to several reasons like L1 transfer, lack of knowledge in L2 and the strong collocational relations of prepositions with other elements of the English language. The major purpose of the present study is to evaluate the performance of Iranian students in dealing with three broad categories of spatial, non-spatial and idiomatic adpositions in English. To achieve the inclinations of the research project, 60 students majoring in TEFL at Roudehen University were selected. A paper-based TOEFL test of English Proficiency was administered to obtain some information about the participants’ general language proficiency. Three completion tasks with the division of spatial, non-spatial (nominal, adjectival and verbal) and idiomatic adpositions were administered. The obtained results represented the fact that the Iranian participants were considerably inclined to transfer their L1 adpositional patterns to their L2 production. The correlational analyses indicated that whereas the scores related to adposition task in general, non-spatial as well as the idiomatic subtests were strongly correlated with the scores obtained from the TOEFL test, there was a moderate correlation between the spatial subtest and the TOEFL one. The independent sample t-test results between the freshmen and sophomores dealing with spatial, nominal and adjectival subtests were considered to be significant. However, in reference to the verbal subtest, the difference between the two groups was not significant. The results obtained from the independent sample t-test indicated no significant differences between the freshmen and sophomores in their performance on idiomatic adpositions. Finally, the result of the correlation coefficients showed high correlation coefficients between the whole adposition test and the three subtests of spatial, non-spatial and idiomatic ones. Moreover, high and moderate correlations were reported among the three subtests with the highest correlation between the spatial and non-spatial subtests and the lowest between the idiomatic and spatial ones.

Raven Progressive Matrices (RPMs) and Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WSIC-R) are two common general intelligence measuring scales used in Iranian high schools. In this paper the relationships between g factor scales and students’ reading comprehension, grammar, and vocabulary was examined by correlation and regression analysis. Standard tests of grammar and vocabulary and Cambridge Key English Test (KET) were used to elicit the overall language proficiency of Iranian high school students. The results of the study revealed that verbal intelligence and vocabulary and non-verbal intelligence measured by RPMs not WSIC-R were determining factors in reading comprehension. Verbal intelligence was found to have an important role in vocabulary knowledge. Only grammar, in spite of a weak correlation with reading and a section of WSIC-R, didn’t show any remarkable correlation with intelligence or language knowledge measuring scales.

Among the four important factors in the educational contexts, namely, teachers, learners, textbooks and contexts, textbooks play an important role in English Language Teaching (ELT), particularly in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom where it provides the primary source of linguistic input. The wealth of published material for English language teaching (ELT) available in the market makes selecting the right coursebook a challenging task. As such, it necessitates developing a textbook evaluation scheme so that the stakeholders benefit from the proposed model as a dependable criterion with regard to selecting the most appropriate textbook among the wealth of published textbooks. Taking these points into consideration, this study aimed at investigating and evaluating the available textbook evaluation schemes and checklists and seeking the experts’ viewpoints with the objective of developing and designing a textbook evaluation scheme pertinent and beneficial to the expanding circle. As such, the existing textbooks evaluation schemes were reviewed critically and the experts’ viewpoints were sought. Accordingly, a textbook evaluation scheme consisting of 6 main factors containing 41 items has been developed and proposed