درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Nineteenth-century Britain, also known as the Victorian Britain, was the age of prosperity, advancement, the dominance of the British Empire, liberality, and enhancements in diverse social grounds. Through the light of New Historicist approach, the present study comes to critically question the idealism of the Victorian era and particularly that of the 1880s. Through exploring George Bernard Shaw’s Widower’s House it is intended to provide an illuminating understanding of the different aspects of the Victorian England. Focusing on the works of literature, New Historicist critical stadnpoint brings about less subjective views towards the past and a clearer view of all incidents. The present study seeks to demonstrate that England, and more specifically London as the centre of the nineteenth-century world, was not the suggested paradise described in newspapers but rather a city in which poverty enslaved people and suffocated them in dreadful houses built around the city without having basic facilities. Sartorious in Widowers’ Houses , as a brutal slum landlord who keeps his tenants in such a dreadful condition, represents the owners of such indecent houses which have been rented to poor classes of society. This research lastly demonstrates the controversy of the state of the city suggested by authorities and the true state suggested by the author. 

Interpersonal metadiscourse is considered as a significant mean of smoothing communication between the speaker/writer and listener/reader. The present study intends to explore the concept and type of interpersonal metadiscourse markers employed by Donald Trump’s campaign speeches as a persuasive strategy. Descriptive qualitative research design is used in the present study. Dafouz’s (2008) classification of interpersonal metadiscourse markers was employed to analyze the gathered data. The results revealed that Trump made use of all categories of interpersonal metadiscourse markers namely hedges, certainty markers, attributors, attitude markers, and commentaries, in his campaign speeches. The frequency of attitude markers and commentaries was more than other types of metadiscourse markers in Trump’s campaign speech, which demonstrates that he attempted to persuade the public to vote for him through making an emotional link.

The purpose of this study is to explore the effectiveness of utilizing humorous versus non-humorous texts on receptive and productive vocabulary learning. This research is also conducted to seek whether language proficiency of the participants would be a factor influencing the effectiveness of two types of treatments used in the study. The materials employed in the present study include 17 humorous and 17 non-humorous texts which contain the target words. 87 students at two proficiency levels participated in the study and almost half of them were exposed to the target words through humorous texts and the second half learned the words through non-humorous texts. The target words with their English definitions were presented to the participants. Each text was accompanied by some comprehension questions, either in the multiple choice format, fill in the blanks or open ended questions. Following the treatment, an unannounced immediate post-test was administered to measure the effectiveness of two text types on vocabulary learning. After a three-week interval, an unannounced delayed post-test was administered to check the efficacy of text types on long-term vocabulary learning. The findings suggest significantly better vocabulary learning both in immediate and delayed post-tests for the less proficient participants learning target words through humorous texts. However, in the case of the more proficient learners, it turns out that humor is considerable in long-term learning of the target words. Based on the results, it is recommended that teachers and materials developers include more elements of humor in the language classes and course books.