درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The present study set out to determine the effect of implementing exploratory-cumulative talk in comparison to disputational talk on cognitive (meaning development and organization of thought as well as problem solving ability) dependency of intermediate level students in translation studies. In order to achieve the objectives of the study, a quasi-experimental-pretest-posttest-statistical study was conducted in which 63 linguistically homogeneous B.A students in translation studies at the IAU-Shahreza branch, in experimental and control groups were the participants. Administering cognitive dependency questionnaire before and after implementing the treatment, exploratory-cumulative talk, helps the researcher to find out the possible effect of it against the control group, disputational talk, in translator training courses. The results of the data analysis indicate that the difference between the posttest mean scores of the experimental and control groups do not reach statistical significance. However, by conventional criteria, the difference between the pretest and posttest scores of the experimental group was considered statistically significant by large effect size. The application of the present study findings in translator training courses may pave the way for translation teachers and translation students to follow more fruitful approaches.

Moving in line with the postulation that metadiscourse (MD) markers help transform a dry and tortuous piece of text into a coherent and reader-friendly one, the researchers in the current study attempted to investigate the effect different metadiscourse markers might have on Iranian EFL learners’ perception of written texts. To this end, 120 undergraduate English students were given three different texts chosen from the most common textbooks in BA, along with their doctored versions (all MD-removed, interactive-removed, and interactional-removed). Each text duo was then accompanied by an 8-item questionnaire following Ifantido’s (2005) lead. The findings, overall, were indicative of the positive role of metadiscourse markers in bringing about EFL learners’ ameliorated text perception. Furthermore, data analysis via ANOVA and LSD tests revealed that texts with both interactive and interactional resources had more effect on learners’ perception. Moreover, it was found that interactive and interactional resources had more or less the same effect on learners’ reactions to texts. To sum it up, in line with the findings of the present study further evidence is garnered in favor of the postulation holding that metadiscourse markers bring about an increased amount of coherence and reader-friendliness in texts.

The overarching goal of this study was to create a list of the most frequently occurring academic words in Food Science and Technology (FST). To this end, a 4,652,444-word corpus called Food Science and Technology Research Articles (FSTRA), which included 1,421 research articles (RAs) randomly selected from 38 journals across five sub-disciplines in FST, was developed. Frequency and range-based criteria were used to develop Food Science and Technology Academic Word list (FSTAWL). Word families had to occur in more than 19 journals, and they had to recur at least 134 times in the whole corpus. The computer programme RANGE was used to analyse the data. The results of frequency and range-based analysis showed that 1,090 academic words met the criteria of the study and constituted FSTAWL. The results also revealed that these words accounted for 13% of the coverage in the FSTRA.  FSTAWL provides food science and technology non-native English learners who need to read a large number of RAs and to publish FST RAs in the English journals with a useful list of the most frequently used academic words, helping them to strengthen their academic reading and writing proficiency. The findings echo calls for creating more discipline-specific word lists to cater for the needs of specialized learner populations, providing implications for materials producers  as well as explicit teaching of academic words.