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This study aimed to overcome the researchers' extreme attention to essentially qualitative methods in research on language learners' imagined communities and move towards quantification in order to achieve a more tangible image of this construct. To do so, the present researchers followed three main phases. First, a hypothesized model of language learners' imagined communities with eight components was developed for the Iranian context based on the wide-ranging readings of the literature on imagined communities, consultations with experts and interviews with language learners. Second, a questionnaire was developed and validated based on the model to represent its components. Finally, the data collected through the questionnaire were fed into the model to see to what extent the model fit the data. The initial results showed poor values; however, the model was trimmed by removing one item from the questionnaire, and final statistical indices showed that the model was fit.

Regarding the belief that willingness to communicate is strongly tied with developing some insights into the L2 culture, such a connection may not be always positive and the issue of cultural attachment and identity may sometimes function as a hindrance. Individuals are believed to be highly emotional in terms of “religion and spirituality", among other components of cultural identity. This study aimed at investigating the interrelationships of willingness to speak and cultural identity with English speaking proficiency. To this aim, 215 Iranian intermediate and upper intermediate EFL learners took part in this survey study to complete the Home Culture Attachment Scale and the Revised Version of Willingness to Communicate questionnaire. Using SEM, path analysis showed the degree to which the variables were related to one another. Also, Pearson Correlation was used for verification. The findings revealed positive significant relationships between all subscales of Home culture Attachment and both speaking and willingness to speak, except for the element of religious attachment. Further, willingness to speak was positively and significantly correlated with speaking skill. Having found a rather negative influence of religious attachment, it may be concluded that religion, as a cultural barrier, may hinder the process of L2 learning.

The purpose of the present study was two-fold: (a) First, it examined fairness of Special English Test (SET) of Iranian National University Entrance Exam (INUEE) by analyzing Differential Item Functioning (DIF) with reading comprehension section of this test (b) second, it explored test takers’ attitudes towards possible sources of unfairness and DIF. In the quantitative part of the study the data from 10000 test takers (6820 females and 3180 males) were analyzed for gender DIF using Mantel-Haenszel (MH) technique. It was revealed that only 6 items in the reading comprehension skill showed DIF. Further analysis manifested that the effect size of DIF for all six items were category A or negligible. Moreover, qualitative interview results indicated that learners generally considered the test a fair one while some potential sources of bias such as topic familiarity, multiple-choice format of the test, topic interest, passage length, and complex structure of test items were mentioned.

Academic literacy is a transformative approach to EAP studies that highlight the backgrounds and needs of the EAP learners in order to empower them by participating in the social practices of the international research community. From this perspective, EAP textbook development research aims to find how textbooks could empower EAP learners though considering their real needs. Accordingly , this study aims to find how EAP textbooks match/mismatch with the EAP learners’ needs. The sample of the study included 40 participants who were selected through purposeful homogeneous sampling. All participants who had passed ‘English for the Students of Science (ESS)’ as the main textbook of the EAP course completed a structured interview questionnaire that its findings were gone under content analysis and a nonparametric test of rankings themes, i.e. Friedman test. Then textbook was evaluated in terms of the established frameworks. Finally, identified themes of the interviews were compared with the content of the textbook evaluation. Findings of the study showed that EAP learners prioritized reading, writing, listening, and speaking English language skills respectively as the main language needs in the EAP community of practice. The study also found that although the design of the EAP textbook matched learners’ needs at the macro-level of needs analysis, there was little enough evidence in the content of the book that could support and match these EAP learners’ needs. The findings might have many implications for EAP textbook developers, learners, and teachers. 

Translation studies essentially deals with a socio-communicatively driven and contextualized enterprise. Viewed hence, it seems that no discipline tends to provide the possibility of studying the interrelations between interlocutors to generate meaning within the interactive social context as precisely as sociolinguistics (Federici, 2018). A sociolinguistic approach to translation seems to be increasingly gaining ground, at the crossroads of Translation and Interpreting Studies (TIS) and sociology within the sociological turn (Wolf, 2010). Accordingly, the present study took a sociolinguistic approach to shed some light on The Great Gatsby (1925) and its Persian translation by Emami (2000). In so doing, an extended version of Hatim and Mason’s (1997) sociolinguistic model was employed to examine the texts in question. The source text (ST) and its target text (TT) version were investigated at both textual and extra-textual levels in light of the model’s respective sub-components. The results of this comparative study, analyzed individually for each register variable, revealed that the translator dealt rather superficially with both use-related categories of register variation like tenor and user-related aspects like idiolect. By contrast, the predominant features of literary expression were mostly retained in the translation.