مطالب

This paper examined impoliteness strategies used by characters and their resulting reactions in five American comedy series. Drawing on Culpeper’s models (1996 & 2003), the comedy series were watched several times with one month interval to make sure that the impolite utterances and their reactions were put in the correct categories. The results of the study revealed that sarcasm was the most frequently used strategy among other strategies, and male and female characters were not distinct in using this strategy. However, male characters exploited the bald on record strategy more than their female counterparts. One striking result was the frequent use of offensive reactions by male actors. The reasons behind the variable use of these strategies are twofold. First, impoliteness is used as a tool to show off the power of the male characters. Second, using impoliteness strategies in comedy series reflect the entertaining role of sarcasm used by the actors.

Various types of focalization are important elements in creating suspense and surprise. This study finds use of narrative discourse analysis in order to discover the narrative affordances and limitations of internal focalization for creating suspense and surprise in Persian detective novels, specifically, Esmail Fassih’s The Falcon and the Owls . Duality (the existence of two temporal sets in the structure of the narrative), raising implicit questions in the first and other scenes of the novel, flashback, flashforward, different types of internal and external conflicts, spatial limitation of the focalizer and the suspense after the surprise are some of the affordances and limitations of the internal focalizer in creating suspense and surprise. In The Falcon and the Owls , the most significant strengths of the internal focalizer are the extensive attention given to narrative affordances such as raising implicit questions in the first and other scenes of the novel as well as going back and forth in time; while its weaknesses include giving insufficient attention to the tactic of multiple internal focalization, paying unnecessary attention to unimportant omissions and omitting important events.

Despite the determining role of culture-bound materials in the enhancement of EFL learners’ productive skills, a scarcity of investigation on the influence of culture-oriented content on their productive skills is staunchly perceived. This gap can be partly filled by implementing Content Based Language Teaching (CBLT) program which contrives the EFL content especially in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classrooms. In this respect, a culture-oriented EAP course book was designed based on Tomlinson’s (2001) materials development framework. A total of 100 participants were recruited according to their language proficiency results, and were fractionated into two productive EAP task groups embracing Oral Presentation and Systematic Writing as the two befitting techniques to strengthen productive skills. After practicing and teaching the developed course book in each class in twenty treatment sessions, the participants were given a posttest. Correspondingly, a paired samples t-test indicated that culture-oriented content affected the EFL students’ speaking and writing skills separately. Similarly, an independent samples t-test revealed the influence of culture-oriented content on their speaking skill than the writing skill. The findings suggest the significance of the first culture as the benchmark for incorporating second culture contents in EFL teaching arenas.

This study was designed to highlight the potential effects of different types of Explicit Syntactic Markers (ESMs) on the sentence comprehension of EFL learners of different age-range and proficiency levels. Consequently, two hundred and forty beginners, intermediate, and advanced Iranian EFL learners were selectedfrom an initial pool of six hundred and sixty learners. They were selected based on their McMillan Placement Test (MPT) performance. Subsequently, they were categorized into two age groups teenagers and adults. An online software application (Com-Chron) was utilized to provide learners with a set of ESM and non-ESM English sentences on the screen to measure the accurate comprehension and the elapsed time needed for the perception of the presented sentences. Data analyses revealed that participants had a significantly superior performance for comprehending the ESM items (though they were longer sentences than non-ESM items). Furthermore, it was revealed that proficiency level, unlike age, caused a statistically significant difference in comprehending the ESM sentences. It was also concluded that different types of explicit syntactic markers imposed different degrees of comprehension difficulty both in terms of accuracy and the needed time for the participants’ comprehension; sentences with punctuation marks and conjunctions were the easiest for the participants, while those including determiners and link breaks were the most challenging. Results also indicated that all the ESMs (except for the link breaks) can significantly account for English sentence comprehension and can be assumed as comprehension predictors to various degrees .

Imam Khomeini's reformative movement in the twentieth century with the support of the Iranian awakening is considered the most significant religious revolution of its time. In the face of this spiritual revolution, formed a theological movement in the Latin American region. The struggle against public oppression in Latin American society, social and economic injustice, the exploitation and colonisation of nations by international imperialism were the essential aim of the Latin American Revolutionary Church for its movement. But it failed to implement the goals of its action in establishing social justice and eradicating poverty and oppression in society. The present study primary question is ‘What are the commonalities and differences between the Latin American Revolutionary Church and the social theology of the Imam Khomeini movement in the social function of religion?’ The hypothesis is the most critical goal of Imam Khomeini's movement is to bring man to true happiness, and the only strategy to achieve it is creating justice in a monotheistic society. Despite aligning with its ultimate goals and operational plans, the Latin American Revolutionary Priests Movement has failed to produce the grounds for a human awakening in the Latin American region due to its disbelief in the expansion of justice in the context of monotheistic society and its school subscription with Marxism and Nationalist parties. Belief in the two components of religious democracy and Vilayat-e Faqih formed a vital strategy called the Islamic Republic for Iranian people that the followers of the Revolutionary Church can fill their vacancy through this strategy. The present study, with a descriptive-analytical method and based on library resources, has been done.

The present study, for scientific use, aimed to combine and integrate the presented analyzes of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, which is based on Weber's charisma theory with different approaches and in the form of individual and scattered studies in the form of books, articles, interviews, dissertations and thesis. To this aim, with the qualitative method and meta-analyzed technique, and the scientific method of the volume of research, time, place, the format of works, research methods have been used, and the findings of Weber's analyzes of the Islamic Revolution, similar species have been identified. The statistical population is 56 of the existing works of 37 domestic and foreign authors and analysts. The findings indicated that a group of works acknowledge the power of Weber's theory in analyzing the Islamic Revolution. Another group is trying to empower Weber's thesis in analyzing the Islamic Revolution using adaptation and correction. The third type of works indicates a critical approach confronting the arrival of Weberian analysis and the inconsistency and inability of this theory to analyze the Islamic Revolution of Iran. Thus, meta-analysis shows different and even conflicting types of analysis of Weber's charismatic leadership theory and its usage in studying the Iranian revolution in the contemporary century

The purpose of this study is to identify the roots of cultural policy making in the IRI. Having a historical approach this article has used a thematic content analysis with a “content coding technique” to review the works of three Islamic revolutionary scholars whose views have been frequent reference to many cultural policy makers before and after the revolution. In this regard there have been “thirty headlines” identified as policy making headings which are divided into: ten headlines from Ali Shariati’s book called “Returns”, eight headlines from "The Future of the Islamic Revolution" a book by Morteza Motahari, and twelve headlines from a series of Seyyed Ahmad Fardid’s lectures, titled as "Hereafter Conquest and Meetings of Farahi". According to the results of this research, the sharing feature of these three views, albeit from different origins of ideas, is the two following lines "Confrontation with Being Westernized" and "the Priority of Reform, and the Development of Thought and Culture". Another result of this research indicates the influence of the document "Principles of cultural policy of the country" through the views of these scholars. At the end of this article, it is claimed that the Islamic Republic of Iran's cultural policies, both elective and compound, are rooted in the cultural theorists of the revolution, and it cannot be accepted that the Islamic Republic of Iran, in its forty-year lifetime, departed from the first designed cultural principles. It is a form of early thought that has been recognized and formed as normal