مطالب

This study investigated the developmental trajectory of Scalar Implicature (SI) comprehension in monolingual Persian-speaking children, examining how linguistic typology, contextual support, and cognitive abilities influence this process in a Subject-Object-Verb language. 60 children divided into 2 age groups (4-5 and 6-7 years), along with 20 adults, participated in a Statement Evaluation Task involving the quantifier "some" ("ba'zi"). The task was designed to evaluate whether participants interpreted "some" as "some but not all" in scenarios where the alternative "all" is true with two contextual conditions: Basic and Enriched, the latter increasing the salience of the "all" alternative. Standardized assessments of Working Memory (WM) and Theory of Mind (ToM) were also administered to explore cognitive correlates. Results showed a significant main effect of Age Group; older children demonstrated higher SI rates (mean=0.61) than younger children (mean=0.35), indicating a developmental increase in pragmatic competence. Moreover, contextual enrichment significantly enhanced SI rates overall, with older children benefiting more notably as evidenced by a significant interaction between age and context. Correlational analyses revealed that WM capacity (Backward Digit Span) was associated with SI performance in the Basic Context, whereas ToM scores correlated with SI rates in the Enriched Context, suggesting dissociable cognitive mechanisms underpin SI comprehension depending on contextual complexity. These findings supported a universal developmental progression from logical to pragmatic interpretations of scalar terms in Persian-speaking children, emphasizing the roles of WM and ToM in the emergence of pragmatic inference. Overall, the study highlighted how contextual cues and cognitive resources differentially facilitate SI understanding, lending support to resource-dependent models of pragmatic development.

This study investigates incidental vocabulary acquisition among English as a foreign language (EFL) learners through engagement with video games, particularly the mobile RPG Genshin Impact and the mobile first-person shooter Call of Duty: Mobile (CODM). Although the field of digital game-based language learning (DGBLL) is expanding, there is a paucity of research comparing the effectiveness of different genres or concentrating on specific, highly engaging mobile games. Forty intermediate EFL university students in Iran participated in a six-week study. They were divided into experimental groups (Genshin Impact, CODM) and control groups. Quantitative data from Vocabulary Knowledge Scale (VKS) pre/post-tests assessed vocabulary gains, while qualitative data from focus groups, stimulated recall interviews, and gameplay logs examined learning experiences and strategies. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and post-hoc tests revealed that the Genshin Impact group outperformed the CODM group in vocabulary gains, though both experimental groups showed statistically significant improvements compared to the control group. The findings suggest these games hold significant potential for vocabulary development at the intermediate level, though efficacy for lower proficiency remains a question for future research. While CODM exposure was more contextually sparse, qualitative analysis revealed the critical roles of contextual richness, repetition, motivation, and learner agency in Genshin Impact. Commercially successful mobile games, especially narrative-rich role-playing games like Genshin Impact, prove effective for incidental vocabulary learning, mainly due to contextual embedding, high-frequency exposure, and intrinsic motivation. This study bridges gaps in genre comparison and transferable vocabulary acquisition, supporting the integration of such games into supplemental language learning contexts.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Sustainable revenue generation for municipalities remains a major challenge in Iran, where long-term reliance on unstable sources such as density sales and land-use changes—has led to spatial imbalance and social-environmental inequality. To address this, there is a growing shift toward innovative and resilient financial strategies. Non-financial tools such as Transfer of Development Rights (TDR), BOT/BOO partnership contracts, and facilitation-based incentive mechanisms are emerging as promising alternatives to reduce dependence on cash revenues. This research seeks to identify key barriers to implementing these sustainable non-financial instruments in Iranian municipalities. METHODS: A descriptive–analytical method was applied, combining the fuzzy Delphi technique with qualitative content analysis to identify and classify the main barriers to adopting non-financial instruments. FINDINGS: The results show that these instruments face multiple obstacles in five dimensions: legal, institutional, cultural, economic, and participatory. CONCLUSION: The study highlights that effective implementation requires structural reforms in urban governance, revision of legal frameworks, institutional strengthening, public trust building, and the use of data-driven planning tools. Based on the findings, a set of policy and operational recommendations has been proposed to address the identified barriers. These results provide guidance for improving sustainable municipal finance in Iran and contribute to the broader academic discussion on innovative non-financial approaches to urban management.

As the aftermath of globalization and the increased demand for localized information, translation assumed a significant position in the world of news. Due to this close connection, in recent years, journalistic concepts such as gatekeeping and framing contributed towards much interdisciplinary research in the field of translation studies. Nevertheless, many other topics have remained untouched by translation scholars, one of which is the seminal concept of news value manifested in the linguistic and semiotic dimensions of news products. Exploring news values and their relation to translation offers potentials for a better grasp on the nature of translated news and the process of news translation in newsrooms worldwide. Consequently, the headlines of 120 translated news pieces related to two international conferences were analyzed using Bednarek and Caple’s (2017) discursive news value analysis framework. These news headlines were published on four renowned Iranian news websites from 2021 to 2023. The results revealed that these websites construct similar patterns of news values and establish eliteness, negativity, and superlativeness more than other news values in their translated headlines. This was an indication of the lack of originality among news websites in reporting international events and also their orientation toward following a predetermined ideological positioning. As a whole, the present research is a true interdisciplinary one attempting to learn about the construction of news values in the context of Iran and translation discourse and unveil news agencies’ motivation in linguistically constructing and establishing these values.