درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Objective: The use of cohesive devices makes discourse comprehend. However, in the discourse of senile dementia of the Alzheimer's type (SDAT) participants, the lack of the use of cohesive devices hinders effective communication. The present study aims to investigate cohesion in the discourse of SDAT participants. Understanding how these people manage their interactions may lead to suitable approaches for them. Method: The methodology of this quantitative research was ex post facto type. The present study has been performed in one of the nursing home in Kermanshah in 2019. And also, the statistic population of this study included 20 participants (10 SDAT participants and 10 normal elderly participants (NE)) who were matched based on age (63-75 years old), gender, illiteracy, and Kurdish language (Kalhori dialect) speaker. To determine the severity of dementia, the Clinical Dementia Rating Scale (CDR) was performed. Then, the collected interviews were transcribed and coded. The data were analyzed based on Halliday and Hasan's theory (1976) and independent t-test was used to obtain the statistic results. Results: The findings indicate significant differences between groups using grammatical cohesive devices, such as reference (p=0.006), conjunction (p=0.004), ellipsis (p=0.007), and substitution (p=0.426) and lexical cohesive devices such as the same word (p=0.006), synonym (p=0.012), superordinate (p=0.001), general word (p=0.002), and collocation (p=0.387). Conclusion: The results show that grammatical and lexical cohesive devices are used less in the discourse of SDAT Kurdish speakers. However, in the discourse of both SDAT and NE groups, grammatical cohesive devices have more frequency than lexical cohesive devices.

This meta-analysis was conducted to synthesize the effect of 22 primary studies which have been conducted to test the effect of the integrated skills approach (ISA) on language skills and components. Three questions guide this analyses: What is the overall effect of ISA on language skills and sub-skills? To what extent moderator variables such as learners level of education and proficiency modify the effect of the ISA? What is the magnitude of publication bias in this analysis? The overall effect size was found to be 1.18, which represents a large effect size based on Cohen, Manion and Morrison’ (2007) scale. The results of moderator analysis revealed that the ISA has the largest effect for advanced learners and at a tertiary level of education. The symmetrical funnel plot together with fail-safe N test shows that publication bias does not have any significant effect on the effect size reported in this study. The findings of this meta-analysis have clear implications for practitioners, policymakers, and curriculum developers.

This research sheds light on what has constituted and defined Iran’s postrevolutionary political identity and provides insights into its development with important socio-political implications. In order to understand the configuration and the evolution of post-revolutionary identity in Iran, we examined Hajj Messages issued by Iran’s Supreme Leader through a content analysis within the framework of a threefold typological model of identity advanced by the authors: empiricistic, rationalistic, and idealistic. The passages selected from the Supreme Leader’s Hajj Messages are classified into the above-mentioned three categories based on the model. Results indicate that in the post-revolutionary Iran, a rationalism that inherits the doctrines of anti-despotism, anti-colonialism, and return to Islam prevails. It is also observed that the post-revolutionary identity of Iran has both empiricist and idealist factors, in the narrations of which the rituals of Hajj and the history of prophets are underscored respectively. This research also concerns ebbs and flows in the process of identity development in postrevolutionary Iran. Whilst the rationalist factor keeps stable and is gradually strengthening its preponderance, idealism is ebbing away and empiricism is flowing in.