درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Many researchers have explored the speech act of refusals across various genres, languages, and contexts. However, little is known about how refusals are conveyed in academic job applications by Asia-Pacific and European institutions. To address this gap, the current cross-cultural study analyzed a corpus of naturally occurring academic job rejection emails from different universities. Using Beebe et al.’s (1990) taxonomy of refusals, a total of 85 rejection letters was collected and examined. The results revealed that while both Asia-Pacific and European universities employed similar refusal strategies, the frequency differed significantly: European universities used 219 refusal strategies, compared to only 60 by Asia-Pacific institutions. Both regions primarily relied on “indirect” refusal strategies and “adjuncts” to protect the applicant’s face. Interestingly, “direct” refusal strategies, which are more face-threatening, were notably more common in European universities’ responses. The study concludes with insights and recommendations for making the academic job application process more considerate for both applicants and institutions.

The demands of the changing world impose on learners the need to become autonomous readers. This places a responsibility on the shoulders of the teachers to develop an approach to teaching reading which will help readers become independent strategic ones. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of teaching reading strategies on the development of reading comprehension of Iranian EFL learners. An experimental design was adopted to accomplish this investigation. To do so, two intact classes of 35 students were selected. Then to find out the homogeneity of the participants, Oxford Placement Test was administrated to both classes’ among whom 60 students who scored above 47 were selected as homogeneous and were assigned to two experimental and control groups. The students in the experimental group participated in 10 sessions and were taught two strategies of reading comprehension: activating background knowledge and contextual strategies. At the same time, the materials in the control group were taught through conventional methods of reading and translating the texts into Persian. In the 10th session, the post-test was administrated to both groups. The results of the t-test confirmed the positive effect of reading strategies instruction on the development of reading comprehension ability. These findings may furnish language teachers with the empirical evidence that capitalizing on the students' awareness of the strategies and helping them to use these strategies will significantly develop their reading abilities.

This study aims to provide a comprehensive synthesis of the research landscape on Teacher Well-Being by integrating bibliometric and qualitative content analyses. Drawing on 1,256 peer-reviewed articles indexed in the Web of Science database between 1995 and 2025, the study first employs bibliometric techniques using R and VOSviewer to map trends, collaborations, and thematic tracks. Subsequently, a content analysis was conducted on a selected subset of 107 high-impact articles to categorize research purposes and contextual characteristics. Findings reveal strong thematic topics around resilience, burnout, job satisfaction, emotion regulation, positive psychology, equity, self-efficacy, reflective practice, and self-reflection. Both analyses highlight critical gaps in theoretical integration, methodological rigor, and international collaboration. While the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom dominate in output and citations, emerging hubs such as China exhibit increasing engagement but limited global connectivity. The study underscores the need for longitudinal designs, culturally responsive research, and comparative international studies to advance the field. This research helps create a clearer, more inclusive and policy-relevant understanding of teacher well-being by emphasizing its systemic and relational aspects.

Discourse markers play a crucial role in textual cohesion and coherence. By identifying patterns of discourse marker usage, valuable insights can be gained into the underlying communicative strategies employed by text producers. Qur’anic discourse markers are of particular significance for several reasons, making their translation a critical area of study. Accordingly, this article aims to examine the second most frequent, complex, ambiguous, and multifaceted Qur’anic discourse marker, fa, in a Persian and English Qur’anic parallel corpus from a pragmatic perspective. To this end, six ajzā (parts) of the Holy Qur’an were randomly selected as the research sample and served as the source text of the corpus. The Persian translation by Ali Maleki and the English translation by Tahereh Saffarzadeh were chosen as the target texts through purposive sampling. The bilingual parallel corpus was designed to facilitate the investigation of variations and trends across the two languages, thereby providing a more in-depth understanding of the translation process. The analysis of this corpus revealed that translators rendered this Qur’anic meta-discursive component figuratively, communicatively, and dynamically by employing four different types and 81 unique discourse markers to establish various logical relationships between discourse units. These discourse markers conveyed discursive functions of contrast, elaboration, inference, and temporality. This figurative and communicative system, adopted and adapted in the construction of discourse, is substantiated through different theoretical perspectives in discourse analysis and pragmatics. Beyond its contribution to discourse analysis by highlighting the complexities of language use and the interpretation of sacred texts across languages, the study’s findings offer valuable insights for translators in general, and for Qur’an translators in particular, by shedding light on the intricate yet subtle process of discourse construction and its crucial role in facilitating more effective communication.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly transforming the landscape of education, particularly within the domain of language learning, as evidenced by a growing body of research published in computer-assisted language learning (CALL) journals. These studies have examined the application of various AI technologies, including natural language processing (NLP), AI-driven educational platforms, automatic speech recognition, and chatbots, in facilitating language acquisition. The present study investigated the perceptions of 386 Iranian high school EFL students, utilizing the Students’ Perceived EFL Teacher Support Scale to evaluate the impact of AI-powered speaking assistance technologies, educational level, and learning setting on perceived teacher support. The findings revealed a tri-factorial structure underlying EFL teacher support, highlighting the compatibility of AI technologies with traditional pedagogical methods. This suggests that the integration of AI-powered tools into classroom instruction can enhance the overall effectiveness of language teaching and learning. To ensure optimal outcomes, educators are encouraged to strategically incorporate AI within pedagogically sound frameworks that maintain human-centered support. The study offers important implications for sustaining and enhancing teacher support in technology-enriched learning environments and underscores the need for further empirical research in this evolving area of applied linguistics and educational technology.

The present study was an attempt to investigate the possible effect of using WordUp Software on Iranian EFL learners’ vocabulary learning. The participants were 60 upper-intermediate EFL learners who were selected out of 72 based on the Oxford Proficiency Test. Then, the participants were randomly divided into two groups of study namely experimental and control. The participants in the experimental group underwent an eight-session treatment including learning vocabulary based on using WordUp Software. In the control group, however, the participants gained new vocabulary by conventional methods. The quantitative approach employed a quasi-experimental method to obtain pre-test and post-test results from learners in both the experimental and control groups. The results of the study revealed that using WordUp Software caused a considerable improvement in learning the vocabulary among the learners in the experimental group. The findings of this study could benefit language learners, language teachers, and curriculum developers by providing valuable insights into vocabulary acquisition through WordUp for EFL learners.

Traditional and modern vocabulary instruction techniques have been introduced in the past few decades to improve the learners’ performance in reading comprehension. Semantic mapping, which entails drawing learners’ attention to the interrelationships among lexical items through graphic organizers, is claimed to enhance vocabulary learning significantly. However, whether this technique suits all types of learners has not been adequately investigated. This study examines the effectiveness of employing semantic mapping versus traditional approaches in vocabulary instruction to EFL learners with different perceptual modalities. A modified version of Reid’s (1987) perceptual learning style questionnaire was used to determine the learners’ modality types. The results indicate that semantic mapping in comparison to the traditional approaches significantly enhances vocabulary learning of EFL learners. However, although visual learners slightly outperformed other types of learners on the post-test, no significant differences were observed among intermediate learners with different perceptual modalities employing semantic mapping for vocabulary practice.

The increasing advancement of technology in the field of teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) has turned blended learning—a combination of online and in-person learning—into an innovative educational approach. Given the significance of investigating students' attitudes toward learning environments in different EFL contexts, this mixed-methods study was set to examine Iraqi university EFL students' attitudes toward blended EFL courses and investigate gender differences in this regard. Thus, 250 EFL students were selected from five public Iraqi universities via convenience sampling method and completed the questionnaire of the study. Of these participants, a random sample of 25 students was also selected for interview sessions. The questionnaire results suggested that due to serious technological and instructional drawbacks, such as lack of appropriate infrastructure and insufficient technology knowledge, Iraqi EFL students had generally negative attitudes toward EFL blended courses. Gender also played no significant role in students' attitudes. In interviews, they emphasized the importance of technology training programs to pave the way for effective blended EFL courses, mentioning some important benefits for this hybrid approach. The pedagogical implications of the findings are also discussed.

Critical thinking is one of the main functions of education and it is considered as learners’ use of prior knowledge to make judgments and solve problems. This study aimed, firstly, to examine the relationship between university EFL teachers’ critical thinking tendencies and their problem-solving skills, and secondly, to explore the prediction of university EFL teachers’ critical thinking tendencies by problem-solving skills, gender, and teaching experience. The study was designed in a correlational survey method. In total, 70 university EFL teachers (35 males and 35 females), from Azad and Payame Noor universities located in Isfahan and Ilam provinces teaching undergraduate students majoring in English, participated in this research. Data were collected via the California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory and the Problem-Solving Inventory. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, the Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient, and stepwise regression analysis. The relationship between critical thinking tendencies and problem-solving skills was investigated through the Pearson Product Moments Correlation Coefficient, and stepwise regression analysis was run to determine whether university EFL teachers' problem-solving skills, gender, and teaching experience can significantly predict their critical thinking tendencies. The findings indicated that there was a positive, moderate, and significant relationship between university EFL teachers' problem-solving skills and their critical thinking tendencies, while there was no significant difference according to gender. In terms of teaching experience, the correlation coefficient for novice teachers showed a weak, positive, and non-significant relationship, yet the correlation coefficient for experienced teachers indicated a moderate, positive, and significant relationship. This study has both theoretical and practical implications for EFL teachers, practitioners, learners, and policymakers.