مطالب

Previous literature on the study of identity representation in political discourse has been mainly concerned with the spoken discourse and the representation of self. However, the way different groups of political agents represent others’ identities across languages has not attracted much attention. Using Wodak’s (2007) Discourse Historical approach to CDA, the present study investigates the way EL2 and English speaking political actors and researchers in the context of Iran and the U.S represent others’ identities in their political discourse. Through purposive sampling, 28 English political speeches and columns produced by native and non-native (Persian) speakers of English were selected for analysis. The results of CDA, as well as Chi-square tests of statistical significance, indicated there were differences in the quality and quantity of the strategies employed by the two groups of political agents across language groups. EL2 speakers of English used more implicit, covert, anonymous and less transparent as well as more distant representation strategies than English agents who tended to use more explicit, direct and involved strategies. Implications were drawn for ESP material development at an advanced level.

Im Jahre 1962 erschien in Iran das Büchlein, das viele der später von Edward Said (1935-2003) in dessen Orientalism formulierten Gedanken vorwegzunehmen scheint: Ǧalāl-e Āl-e Aḥmads Ġarbzadegī. Während Saids Orientalism nach seinem Erscheinen 1978 heftige Debatten auslöste, weil es „dem Westen“ vorwarf, den Orient zu konstruieren und als statisch zu betrachten und eine Kausalbeziehung herstellte zwischen westlicher Identitätsfindung, Darstellung des anderen und Macht, hatte Ᾱl-e Aḥmad (1923-1969) mit Ġarbzadegī das für Iran wichtigste und identitätsbildendste west-kritische Buch der sechziger Jahre geschrieben, das zum rhetorischen Warenbestand aller Intellektuellen jener Jahre zählte. In ähnlicher Weise wie Said machte Ᾱl-e Aḥmad „dem Westen“ zwar den Vorwurf, den Orient zu konstruieren, betrieb jedoch auch seinerseits eine Essentialisierung „des Westens“.

Assessment of writing skill is generally believed to be judged by a rater subjectively and qualitatively or by using analytic scoring rubrics which can potentially result in somehow not very reliable assessment. It seems that an evaluation of writing based on a model can result in a valid and reliable writing assessment. To achieve such an objective, this study firstly aimed to develop an assessment model based on Activity Theory (AT), i. e., Activity Theory-Based Assessment Model (ATBAM), and then to employ it in the assessment of writing performances of Iranian language learners in a private language college. And finally, to achieve the concurrent validity of ATBAM, its results were compared with those of a traditional approach. Three groups of participants took part in this study: a group of upper intermediate English learners (N=29) who submitted one writing sample per week in four successive weeks, teachers (N=6) who provided learners with feedback and assigned holistic scores and course supervisors (N=2) who reassessed the writing samples on the basis of an analytic rubric of writing assessment. The results showed that using ATBAM in writing assessment results in an exploration of not only learners’ but also teachers’ engagement in the development of learners’ writing ability. The role of teachers’ feedback and teachers’ and learners’ social interaction in the development of learners’ writing ability could potentially provide comprehensive, fair, reliable, and valid scores in this model.