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The diversity between a source language and a target language and the variation in their cultures make the task of finding equivalents a serious challenge. Expressive texts are among the most difficult text-types to be translated. Being deeply rooted in the culture of a nation, classical literary texts are seldom devoid of culture-specific concepts or cultural references (CRs). Sa‘di’s (1208-1291) Gulistan is a prominent masterpiece of classical Persian literature that abounds with CRs. It is translated by many translators. Anderson (1861) and Rosenbaum (2010) are among the earliest and the most recent translators of the Persian masterpiece, respectively. The paper aimed at identifying categories of CRs in translations, determining translators’ most and least frequent procedures and specifying the most challenging categories of CRs for each of them. The study aims at identifying various categories of the CRs in the Gulistan and the procedures employed by the two translators in rendering them. In order to specify the procedures, Davies’s (2003) model and Huber and Kairys’s (2021) taxonomy were used. The findings revealed that ‘substitution’, ‘literal translation’ and ‘generalization’ were averagely the most frequent procedures. Moreover, it was found that the terms belonging to the categories of ‘religion’, ‘garments’ and ‘social life’ were the most challenging concepts for the English translators.

SUBJECT & OBJECTIVES: With the development of technology, it is expected that artificial intelligence will be able to analyze models of emotional relationships, such as love, and respond to users’ requests to create a personalized intelligent beloved with a physical body; a phenomenon named in this study as Intelligent Artificial Beloved (IAB). It can be designed and used as a dedicated companion aligned with the characteristics of the human user. The research's main question is: what philosophical and ethical consequences will the development of IAB entail? METHOD & FINDING: The research benefited from a descriptive-analytical method. Notably, this phenomenon has positive and negative consequences. The advantages of IAB include the ability of a personalized intelligent beloved to adapt to an individual’s variable and fluid requests, and expanding the boundaries of realizing ‘human desires’, i.e., the ability to create features in the artificial beloved that cannot occur or be externally realized in natural humans. The following items might be considered as challenges of IAB: 1. Weakening genuine romantic relationships among ‘natural human individuals’ 2. Immersion in an ‘intelligent artificial life’ and weakening the ‘natural lifestyle’ 3. The guidance and management of the ‘wants and lives of romantic users’ by the AI 4. Developing a competitive space between natural and artificial lovers or beloveds. CONCLUSION: Although IAB has advantages, neglecting its philosophical and ethical consequences can overshadow these benefits and cause individual and social harm. Proper cultural awareness and macro-level policymaking can be useful in responsibly managing this phenomenon.

SUBJECT & OBJECTIVES: Ontological inquiry constitutes one of the central concerns of metaethics. Within this field, theories are commonly divided into two main categories: realist and non-realist. While this primary distinction is well established, the secondary classifications and internal variations within realism have received comparatively little attention. Many of the enduring ambiguities in moral philosophy arise from the lack of a precise differentiation among realist positions. This study aims to address that gap by re-examining the ontological foundations and typological distinctions within moral realism. METHOD & FINDING: Using an analytical–descriptive method, this study differentiates between two distinct forms of moral realism—rationalist realism and sentimentalist realism—and explicates their respective implications. Representative approaches of sentimentalist realism include hedonism, Isaiah Berlin’s notion of negative liberty, Karl Popper’s reduction of suffering, and Benthamite utilitarianism. In contrast, MacIntyre’s virtue ethics, scientism, and perfectionism exemplify rationalist realism. The implications of rationalist realism can be summarized as follows: 1. The possibility of rational justification for moral judgments; 2. The dependence of moral values on ontological realities; 3. The possibility of moral preference in cases of ethical conflict based purely on ontological grounds; 4. The capacity to identify and prioritize the virtuous individual; 5. The derivability of “ought” from “is” on rational premises alone; 6. Monism is grounded in a single rational proposition; 7. Absolutism grounded in an absolute rational principle. CONCLUSION: While sentimentalist realism shares certain structural features with other realist frameworks, it diverges from rationalist realism in several essential respects, particularly regarding the role of sentiment, taste, and individual inclination in grounding moral value. This distinction underscores the need for a more nuanced typology of moral realism within contemporary metaethical discourse.

Pronunciation remains a persistent challenge for English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. This is particularly important in contexts where segmental/suprasegmental features differ from those of learners’ first language. Translanguaging is widely recognized as a beneficial pedagogical approach in language education. It is defined as learners’ strategic use of their full linguistic repertoire, including first and additional languages, to support meaning-making and learning. However, its application to pronunciation instruction has received limited empirical attention. This quasi-experimental mixed-methods study examined the effectiveness of translanguaging-based instruction in developing Iranian EFL learners’ segmental/suprasegmental pronunciation features and explored participants’ perceptions of this approach. Twenty upper-intermediate Iranian EFL students were assigned to the experimental and control groups. Over 27 instructional sessions, the experimental group received translanguaging-based pronunciation instruction, while the control group followed a communicative English-only approach. Data were collected through pretest–posttest pronunciation tasks, acoustic analysis using Praat, and semi-structured interviews, and they were analyzed using non-parametric statistical tests and thematic analysis. The quantitative results revealed significant improvements in several suprasegmental features, including linking, epenthesis, deletion, sentence stress, and word stress, whereas gains in segmental features were limited. Acoustic analysis indicated significant changes in F2 onset frequencies for the diphthongs /oʊ/ and /eɪ/. Qualitative findings showed that students perceived translanguaging as enhancing comprehension and reducing anxiety. They also reported it created a more supportive learning environment and varied in effectiveness across pronunciation features. Findings suggest translanguaging is particularly effective for suprasegmental pronunciation development and offers pedagogical value for creating a learner-centered EFL pronunciation instruction.

While a growing body of research testifies to the benefits of asynchronous computer-mediated communication (ACMC) for foreign language learning, its contributions within the field of interlanguage pragmatics (ILP) have remained underexplored. To address this gap, the present study aimed to unveil the impact of mobile-assisted (text vs. voice messaging) ACMC on Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' pragmatic learning of apologies and requests. Utilizing a mixed method, pretest-posttest design, data from sixty intermediate Iranian EFL learners studying English at Shokouh Language Institute in Babolsar, Mazandaran were obtained based on the results of an Oxford Placement Test (OPT). The participants were assigned into two experimental groups (text-messaging, N = 20; voice-messaging, N = 20) and one control group (N = 20). A Written Discourse Completion Test (WDCT) and semi-structured interviews were used for data collection. The pretest and posttest analysis revealed the experimental groups’ significant gains through both text and voice messaging, with only a negligible difference between their effectiveness. The qualitative findings led to the detection of three significant themes a posteriori, namely flexibility and convenience, lower pressure, and promotion of collaborative learning and emotional engagement. The findings suggest that by incorporating multiple modes of interaction, mobile-assisted ACMC grants learners a variety of technological affordances to enrich their pragmatic learning.