درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

В предлагаемой статье рассматриваются вопросы современного рекламоведения, касающиеся структуры рекламного текста, а так же его составляющих, актуализирующих манипулятивное воздействие со стороны адресанта. В силу того, что реклама способствует сбыту товара, выступает в качестве инструмента формирования нравственных установок, ценностных ориентаций, создания культурных ценностей, норм, стиля поведения, требуется обширная система средств для достижения целей рекламодателя. К одному из самых ярких явлений речевого воздействия относится языковое манипулирование, рассматриваемое как сознательное и целенаправленное использование особенностей устройства и употребления языковых средств. Речь идет о разноуровневых средствах реализации иллокутивного намерения адресанта. Наряду с фонетическими, морфологическими средствами в фокусе внимания авторов находятся лексические средства, так как они являются доминирующими. За рамками статьи остаются синтаксические средства, учитывая объем статьи. Языковое манипулирование в рекламном тексте представляет собой особую разновидность речевого воздействия, поэтому формализация манипулирования, то есть выявление средств, выполняющих манипулятивную функцию, представляется важным для лингвистических изысканий, теории коммуникации, лингвистической прагматики и многих других научных направлений.

The current research was an effort to study the interaction of gender with text enhancement and meta-cognitive grammar instruction on learning and recall of English grammar. To this end, two groups of students consisting of 51 learners from both genders were formed. The participants were 51 male and 51 female learners. The 51 participants of each gender were further divided into two groups. Then, an OPT was administered to ensure homogeneity of the participants in terms of grammatical performance as well. Following that, two of the groups received text enhancement method and the other two groups received metacognitive instruction for learning grammar. Finally, the groups sat for a grammar posttest as well as a delayed posttest. When looking within groups, it was found the in metacognitive groups, males performed better on grammar posttest and delayed posttest in comparison with females. Regarding text enhancement groups, males and females did not significantly differ from each other both on posttest and delayed posttest. Finally, it was concluded that gender has the potentiality to affect the outcome of instruction when the role of input is considered in grammar instruction.

Muslims believe that the The Holy Quran is the message of God Almighty which has been transmitted to His messenger, Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), through revelation in the Arabic language. This Holy book has been translated into many languages, including English. Although the content of the The Holy Quran has been translated into the English language, few studies have been conducted to explore the beneficial effects of The Holy Quran verses on learning English. This study investigated whether using the The Holy Quran’s verses to teach English grammar improves the grammar learning and enhances motivation of high school EFL learners. To this end, 40 homogeneous participants were selected from a high school and then were assigned into two different groups (experimental vs. control). All the learners in the two groups took a grammar pretest, as well as a motivation questionnaire. The experimental group learners were exposed to Quranic verses in their English classes, while the control group learners attended their regular language classes. Finally, the participants took a grammar posttest as well as a motivation and an attitude questionnaire. The results of the one-way ANCOVA showed that the performance of the participants in the experimental group outweighed that of the control group. The statistical analysis of the attitude questionnaire showed that positive attitudes were formed in the students towards this technique of teaching grammar via The Holy Quran verses in English.

The present research addressed the prosodic realization of global and local text structure and content in the spoken discourse data produced by Persian EFL learners. Two newspaper articles were analyzed using Rhetorical Structure Theory. Based on these analyses, the global structure in terms of hierarchical level, the local structure in terms of the relative importance of text segments and the rhetorical relations between text segments were identified. The texts were read aloud by 18 high-proficient Persian learners of English. We measured pause durations preceding segments, F0-maxima (as a correlate of pitch range) and speech rates of the segments. Results suggested that speakers give prosodic indications about hierarchical level by means of variations in pause duration but not pitch range or speech rate. Furthermore, it was found that speakers articulate causally related segments with shorter in between pauses and at faster rate than non-causally related segments. However, they did not vary any of the prosodic measures to distinguish between important vs. unimportant segments. Overall, the results suggest that (1) variations in pause duration and speech rate are not used systematically by Persian EFL speakers as fully structured cuing devices to indicate organization of spoken discourse, importance of sentences and meaning relations between sentences; (2) pitch change structuring as a cue to discourse prosodic prominence is completely absent in Persian learners' text production. The results are not consistent with earlier findings of prosodic realization of text structure and content in English native speakers' discourse data, but are in line with those obtained for non-native spoken discourse.

This paper focuses on the impact of an asynchronous online discussion forum on the development of students’ ability in and attitudes toward writing in English. Two groups of third-year students (N = 60) majoring in English were assigned to two treatment and control groups, each receiving different types of feedback. Students in the treatment group were required to participate in an online learning environment and exchange feedback with their peers, whereas students in the control group received the traditional face-to-face feedback provided by the teacher. The results of a pre-test, a post-test, and a survey revealed that students’ writing in the treatment group significantly improved, both semantically and syntactically, and they expressed more positive attitudes toward writing. The findings also indicated that as a result of engaging in the asynchronous online discussion forum and exchanging feedback with peers, students exhibited more control over their work, involved more effectively with the learning tasks, collaborated more with their classmates, and employed self-assessment strategies to independently revise or rewrite their work. The implications of the study offer guidelines to improve and facilitate writing skill in EFL contexts.

This study was carried out to investigate the relationship between foreign language listening anxiety and listening comprehension. The study employed correlational study design. Participants of the study were 40 grade 11 students who attended the listening class in 2015/2016. Foreign language listening anxiety questionnaire and listening comprehension tests were used as data gathering instruments. These data were analyzed using Pearson’s Product moment correlation and one way ANOVA. In order to identify the significance of differences between the pairs of FL listening anxiety, multiple comparisons or a post hoc test was also conducted. The results revealed that there was a significant, negative correlation between listening comprehension and foreign language listening anxiety. The findings also showed that the mean differences were statistically significant between the low anxiety and average anxiety, low anxiety and high anxiety and average anxiety and high anxiety.

Over the past twenty-five years, researchers have expressed considerable interest in titles of academic publications. Unfortunately, conference paper titles (CPTs) have only recently begun to receive attention. The aim of this study, therefore, is to investigate the text length, syntactic structure, and lexicon of CPTs in Applied Linguistics. A data set of 698 titles was selected from the 2008 International Conference on Applied Linguistics held in Germany. The results from the analysis indicated that, first; the average text length of CPTs in Applied Linguistics is 10.4 words. Second, CPTs tended to be nominal, consistent with the finding in several titleology studies. Last, the lexical items of CPTs comprised a rich array of four main categories of lexicon (domain-specific words, research-related words, verbal expressions, and country/local references). These findings have implications for the scholarship on CPTs, academic writing pedagogy, and future research on academic titles.