modality

Language learners receive different types of corrective feedback during the process of second language acquisition. Recast, as an approach to corrective feedback, is one of the most-frequently error correction techniques in classroom contexts. A plethora of research has addressed recast; however, the present study focused on comparing learners’ grammar achievement via oral and writing modalities through two perspectives, cognitive and ecological, who received recast. One hundred and twenty language learners, all first-year college students at Islamic Azad University and Applied Science University in Tehran participated in this study. They were assigned to four groups. The participants in all groups were exposed to different instructional programs based on the cognitive and ecological perspectives to language learning orally or in writing, and all learners received recast orally. Results obtained by a pretest and a posttest indicated that all groups made progress in their grammar achievement, while there was a statistically significant difference between the groups in the posttest. The participants in the ecological group had higher gains of grammatical structures than those in the cognitive group. However, data analysis revealed that there was no statistically significant difference between two oral and writing groups in their grammar achievement.

Pluralists believe in the occurrence of numerically distinct spatiotemporally coincident objects. They argue that there are coincident objects that share all physical and spatiotemporal properties and relations; nevertheless, they differ in terms of modal and some other profiles. Appealing to the grounding problem according to which nothing can ground the modal differences between coincident objects, monists reject the occurrence of coincident objects. In the first part of this paper, I attempt to show that the dispute between monists and pluralists cannot be settled based upon the grounding problem tout court. I argue that the grounding problem or a very similar problem is a challenge for all monists and pluralists alike if they are ontologically committed to the existence of composite objects as independent entities. In the final part, adopting the Aristotelian account of essence, I propose a solution that enables pluralists to plausibly ground modal differences between coincident objects.  

One of the remarkable aspects of the holy Qur’an is the use of diverse linguistic methods to convey a particular idea. This study aims to evaluate the commissive act in the Qur’an using Searle's speech act theory, a theory useful in comprehending deeper semantic levels of holy scriptures. The study used a descriptive-analytical method, and the data were analyzed through a qualitative analysis of statistical results to answer the following questions: What linguistic forms does the Qur’an use to represent commissive speech acts? And what themes or topics are included in these commissive speech acts' utterances? First, employing a desk research approach, the Qur’anic verses containing the commissive speech acts were selected based on syntactic, lexical, and semantic criteria. The distinguishing characteristics of each case were then identified, including the discursive structure of the act, the committed person, and the theme of the commitment. Finally, the relationship between the linguistic form and the theme of the speech acts was examined. The findings reveal that the Qur’an expresses commissive speech acts through four linguistic structures: oath, promise (al-wa‘d), threat (al-wa‘īd), and pledge; each includes divine and non-divine conceptions, and each has a unique characteristic. The quantitative comparison of these four shows that “promise” is the most commonly cited sub-speech act, distinguishing it from other linguistic forms. “Threat”, “oath”, and “pledge” are the other most frequently cited sub-speech acts. Moreover, the evaluation of the speech agents and their status as aspects of the situational context reveals that the speech participants are not equal in terms of position and power, which is a decisive factor in the selection of linguistic forms. In all of these cases, the language structures and their intricacies, particularly modality (modal marking), illustrate the relationship between the linguistics style and power dynamics between the participants. The focus of the themes, domain, and frequency differ throughout the four categories mentioned above, with some overlap in certain instances.