مطالب

Drawing on Manichaean Middle Iranian texts and adopting a textual approach, the present article tries to define the meaning and usage of some technical terms (termini tecnichi) in Manichaean theology, especially the words “angel” (frystg, fryštg) and “apostle, messenger” (frystg, fryštg). The use of a word for two meanings and/ or two concepts in the Manichaica was a result of the redefinition that each of the different Manichaean communities presented for the concepts of ‘angel’ and ‘apostle, messenger’. The article shows that the Iranian term frys/štg has been redefined and expanded in meaning in Manichaean literature under the influence of Syriac writings; a redefinition that could generate an angel from an apostle / a messenger and a king from the angel. Here, we also examined the technical terms xwdʾy/ xwdʾwn ‘lord’, by / bg ‘god’, yzd ‘god’ and bgpwhr / βγpšy / βγpšʾk ‘son of God’ (βγpwryšt / βγpšyt ‘the sons of God’) βγpwr(ʾ)yc ‘daughter of God’ showing the contexts in which these terms appear and what examples they refer to. Our study shows that some of them were used not only for angels and historical figures (like Mani and Manichaean leaders and electi, as well as previous apostles), but also included at least one of Manichaean gods, i.e. ‘Third Messenger’.

The impact of colonization on identity construction has emerged as a critical area of inquiry, particularly among postcolonial writers, novelists, and theorists. This paper investigates the psychological and cultural ramifications of colonial domination on the identity formation of colonized individuals, with particular emphasis on experiences of alienation and identity loss. Kiran Desai’s novel The Inheritance of Loss (2006) is analyzed through the theoretical frameworks of Stuart Hall’s concept of cultural identity and Frantz Fanon’s exploration of colonial trauma and its effects on subjectivity. This study contends that colonization fundamentally disrupts the continuity of cultural identity and induces a condition of psychological fragmentation, resulting in enduring displacement, alienation, and a decentered sense of self among the colonized. The findings demonstrate that in The Inheritance of Loss, colonial trauma manifests through internalized cultural inferiority, linguistic alienation, and intergenerational identity rupture, particularly visible in the judge’s self-erasure and Biju’s diasporic disillusionment. These experiences reveal a uniquely postcolonial condition of fractured identity, marked by alienation, double displacement, and a decentered sense of self rooted in the enduring psychological legacies of colonial domination.

The present paper intends to study Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go from the perspective of Cyborgian concepts of hybridized subjectivity, speed, metamorphic becoming, bio-narrative and bio-discourse, which intersect with cyborg biotechnology to create the bio-capital characters. Ishiguro portrays the non-unitary bio-subjectivities along with challenges of clones through tracing the main character’s memories. The Cyborgian theories of Donna Haraway, Paul Virilio and Rosi Braidotti are mainly used to analyze the genetic organs of the selected novel in bio-discourse. Cyborg biotechnology drains its bio-power, merges borderlines between the conventional polarities, de-politicizes it by destroying inequality in a natural history of transhumanism and, ultimately, makes hybridized privileged – unprivileged subjectivity. Cyborg bio-capital body is a kind of genetically modified object with a shifted boundary; a bio-semiotic body, not the human physiological body. In the novel, this study explores that cyborgian bio-capital subjectivity is the imitation of the original one due to three reasons: first, it has lost its human uniqueness; second, its self-automation is changed into a possible being; and, finally, its biological facet has constructed the equal bio-subjects. A cyborgian bio-capital subject is partly organ and partly machine in the cyborg biotechnology. The thematic features of Ishiguro’s novel as the quintessence of cyborg bio-narrative, including nomadic bio-subjectivity, development of fabricated trans-subjects, bio-animals, trans-genetic organisms, decentered subject, bio-molecule and mechanical body, are the focal points of analysis in this study.

The topic of Iranian identity is one that many are willing to recognize, while only a minority choose to reject it. The author of the book in question belongs to the latter group. The title suggests that the author intends to challenge both Iran and the historical foundations of Iranian and national identity. Influenced by contemporary theoretical discussions that overlook the historical and cultural contexts of the nations being examined, he tends to regard Iran and its national identity as constructs devised by Orientalists. He does not acknowledge the historical importance and development of the term "Iran" itself. The author of the book Iran as Imagined Nation: The Construction of National Identity, who draws inspiration from Edward Said's Orientalism and Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities, contends that both Iranian and non-Iranian authors view Iranian and national identity as a historical phenomenon. These authors, influenced by racial and ideological perspectives and western methodologies, have narrated history in a way that is both ahistorical and misleading, replacing genuine historical events with fabricated stories. This article does not critique every chapter of the book Iran as Imagined Nation: The Construction of National Identity. Instead, it will concentrate on chapters that present weak or incorrect claims regarding Iran's historical roots, its attributes, and its ethnic and linguistic diversity, with the aim of clarifying and illuminating these issues.

Since its creation, Shakespeare’s Hamlet has served as a mirror to the anxieties of its time. Though various analyses of the contemporary film adaptations have routinely addressed themes of surveillance, the precise psychological effects of this surveillance on the protagonist are still under-examined. This paper addresses this lacuna by examining how Michael Almereyda’s (2000) and Gregory Doran’s (2009) film adaptations of Hamlet present the protagonist’s tragic flaw as not indecision, but rather a pathological narcissism engendered by a postmodern culture of surveillance. The paper contends that these films utilize the omnipresent camera—both diegetic and non-diegetic—to create a Hamlet whose self is fragmented by the inexorable gaze. This perpetual watching, coupled with a cultural movement toward hyper-subjectivity, engenders a pathological narcissism that becomes integral to his personality. The results and findings in this article demonstrate that these adaptations employ strategies such as mise-en-abyme not merely to condemn surveillance, but to diagnose a specifically postmodern malaise wherein the self is caught in a feedback loop of self-recording and performance, ultimately leading to a questioning of the nature of identity in an era of digital mediation.

Although reflective teaching and well-being have been promoted as a means to promote teaching quality, there is little empirical evidence to illustrate their impact on enhancing professional development. To fill this existing gap, this study adopts a mixed-methods approach to examine the contribution of reflection and psychological well-being as predictors of professional development. In so doing, 350 English language teachers participated in a survey and follow-up interviews. The correlational analysis confirmed the positive relationship among these three constructs, and a structural equation modelling indicated that both reflection and well-being significantly predicted professional development; however, well-being was a stronger predictor compared to reflection. The qualitative analysis of data revealed four main themes contributing to professional development among teachers. The pedagogical implications are also elaborated and discussed.

Cet article examine le rôle de l’intelligence artificielle (IA) dans l’amélioration de la compétence orale chez les apprenants de français langue étrangère (FLE) en Iran. Il s’interroge sur la manière dont l’IA peut contribuer, de manière efficace et contextualisée, au développement de cette compétence dans un environnement culturellement spécifique. L’étude repose sur une enquête menée auprès de 20 apprenants de FLE en Iran. La collecte de données s’est effectuée à travers un questionnaire ciblant leurs compétences orales, leur expérience d’usage de l’IA et leur perception de l’adéquation culturelle des contenus générés. L’analyse des données mobilise une approche mixte (quantitative via SPSS et qualitative) et un cadre théorique pluridisciplinaire. Ce cadre s’appuie sur la théorie de la compétence communicative de Dell Hymes, la théorie de l’adaptation culturelle de Kim et Hall, les approches discursives-pragmatiques de John Searle et surtout sur la théorie du carré tensif de Fontanille. Les résultats indiquent que l’IA permet d’améliorer la prononciation et la fluidité, encourage l’usage des expressions idiomatiques françaises et développe la souplesse linguistique. Par la création d’environnements vérisimilitudinaires (contextes d’interaction réalistes et culturellement cohérents) et des retours personnalisés en temps réel, l’IA favorise un apprentissage actif et individualisé. Toutefois, certaines limites subsistent : la difficulté à reproduire les dimensions émotionnelles, gestuelles et implicites des interactions humaines, ainsi qu’à intégrer la diversité dialectale régionale.

ranslated literature almost always involves a degree of manipulation of the source text for a certain purpose. Such manipulations are imposed by the ‘patrons’ who try to regulate the relationship between the literary system and the other systems a society is composed of. Working on this fundamental broadly-acknowledged assumption about translation, the present study aimed at identifying the concepts that are often manipulated in translated literature published in contemporary Iran. It also attempted to spot the manipulative strategies imposed on translations and the counter-manipulative strategies adopted by translators to sidestep those manipulations. Drawing on the findings of the so-called ‘Manipulation School’ and Dukāte’s typology of manipulation strategies, it conducted a comparative analysis of the source texts and translated versions of four American novels recently published in Iran. The codification of the data revealed the frowned upon taboo concepts to be descriptions of, or references to, sexual activity, physical contact between the sexes, human body, extramarital relationships, swear words, prostitution, nudity, homoeroticism, alcoholic drinks, and dancing. The most frequent manipulation strategies were 1) deletion of the taboo concepts, 2) substitution of the concepts with totally different concepts, and 3) attenuation of the forbidden words, that is to say, expressing them in a more polite, softer language. Although the manipulation mechanism is most effectively in place, the translators seemed to have occasionally applied creative strategies to evade the imposed manipulations. Such counter-manipulative strategies were classified as legitimization, archaism, use of less familiar words, degenderalization, denunciation, and borrowing in this study.

Cette recherche examine l’impact des tâches numériques sur la production orale des apprenants iraniens de FLE de niveau A2, dans le cadre d’un cours de conversation à distance. Neuf participants ont été impliqués dans douze séances organisées autour de cinq thèmes, au cours desquelles des tâches numériques soigneusement planifiées ont été mises en œuvre. La méthodologie adoptée combine des approches quantitatives (pré-test et post-test analysés à l’aide du logiciel SPSS ) et qualitatives (productions orales des apprenants et entretiens). Les analyses statistiques mettent en évidence une amélioration significative entre le pré-test et le post-test, confirmant un progrès global dans les productions orales des apprenants. Bien qu’aucune différence notable n’ait été observée entre les performances des apprenants dans les différentes tâches numériques, cette homogénéité souligne un développement régulier, indépendamment de la nature de la tâche. De plus, les témoignages des apprenants recueillis lors des entretiens révèlent des perceptions variées de leur expérience d’apprentissage, mettant en lumière à la fois des aspects positifs et des pistes d’amélioration concernant l’intervention mise en place. En conclusion, les tâches numériques enrichissent considérablement l’enseignement de la production orale dans le cadre des cours de conversation, en favorisant un apprentissage interactif et authentique. Leur pleine efficacité repose néanmoins sur une planification didactique rigoureuse, incluant des formations technologiques pour les apprenants afin d’optimiser les résultats et de développer de manière équilibrée les différentes compétences linguistiques.