Genre

This study compares and contrasts lexical cohesion in English and Persian abstracts of Iranian medical students’ theses to appreciate textualization processes in the two languages. For this purpose, one hundred English and Persian abstracts were selected randomly and analyzed based on Seddigh and Yarmohamadi’s (1996) lexical cohesion framework, a version of Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) and Halliday’s (1985) taxonomies. For contrastive analysis, the SPSS package was used. The results revealed some similarities and differences in the use of lexical cohesion sub-categories in the parallel English and Persian texts. The occurrence of all sub-types is nearly the same in the two groups of texts and the two- tailed t-test employed showed that the differences are not statistically significant. Both languages exhibit a general tendency in using repetition, but synonymy and meronymy are the least used sub-categories. Regarding the density of the texts, the analysis indicates that Persian abstracts are denser than their corresponding English ones.

This study aimed at investigating the tendency of research article (RA) authors for the application of nominalization in RA discussion sections from the perspective of two discourse communities. To this end, 150 RA discussion sections were selected from local and international Applied Linguistics journals. Following the rhetorical structure analysis of the corpus and the move tagging, the authors analyzed the vertical and horizontal distribution of the nominalization types within and between the journals. The results demonstrated that international RA authors show a greater preference to use nominalization in certain moves of the discussion sections, and this can be explained by considering the move function and nominalization types. It was also revealed that a large number of nominalizations are located in some moves than others. In other words, authors use nominalization in these moves to ameliorate the style and the language of the discussion sections to sound more persuasive. Finally, fine-grained qualitative analyses are presented

Frequencies and discourse functions of grammatical subject types were investigated in a corpus of forty results and discussion sections selected from four disciplines (Applied Linguistics, Psychology, Chemistry, and Environmental Engineering). The results and discussion sections were selected from research articles that were published in 2008-2012 issues of prestigious high journals of the four disciplines. The results and discussion sections were analyzed for realizations and discourse functions of grammatical subject types adopting the taxonomy suggested by Ebrahimi (2014). The results suggested that the selections, frequencies and discourse functions of grammatical subject types were highly imposed by the macro functions of the results and discussion sections and the conventional rules of writing in the disciplines. One immediate implication for the outcome of this study is that writers and instructors need to keep in mind that they must be fully aware (and follow suit) of how the implementation of grammatical subjects are imposed and restricted by disciplinary conventions.

La question des genres littéraires a été pendant des siècles l’objet central de la poétique. Le genre d’un texte est l’une des connaissances préliminaires qui répond à l’horizon d’attente du lecteur et qui précède son expérience esthétique. La notion d’horizon d’attente de Jauss et la généricité de Jean-Marie Schaeffer ont modifié le caractère figé du genre en le rendant plus dynamique. Selon Julia Kristeva, ce dynamisme devient le trait distinctif du roman. Le roman pour Kristeva est comme un ‘processus’, « quelque chose qui devient ». Ainsi, ce dynamisme générique permet aux différents genres de coexister. Cette coexistence ou parfois l’interférence générique donne naissance au concept de mélange ou hybridation des genres, l’objet central de cette étude. Le surréalisme, malgré son incompatibilité intense avec le genre romanesque, a indirectement incité quelques romanciers, surtout Queneau à rédiger des romans dans un genre hybride ou parfois non-défini. Le genre estimable selon Queneau n’est ni le genre idéal et merveilleux que proclame le surréalisme, ni les genres classifiés. Dans l’étude présente, nous avons abordé la question du genre dans Le Chiendent, l’œuvre remarquable de Queneau, en mettant à jour l’aspect hybride de ce roman. Nous avons relevé les indices qui nous ont conduits à qualifier ce roman comme poétique, théâtral et cinématographique.

This study aimed to explore the function and frequency of textual metadiscourse markers (MDMs) in scientific English and Persian texts. Based on the qualitative and quantitative analysis of textual markers characterizing the selected genre, four different textbooks, two written in English and two in Persian were analyzed to identify the textual metadiscourse categories (including logical markers, code glosses, and sequencers) used in these texts and to determine the sociopragmatic differences existing in these languages, chi-square test was run and the findings suggested that textual MDMs were present in both English and Persian texts, but they differed in their frequency of occurrence. The contrastive comparison between the English and Persian texts revealed that the frequency of the textual MDMs was greater in the Persian texts. Therefore, it was concluded that such discrepancy could be attributed to the differing rate of explicitness in these two languages. The Persian writers were more interested in explicating their ideas for readers through the text via the use of textual markers (TMs) to a greater extent. It was further found that different factors may influence the use of MDMs, namely the culture, the writer's preferences, the text, and its genre. The implications could include the precaution that Iranian EFL writers ought to be advised to approximate their writing style, in terms of using MDMs, to that of native speakers of English while writing in English.  

Genre-based approach has been the focus of interest in the teaching of language since the mid1980s. Genre is defined in terms of the use of language in conventionalized communicative settings. The present study made an attempt to scrutinize the effects of genre-based pedagogy on Iranian Pre-intermediate EFL leaners' reading comprehension as well as the interaction between their reading comprehension achievement and their general English proficiency. To examine the formulated hypothesis, a sample of 80 Pre-intermediate EFL learners attending a language institute was selected. Then, the participants were divided into an experimental group and a control group. The instructional procedures went on six sessions before the posttest was administered. The results of an independent samples t test revealed that genre-based pedagogy had a significant effect on Iranian Pre-intermediate EFL learners' reading comprehension. Implications of the study can include, among other things, the incorporation of genre-based pedagogy in the EFL language teaching curriculum in Iran.

The purpose of the present study is to analyse abstracts related to Applied Linguistics, and more precisely the discourse functions of grammatical subjects and verbs. The corpus consisted of 50 PhD thesis abstracts written on the subject of Applied Linguistics. All of the abstracts were written from 2010 to 2014. The theses from which the abstracts were extracted are available in the ProQuest database. Based on the model put forth by Swales and Feak (2004), the elements of the abstracts were identified. In accordance with Ebrahimi (2014), frameworks were used to analyse discourse functions, while the realisation of grammatical subjects and verbs was analysed for tense types. The results revealed that the “introducing part of study” and “research-related objects” were the predominant types of grammatical subjects. Indeed, these performed more discourse functions in Applied Linguistics PhD thesis abstracts compared with other grammatical subject types. The results also indicated that simple past tense was predominant in aim, method, and results sections, while the simple present was predominant in the background and conclusion sections.

: Peer review plays a vital and major role to determine the fate of manuscripts submitted to international academic journals. The present study analyzed the discourse structure and the language use of a corpus containing 43 peer review reports from journals from three disciplines (i.e., Applied Linguistics, Accounting, and Sociology). This study analyzed the most frequent discourse moves, negative, and positive expressions used in minor revisions, major revisions, and rejected manuscripts. The findings of this study showed that all discourse moves appeared in all peer review reports but two moves “Summarizing Judgment” and “Conclusion and Recommendation” were the most frequent discourse moves in all peer-review categories. The findings also revealed that the words “well”, “good”, and “original” were the most frequently-used positive words, while the words “unclear”, “inconsistent”, and “poor” were the most frequently-used negative words in the analyzed peer-review reports. The study recommends some points to be considered in future research on this topic.

La question de genre reste toujours l’une des problématiques remarquables chez la plupart des écrivains et théoriciens. Raymond Queneau n’en est pas exclu. Il parodie les Surréalistes en imitant le genre "romanesque" qu'ils ont d'abord refusé puis pratiqué. Lorsque Queneau décide d’écrire Les Fleurs bleues, l'œuvre étudiée dans cette recherche, il est totalement contre les idées et les attitudes du groupe de Breton. Ainsi, dans ce livre peu «surréalistique», Queneau tente de parodier la classification générique (les cinq principaux genres littéraires: la poésie, le roman ou le genre narratif, le genre théâtral, le genre argumentatif, le genre épistolaire) en rédigeant un roman ayant le genre hybride. En effet, le genre estimable selon Queneau n’est ni le genre idéal et merveilleux que proclame le surréalisme qui se méfie du genre romanesque et l’exclut, ni les genres classifiés. Ainsi, la question qui se pose et à laquelle cette étude tentera de répondre, est celle de relation de Queneau avec le roman en tant que genre littéraire et forme esthétique. Au cours de cette recherche, nous nous interrogerons sur le genre auquel appartient l'œuvre de Queneau, Les Fleurs bleues, et nous démontrerons que ce roman présentant une hybridation de sous genre, pourrait être classifié comme un roman historique et en même temps comme celui de policier.

English as a First Language (EFL) and English as an Additional Language (The results indicated that both EFL and EAL students used a diverse array of linguistic features to express their ideas in academic prose, with the prospective categories being the most commonly used.

lexical diversity of argumentative and narrative writings of L2 learners, and the contribution of syntactic complexity and lexical diversity to the writing quality in the L2 argumentative and narrative writings of EFL learners. To this end, 46 pre-intermediate and intermediate Iranian EFL learners from four intact classes wrote one argumentative and one narrative essay in L2, and one argumentative and one narrative essay in L1 on different topics. Paired-samples t-tests revealed that lexical diversity surfaced more in the L1 writing of the learners. Multiple linear regressions indicated that among five measures of syntactic complexity, mean length of T-unit and clauses per T-unit better predict the quality of argumentative writing. In addition, complex nominals per clause are better predictors of narrative writing quality. Simple linear regressions showed that lexical diversity is a significant predictor of L2 writing in both genres. Based on the findings, writing instructors are advised to provide L2 learners with explicit instruction on the use of diverse vocabulary and different syntactic structures in order to help them improve the quality of their writing.