درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Fluent reading is a multifaceted ability that integrates several linguistic and non-linguistic processes. Accordingly, recognizing the critical components of fluent reading is highly significant in planning and implementing effective reading programs. This study was undertaken to evaluate the predictive power of syntactic knowledge, vocabulary breadth, and metacognitive awareness of reading strategies in the reading fluency of Iranian EFL learners. To this end, a sample of 149 Iranian EFL language learners took the Vocabulary Levels Test, Survey of Reading Strategies Questionnaire (SORS), a TOEFL PBT, and a fluency test. The linear regression results indicated that vocabulary breadth was the first predictor of readers' performance on reading fluency, followed by metacognitive awareness of reading strategies. At the same time, syntactic knowledge was not entered into the regression model. Moreover, the findings confirmed the contribution of both linguistic and non-linguistic processes to reading fluency. Having a clear picture of fluency components can be advantageous to teaching reading comprehension and test score predictability.

The goal of this study was to compare the use of conceptual metaphors in English novels written by native and nonnative writers of English. Therefore, two novels were selected: To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee, a native English writer, and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, a nonnative English writer. To find the instances of conceptual metaphors in each book, approximately 10% of the pages of each novel was randomly selected and examined line by line based on the framework introduced by Lakoff and Johnson (1980). In the next step, to find the number and type of metaphors used in each book, the identified metaphors were categorized under their underlying concepts and counted. Then, the frequencies of different types of metaphors in each book were tallied and tabulated, and with the use of a chi-square test, the possible differences among the 2 writers’ use of different types of metaphors were found. Results indicated that, in both novels, there were significant differences among the 5 types of metaphors that were identified, namely structural metaphors, ontological metaphors, orientational metaphors, metonymy, and personification. Findings revealed that, in both books, ontological metaphors were the most frequently used type and personification was the least frequently used one. Also, no statistically significant difference was seen between the two writers’ use of the different types of metaphors. Findings are claimed to bear some implications for L2 pedagogy, benefiting teachers, syllabus designers, writers, and L2 learners.

Language transfer refers to the application of previous language knowledge to the target language learning. Using questionnaires, this paper investigates the lexical transferring behaviors of 230 Dongxiang-Chinese bilingual and monolingual students who are in the early stage of learning English vocabulary. The results display that Chinese predominates the transference, while bilinguals’ Dongxiang Language is described as a barrier during the process of English learning. To show the individual-level differences, several learner-based factors: age, linguistic background, social background, cognitive level, emotion, and learning attitude are also confirmed, which appear to promote or inhibit this transferring behavior. The experiment data suggest that there are two different types of the factors mentioned above, which depend on whether they are affected by context-based factors---learner-based factors and learner-context-based factors. The paper also concludes with suggestions to teachers and policymakers in Dongxiang area for the modification of current teaching methods based on the quantitative analysis of surveys.

Cet article a pour objectif d’étudier les aspects fantastiques des contes de Théophile Gautier, écrivain du XIX -ème siècle, dans lesquels le temps a une grande importance. Le fantastique de Gautier provoque l'incertitude, la peur et le suspens chez le lecteur. L'auteur dévoile sa peur devant l'écoulement du temps et la mort. Le temps va alors exercer une puissante influence sur l'imagination de ce dernier. Nous essaierons de voir si Gautier montre-t-il son angoisse devant le passage du temps ? et comment a-t-il pu maîtriser la fuite du temps. Pour étudier le monde imaginaire de Gautier, nous présentons la méthode critique de Gilbert Durand dans son ouvrage, Les Structures anthropologiques de l'imaginaire, Introduction à l'archétypologie générale, paru pour la première fois en 1960. Ce dernier présente sa démarche dans le domaine de la critique d'imaginaire. Nous avons le projet de montrer un monde d'images matérialisées qui tourne autour d'un axe : celui de la peur face à l'écoulement du temps. Nous allons montrer que Théophile Gautier trouve un lien avec le temps dans ses contes et il aspire à la vie éternelle et enfin il parvient à dominer le temps à travers les visages du temps.

Dans la présente contribution, nous mettons l’accent sur les représentations que se font les enseignants de l’intégration de la langue de référence et son impact sur la compétence rédactionnelle des élèves. Pour mener cette étude, nous sommes partis de la question suivante : quel est l’impact des représentations et de LR sur la compétence rédactionnelle des élèves ? Pour répondre à cette question, nous mettons en œuvre un sujet et une consigne de production écrite adressés à deux classes de pratiques linguistiques différentes – monolingue et plurilingue –, dont les enseignants se font des représentations différentes. Nous avons abouti aux résultats montrant que les représentations positives et le recours à la langue de référence améliorent les productions écrites des apprenants, et que l’usage de la langue de référence facilite l’accès à la compréhension dans le sens où l’enseignant recourt à des procédés métalinguistiques, en passant de la langue de référence à la langue française pour expliciter certains types d’énoncés.

Cet article se penche sur les difficultés des traducteurs à rendre le terme « mal », notamment quand il apparaît dans quelques titres importants comme les  Fleurs du Mal  de Baudelaire. La polysémie de ce mot, la divergence d’interprétation aussi bien que la difficulté à trouver l’équivalent exact ou adéquat dans la langue cible, en l’occurrence, le persan, expliquent sans doute les choix différents, voire parfois fort éloignés l’un des autres des traducteurs qui se sont attelés à cette tâche. Nous verrons donc que la traduction de ce mot ne va pas tellement de soi et que les traducteurs optent pour des solutions différentes qui ne sont pas toutes, on le convient, pertinentes. Le traducteur littéraire est un grand lecteur qui ne peut pas ignorer la critique littéraire et les analyses profondes dont font l’objet l’œuvre qu’il traduit. Le mal baudelairien est en grande partie lié à la mélancolie et le traducteur ne peut en faire l’économie. On s’apercevra que dans le cas des  Fleurs du mal , l’absence d’une lecture moderne et plurielle du recueil poétique baudelairien ainsi que l’incurie des traducteurs, font que ces derniers passent à côté de l’une des significations essentielles du titre de ce recueil, signification reconnue et soulignée par la nouvelle critique littéraire, et même suggérée par le poète lui-même.

L'éthocritique  est ici proposée comme  l’étude de tout corpus  littéraire en tant que superposition d’un récit culturel et d'un ou plusieurs récits naturels, fragment(s) ou élément( s) de ce(s) récit(s). Elle est un questionnement autour des retombées des récits naturels sur les textes littéraires et une approche litté raire des causalités, des fonctions, des consistances et des statuts de ses objets. La démarche de l’écrivain ,  sa posi tion  et sa posture , vis-à-vis du premier environnement narratif que nous appelons « nature », sont des paramètres essentiels dans la défin ition des substances et des dimensions de son œuvre. C'est ainsi que notre approche aborde les différentes couches et  les différentes consistances  des  éléments  du récit . Le lecteur reste, inévitablement, attentif à toute distorsion du récit naturel  latent, en filigrane du récit culturel.  Pour l’essentiel, il  s’agit d’un article qui a pour objectif d’imaginer une nouvelle  approche littéraire sous le nom de  «  éthocritique  » .

The United States with its presidents stepping into power from either the Democratic or Republican parties influences global affairs in one way or another. These two main political parties have long been struggling for power and the significance of tapping into the ideological inclinations of the two parties underscores scholars’ accountability toward raising the critical language awareness of the public which could be an initial step toward a change for the better. The presidential inaugural speeches, due to their programmatic and strategic nature, are of significance to researchers. This study employed van Dijk’s (2006b) socio-cognitive framework where he defined two levels of analyses for a political discourse including the micro-level and macro-level text analyses. The former included 25 discursive devices such as polarization, generalization, hyperbole, etc. The latter drew on the dichotomy of ‘positive self-representation’ and ‘negative other-representation’. In the present study, the linguistic features in 16 inaugural speeches delivered by American Democratic and Republican presidents from 1961 to 2017 were examined at both levels. The overall data analysis revealed that Democrats employed ‘norm expression’ and ‘presupposition’ significantly more than Republicans, while Republicans made more use of ‘categorization’, ‘lexicalization’, and ‘populism’. The macro-level comparison of the two parties indicated that both Democrats and Republicans resorted to using ‘positive self-representation’ significantly more than ‘negative other-representation’ while the deployment of ‘negative other-representation’ by Republicans was significantly more than that by Democrats. The findings of this study have some implications for English for political purposes, political studies, as well as attempts in discourse studies.

The present study aimed to review the instruction of the L2 speech acts in English pragmatics in the Iranian context during the last two decades from 2000 to 2020. To this end, upon the completion of the study search, the retrieved articles were selected and analyzed based on the research domain.  The results of our synthesis from 54 studies carried out on the instruction of the speech act not only reveal that pragmatics is amenable to instruction but also unfold that the most frequently instructed speech act is the speech act of request which has been conducted in 29 studies, while the least instructed speech act is  invitation, used in only one study. Moreover, analyzing the data collection methods documented that Multiple-choice Discourse Completion Test (MDCT) is the most predominant method utilized in 36 papers during the last decades in English pragmatic instruction. With respect to the treatment types, it is illuminated that the most recurrent treatment type is explicit, implicit vs. control, followed by explicit vs. implicit, although other treatment types have been embarked on. As a final point, it is worth noting that 53 of the conducted studies utilized the quantitative method in their data analyses, whereas only one study implemented the qualitative method. The paper concludes with some avenues for further research.

Among the latest efficient approaches in language teaching, Task-based Language Teaching has turned up to be the main approach in a way that it is currently recognized as the leading teaching approach in language instruction (Ji & Pham, 2017). Using the proper tasks based on the proficiency level of the learners can facilitate the process of language learning. The present study aimed at investigating the effect of open and closed tasks on improving Iranian EFL learners’ oral performance at intermediate and advanced levels. This study is a quasi-experimental research with pretest and posttest design. The participants of the study included 55 female EFL learners at Jahadeh Daneshgahi language institute in Tabriz city, who were selected through cluster random sampling method. The data were collected through 10 open tasks and 10 closed tasks along with an oral pretest and an oral posttest checklist that examined grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, breakdown-response, interaction, and speech flow of learners’ oral performance. The tasks were selected from the Four Corner series (Richards & Bohlke, 2012). The data were analyzed by a two-way MANCOVA test and ANCOVA. The obtained results indicated that open and closed tasks can improve EFL learners’ oral performance and there is no significant difference between open and closed tasks in developing learners’ oral performance in both levels. Besides, at the advanced level, the amount of oral performance development is greater than the intermediate level. The outcomes of this study can be useful for EFL teachers and learners regarding using the optimal kind of tasks in improving oral performance.

The present study aimed to examine and validate a rubric for translation quality assessment using Rasch analysis. To this end, the researchers interviewed 20 expert translation instructors to identify the factors they consider important for assessing the quality of students’ translation. Based on the specific commonalities found throughout the interviews, a 23-item assessment rubric was constructed on a four-point Likert scale. More specifically, this study used the Rasch rating scale model for polytomous data to investigate the psychometric properties of the rating scale in terms of dimensionality, reliability, use of response category, and sample appropriateness. Then, a translation exam was administered to 60 translation students at the BA level in Iranian universities. Following this, the rubric was employed to assess the quality of students’ translation. The results revealed that the Rasch model fits the data well. Thus, the findings of the study indicated that the rubric is potentially valid and useful, and can be used as a measure of translation quality assessment in the Iranian context.