درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

This study was intended first to categorize the L2 learners in terms of their learning style preferences and second to investigate if their learning preferences are related to lexical inferencing. Moreover, strategies used for lexical inferencing and text related issues of text density and parts of speech were studied to determine their moderating effects and the best predictors of lexical inferencing. To this end, a posttest group design with 142 students studying engineering was adopted for the study. Perceptual style preferences questionnaire was administered to identify the students’ major learning styles, followed by strategy training for deriving the meaning of unknown words. Finally, lexical inferencing texts were given to the students to study and extract the meaning of unknown words and concurrently determine the type of strategy used for lexical inferencing. The results indicated that a great proportion of students belonged to the kinesthetic category of styles while the predominant treatments in the class were audio-visually structured. The analysis also revealed that tactile, kinesthetic, and group categories of style preferences are meaningfully related. Moreover, it was found that learning style preferences lead to statistically different lexical ineferncing. As for the strategies, the ‘syntactic knowledge analysis’ showed the highest correlation with ‘auditory learners’. Lexical density and parts of speech were also shown to moderate the effect of perceptual style preferences on lexical ability. On the whole, strategy and perceptual style preferences were found to be the two best predictors of successful lexical inferencing.

In this research, different English translations of Sa‘di’s Bustan were studied. An anecdote was selected randomly with its three English translations to identify whether or not the translators have managed to convey the messages of the original poem. The three selected translations were examined according to two of the criteria that Larson (1984) has proposed (accuracy and naturalness) for testing a translation. By accuracy, the researcher intended to see whether, the translators have been successful in rendering the SL text accurately and precisely without radical changes, omission and addition; and by naturalness, it was meant whether the translations sound natural or they contain strange and foreign words. The results of the study show that Edwards has been successful in understanding the main idea of the original poem and conveying it into prose. Clarke’s translation is word-for-word and being literal, the natural criterion has been breached in some instances. Wickens’s has attempted to transfer the exact meaning of the original to the target text. Among the three translations studied, that of Wickens is considered to be the most accurate one.