درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

This study investigates the role of euphemistic strategies in the manipulation of realities and persuasion within political discourse, focusing on speeches by American and Iranian politicians during the 2013-2015 nuclear negotiations. Employing Van Dijk's socio-cognitive model, the research conducts a comparative discourse analysis to identify and categorize euphemistic expressions used to justify policies, address controversial issues, and influence public opinion. The analysis reveals distinct patterns in the use of euphemistic strategies, with American politicians, such as John Kerry, frequently employing polarization and burden/topos, while Iranian politicians, like Mohammad Javad Zarif, emphasize evidentiality and positive self-presentation. These differences reflect varying rhetorical styles and objectives, highlighting how euphemisms serve as tools for ideological manipulation and audience persuasion. The study underscores the importance of understanding euphemistic language in political communication, offering insights into the mechanisms of public perception shaping and the legitimization of political agendas. By comparing English and Persian political discourses, this research contributes to cross-cultural discourse analysis and enhances critical discourse awareness, equipping audiences to deconstruct political rhetoric and recognize underlying persuasive techniques.

The present explanatory mixed methods study was designed to investigate the difference between the effects of using the pyramid model of Willingness to Communicate (WTC) and Communicative Tasks (CTs) on reducing Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' speaking barriers. The participants were 57 Iranian EFL learners selected based on convenience sampling from a language institute in Tehran. The Preliminary English Test (PET) results verified their homogeneity. To foster a stronger spirit of cooperation among the participants, they were placed in three different classes based on their tendencies; hence, the researchers could consider them as three groups: the Pyramid Model Group (PMG), the Communicative Tasks Group (CTsG), and the Conventional Approach Group (CAG) each including 19 participants. The PMG received instructions pertaining to the six levels of PM in willingness to communicate (WTC), while the CTsG received instructions based on information gap, reasoning gap, and opinion gap activities. The CAG relied on the Audio-Lingual Method (ALM), which the institute regularly followed. Accordingly, the three groups went through pretesting, intervention, and post-testing. The participants completed a speaking barriers survey as pre- and post-tests. Then, ten participants from the three groups were randomly selected and interviewed about the impact of the methods they had experienced on their speaking barriers. The Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) revealed the priority of the pyramid model of WTC over communicative tasks and conventional teaching in reducing learners' speaking barriers. The interview results also confirmed the quantitative findings indicating that anxiety, learners' low self-confidence, along with linguistic and instructional barriers could be reduced through being exposed to the pyramid model instructions. The results can be helpful for ELT professionals, EFL teachers and learners, and other stakeholders to hold more thriving L2 speaking classes.

This study examined the effects of peer and teacher technology-enhanced scaffolding through process approach on Iranian EFL learners’ collocational knowledge with regard to impulsivity and reflectivity. The participants included 132 EFL learners at the intermediate level selected from an initial number of 204 learners based on their scores on Preliminary English Test (PET). The 132 learners were divided into three groups and given a collocation pretest and the reflectivity/impulsivity questionnaire. The three groups of the study were the peer scaffolding (N=48), the teacher scaffolding (N=43), and the control group (N=41). In each of the three groups, there were both reflective and impulsive learners. The first experimental group received peer scaffolding via Telegram while the second experimental group was exposed to teacher scaffolding. As for the control group, no teacher or peer scaffolding was provided and the learners were taught collocations in a conventional way. After the treatment, the posttest of collocations was given to the three groups. The results revealed that both peer and teacher scaffolding significantly affected collocation learning. However, there was no significant difference between peer and teacher scaffolding in terms of their effects on collocation learning. The results also indicated that the main effect of treatment on collocation learning was significant; however, there was not a statistically significant interaction between peer and teacher scaffolding through the process approach in a technology-enhanced environment and reflectivity vs. impulsivity on EFL learners’ collocation learning. Based on the results, EFL teachers can employ both peer and teacher scaffolding in a technology-enhanced environment to improve EFL learners’ collocational knowledge irrespective of learners’ impulsivity and reflectivity.

Ever since its introduction, the flipped learning approach has demonstrated promising results in English language teaching. To this end, the goal of the present study was to compare the effectiveness of flipped learning on speaking in two different cooperative and competitive EFL learning settings. To conduct the study, the researchers selected 60 learners through nonrandom convenience sampling and subsequently randomly assigned them into two experimental groups of 30 learners, namely the flipped learning cooperative and the flipped learning competitive groups. Both groups underwent the same flipped learning treatment; the point of departure, however, was the fact that in one group the learners exercised cooperative learning while the other group experienced competitive learning. Prior to the treatment, all 60 learners took a speaking pretest (a sample Preliminary English Test or PET) and after the treatment, a posttest (another sample PET) was administered to them. An analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was run on the two groups’ scores on the pre- and posttest. The result of the study indicated that the learners sitting in the flipped cooperative group outperformed those in the flipped competitive group. The implications of the findings of this study are elaborated in the paper.

The purpose of this research was to determine the effect of emotional self-regulation training on assertiveness skills and motivational beliefs in students.The research method was a semi-experimental pre-test-post-test type with a control group.From the statistical population, which included all sixth grade female students of Mirjaveh in the academic year of 1997-1998, using the purposeful sampling method, 40 people were randomly replaced in two experiment and control groups.The tools used were Gambrill and Ritchie's Daring Questionnaire (1975) and Motivational Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (1990).Covariance analysis method was also used to analyze the data. The results of the research showed that emotional self-regulation training was effective on students' assertiveness skills and motivational beliefs (p<0.01). Also, the effect of emotional self-regulation training on the components of motivational beliefs such as increasing self-efficacy and reducing exam's anxiety has also been positive and significant (p<0.01). But the results of the effect of emotional self-regulation training on internal valuation were not significant (p<0.05).Considering the negative consequences of weak motivational beliefs and assertiveness skills in students; Therefore, in order to strengthen these variables, it is suggested that emotional self-regulation be taught to students by teachers and education planners in the form of class discussions or empowerment workshops.

This study offers a full symbolic interactionist examination of Anne Tyler's novel A Slipping-Down Life, examining how identity is developed, acted out, and challenged by symbolic movements, emotional labor, and social recognition. With a focus on the protagonist Evie Decker, this study takes up seven primary questions of inquiry about the formation of identity in terms of performance, the influence of gender expectations, the utilization of music and silence as communication, and the intersections of trauma, emotion, and resistance in terms of negotiating identity. Basing itself on the classic theoretical models constructed by Mead, Blumer, Goffman, and Cooley—and recent reformulations and explications provided by Charmaz, Burke and Stets, and feminist theorists such as Butler and Gilligan—this article places Evie's transformation within generic sociological and psychological contexts. Through acts of self-scarification, deliberate silence, and remaking maternity roles, Evie operates within a condition of marginality and misrecognition. Her experience demonstrates identity as an active, networked, and emotional process, with a strong impact of gender roles and social norms. The research points out that literature, and especially texts richly textured with sociological context, such as Tyler's, offers a fertile backdrop for comprehending identity formation as an emotional, symbolic, and performative process. By drawing upon knowledge from narrative psychology, feminist theory, and cultural sociology, this study highlights the benefit of applying interdisciplinary approaches to literary analysis and the sociological imagination.