درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The phonological status of word-initial glottal stops in Persian has been a subject of controversy. Particularly, researchers hold divergent views on whether the glottal stop functions as a phoneme in word-initial positions. These perspectives can be categorized into three main positions: (1) glottal stops are phonemes in all occurrences (Samareh, 1985; Windfuhr, 1979); (2) word-initial glottal stops are phonemes only in loanwords, especially from Arabic (Bijankhan, 2018; Haghshenas, 1991; Jam, 2019; Kord-Zaferanloo-Kambozia, 2003); and (3) word-initial glottal stops are not phonemes in Persian (Jahani, 2005; Majidi & Ternes, 1999; Sepanta, 1973). In this paper, a critical review of previous findings is provided along with new insights and neglected evidence relevant to the underlying representations of words with glottal stops. Based on these considerations, the paper leans towards the position that glottal stops function as phonemes in all positions regardless of occurrence in loanwords or native words. It also calls for a revision of previous research, emphasizing the importance of non-acoustic aspects in exploring the phonological functions of word-initial glottal stops.

An appropriate and dynamic teaching method in EFL instruction is crucial for engaging, attracting, and supporting students. This study utilized a mixed-method approach to explore the effectiveness of synthesizing Engagement, Study, and Activation (ESA) with portfolio assessment on Iranian female students' emotive dimensions in writing skills. A total of 177 students participated in the experimental study, completing think-aloud protocols, questionnaires, and interviews. Quantitative analysis through MANOVA and qualitative analysis using NVivo demonstrated significant results. The synthesis of ESA with portfolio assessment yielded the highest mean scores in emotive dimensions related to writing skills, followed by pure ESA application and the control group. Additionally, pure ESA application outperformed conventional instructional methods in overall emotive dimensions. However, the synthetic approach proved to be more effective than pure ESA across all emotive dimensions. Qualitative data from think-aloud protocols and interviews further elucidated the impact of synthetic mechanisms on boredom, hopelessness, anxiety, anger, enjoyment, pride, motivation, motivation and relief. The main implication for the stakeholders is the feasibility, usefulness and applicability of dynamic assessment in accommodating emotive dimensions in the process of both instruction and assessment of language.

In recent decades, numerous studies in Iran have examined entrepreneurial traits among university students. However, the entrepreneurial potential of undergraduate English translation students remains unexplored. This study investigates the entrepreneurial characteristics of English translation students at Islamic Azad University branches in Mazandaran Province and identifies key obstacles hindering their development. A sample of 106 English translation students from four branches was selected through convenience sampling. Participants completed a validated questionnaire assessing traits such as risk-taking, internal locus of control, success orientation, pragmatism, challenge-seeking, intellectual vitality, and tolerance of ambiguity. Additionally, they engaged in semi-structured interviews after being informed about the study’s objectives. Descriptive statistics and one-way ANOVA analysis indicated that entrepreneurial traits were generally average, with no significant differences across the four branches. Qualitative analysis of interview data highlighted personal, financial, legal, and educational barriers as primary entrepreneurial obstacles.

The purpose of the present study was to examine the accuracy with which young children respond to different types of questions. Additionally, the study explored whether the children’s language development affects their response accuracy. They study was conducted in two kindergartens in Neyshabur, Iran, and the sample consisted of 25 Persian-speaking young children aged 3 to 6 years, who participated in the study by listening to a short story and answering 24 questions of varying types. The analysis of the results revealed that children's language proficiency significantly influenced the accuracy of their responses, with more proficient children providing more accurate answers. Further analysis of the results showed that children provided the most accurate answers to yes/no questions. Forced-choice questions elicited more accurate responses than open-ended questions. These findings suggest that children's limited language proficiency and their restricted memory span may constrain the reliability of their responses to certain types of questions.

The theory and practice of critical discourse analysis (CDA) has turned into a major theme of research in English language teaching (ELT) in recent times. At the same time, classroom management (CM) has long been a significant pursuit in ELT. Accordingly, this descriptive study investigated the relationship between teachers’ CDA practices and classroom management. In doing so, 119 English teachers teaching in several language schools in the Iranian capital Tehran responded to two instruments: Murdoch’s (2000) checklist on effective CM and the Author’s (2017) CDA practices questionnaire (CDAPQ). The results revealed not only a significant correlation between teachers’ CM and CDA practices but also the predictability of the latter by the former. Furthermore, 30 EFL teachers within the original sample sat for a semi-structured interview concerning their views on the impact of CDA practices in CM; they unanimously agreed on the importance of applying CDA in the ELT classroom. The findings of this research demonstrate the importance of teachers’ CDA practices in attempting to enhance CM, thereby providing better opportunities for learners’ internalization of the new input they receive. The above goal of course necessitates an active engagement of not only EFL teachers but also teacher education institutions, syllabus designers, and materials developers.

Classroom justice, an under-investigated topic in language education, has been brought under focus in this study. Employing a qualitative research design, we took conceptual metaphor as both the theoretical framework and data analysis tool. Accordingly, 51 Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers were selected via snowball sampling to express their beliefs about (in)justice by creating a metaphor/simile. The aim was to discover EFL teachers’ conceptualization of metaphors of classroom (in)justice. The participants took a metaphor completion task (e.g., classroom justice is like …… because ……). Data analysis involved gathering, inductively coding, and classifying linguistic metaphors. Three elements were identified for each response, namely, the topic, vehicle, and ground. Then, conceptual categories were formed based on thematically grouping vehicles. Findings indicated reflection of the multidimensional conceptualization of classroom justice based on the organizational justice theory in many created metaphors; reference to emotional, psychological, and learning consequences of (in)justice in many other metaphors; and many pairs of opposite metaphors. These findings have implications for teacher education programs to employ metaphor as a useful tool to promote teachers’ reflection about classroom (in)justice; raise awareness of second/foreign language (L2) teachers about both issues of justice and injustice and their potential consequences for students’ wellbeing and educational outcomes; and train teachers for practical strategies of implementing justice principles in the instructional context as a way to address their professional development needs for becoming a quality L2 teacher and acting fairly in classroom. 

According to Skill Acquisition Theory (SAT), for declarative knowledge to become automatized, it needs to be clearly understood and practiced. Vygotsky (1978) viewed this process as fundamentally collaborative and mediational. Recent L2 research has employed Schemas for Complete Orienting Basis of an Action (SCOBA) as mediational tools to mediate underlying cognitive processes leading to use of targeted lexico-grammatical features. The present study explored EFL learners’ development of automatized grammatical knowledge of English tense-aspect concepts through SCOBA-based mediation. The adopted SCOBAs were essentially informed by Cognitive Grammar (CG) to mediate L2 learners’ conceptual understanding of the intended English features. The study used convenience sampling to recruit and randomly assign a cohort of 63 pre-intermediate EFL learners to an experimental (online/synchronous) and a comparison (offline/asynchronous) group. The experimental group received real-time intervention via Skype, while the comparison group had offline treatment through WhatsApp. The study employed a mixed-methods approach comprising Elicited Imitation Tests (EIT) and semi-structured interviews for data collection. Results of pretest-posttest comparisons indicated that both groups improved significantly after the instruction; however, subsequent ANCOVA results showed that the online group outperformed the offline group in their attainments of automatized grammatical knowledge regarding English tense-aspect application Finally, participants’ retrospective perceptions in the online setting attributed their better performance to real-time characteristics of online learning environments such as timely feedback and enhanced collaborative learning engagement. In conclusion, a synthesis of SCOBAs and online affordances was demonstrated to be useful tools for mediating L2 grammatical automaticity.

Dominating people’s lives, Social Media (SM) has gained a special place in every individual’s life in terms of becoming a tool to communicate with peers, families, and friends. Providing innovative functionalities, like forming groups, liking, reacting, and motivating, to modernize digital schooling, has made SM pervasive among students and teachers. The present paper tries to conceptually review and discuss the applicability of positive psychology in EFL education along with social-media-based language learning. Recently, in favor of distance learning, the world has witnessed a dramatic change in education, particularly in L2 learning, happening through social media (SM). However, there is a lack of a systematic study on the application of positive psychology in social media-based language learning, Therefore, it can be helpful to consider the effects of social media on L2 learning from a positive psychology perspective. As a first step in the field, the study aims to clarify how learners’ positiveness can bring about success and flourishment in social media-based L2 learning. Afterward, potential pedagogical implications and limitations are explained. With the hope of expanding the literature on PP in social-media-based Language learning, suggestions for future studies are proposed.  

In cognitive stylistics, “deixis” is deemed one of the core linguistic elements through which both the physical and ideological stances of the participants in fictional narratives, namely the narrator and the character(-focalizer)s, are demonstrated. This study aims at investigating the cognitive functions of the different kinds of deixis, i.e., perceptual, spatial, temporal, social, textual, and compositional deixis, in The Bell (1958), a critically acclaimed novel by the British philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch. Because of its special narrative discourse, in particular the use of variable internal focalization, Murdoch’s novel proves to be a proper case for exploring how deixis impacts upon the (implied) reader’s cognition of the story. Thus, utilizing a descriptive-analytic method, the present research examines the text worlds and mind styles shaped in this novel through various kinds of deixis, among other textual elements, and explores the relationship between these text worlds and the way they inform the reading process. To achieve this goal, this qualitative study draws upon the cognitive deixis theory to examine selected extracts from Dora Greenfield’s and Toby Gashe’s discourses in this novel, as two of the major character-focalizers. The findings suggest that deictic expressions serve a significant function in appreciating the characterization of the fictional personages, their relations, and consequently the narrative’s overall theme, thereby affecting and somehow directing the reading process. This mainly occurs through the reader’s cognitive pushes and pops in and out of the different layers of the narrative discourse as well as projecting the narrator’s and character-focalizers’ text worlds or deictic fields and constantly shifting among them. By foregrounding the role of deixis in narration, this study carries significant implications for cognitive stylistics of prose fictional narratives, providing a deeper appreciation of the relationships between characters and between characters and fictional settings in such texts.

This paper investigates the conceptual and cognitive motivations behind anger-related Hindi idioms. The study is based on 40 idiomatic expressions on anger curated from diverse sources, including websites, books, and native speakers’ intuition. The study employs the theoretical framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) for the analysis of these linguistic expressions. For the identification of conceptual metaphors, Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP) by Pragglejaz Group (2007) was employed After analysis, nine conceptual metaphors and an equal number of conceptual metonymies were found in the chosen idiomatic expressions. Conceptual metaphors such as “ANGER IS FLUID,” “ANGER IS A WILD ANIMAL,” and “ANGER IS A STORM,” as well as conceptual metonymies like “REDDENING OF THE FACE” and “GNASHING OF TEETH,” were identified, among others. The findings reveal that there is a coherent conceptual organization underlying these idioms, predominantly characterized by conceptual metaphor and metonymy. The study can give us insight into the cultural conceptualisation of anger expressions in Hindi which can contribute the broader landscape of emotion research from Cognitive linguistic point of view and also in teaching-learning of Hindi idioms.

Teacher autonomy (TA), including its conceptualization and multidimensionality, has received increasing attention in the past two decades. Notwithstanding many attempts to measure TA, teachers’ capacity for self-directed professional action (CSDPA) has remained under-researched. To address this gap, this article delved into the status of English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ CSDPA by developing and validating a questionnaire based on TA literature and semi-structured interviews with teachers. Employing exploratory factor analysis (EFA), the factor structures of 300 Iranian EFL   teachers’ responses were examined in terms of their CSDPA. The analysis results yielded five factors regarding teachers’ CSDPA, including their capacities for self-directed instructional and curricular activities, self-directed institutional actions, self-directed teacher learning activities, self-directed assessment and collegial negotiation activities, and self-directed relational and ethical actions. The research outcomes suggest implications for language teachers, institute principals, and teacher educators to attend to teachers’ autonomy as a key feature of their professional action.

Considering the EFL context, many teachers experience difficulty in incorporating what is learned in their pedagogical practices. This study attempted to discover the perception of in-service EFL teachers with various age groups, teaching experiences, and genders on the efficiency of the program in developing teachers’ content, pedagogical content, and pedagogical knowledge. The participants were selected from two groups of teachers who passed specific courses at Farhangian University and those who graduated from other universities which offered BA programs in TEFL. To this end, a questionnaire was constructed based on an extensive examination of the stated objectives of the current curriculum and was pilot-tested with 40 EFL teachers in both groups. As many as 160 high school teachers in Farhangian groups and 135 teachers in Non-Farhangian completed the revised questionnaire. A semi-structured interview consisting of ten open-ended questions was conducted with 20 of the participants in Farhangian and 20 teachers in Non-Farhangian groups. Based on MANOVA analysis, the effect of gender in Farhangian groups was statistically significant. The result of MANCOVA specified that there was no statistically significant mean difference between the two groups regarding the efficacy of the program in content knowledge (CK), pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), and pedagogical knowledge (PK).

The concept of “orthographic depth” refers to the degree of the deviation of the writing system from the one-to-one correspondence between graphemes and phonemes. This study aims to explore and compare of the “orthographic depth” between Persian and English writing systems using UTPECC corpus and homographic scale. To this end, the scope of the application of the homography feature in 10000 words of Persian writing system was determined by using the word processing software 2010 through the synchronic study in the field of graphology. Then, the occurrence frequency of this feature was briefly compared with a similar number of words in English writing system. The research results show only 4 graphemes possess homography feature in Persian writing system, each of which corresponds to a limited number of phonemes (maximum 4 phonemes). While this feature is observed in 11 graphemes of English writing system and the variety of their corresponding phonemes was much more than Persian writing system. Considering the fact that the extent of the occurrence of the homography feature in English writing system is significantly higher than Persian writing system, it can be stated that the orthographic depth of English writing system exceeds that of Persian writing system.