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Parvaresh, V., Kassaian, Z., Ketabi, S., Saeedi, M.
World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology (20103778)39pp. 1060-1068
This case study investigates the effects of reactive focus on form through negotiation on the linguistic development of an adult EFL learner in an exclusive private EFL classroom. The findings revealed that in this classroom negotiated feedback occurred significantly more often than non-negotiated feedback. However, it was also found that in the long run the learner was significantly more successful in correcting his own errors when he had received nonnegotiated feedback than negotiated feedback. This study, therefore, argues that although negotiated feedback seems to be effective for some learners in the short run, it is non-negotiated feedback which seems to be more effective in the long run. This long lasting effect might be attributed to the impact of schooling system which is itself indicative of the dominant culture, or to the absence of other interlocutors in the course of interaction.
Research in Contemporary World Literature/ Pazhuhesh-e Zabanha-ye Khareji (25884131)(56)pp. 181-196
Paradise Lost incorporates many references to the East. The Orient figures prominently in the vast scope - the "imaginative geography" - of the poem. This paper attempts a survey of what, following Edward Said, has been termed orientalist discourse in Milton's epic poem. It is argued that this discourse has to be considered in the context of Milton's essentially religious and anti-monarchical stance. Associating the Orient with evil and the Satanic regime Paradise Lost cannot be wrested from latent orientalism but it is shown that issues such as aesthetic considerations, a cosmic setting, drawing on the authority of history, classicism, an encyclopedic scope, an essential antimonarchism and above all a profound process of displacement whereby comments on contemporary issues are displaced onto the Orient all help compound the representations of the East in this text. The result is an ambiguous and multi-faceted orientalist discourse.
Research in Contemporary World Literature/ Pazhuhesh-e Zabanha-ye Khareji (25887092)(61)
This paper is an attempt to shed light on how Michael Ondaatje has tried to rewrite Western history in his Booker Prize-winning novel The English Patient (1992). In the light of Colonial and Postcolonial theories and Hayden White's theory of narrativity of history, which regards historical accounts as metaphorical statements, the researchers try to show how Ondaatje challenges the authenticity of history written by Westerners about the Orientals. Ondaatje, as a migrant postcolonial writer, breaks the long-imposed silence of the marginal people by giving them access to speech whereby to express their own perceptions of reality. He also gives them access to the medium of writing to break the monolithic status of Western historiography (also reflected in Western literary works). Moreover, Ondaatje blurs the borderline between history and fiction in The English Patient to challenge the pseudo-scientific status of history, and presents fiction as a medium through which history is rewritten from the perspective of the 'Other'.
In the scope of Literary Translation, the present article focuses on the benefits of translation which is technically referred to as translation gain. Defined as "translator's technique used to compensate for translation loss" (Note 1), translation gain has scarcely been a subject of heated debates among the authorities in the field of Literary Translation. The data for the present study was collected from the Armenian translation of 5 short stories written by a famous Armenian-American writer W. Saroyan (1908-1981). One of the main objectives of the study is that it covers translations into a language of limited diffusion-Armenian. The results of the study will come to show that in the course of recreating the original, the translator may add values to it either because s/he grasped the author's thought rather better or by taking advantage of the target language's neater and/or richer linguistic resources.
This research is an attempt to find out if grouping learners, through using a placement test will significantly help students become more successful in learning English. 320 non-English major undergraduates studying at the University of Isfahan participated in this research. The final scores of 121 freshmen who attended their general English courses in homogenised classes were compared with those of 199 freshmen who did not undergo any placement procedure. The analysis of data suggested that grouping the learners and dividing them into different ability groups had a significant impact on the participants' academic success, in their course of general English. In addition, the results suggested that ability grouping provides sufficient ground for methodological decisions and hence sequencing of teaching materials and procedures.
Research in Contemporary World Literature/ Pazhuhesh-e Zabanha-ye Khareji (25887092)(62)pp. 7-7
In the present paper, syntactic omission convections in English are investigated on the basis of Dixon (2005) in translations from Persian for their being rendered explicit through translation. The data of the study entails Persian literary texts from different literary genres, namely fiction, poetry, and drama. The study is in line with that carried out by Olahan (2001) which explored syntactic omission conventions in the translated English corpora of BNC and TEC. The present research is an attempt to investigate the findings presented by Olahan yet across three literary genres and to inspect the behavior of optional syntactic explicitation pertaining to fiction, poetry, and drama translations. The results of the study revealed that explicitation of syntactic optional structures is a prevalent norm in modern Persian-English translations of literary texts and that among the proposed conventions, explicitation of the complementiser THAT followed by that of relative pronouns proves the most frequent in all literary genres; yet, in other sub-categories, our findings do not confirm Olahan's. The findings reveal that explicitation is applied as a literary device in literary translation.
The present study aimed to explore how tolerant of ambiguity Iranian EFL learners at university level are and if gender plays a role in this regard. To this end, upon filling in the revised SLTAS scale of ambiguity tolerance 194 male and female Iranian teacher trainees were assigned to three ambiguity tolerance groups; namely, high, moderate and low. Cluster analysis of the SLTAS scores indicated that Iranian EFL learners were mostly moderate as far as tolerance of ambiguity was concerned. Examining the gender differences through an independent sample t-test manifested that female participants were less tolerant of ambiguity than their male peers. Also, the differences between the expected and observed number of participants categorized in the three AT groups were non-significant undermining the role of gender as a moderator variable in assigning participants to AT groups and further approving of SLTAS validity. Implications for classroom practice are presented in the light of findings. The results are helpful in syllabus design and teaching methodology.
Sadeghi, S., Ketabi, S., Tavakoli, M., Sadeghi, M.
English Language Teaching (discontinued) (19164742)5(1)pp. 166-173
As an area of classroom research, Interaction Analysis developed from the need and desire to investigate the process of classroom teaching and learning in terms of action-reaction between individuals and their socio-cultural context (Biddle, 1967). However, sole reliance on quantitative techniques could be problematic, since they conceal more than they reveal of the intricacies of classroom interaction. Moving away from this quantitative norm, this study examines the classroom process from the discourse analysis perspective called Critical Classroom Discourse Analysis (CCDA), proposed by Kumaravadivelu (1999); which draws on Poststructuralism and postcolonialism concepts of discourse; to analyze and understand classroom input and interaction in terms of power and dominance. This ethnographic study aimed at using CCDA as a tool for critical reflection to analyze the differences in the discourse of males and females in an EFL situation. The discussion, based on a case study conducted at a university classroom in Iran, aims at understanding the unseen social processes, i.e. male dominance in discourse. Transcriptions of classroom interactions were put into a qualitatively interpretation of males and females' adherence to, or flouting of four maxims. The research findings suggest that male dominance could be concealed in discourse control, types of questions, and turn-taking. Male participants tended to exert more power and used less indirect language, more negative face, and fewer politeness phenomena.
Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences (discontinued) (20392117)3(3)pp. 525-530
Postmodern literature is founded upon the assumption that the symbolic order of the pre-capitalist era has been transformed by mass media and information technologies into a society inundated with decontextualized signs. Fragmentation of authentic meanings, eclipse of real objects by 'hyperreality' and dissolution of subjectivity, identity and religion are grounded, according to Jean Baudrillard, in the contemporary 'semiurgic' culture. The present paper aims at examining the applicability of Baudrillard's ideas concerning the dominant cultural atmosphere in the postmodern era to Brian Moore's Fergus (1970). In Moore's novel a consumerist society is delineated in which the infinitely reproduced objects and commodities threaten the individuality and identity of modern man. Besides, the novel depicts a world in which the 'auratic' value of art, human relations and religion are replaced by their simulated counterparts.
English Language Teaching (discontinued) (19164742)5(11)pp. 104-110
Due to the lack of span test for the use in language-specific and cross-language studies, this study provides L1 and L2 researchers with a reliable language-independent span test (math span test) for the measurement of working memory capacity. It also describes the development, validation, and scoring method of this test. This test included 70 simple math problems, and was developed based on Salthouse and Babcock's (1991) and Robert and Gibson's (2002) math span tests. The shortcomings of the test were identified and removed over five pilot studies on 48 participants. The final test was used in an experimental study with a group of L1 Persian EFL learners. Results of an item analysis, as indicated by Cronbach's Alpha, indicated an internal reliability of.850 and.863 for the math span test processing and recall respectively. This suggests that the newly developed test is reliable enough and could be used to measure working memory capacity in L1 and L2 studies. This study also provides a clear procedure for the development and scoring of a math span test for the use in L1 and L2 studies.
English Language Teaching (discontinued) (19164742)5(7)pp. 164-174
The present research was conducted with the aim of examining the foreign language learning needs of graduate and postgraduate students of Genetics in Iran in order to help students to meet the growing present and emerging future language demands. The study was designed on a qualitative-quantitative survey basis using interviews and questionnaires which was administered to 35 undergraduate students, 18 postgraduate students, and 4 subject-specific instructors. To see whether the graduate and postgraduate students differed significantly in terms of their language needs, an independent sample t-test was used. Chi-square analysis was also conducted to examine the possible discrepancies across the perceived needs of the students and their parallel counterparts in the instructors' corpus. The findings of the study revealed some minor discrepancies with regard to the language needs and perceptions across different levels. The chi-square results also revealed very few differences between the students' and instructors' perceived needs.
