درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Neil Simon’s plays, through their comic exterior, target serious social critique at the contemporary media-ridden culture of America. This research is a study of Simon’s theater from the perspective of Hannah Arendt’s speculations on human condition, totalitarianism, and violence. The selected plays, Fools, Lost in Yonkers, and Laughter on the 23rd Floor are scrutinized according to the three main concepts in Arendt’s thought, which are “action”, “work”, and “labor”. Action is a set of goal-oriented human activities carried out in plurality and imbued with the hope for new possibilities. Plural action is the most effective means of resisting totalitarianism that only wishes to downgrade action to work and then labor through violence. However, despite impositions and enforcements of violence, action always remains in the history for future generations to draw inspiration from. In Simon’s theater, despite its nonpolitical and humorous façade, action is inevitably thwarted, but its positive outcomes cannot be plagued. Simon puts on a vivid display the sparkles of pluralism and action regardless of immanent violence and its democratic disguise.

This article attempts to illustrate our confrontation with tragedy in contemporary situation, That is why we are discussing this here in seven issues (Feeding the Ancients with Our Own Blood/ Philosophy’s Tragedy and the Dangerous Perhaps/Knowing and Not Knowing: How Oedipus Brings Down Fate/ Rage, Grief, and War/ Gorgias: Tragedy Is a Deception That Leaves the Deceived Wiser/Than the Nondeceived/Justice as Conflict (for Polytheism)/Tragedy as a Dialectical Mode of Experience). Finally, this article seeks to show that tragedy is a way of experience in our life today.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the students’ English foreign language learning anxiety and English language performance test result. Thus, the objective of the study was to assess the relationship between students’ English foreign language learning anxiety and their English language performance. To attain this objective, a descriptive survey research design was employed. Students’ first semester English final examination result was used to explore the relationship between students’ English classroom anxiety and their English performance test result. In line with this, foreign language classroom anxiety scale and the students’ language performance scores were used to collect data. One hundred and seventy six (176) first year students were involved in the study. Multiple instruments that included questionnaire and document analysis were used to gather data. Both quantitative and qualitative data analysis methods were employed to analyze the data. The findings indicated that most of the students were found to be anxious. Furthermore, the findings showed that there was a significant negative relationship between students’ English foreign language learning anxiety and their English performance test result. Also, the findings of the study revealed that anxiety is much more prevalent in line with the subjects of the study and had negative correlations with their English language performance exam result. Finally, it was recommended that EFL instructors should acknowledge anxiety feelings as legitimate and attempt to lesson students’ feelings of inadequacy and failure by providing positive experiences and feedback to counter act anxiety.