Pragmatic competence is an essential language pedagogy component represented in English textbooks. The paper attempts to examine the extent to which pragmatic knowledge was reflected in Iranian high school English textbooks (Vision series). Hence, Halliday’s (1973) model and Halliday, et al.’s (1964) model were used to investigate subcategories of functional knowledge and sociolinguistic knowledge. The data was described by descriptive statistics. The findings revealed the Iranian culture-deprived representation (e.g., traditional customs, and ceremonies such as Nowruz, Chaharshanbesori, and Yalda). Moreover, the results highlighted only a limited number of pragmatic components implicitly introduced in the Vision series, and attention was given to their representation and problematic distribution. Furthermore, the English sociocultural patterns were limited and attempts were made to reflect the Iranian culture and convection of daily communication. Thus, some pedagogical implications were offered to improve the Vision series, using authentic pragmatic content instead of proclaiming the fictitious prescription of its authors. تفاصيل المقالة

Although research on clinical supervision and teachers’ critical thinking has been separately carried out by many scholars, their integration in a unified study has been demanding, particularly in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context. Investigation of learners’ language achievement affected by doing clinical supervision appears to have been taken for granted. The present study was an attempt to figure out the effects of clinical supervision model proposed by Gall and Acheson (2011) on EFL teachers’ critical thinking disposition and learners’ overall language achievement. The present study constituted two sets of participants: 60 teachers and 66 learners selected through convenience sampling and were divided into two groups namely experimental. Clinical supervision was conducted for the experimental group teachers within three cycles of planning conference, classroom observation, and feedback conference. Those learners whose teachers took part in the clinical supervision constituted the experimental group while the remaining were the control group whose teachers were not provided with any teacher education program. Data were collected through the Critical Thinking Disposition Scale and learners’ pre-and post-tests. By running one-way analysis of variance (one-way ANOVA) and independent samples t-tests, clinical supervision was significantly effective regarding EFL teachers’ critical thinking disposition and resulted in the learners’ significant improvement as well. Findings demand the practice of clinical supervision as an effective and awareness-raising teacher education program to help teachers reflect upon their strengths and weaknesses and self-regulate their teaching practicum. تفاصيل المقالة

Abstract The present study is an attempt to investigate the relationship between cohesive readability of expository texts and reading comprehension in EFL students with different proficiency levels. One hundred students formed the participant of this study. They were undergraduate students majoring in English at University of Isfahan. To collect the relevant data, participants were divided into three groups of low proficient, intermediate and high proficient based on their scores on an OPT proficiency test. A series of expository reading comprehension tests were prepared and their cohesive readability was measured through related programs. They were divided into two groups of authentic and manipulated texts, with the cohesive readability of manipulated texts reduced. The participants answered the related tests in one session. As a result of data analysis, the findings indicated that manipulation, i.e. cohesive readability reduction has a direct impact on the students' performance in reading expository texts. It was further revealed that text manipulation, i.e. reduction of cohesive readability, was more influential on the intermediate group, i.e. positive relationship between the students’ proficiency level and their reading comprehension of expository texts with different cohesive readability levels. تفاصيل المقالة

The present study aimed firstly at investigating the impact of translators' style on figurative language translation from English into Persian. Secondly, it intended to find which strategies were most frequently adopted by Persian translators to translate figures of speech into Persian. Lastly, the study sought to check the extent of transference of figurative features of literary texts in English-Persian renderings. To achieve these purposes, the English novel, Little Women by Alcott (1880) and its three Persian translations by Raiszadeh (1997), Akhavan (1996), and Morvarid (2000) were used as the materials of the study. The original novel, along with its three selected translations, were first studied carefully by the researchers and about fifty percent of the novel was chosen to be analyzed in terms of figures of speech, which are part of stylistic features of any literary text. Then, the figures of speech in the stated sample, besides the Persian equivalents of each of them used by the three translators, were identified. Finally, a hybrid model incorporating 5 strategies retrieved from Newmrak's (1988) and Baker's (1992) models of translating figurative language was utilized to examine the identified tropes and determine the type and number of strategies employed by any individual translator. The obtained results revealed that figurative language devices were translated from the source into the target language through a variety of strategies, which can be indicative of the translator’s stylistic tendencies. تفاصيل المقالة

Translation can have long-term effects on all languages and cultures. It is not a mere linguistic act, but mostly a cultural act, since language is by nature one of the major carriers of cultural elements. Thus, the translator’s job is not just transferring the meaning of words and sentences from the source text to the target text. Culture-specific items often cause translation problems. Identifying such items in the source text and locate their rendering in the target text has been the focus of the present study. This study has attempted to spot culture-specific elements in the source text; i.e. Matilda, and to check the extent of the translator’s fidelity in rendering such elements and dealing with the concept of domain of discourse in Lefever’s (1992) words. To conduct the study, the researchers have applied a qualitative-descriptive (as well as a quantitative) method, focusing on the analysis of the text and classifying the cultural elements in the source text on the basis of Newmark’s (1988) taxonomy. The findings thereof revealed that universe/domain of discourse has changed in several cases, mostly when the translator has used domestication strategy. تفاصيل المقالة

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of weblog task assessment on Iranian EFL learners’ reading ability. To this purpose, a group of 30 English language students (both male and female) in Rozaneh Language Institute in Najafabad were selected based on their performance on the OPT. The researchers tried to select a homogeneous sample in terms of age factor and proficiency level. The homogeneous students were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. With the exception of the control group, both experimental groups received treatment. Group A received journalist tasks and group B received mystery tasks. The experimental groups were treated through a weblog designed by the present researchers. Before performing the treatment, all participants were tested to estimate their reading ability. At the end of the experiment, the participants took another test on reading comprehension. The scores of the tests were analyzed and interpreted using ANOVA. The findings revealed that the journalist and mystery tasks groups outperformed the control group. However, the mystery task proved more effective. The findings of the study can be very beneficial for the teachers of English who wish to improve Iranian EFL learners’ reading ability. Actually, blogs enable us to exploit learning as a natural part of everyday life. تفاصيل المقالة

Density and distribution of Unfamiliar Lexical Items (ULIs) appear to influence learners’ Reading Comprehension Achievement (RCA). This study concerns the impact of these two variables on Iranian EFL learners’ RCA. For this, two groups of students timetabled for the experiments designed to assess learners’ RCA. To determine the participants’ levels of proficiency a Quick Proficiency Test was first given to the total population of 87 students and 60 selected as participants. They were then divided into four subgroups of 15, each of which took the pertaining text as the treatment. To do so, three short passages were administered, two for the density and one for distribution. Then, data were gathered from the questionnaires and answers analyzed by SPSS. The results revealed the participants in low density/distribution subgroups outperforming their counterparts in high density/distribution subgroups on tests devised to measure the learners’ inferencing of ULIs boldfaced in the texts. The selected method was a quasi-experimental, post-test only design and the procedures comprised short passages, multiple-choice tests, and statistics. To conclude, ULIs found detrimental to the learners’ successful RCA in the foregoing experimentation, where it can serve as a resource to the EFL development programs. تفاصيل المقالة

The present study is an attempt to compare the use of different forms of greeting speech acts presented in Iranian junior high school textbooks, i.e. Prospect series (I, II, III) and Four Corners series (1, 2, 3 and 4) which are quite popular in Iranian high schools and institutions. To this end, greeting forms in the language function and conversation sections of these two series were analyzed to see how they were presented on the basis of a modified version of Searle’s (1967) greeting speech act classification introduced by Hang (2010). The obtained results indicated that ‘greeting by using questions’ was the most frequent form of all greeting forms in both series. In addition, the results of chi-square revealed that there was no significant difference between the occurrence frequencies of greeting forms of speech act in the two series. The findings of the study have some implications for textbook designers in terms of incorporation of speech acts in upcoming textbooks. تفاصيل المقالة

The main purpose of this study is to investigate how voice is realized by Iranian EFL learners in persuasive English and Persian text types. This discourse-related notion is a required criterion for writing acceptable English. However, L2 learners from cultures other than English might face problems in realizing it, or even ignore it all through their writing. In this connection, the present study attempted to discover the possible relationship between the intensity of voice and the overall quality of text. Thus, thirty university students were selected as participants. They were asked to write in both English and Persian a persuasive text within the same subject matter. Then, their writings were rated in terms of intensity of voice and the overall quality based on Jacobs’ voice intensity scale and Jacobs’ overall quality scale (1981), respectively. The analysis of their productions indicated that there is a significant relationship between voice intensity and some of its features, and overall quality; while no relationship was found between English and Persian voice intensity. Therefore, voice deserves more attention on the part of writing instructor, as it could enrich the quality of L2 learners’ written productions with more sense of naturalness and smoothness. Moreover, material designers can incorporate English writing materials with various aspects of this critical notion, in addition to other language rhetoric, for learners at appropriate language proficiency level. تفاصيل المقالة

Abstract Translation is a process which needs concentration and a relaxed mind. Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental disorder which causes the patients to repeat something continuously so that it is done in the best way. As both translation and OCD are mental processes, this study has investigated the relation between these two mental processes. For this purpose, at first Oxford Placement Test was given to 100 advanced university translation students. Then, 40 participants who were at the same level of language proficiency were given Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCD) test to check the degree of their disorder. They were then asked to translate a chosen text. The rater suggested 40 minutes for the translation of this text and asked the participants to estimate the duration of their translation. The data were then studied based on Holmes’s map of translation studies (Holmes 1988). The results showed that OCD affects both translation accuracy and translation time. The findings of this research makes translators informed that mental processes can affect translation processes. In fact, translators with OCD need more time for translation, which causes some problems in cases when urgent translation is needed. Based on the results of this study, it is clear that translators with OCD problems are not reliable for translation tasks. تفاصيل المقالة

This study aimed to investigate the syntactic errors that the Iranian deaf and hearing-impaired (DHI) make in their L2 writings. To this purpose, 60 male and female Iranian DHI students with different social status were selected, through convenience sampling procedure, as participants from among the students of a deaf community in Bandar Abbas, Iran. Their general writing performance was assessed through a proficiency test (pre-test) before they received a six-week writing instruction, in which they were provided with model written utterances and common syntactic points such as sentence order, word order, subject/verb agreement, etc. At the end of the treatment, they were given two topics and asked to write short paragraphs (post-test). Then, different syntactic errors were spotted, analyzed and categorized based on Keshavarz’s linguistic taxonomy of errors. The obtained results indicated that the writing quality of the participants improved from pre-test to post-test. It was also found that majority of the participants committed more syntactic omission errors than syntactic addition errors and syntactic substitution errors. It was further found that syntactic errors in written language were not affected by the gender and social class of the participants. The findings of this study provide empirical evidence for teaching syntactic order to deaf and hearing-impaired students in order to enhance their L2 writing performance. تفاصيل المقالة

Abstract In Iran, most English teachers’ method of teaching writing is merely to have students do some writing exercises or simply to give them writing tests without any instruction, but writing is not an easy task for students, and teachers should be able to do more to facilitate their students’ writing. One of the ways to aid writing is dynamic assessment via graduated prompt. The graduated prompting procedure provides intervention in the form of predetermined standardized prompts that are sequenced from general to more specific. The present study aimed at investigating the effect of DA on the improvement of Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ picture-cued writing tasks. The study was conducted with 35 Iranian EFL learners (male and female) who were randomly selected from an available population pool of 70 EFL learners enrolled in two language institutes in Esfahan, Iran. The data were collected via a pretest, a posttest and a questionnaire. The analysis of the test scores through t-test revealed that the experimental group did statistically better in the test. Furthermore, almost all of the participants held positive attitudes toward writing, and their confidence in their own English writing ability increased. The implication of the study is that dynamic assessment via graduated prompt can be incorporated into the regular writing program. تفاصيل المقالة

The focus of current research is the translation of psychology book titles. There are numerous studies in the field of titles translation, but they are restricted in Persian context. The aim of this study is thus to investigate the translation strategies used by Persian translators when transferring English psychology book titles into Persian. To achieve this objective, 245 titles of translated psychology books published from 2007 to 2013 in the field of personal success were first gathered from Isfahan Municipality Library, some local bookstores and online sources. Then, the types of original titles and their translations were examined based on Genette (1989) categorization. The findings thereof revealed that most of the titles had the form, title plus subtitle in both languages in terms of structure. The forms of the titles were also analyzed, and it was discovered that nominal titles were the most frequent ones in the source text and translators preferred not to change the original structure. Next, the corpus was analyzed based on Vinay and Darbelnet’ (1995) model and the findings showed that the modulation was the most frequently-used translation strategy. It was also revealed that the translators were inclined to change the semantics and point of view of the source language. The second most frequently-used strategy was literal translation, showing the popularity of direct translation strategies. Finally, the functions of titles were analyzed based on Nord’s (1995) model. Since functions are highly subjective and cannot be tabulated, they were discussed one by one in the discussion section of the study. The findings of this study can boost the theories of title translation and provide the functional issues of translation studies with new insights. تفاصيل المقالة

This qualitative study aimed at critically analyzing the curricular materials for the teaching of English in Iran. The objective was to evaluate the adequacy of the content and ideological assumptions of EFL textbooks, focusing on the conceptual metaphors related to the concept of success. The study was conducted within the frameworks of Critical Pedagogy and Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA). The spirit of these two approaches lies in their rejection of all forms of domination, establishment of a theoretical discourse that enables social action, and detection of the hidden relationships between language, power and ideology through metaphorical encodings. To achieve the objective of the study, the analytical tools proposed by Chartres-Black were employed. The results of material analysis revealed that preparation and imposition of cultural materials may create situations in which identity conflict and violence are inevitable, and that the avoidance of such situations requires educators to intervene, with a mentality that education is liberating practice. تفاصيل المقالة

Translating literary works is a difficult task, especially when it comes to cultural elements. It gets more difficult when words have ambiguities and multiple layers of meaning. The present study sought to examine the adequacy of witticism in the English renderings of Sa'di's clever remarks in Golistan (The Rose Garden). To this purpose, the researchers selected three English translations of Golistan by different translators; namely, Rehatsek (1964), Gladwin (1806), and Ross (1890). A sample of 20 anecdotes containing wittical elements were randomly taken from Golistan and compared with their English translations. The collected data were then analyzed based on Delabastita's (1993) hierarchy of pun translation strategy model. The obtained results revealed that the three translations were at best similar in terms of the applied strategies, i.e. in all the translations, the most frequently used strategies were: Pun/Non-Pun translation strategy, Non-Pun/Pun strategy, and Pun/Related Rhetorical Translation strategy, respectively. Moreover, it was indicated that all the three translations used the strategies to the same extent, though slight differences were found among them in terms of the overall use of the strategies. Since adequacy in Delabastita’ framework (1993) is hierarchically defined, it can be concluded that higher level strategies lead to more adequate translations. Generally, it was observed that the three translations were the same in terms of semantic and humorous adequacy; i.e. they transferred the source text effect in translating wittical elements of the Golistan. The findings of the study would have implications for translation students as well as translators of literary works. تفاصيل المقالة

The present study is an attempt to investigate the cross-cultural differences with regards to the production of a relatively understudied speech act, namely, congratulations. To this end, 48 American native speakers were asked to fill out a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) consisting of 4 situations on each of which the participants were asked to offer congratulations. Besides, the translated versions of the DCT were used to elicit data from 50 Persian native speakers as well as 44 native speakers of Syrian Arabic language. The corpus was analyzed to determine the congratulation strategies used and the frequencies of their occurrence. The content of semantic formulas as well as their shifts according to the status of the hearer were also investigated. Analysis of the data revealed several similarities and differences among the three groups, which will have implications for researchers as well as language teachers. تفاصيل المقالة

This study investigated the impact of web-based instruction Googling techniques (GT) and strategic and interactive writing instruction (SIWI) on the L2 writing performance of deaf and hearing-impaired (DHI) Iranian learners. To this end, 60 Iranian male and female DHI students at the elementary level participated in the study. The participants were divided into two experimental and control groups. The experimental group benefited from two particular instructional focuses of this study: GT and SIWI. In order to assess the effect of the treatment, a pre-test and post-test design was utilized and the obtained results were statistically analyzed. The findings revealed that online strategy-based instruction could positively affect the writing performance of Iranian DHI learners. The findings can have pedagogical implications for material practitioners, CALL package designers, and distance teaching planners to include strategy instruction in English courses for the DHI population. تفاصيل المقالة

This content analysis study aimed to investigate whether communicative strategies (CSs) have been incorporated into Iranian high school English textbooks (Vision Series). To this aim, the strategic components highlighted in Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) principles were selected to uncover its role in such textbooks. Moreover, Dornyei’s communication strategy classification was used to scrutinize the extent to which the strategic competence was represented in high school EFL textbooks. The analysis of the results revealed that the textbook did not benefit from different kinds of CSs. The authors’ claims were not met in the large portion of the textbook’s content. Therefore, Vision series need to be modified so that CSs are more appropriately included. The central philosophy of incorporating explicit CSs into the Vision series was not to accomplish as many CSs as possible, but rather to draw the students’ attention to special CSs, which could help them overcome the barriers faced in language communication. تفاصيل المقالة

Concurrent with the advent of Mona Baker’s seminal and trendsetter paper (1995) on the constructive role of corpora in translation research, we have witnessed an exponential revolution in this fast-growing strand of research (Fang, 2020; Vasheghani Farahani and Kazemian, 2021; Zanettin, 2012). What Baker envisaged in Corpus-based Translation Studies borrowed its roots from Descriptive Translation Studies (to study translation in accordance with target text boundaries) and was concomitant with the time when corpora were in their incipient stages of fruition in Applied Linguistics (Laviosa, 2013). As a matter of principle, the critical nexus between translation and corpora was underpinned based on the assumption that “hypotheses are tested by examining language in use rather than concocted examples” (Laviosa, 2013, p. 228). تفاصيل المقالة

Metaphors play an important role in language learning. Previous research has shown that Iranian EFL learners often struggle with the use and comprehension of metaphors in English, which can hinder their overall language proficiency. In recent years, technology-based instruction has gained popularity in language learning, and many studies have investigated its effectiveness in improving learners' language skills. However, little attention has been paid to the impact of technology-based instruction on learners' metaphorical competence. The present study aims to fill this gap by investigating the impact of technology-based instruction on the improvement of Iranian EFL learners' metaphorical competence. For this purpose, a quasi-experimental design was employed, with two groups of participants: an experimental group (n=30) who received technology-based instruction on metaphors, and a control group (n=30) who received traditional instruction. Data were collected using a pre-test and a post-test, which measured participants' metaphorical competence and were analyzed using descriptive statistics and independent samples t-tests. The results demonstrated that the experimental group outperformed the control group in post-test scores, indicating that technology-based instruction was effective in improving Iranian EFL learners' metaphorical competence. Implications for language teaching and learning are discussed. تفاصيل المقالة

This research paper examines the perspectives of Iranian male and female EFL instructors towards pragmatics instruction, with a focus on exploring the differences based on gender and teaching experience. Drawing from a comprehensive thesis, the paper investigates the instructors' views on the strengths and weaknesses of current resources for pragmatics instruction, the challenges they face in teaching pragmatics, and their suggestions for enhancing pragmatics education. Moreover, the study explores how Iranian male and female EFL instructors' perceptions of explicit instruction in promoting learners' pragmatic competence vary based on their gender and teaching experience. To achieve all these aims, the study employed an exploratory sequential design, including pre-test and post-test measures, interviews, and survey questionnaires to collect and analyze both qualitative and quantitative data. The participants were 100 Iranian English language instructors who taught at the university level. They were selected through convenient sampling and divided into two groups: the treatment and control groups. The treatment group received a training program on pragmatics instruction, while the control group did not receive any specific training. The findings suggest that while both male and female instructors recognize the importance of pragmatics instruction, they face distinct challenges and have differing perspectives on the effectiveness of explicit teaching approaches. The study also highlights the need for tailored professional development opportunities to address the specific concerns and requirements of EFL instructors with varying levels of teaching experience. These findings offer valuable implications for second language teaching and learning in the Iranian context. تفاصيل المقالة

The purpose of this research was to evaluate whether or not Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools are effective in improving language pragmatics training for university students in Iraq who have an intermediate level of English proficiency. The research made use of a mixed-methods approach, which combines qualitative and quantitative data in order to investigate how artificial intelligence affects the acquisition of pragmatic competence (RQ1), learner perceptions (RQ2), and the effectiveness of AI in comparison to traditional methods (RQ3). The results of the study indicated that the intervention including the AI tool resulted in a statistically significant improvement in pragmatic competence scores when compared to the conventional method of instruction. Learners who were part of the experimental group also reported having favorable impressions of the effectiveness of the artificial intelligence tool. They highlighted the program's emphasis on practical application, as well as its interactive features and individualized feedback. This research makes a contribution to the field of language instruction by demonstrating the potential of artificial intelligence to develop a more interactive and individualized learning experience for pragmatics, which will ultimately lead to improved communication skills among students. تفاصيل المقالة