مطالب

Objective: The study aimed to compare the effectiveness of an integrative pre-marital training package based on Bowen's intergenerational theory and life design model with the SYMBIS approach on marital choice orientation. Methods: A quasi-experimental research design with a pretest-posttest-follow-up model and two experimental groups and one control group was utilized. The statistical population consisted of university students in Isfahan. The sample included 45 female students selected through convenience sampling based on inclusion and exclusion criteria and randomly assigned to three groups (integrative training group, SYMBIS group, and control group), each containing 20 participants. The experimental groups received eight 90-minute training sessions, while the control group was placed on a waiting list. All three groups completed research instruments at the pretest, posttest, and follow-up stages. The research instrument was the Marital Choice Orientation Questionnaire (Yousefi, 2023). Data were analyzed using repeated measures ANOVA. Findings: Results indicated that both the integrative training group and the SYMBIS group significantly influenced marital choice orientation (F = 15.5, P = 0.001), and this effect remained stable during the follow-up phase (P < 0.05). Conclusion: The findings revealed that both methods had a significant and comparable impact on improving the dependent variable, suggesting their utility in enhancing marital choice orientation.

This paper examines Julian Barnes’s Flaubert’s Parrot by the five semiotic codes of the French literary critic Roland Barthes introduced in his renowned work S/Z, to show that the novel is a ‘writerly’ rather than a ‘readerly’ text. The paper defines what Barthes means by the text of the writerly and then attempts to see if the selected novel yields to this sort of interpretation. Since the novel has been categorized as both modernist and postmodernist by prominent literary critics, it can be a proper case to be examined as a writerly text. The paper shows that the codes of semantic, symbolic and cultural which produce the writerly text are at work in this novel whereas the codes of the hermeneutic and proairetic which are concerned with the conventional realist novels are marginalized or even absent. The article examines the writerly text makers of the author role, the theme of biography, the notion of literary criticism and the narration of the novel, referring to the codes creating the writerly text. The paper finally concludes that the semiotic sophistication and innovations in the narrative act of the novel stem from the categories discussed in the essay, ending in the construction of a highly sophisticated writerly text.

This article analyzes complex words, morphologically and semantically, within the Perceptual approach introduced by Safavi (2020). The authors aim to examine the possibilities of word formation of complex words in Persian as their first objective. To achieve this goal, they examined 2850 complex words selected randomly from the Sokhan Dictionary (Anvari, 2004). Following the mentioned approach, word-formation patterns are determined based on whether the morphemes belong to closed or open classes. According to a predetermined agreement, A stands for closed class units and B stands for open class units. This study reveals 57 patterns of word formation, with ‘B + B’ appearing to be the most common among all the patterns examined. Next, the authors investigated how much closed-class units help Persian speakers interpret the semantic head of complex words examined. To reach this aim, 20 Persian speakers not having any knowledge of linguistics were given a questionnaire of 120 words made up of eight affixes selected by the authors and questioned about interpreting each word. Finally, data analysis related to the questionnaire revealed that the meaning interpretation of the words appeared to be significantly impacted by the morphemes belonging to the closed class.

This study examined the possible effects of orthographic/phonologic priming techniques on the receptive language skills of Iranian EFL learners with different proficiency levels. From an initial pool of 700 EFL learners from a language learning institute, two hundred and seventy learners from both genders were selected based on their performance on an English proficiency test and classified into six experimental and three control groups. After gaining certitude about the participants’ English proficiency levels, the semantic and orthographic/phonologic priming phase was conducted, and consequently, the participants’ contextualized comprehension of the primed words was assessed via a set of reading and listening comprehension tasks. The performances of the participants on the designed tasks indicated that semantic primes were more efficient for improving both comprehension skills compared with the orthographic-phonologic primes. Moreover, based on the results, language proficiency affected the success of the primes on both reading and listening comprehension tasks; advanced learners showed a greater improvement than the beginners and the intermediates under the influence of the priming techniques. Orthographic-phonologic primes were found to be more efficient for beginners, whereas the advanced learners showed an enhanced performance with regard to semantic primes. Overall, semantic primes showed more facilitative effects across various comprehension tasks due to their activation of deeper cognitive processing. Orthographic-phonologic primes were also successful. However, they were more efficient in the early stages of language learning, where visual recognition played a more critical role.

This research examines the Iranian digital community's engagement with the Metaverse, analyzing 14,724 tweets (expanding to 48,620 with retweets) from 23,571 unique users. Interest in the Metaverse among Iranians surged in the seven months following Facebook's rebranding but has since waned. A significant link between digital currency discussions and Metaverse topics was observed. Economic activists in the cryptocurrency market, forming the primary content creators, generally portray the Metaverse positively, focusing on earning opportunities. Another active group includes technology enthusiasts who share the latest Metaverse developments. Moreover, some users integrate Iran's socio-political context into their discussions, often contrasting Iran's technological stance with global giants like Facebook and addressing internet censorship. A distinct perspective comes from users wary of potential colonialist uses of technologies like the Metaverse, expressing apprehension about human subjugation. This sentiment forms the basis of most negative views on the Metaverse's development within the Iranian digital sphere.