Ideology

This study applied a critical needs analysis approach to investigate investment (language learning commitment) needs and challenges of EFL upper secondary school learners from different socioeconomic backgrounds and school settings (privileged, middle-privileged, and less-privileged schools). To this end, Darvin and Norton`s (2015) model of investment was used as our analytic framework. The study took advantage of a mixed-methods approach. A five-point Likert scale questionnaire with 53 items and one open-ended question was administered to 759 learners from different school settings in Mashhad. Also, a semi-structured interview was conducted with 24 learners for triangulation. The findings of the questionnaire and interviews revealed that speaking accurately, fluently, and professionally was the main priority for learners` investing in EFL learning. However, privileged, middle-privileged, and less-privileged upper secondary school learners perceived their needs differently regarding investment in English language learning. Although no statistically significant difference was observed between privileged, middle-privileged, and less-privileged school learners in terms of identity, they perceived their needs significantly different in terms of ideology and capital.The findings can bring high school learners` investment needs into focus and help the educational setting improve.

Traditionally, the sociology scholars tend to ignore or underestimate the role played by ideology is social phenomena, and this tendency can be seen among the political sciences scholars as well. Robert Jervis believes that one of the reasons for weakness of analysis of terrorism based on ideology is ignorance of this case in texts and literature of liberal arts and specifically political sciences and international relations: “Terrorism based on ideology has created some challenges for modern political sciences because less attention has been paid to discussions related to ideology, and the experts in this realm are less interested in them”. But the evolutions during the last decades of the 20th century and such events as the Islamic revolution of Iran increased the level of attention to this forgotten factor. In fact, for the first time a revolution with religious and ideological components happened across the world that surprised the thinkers in this scope and caused them to consider religion and ideology as two influential variables in their calculations. The present paper attempts to theoretically study the manner of formation of terrorism based on ideology. 

The present study investigated the translation of genderism Persian-English. Genderism is an ideology that shows partiality based on biological sex and separates society into two groups in a way that one sex is subordinate to another sex and it is reflected in languages; thus, there are sexist concepts in each language; the concepts are usually culture-oriented. The main question was: How have the sexist concepts been translated from Persian to English? The corpus of this comparative and qualitative study was Zoya Pirzad’s novel (2001 ) Cheraghha-ra Man Khamush Mikonam (L.T. I’ll turn off the lights ) and its translation by Franklin Lewis (2012) Things We Left Unsaid . The framework of the evaluation was Vinay and Darbelnet’s (1995) model. The results revealed that translation of genderism is a challenging task, and the sexiest language of the SL was modified during the translation process; hence, the tone of sexist implications of the source text has been changed to more sexist concepts or anti-sexist concepts.

Neolithic and food production from domesticated species has been one of the most important topics discussed and studied about prehistoric archaeology. Since the 1920s, or even much earlier, archaeologists tried to explain this great event that changed human life after millions of years of hunting-gathering. During these years, various theories based on technological, environmental, economic and sustenance, demographic, social, and evolutionary and, in recent decades, ideological, have been proposed by researchers. Some believe that Neolithic and food production is not an absolute and sudden process, but a long-term process, from knowing and choosing of species, management, and domestication of interdependence; this process is called Neolithization. The Neolithization process is not just the adoption of a new way of life due to environmental and demographic changes, but the beginning of human mental and worldviews changes. In this period, human manifests new behaviors, including rituals, which can be seen in burials, handicrafts, and architecture. Placing animal horns (domestic/wild) in the architectural space is one of these ritual behaviors. This symbolic behavior has been found in Fertile Crescent sites, from the Levant in the westernmost to Iran’s easternmost borders. Some researchers believe that this behavior is to gain authority, while some believe that humans tried to use these ways to control the wild in their inner domestic world. In this research, the authors have tried to analyze this type of behavior from the perspective of Neolithization ideological theories.

Looking at the studies and analyses conducted in the field of Iran's issues with the world, we see the ignorance of Iran's geopolitical aspect. The concern of the present study is why Iran, despite its geopolitical importance, is always analyzed in terms of ideology and political Islam in the international arena? However, given the current geopolitical components and even its future geopolitical advantages, Iran has a potential and actual position and importance at the regional and international levels. The purpose of this study is, first, to highlight the more deliberate neglect of Iran's geopolitical aspect as an existing problem and to show some of its most important effects, and second, to highlight the geopolitical nature of Iran. The data collection method is descriptive-analytical, and they have been analyzed in the framework of the theory of "Geopolitics: The Impact of Politics on Geography" and the analytical framework of "Hermeneutics of Reflection". Based on the analysis of the effects of Iran's geopolitical neglect and with a look at the historical course (contemporary history), the research findings are a set of "historical" and "geopolitical" symbols and signs revealing the importance and determination of Iran's geopolitics, its precedence on political, ideological, cultural aspects, and the error of degradation in terms of geoculture. The result of this study is to ignore Iran's geopolitical aspect, reduce Iran's effective acting power in the international arena by introducing it more as an ideological actor, and put all the pressure on the Islamic Revolution, political Islam and the Islamic State.

As a dominant genre of academic writing, research papers can be considered as the locus of reproduction concerning asymmetrical power relations and dominance. Through a purposive sampling consisting of the analysis and evaluation of an argument, the purpose of this study was to divulge the power and ideology latent in the discussion section of the research articles to raise second language learners’ awareness of the epistemological foundations and methodological goals and values of the ideologies behind the texts as social structures. By using a practical reasoning framework as an evaluative tool to analyze a text presented in the discussion part of arguments published in research articles, the analysis revealed that the scientific viewpoints exhibit themselves as the premises of these arguments. These world views maintain the dominance of the papers on global academic and social discourses. Understanding the ideological purpose of the article genre is crucial for promoting democratic and equitable education. This assertion highlights the importance of recognizing this function.

One strategy that eases the process of teaching argumentative writing might be teaching them how to express their thoughts, beliefs, and in general, ideologies in academic essays. This study aimed to investigate the effect of teaching writing skills on ideology transfer in the academic writings of EFL students. To this end, a sequential mixed-methods design was used. Participants were 80 male and female IELTS candidates who were selected based on some criteria such as proficiency level, age, and educational background. A sample Mock Writing Task 2 and a sample IELTS Writing Task 2 were used as instruments in the pre-test and post-test respectively. Learners’ essays produced during these stages were analyzed based on Fairclough’s (2001) three-dimensional model of critical discourse analysis: description, interpretation, and explanation. To analyze the data, content analysis methods were applied during which discursive strategies used by the candidates were identified and coded, and the frequency and percentage of them were calculated. After the analysis, the following themes were extracted in the participants’ writings, as representing ideology transfer: tendency towards representation of identity, use of active voices, use of first-person pronouns, social views, author visibility, ideology-laden concepts, and idea development. Moreover, there were significant changes in the post-test writings of the participants in terms of the number of discursive strategies used to express ideology. This shows that teaching writing skills can significantly affect EFL learners’ ability to transfer their ideology into academic writing. The findings can have some implications for EFL learners, teachers, and curriculum planners.

The questions of centralization and decentralization arise in every polity. The constitution or the practice or both have to settle how much of policy making is to be decided by the central government and by component bodies. By and large liberalism and decentralization tend to go together while authoritarianism tends to be associated with centralization. The constitutional model which is generally regarded as bringing about the largest amount or decentralization is federalism. This is said to sonstitute a half way house between confederacies (where component units dominate)and unitary states (where the center dominates) In its classical form at least , federalism stipulates that there have to be two independent levels of government (the centre and upper level component bodies (often named states) each of these levels has the right to decide on matters falling within its own sphere. There are difficulties in practice especially with respect to the constituent power and to the fields allocated to each level. Federalism must be based on a rigid constitution there has to be s supreme court protecting the independence of the two levels of government there has to be a second chamber defending the rights of the component bodies at the central level.yet there are variations in the extent to which the component bodies are protected and generally in the extent to which there is decentralization. On the one hand federal states are becoming more centralized on the other centralization cannot go beyond a given point without leading to gross inefficiency and perhaps to a break up of the regime as the communist experience showed. Partly for this reason there is a degree of convergence between federal and unitary states. Federalism is also associated with efforts to bring together independent states but this has occurred in a smell number of polities only. Attempts at achieving closer cooperation between states has led more commonly to confederacies, such as the Unites Nations. The European community or European :::union::: has innovated by forming a type of association labeled supranational which is intermediate between the confederal and the federal models. There is innovation in that developments take place gradually with new fields beings progressively covered new structures being set up and new member states joining. The problems of centralization and decentralization have exercised the minds of many in relation to many types of organization : both efficency and freedom appear to be at stake . federalism succeeded in a number of contexts but it is not the panacea which some suggest it is it is also so diverse that one has to refer to federalisms rather than to federalism . what is at stake is the need to find an equilibrium between the two extremes of over centralization and break up. Given the large number of situations in the contemporary world one should look for a variety of solutions and for a continuous evolution of the models which have hitherto been proposed.

Media is considered as one of the ideological apparatuses. This research is based on the question in parallel of enhancing technology and the formation of new media, as well as change passive audience into the active user, can these media still be called ideological? If so, the question is that how does the new media, despite the adaptation of interaction from the internet, find the ideological function? This paper discusses the role of the concept of the ideology for understanding social media critically. This study based on Althusser's definition of ideology and Habermas's theory about the public sphere creates consultative democracy led it to evaluate new media, their behavior and practices. The paper was developed based on a qualitative approach and descriptive-analytical method. As a result, new media owners are looking to create a two-tier Internet in which commercial content is more important than public content. Commercial content is managed by the ruling power and is governed by an ideology, which is the ideology of the ruling class. On the contrary, public content is controlled by media owners and contains a variety of ideologies that carry different ideas and meanings. The contemporary media system, through its ownership has divided media audiences into smaller groups (specific audiences), and has severely restricted fair access and participation in the public sphere, so that the ideological aspect of new media remains unchanged, but it emerges in the new shapes.

Following the events of September 11, 2001, the name of the al-Qaeda organization, as the terrorist group leading to attacks, quickly spread all around the world, and this group and its leaders and activists were prosecuted. The organization, rooted in Salafi and fundamentalist extremist thoughts, has always been supported by the West and the United States during the Cold War because of his struggle against the Red Army in Afghanistan. But the end of the Cold War and the spread of al-Qaeda’s thoughts to other Islamic countries, as well as the meaning crisis of the end of the Cold War, gradually led to the introduction of this group and similar organizations as enemies and fighting against radicalization of Western policy in the region. However, the war in Afghanistan caused the country to become insecure for al-Qaeda, and they scattered more than before in other countries of the region. The Iraq war also conducted part of these forces to Iraq to fight the Americans. Al-Qaeda has been struggling to rebuild itself all around the world, including western countries, since September 11, taking its flexible network structure into account and has put new tactics on its agenda. The present article examines the ideology and structure of this organization and the changes and continuity of its behavioral pattern and its operation.

The Islamic revolution of Iran in 1979 caused the replacement of a pro-western government with an Islamic republic which also affected the broadcast of foreign audio-visual products on the State TV. As such products contained taboos, some specific translation strategies seemed necessary according to Islamic laws. This study aimed to investigate how the State TV has dealt with taboos during the first and second twenty years of the Islamic Republic. To this end, four audio-visual products including Secret Army (1977) and Captain Tsubasa (1983) broadcast during the 1980s and 1990s and Wall-E (2008) and House of Cards (2013) aired in the 2000s and 2010s respectively by the State TV were selected. Procedures suggested by Brownlie (2007) were utilized to analyse taboo translation. The findings indicated that the most frequent procedure was changing taboos to irrelevant expressions in Secret Army and Captain Tsubasa, and Wall-E. This procedure was not included in Brownlie’s framework. But the most frequent one in House of Cards was toning down. It was concluded that procedures for taboo translation have been inconsistent during all these four decades and the reason might be ideological and political. Consequently, such inconsistencies may disrupt the logical relation the directors intended to create between their works and their audience and the sudden leniency of IRIB in translating taboos in the House of Cards series for ideological and political purposes may also lead to distrust of the Iranian audience.

The purpose of the present research is to read Brief Interviews with Hideous Men in the light of Fredric Jameson's theories. In Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, the writer depicts how irony and self-consciousness have penetrated the culture of postmodern man and how capitalism and neoliberalism have influenced people's lives and identities and, with the help of ideology, have turned man into a thing incapable of human relations. Fredric Jameson declares that historicizing literary texts can help the readers understand the latent and deep layers of meaning in the works. Jameson's main concern is that in a neoliberal society, the authorities use ideology to preserve power, and by ideology, they turn citizens into consumers. The result is the alienation and reification of people, and they lose their true identities, which is the death of the postmodern man. By reading this short story collection from a Jamesonian perspective, the reader tries to investigate the man's identity in a neoliberal society to show how a closed system like a neoliberal system can preserve power by using ideology to influence the mindset of the citizens and reify and alienate them and impose the superiority of market on them. This research shows how Wallace investigates man’s identity in a neoliberal society to show how a closed system like a neoliberal system can preserve power by using ideology to influence the mindset of the citizens and reify and alienate them and impose the superiority of market on them and how the identity of people is gone and how the death of the postmodern man has happened.