مطالب

This study intended to investigate the interplay of critical thinking explicit instruction, academic writing performance, critical thinking ability, and critical thinking dispositions of Iranian students. To this end, 140 students of Jahrom University of Medical Sciences (73 males and 67 females) were selected. They were divided into the experimental and control groups. Both groups received instruction in academic writing course for 15 weeks 3 hours per week. However, the experimental group received instruction integrated with critical thinking strategies. The students in both groups were administered pre- and post-instruction tests to examine the effectiveness of instruction. Three instruments were utilized in this study including, the researcher-developed essay test, Ennis-Weir Critical Thinking Essay Test, and California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory (CCTDI). Descriptive statistics and independent-samples t-test were used to analyze the data. The results indicated that there were statistically significant differences between the mean scores of the experimental and the control groups. The results also showed that some CCTDI subscales were not significantly different at the posttest such as, truth-seeking, cognitive maturity, and open- mindedness, whereas the mean posttest scores of other CCTDI subscales had significant difference such as, analyticity, CT inquisitiveness, CT self-confidence, and systematicity. The experimental group had a higher score in the academic writing test compared with the control group. Changes in students’ critical thinking ability, academic writing performance, and their critical thinking dispositions suggest that the CT techniques have been fruitful, and more efforts should be made to integrate the explicit instruction in critical thinking into academic courses.

Languages are widening every day and new words and structures are born when they are needed. The objective of this study is to survey the strategies that are used in the translation of neologisms in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and to see if there is a significant difference between the strategies used by Persian translators in the novel Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and to find the most and the least strategies adopted by the Persian translators. To address the objectives of the present study, the researcher selected two Persian translations of the novel. To identify the neologisms used in the texts, the source text along with its translations was cross-analyzed sentence-by-sentence. Afterwards, on the basis of Newmark's definitions and classifications of neologisms, the neologisms were identified. The strategies which were used in the translation of various types of neologisms were also investigated. Data analysis involved quantitative analysis. It was concluded that the most frequent strategy used by translator Vida Eslamieh was through-translation and the least frequent strategy was modulation. In Shahnaz Majidi's translation, the most frequent strategy was through-translation. The least frequent strategies were modulation and descriptive terms. According to the results of the chi-square test, there was no significant difference among the strategies used by two Persian translators in translation of neologisms. The results of this study can be useful for translators and students to become aware of the strategies used in English to Persian translations of the neologisms.