مطالب

Science and technology diplomacy has been considered as one of the influential tools in the international arena by many countries and even trade and political unions. The European Union has also implemented various programs with Central Asian countries. The research question is what are the goals and objectives of EU science and technology diplomacy in Kazakhstan? The results show that EU scientific diplomacy is pursued in two forms: scientific diplomacy based on technology and scientific diplomacy based on the humanities in Central Asia. For example, 4 to 7-year programs have been implemented in Central Asian countries, such as Kazakhstan include biology, genomics and biotechnology for health, information technologies, nanotechnology, knowledge-based multifunctional materials and new manufacturing processes and tools, air and space, food quality and safety. The main focus of the program is on Kazakhstan. The main objectives of these programs appear to monitor the country's nuclear activities with the aim of preventing nuclear proliferation via support from the model of neoliberal economic development, increase the capacity of civil society, and support the soft power of the union. This research will use descriptive-analytical methods and second-hand data collection.

In the preface to his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant characterizes his own critical metaphysics as the main opponent of dogmatism, which inevitably results in the assertion of conflicting dogmas especially about the existence of God, the freedom of the will and the immortality of the soul. Simultaneously, Kant subtly distinguishes his critical philosophy from three other stances opposing dogmatism: the skepticism of Descartes and Hume, the empiricism of John Lock, and the indifferentism of thinkers who, without rejecting metaphysical assertions, refute any attempt to argue for them systematically and rigorously. Refusing indifferentism, Kant somehow admits a commonsensical view similar to that of indifferentism regarding principal issues of metaphysics. Touching very briefly on Kant’s view, the paper examines Nietzschechr('39')s take on especially the issue of the existence of the Christian God. Defending a kind of stance similar to skepticism or even, in some aspects, to indifferentism, Nietzsche’s chief endeavor is to look at the issue from the different perspectives of genealogical and axiological critiques in order to pave the way for an entire overlooking the issue. In this respect, such an endeavor results in a stance contrary to Kant’s commonsensical position, ending up in Nietzsche’s talk of the Death of God and the Death of the True World.

Given that reformulation is an integral component of scientific texts in which the explanation of terms and ideas is prevalent (Candel, 1984; Thoiron & Bejoint, 1991), this study aims at examining the form, frequency, and function of reformulation markers in three sub-corpora, namely, L1 English, L2 English, and L1 Persian research articles of psychology. The study is based on a corpus of 60 research articles amounting to a total size of 1,105,433 words. Drawing on the list of reformulation markers provided in Hyland (2005) in the case of English sub-corpora and a list of Persian reformulation markers prepared by three experts in the Persian language, we searched the corpus automatically for all the instances of reformulation markers. In the next step, all the instances were examined in their textual context in order to identify their function. The results indicated that L1 English sub-corpus contains the highest frequency of reformulation markers followed by L2 English and finally L1 Persian. There were also differences with regard to forms and functions, as well as parenthetical uses of reformulation markers across the three sub-corpora, specifically between L1 English and L1 Persian, suggesting the existence of intercultural variation in the use of reformulation. Besides, Iranian researchers writing in L2 English tend to adapt their writing style to the norms and conventions of English at least as far as reformulation is concerned. The study concludes with some implications for EAP writing and teaching.

It is widely acknowledged that collocations play a crucial role in second or foreign language learning by enabling learners to know more about language chunks and lexical strings. Although many studies have examined L2 learners’ collocational competence, comparatively less research has been carried out to probe into the effective instruction and exercises for enhancing the acquisition, retention, and production of lexical (e.g. make a mistake ) vs. grammatical ( on purpose ) collocations. Therefore, the present study attempted to explore the effect of L2 definitions, fill-in-the-blanks, and sentence writing exercises on the acquisition, retention, and production of lexical vs. grammatical collocations. The data were collected from 66 EFL participants who were studying English at a private language institute. First, an Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was given to homogenize the learners. Then, the participants were divided into three groups, each receiving one of the three different types of exercises including definitions, fill-in-the-blanks, and sentence writing exercises. Data analysis using multivariate ANOVA (MANOVA) indicated that learners who received the sentence writing treatment significantly outperformed those learners who received definition and fill-in-the-blank exercises in the acquisition, retention, and production of lexical vs. grammatical collocations. Moreover, fill-in-the-blanks could help the participants learn, retain, and remember both types of collocations significantly better than the L2 definitions. These findings have some pedagogical implications for learning and teaching lexical and grammatical collocations.

Television can be considered a rich, helpful, and valuable source to expose L2 learners to huge amounts of comprehensible input so that they can improve their L2 knowledge and, in particular, their L2 vocabulary knowledge. This study aimed to discover how effective sustainable and extensive TV viewing can be in L2 vocabulary learning, considering the language of the on-screen text (L1 or L2) and instruction type (preteaching L2 items or not). Eighty L2 learners (58 female and 22 male), who had an intermediate English proficiency and were divided into four groups, participated in the intervention over an academic term in a language institute. Participants viewed 14 episodes of a TV series under four experimental conditions: (1) captions and preteaching, (2) captions without preteaching, (3) subtitles and preteaching, and (4) subtitles without preteaching. A pre/posttest design to examine the gains regarding both L2 vocabulary meaning and form was adopted. Results suggested that extensive exposure to TV series positively affected the participants’ L2 vocabulary learning, both in terms of meaning and form. Participants exposed to L2 captions outperformed those who had received L1 subtitles, concerning both L2 vocabulary meaning and form. Finally, the analyses showed that, overall, the groups that had undergone preteaching performed better, regardless of the language of the on-screen texts.

One prominent criterion to achieve efficient learning and instruction in an educational setting is the appropriate material(s) specifically developed for that particular group of learners, particularly in an English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) context. This study aimed at developing new EOP materials for pre-service cabin crew in an aviation school. To do so, initially the researchers performed the evaluation of the current EOP textbook through a checklist and interviews with 20 English teachers who did not express much satisfaction about it. Consequently, having been convinced about the unsatisfactory results, the researchers developed new materials for this group of learners. The new materials was later implemented on 30 learners as the experimental group as opposed to another 30 as the control group being instructed by the current material. The findings demonstrated significant differences in the experimental group achievement of language proficiency at the end of the course compared to their language proficiency at the beginning of the course. Moreover, the results expressed significant differences between the achievement of control and experimental groups at the end of EOP courses, in favor of the experimental group. The newly developed EOP materials for flight attendants could be widely instructed in the airlines and aviation schools based on the obtained findings.

This study aimed at identifying the most frequent test-taking strategies used by successful Iranian male and female university entrance exam EFL applicants. To this end, 150 English major male and female freshman students who got admission to three reputable state universities of Isfahan, Shiraz, and Tehran were selected conveniently and purposively. The model used in this study was developed by Barati (2005) consisting of planning, monitoring, evaluation, and test-wiseness strategies. After selecting the participants, the modified questionnaire developed based on Barati’s test-taking strategy taxonomy was distributed among the participants. Based on the analysis of results, it was revealed that the EFL learners made frequent use of planning, monitoring, evaluation, and test-wiseness strategies, but only the level of use of planning and monitoring strategies reached statistical significance. Moreover, male and female EFL learners were only significantly different in their use of evaluation strategies, but in terms of using planning, monitoring, and test-wiseness strategies, males and females were not significantly different from one another. The findings of the study bear useful implications for EFL learners, teachers, materials designers, and test constructors.

The present study was carried out with the purpose of examining the role of metaphorical language in the critical discourse analysis (CDA) of political texts based on a modern framework postulated by Kövecses (2015). The corpus of the study consisted of thirty-thousand words chosen as a textual sample to see which source conceptual domains are used and what generic/discursive attributes emerge upon the analysis. It was prepared through systematic random sampling from different editorial articles in Western political magazines on the relations between Iran and the West in the time span of 2010-2019. Then, Critical Metaphor Analysis was used to explain the trend and patterns in the political articles, mostly lending support to previous research by authority figures in critical and political metaphor analysis that metaphors are used in shaping political thinking, in aiding political persuasion, and in steering cognitive scenarios and models towards the shaping of interpretations of the nations as person or body metaphors. Finally, the study lent ample support to this latter view in its textual findings of the conceptual metaphors used. The findings of the study provide foreign language education in general and the EFL classrooms in particular, with some implications for further research.

There have been few representative studies investigating Iranian senior high school students’ L2 selves shaped by the ELT reform. Thus, the current study was an attempt to ponder on the ideal-self, ought-to self, and L2 experience orientations of Iranian EFL high school students. Moreover, it intended to seek whether there was any relationship between three L2 motivational variables of Iranian EFL high school students across gender and residential background. To this end, 200 males and 184 females from Iranian senior high schools in South part of Iran were selected through purposive sampling. Based on a mixed methods design, the study was conducted to gain the breadth and depth of the issue under investigation. The results showed that there was no substantial gap between male and female learners in L2 motivational preference of English learning. In addition, there was a significant difference between female and male students’ views on ought-to self. Moreover, it was observed that there was no marked difference between the L2 experience of female and male L2 learners. Regarding residential background, there was a significant difference among the mean ranks of the urban residential participants at three L2 motivational orientations but, there was not a significant difference among the mean ranks of the rural residential participants. The findings of the study recommend the incorporation of L2 motivation in teaching methods to improve the learning environment and learner investment in language learning.