مطالب

Recent research has shown that academic writing is not ‘author-evacuated’ but, rather, carries a representation of the writers’ identity. One way through which writers project their identity in academic writing is stance-taking toward propositions advanced in the text. Appropriate stance-taking has proved to be challenging for novice writers of Research Articles (RAs), especially those writing in a foreign language. To contribute to the literature on stance-taking, the present study compared the move-based use of evaluative resources in the introduction section of L1 (written by native English speakers) and L2 (written by Iranian, non-native writers) English RAs in the discipline of Applied Linguistics. To this end, 100 English Research Article Introductions (RAIs), 50 by L1 writers and 50 by L2 writers, were investigated as the corpus of the study. Categories of analysis were taken from Appraisal framework (Martine & White, 2005) and CARS model (Swales, 2004). The results revealed that the two groups of texts were not substantially different in the overall use of appraisal resources in the whole body of RAIs. However, more detailed analyses of the specific categories of appraisal in each of the rhetorical moves demonstrated that in some cases, especially in moves 1 and 3, L1 and L2 writers made different choices when taking a stance. The findings of this study can serve as a valuable source providing a practical and comprehensive understanding of the use of evaluative resources in RAIs for EAP researchers, teachers, and other professionals involved in the teaching of academic writing.

The impetus for conducting the present study came from Thornbury's (2005) approach to teach speaking in which he claimed that awareness-raising techniques, along with appropriation strategies, facilitate the process of teaching and learning speaking. Therefore, the present study attempted to explore the impact of the appropriation-based syllabus to teach speaking by using chunks-on-card activity. Accordingly, 60 female and male Iranian advanced EFL learners were selected from a private language institute and were assigned to four groups. The four groups were male experimental and control groups as well as female experimental and control groups. To examine the effect of the treatment, the participants were pre- and post-tested on speaking skill. They took part in 14 treatment sessions in which the experimental group practiced the chunks-on-card method through drilling while the control group practiced the conventional approach. The results of one-way ANOVA revealed significant differences among the posttest scores of the four groups. According to the findings, the mean score for male learners in the experimental group differed significantly from female and male learners in the control groups. Similarly, the mean score of female learners in the experimental group differed significantly from female and male learners in the control groups. The results of paired-samples t-test for each group also indicated that the appropriation-based teaching of lexical chunks had significant impacts on both genders’ speaking skills.

The present study aimed at investigating the effect of peer and teacher scaffolding through a process approach in a technology-enhanced environment on vocabulary learning among high and low self-regulated learners. Participants of the study were 120 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners who were selected based on their scores on a sample copy of the Oxford Placement Test (OPT). The participants were divided into three groups each consisting of 40 learners. One group of the participants received peer scaffolding; the second group was exposed to teacher scaffolding via the Telegram app based on process approach principles, while the third group served as the control group. The control group received conventional vocabulary teaching in such a way that the Telegram app was not employed. The learners in the control group were also provided with vocabulary exercises in the vocabulary book (English Vocabulary in Use). Data were collected through a sample copy of OPT, a vocabulary test, and a self-regulation questionnaire. The results of a one-way ANOVA revealed that both peer and teacher scaffolding significantly affected vocabulary learning. However, there was no significant difference between peer and teacher scaffolding in terms of their effects on vocabulary learning. The results of a two-way ANOVA indicated that the main effect of treatment on vocabulary learning was significant; however, there was no statistically significant difference between the effects of the two treatment modalities on students’ vocabulary learning.

More than five years down the line Venezuela had been slipping into an economic cri-sis. An economy wholly dependent on the sale of oil and no diversification of economic production is sure to face such a crisis. The fluctuation in oil prices is sure to hurt the market and the economy. To make matters worse, Venezuela now faces a political crisis with two individuals claiming themselves to be Presidents, Maduro and Guaidó. On the top of that, the current regime is alleged of massive corruption and an anti-democratic stance. There is always repression and suppression of democratic voices and protestors face persecution and human rights abuses. Such precarious condition of Venezuela eco-nomically and politically makes it vulnerable to external players may be private oil companies or even extra-regional States/powers. The paper will focus on the economic and political crisis in Venezuela. It will also point out at its fall out in the form of a hu-manitarian crisis and its impact on the neighboring countries of Latin America. As Ve-nezuela is caught between the politics of big powers, the solution becomes more prob-lematic and the paper will make an attempt to project that.

The culture and identity have occupied the second place in international theories and foreign policy analysis. At first the structuralism approach as a social theory and subse-quently in international relations and foreign policy has attempted to analyze non-corporeal factors such as culture the norms and values on foreign policy. Since culture identity norms and values were an integral part of Iran's Revolution it has also influenced Iran's foreign policy as a result of these issues. In this research I attempted to study the elements that form the identity of Islamic republic of Iran’s sys-tem such as being Iranian Islamic and global and then we analyzed the effect of Iran’s political system in foreign policy. Thus the author’s goal is to analyze Iran’s foreign policy by using a descriptive analytical method in terms of structuralism. The author believes that structuralism may have a better way of describing the behavior of Iran’s foreign policy and natio