Farzaneh Shadloo; Hesamoddin Shahriari Ahmadi; Behzad Ghonsooly
Abstract
1. IntroductionGaining competence in writing academic texts has been considered as a challenging and important task in the process of second and/or foreign language learning; and "this realization is not surprising, given the similar difficulties related to the development of first language (L1) writing ...
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1. IntroductionGaining competence in writing academic texts has been considered as a challenging and important task in the process of second and/or foreign language learning; and "this realization is not surprising, given the similar difficulties related to the development of first language (L1) writing competency" (Whalen & Ménard, 1995, p. 382). As a result, teaching and making language learners aware of common linguistic measures in different kinds of academic registers can be significant and useful. In this regard, Ortega (2003) has suggested that this construct—grammatical complexity—is of significance in "second language research because of the assumption that language development entails, among other processes, the growth of an L2 learner’s syntactic repertoire and her or his ability to use that repertoire appropriately in a variety of situations" (p. 492). Ortega (2003) has also noted that "measures of syntactic complexity are important research tools not only in the field of second language acquisition but in a variety of language-related disciplines" (p. 492). In this regard, some studies have demonstrated that clauses and clausal subordination are the best measures of grammatical complexity. Larsen-Freeman (1978), for example, has pointed out that the "percentage of error-free T-units and the average length of error-free T-units, proved to be the best discriminators among the five levels of ESL proficiency" (p. 439). However, Lu (2011) has noted that previous studies have only analyzed a limited number of measures and therefore there is not enough information available on the best measure(s) for analyzing syntactic complexity in academic prose. Lu (2011) has subsequently classified 14 syntactic complexity features in five categories. These include length of production, sentence complexity, subordination, coordination, and particular structures. As few studies have examined these 14 syntactic complexity measures proposed by Lu (2011), the aim of the present study is to analyze these features in a corpus of argumentative essays written by learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). 2. MethodologyThe present study has made use of a corpus of argumentative essays by EFL learners from three levels of proficiency (upper-intermediate, intermediate, and pre-intermediate). Following this, for analyzing the measures of syntactic complexity, the online L2 syntactic complexity analyzer which is designed by Lu (2010) was employed. Considering its function, this analyzer "produces frequency counts of nine linguistic units in the text—word, sentence, clause, dependent clause, T-unit, complex T-unit, coordinate phrase, complex nominal, and verb phrase—and generates 14 indices of syntactic complexity for the text" (Yang, Lu, & Weigle, 2015, p. 58). In the next stage, the data was entered into the SPSS software and a one-way ANOVA was run. 3. DiscussionThe statistical results of the one-way ANOVA revealed that five features of grammatical complexity show significant differences (p < 0.05). The results also show that features that are related to phrasal complexity can be regarded as a better criterion for assessing grammatical complexity in essays compared to features of subordination, coordination, or sentence complexity. The results of the present study are in line with the findings of Biber and Gray (2013) and Biber, Gray, and Poonpon (2011) who underscored the importance of phrasal and noun phrasal complexity in academic prose. In analyzing three types of texts, namely argumentative, descriptive, and narrative texts, Lu (2010) also found that mean length of T-unit, mean length of clause, complex nominals per T-unit and complex nominals per clause show a statistically significant difference. Therefore, Lu (2011) has suggested that there is a need for more studies to analyze phrasal complexity.4. ConclusionThe results of the current study are of considerable significance for the evaluation of argumentative essays written by EFL learners. Therefore, becoming more familiar with grammatical complexity measures of academic writing may lead to more comprehensive and thorough assessment. Moreover, writing instructors can make their learners aware of the importance of noun phrasal complexity in their writing. It could also be of great benefit if material developers and language instructors were to highlight the differences among various registers of academic writing while teaching grammar lessons. In this regard, Biber, Conrad, and Reppen (1994) have mentioned that there is no "single register that can be identified as 'general English', and that advanced instruction based on our intuitions about 'general' or 'core' English is not likely to provide adequate exposure to the actual linguistic patterns found in the target registers" (p. 183). As a result of this suggestion, future studies are recommended to concentrate on features of grammatical complexity in different registers of academic writing.
Masood Khoshsaligheh; Elmira Soleimani Rad
Abstract
1. Introduction
Collocations are defined as syntagmatic and lexical structures that tend to go together repeatedly (Afshinpoor & Ibn al-Rasul, 2014). In other words, they are a sequence of words whose occurrence together is frequent, and this frequency is to a degree that cannot be considered accidental. ...
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1. Introduction
Collocations are defined as syntagmatic and lexical structures that tend to go together repeatedly (Afshinpoor & Ibn al-Rasul, 2014). In other words, they are a sequence of words whose occurrence together is frequent, and this frequency is to a degree that cannot be considered accidental. Collocations, which play a crucial role in the coherence of various types of texts, are regarded as one of the most important properties of each language (Sharifi & Namvar Fargi, 2012). There are different ways of analyzing translated texts. One way is to examine translations as independent texts with regard to the elements involved in their production. The current study examined a corpus of translated texts, with focus on collocations and their role in the coherence and fluency of translation.
2. MethodologyIn this study, the importance of collocations and their role in contributing to the coherence and fluency of the translated texts were investigated. To this end, the book Twenty Stories by Twenty Nobel Prize Winners was purposively selected. This book consists of twenty stories by twenty different authors, translated into Persian by Asadollah Amraie. The sample of study, including word combinations, were collected randomly from all twenty stories. The analysis of the data was carried out in three phases: 1) the quantitative phase, 2) the qualitative phase, and 3) the descriptive phase. In the quantitative phase, the collocations were examined from the viewpoint of the audience. So, a questionnaire was designed and distributed among 150 participants. The participants were asked to evaluate the collocations both from the perspectives of understandability and commonality. In the qualitative phase, an in-depth interview was conducted with five participants who were professional literary books’ readers. In the descriptive phase, the word combinations were analyzed based on the kinds of lexical combinations that appear in collocation dictionaries.
3- Result and Discussion The results of the quantitative phase indicated that none of the selected collocations were rated as either fully understandable or commonly used. The data from the interview phase indicated that there are ambiguities in some parts of the text. So, the participants considered the translated text as awkward. This tends to indicate inadequate considerations on the part of the the translator in his lexical choices which led to the pitfall of negative transfer of source language structures. This was due to the fact that the words were not collocated commonly, and this challenged the naturalness and fluency of the translation. The readers are forced to read and reread certain segments of the text to make sense of it. It also was revealed that the word combinations are relatively comprehensible but not common and prevalent in Farsi language speech community. It can also be inferred the translator’ choices cannot be attributed to the translator’s creativity in constructing new word combinations, as they are prevalent neither in non-translated texts nor translated texts by professional authors and translators.The study inferred that the translated text as an independent text should be fluid and comprehensible to the target language readers rather than merely reproduce the linguistic structures of the source text. That is why the use of appropriate collocations in the way native speakers use language is a very important issue in the clarity and fluency of translation. It seems imperative that translators should have sufficient knowledge of the target language.The findings showed that one of the most important factors for choosing and accepting a translation is the fluency of the text. The translation should be written in a natural language that conforms to the conventions of the target language. Using unfamiliar and unusual structures should be avoided, and the text should be written in a consistent style. The results of the different phases of the study indicated that the translator has used word combinations that have a low frequency in everyday speeches. As the frequency of these collocational structures is low in Farsi, the text does not enjoy coherence. It is worth mentioning that the study of collocations in translation can have a significant role in the production of natural word combinations that can contribute to more acceptable translated texts.
Masood Khoshsaligheh; Elham Fazeli Haghpanah
Abstract
1. IntroductionThe current advancement of technology has significantly influenced various fields such as audiovisual translation. The emergence of fansub groups is among the most important effects of technological development in the translation world. Easy access to various types of computers as well ...
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1. IntroductionThe current advancement of technology has significantly influenced various fields such as audiovisual translation. The emergence of fansub groups is among the most important effects of technological development in the translation world. Easy access to various types of computers as well as free subtitling software programs have resulted in an increasing number of fansubs on a daily basis. A fansub is a non-professional subtitled version of an anime or movie, carried out collaboratively by an unpaid group of volunteers which will be available to users for free. Several reasons have been mentioned for fansubbing such as: providing translation for people who are not familiar with the source language, reluctance or failure regarding the official and commercial subtitling in portraying cultural issues and unique features of foreign products and also, introducing a cultural product that is not so well-known in other parts of the world. Primary studies in this field have been conducted during the late 1990s; over time, the number of such studies have been increased and their various aspects have been discussed. A number of studies have been conducted during the first decade of the current century, introducing specific features concerning this type of audiovisual translation and explaining the process, people involved, and technical requirements. Furthermore, some researchers have studied fansub from different perspectives such as: its distribution, comparison between the processes involved in fansubbing and professional subtitling, quality of translation, fansubbing norms, and political subtitling networks. 2. MethodThe process of producing fansub for anime and other forms of animations, common challenges, and the applied equipment and facilities in Iran have been investigated in this qualitative phenomenological study. To achieve this purpose, a few number of active users in fansubbing field were selected through the snowball sampling technique. By conducting interviews, a set of descriptive information have been gathered regarding technical dimensions of the production process such as timing, typesetting, encoding, among others. The interviews, consisting of almost 20 questions (general and specialized), were conducted individually through either face- to-face or telephone conversations. The seven participants were anime fansubbers in Iranian online forums who took on different responsibilities such as anime translation, editing, timing. Their educational backgrounds were very different from each other and often irrelevant to translation. Their ages ranged from 18 to 30 years with an average of 23.7 years old. These seven participants including three men and four women, have been working in this field for 7 to 10 years. Moreover, using a sample selection of products with non-professional Persian subtitles, some of the mistakes in translations were presented and discussed.3. ResultsBased on the results of interviews, fansubbers carry out this process through several steps using various software and hardware equipment. These steps include: 1) original anime acquisition, 2) translation, 3) translation check, 4) timing, 5) typesetting and karaoke, 6) final edit 7) encoding, 8) quality control and 9) distribution of final product. Active fansubbers are usually members of the anime and manga fandom who are quite skilled in working with different software programs. Iranian fansubbers’ motivation is to provide top anime masterpieces with Persian subtitles for Persian speakers as soon as possible. In the past, due to the low age range of anime and manga fans, their activities in producing fansubs had also started in an early age; they have been studying in middle school or high school when they began their activities. During the last few years, growth in the age range of anime and manga fans has resulted in older fansubbers working in this field who often study different majors in universities. The majority of active fansubbers in translation and editing sections are older than those active in technical and software related areas. Various software programs are used for different parts of fansubbing process; some are more popular and more useful: a) original anime acquisition: a peer to peer program like Bittorrent or direct link; b) translation: a text editor such as Notepad or Microsoft Word and a video player software like KMPlayer is sufficient; c) timing: Sub Station Alpha has been mostly used in the past but currently, Aegisub, JacoSub and Sabbu are also widely used. However, it is worth mentioning that the timing stage is no longer necessary, because many official companies release English subtitles in softsub format for anime series; d) typesetting and karaoke: Aegisub software has all the requirements for typesetting. Though Sub Station Alpha also meets all of typesetters’ needs; e) final edit: Similar to the translation stage, a text editor and a video player software are needed; f) encoding: softwares such as Format Factory, Freemake Video Converter and Virtual Dub; g) distribution of final product: softwares like Bittorent.4. Discussion and ConclusionThe results of this study reveal the non-professional dimensions of fansubbing process as a voluntary and collaborative activity and indicate that fansubbers are only involved in such a process because of personal interests. They do not have educational backgrounds in fansubbing field and their only intention is to translate their favorite works of anime for their Persian speaking friends who are not familiar with a foreign language. Fansubbers do not expect to make money form this profession and if someone were to do so by selling these products, the fansub community would regard such actions as improper and inappropriate. Due to the non-professional nature of producing this form of subtitling, the products’ quality are often too low and far from professional subtitling standards. Fansubbers usually decide to quit the fansubbing scene after a while; because fansubbing is a complicated and time-consuming task. Furthermore, fansub groups work for free and hence, the activity is not economically viable. However, we have to consider the fact that there is a wide range of audio visual productions including anime, animations, movies, TV series and even educational films with Persian fansub accessible for native Persian speakers. Certainly, Fansub is not a new phenomenon and has a long history in the world; it has been studied extensively in other countries yet in Iran, it seems to have passed unnoticed by our scholars and only a few have studied in this field.
Mohadese Safinejad; Ali Khazaeefar; Mahmud Reza Ghorban Sabbagh
Abstract
Aesthetic equivalence is produced when both the source and target texts enjoy the same degree of interpretability with semantic explicitness. This requires both texts to have the same number of indeterminacies. Roman Ingarden, the Polish phenomenologist and aesthetician, was the first one to consider ...
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Aesthetic equivalence is produced when both the source and target texts enjoy the same degree of interpretability with semantic explicitness. This requires both texts to have the same number of indeterminacies. Roman Ingarden, the Polish phenomenologist and aesthetician, was the first one to consider the concept of indeterminacy as a characteristic of literary works. Then Iser and Jauss, two aesthetic theoreticians, applied it in different theories. In this paper, the concept of “aesthetic of equivalence” is defined based on the literary concept of “indeterminacy”. Then it’s the importance is shown in different translations of Jibran Khalil Jibran’s The Prophet. The analysis of fourteen translations of three sentences of this text shows that the translators has tried to explicate everything so they keep the text far away of the aesthetic equivalence
Parvaneh Shayeste-Far; Gholam Reza Kiany; Monireh Norouzi
Abstract
1. IntroductionTesting-based reform has often been used as a lever for introducing desirable changes. This tenet is found in light of the claim that what is targeted to be measured by testing, in particular by tests of higher stakes, would strongly determine and shape what gets taught and learnt at the ...
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1. IntroductionTesting-based reform has often been used as a lever for introducing desirable changes. This tenet is found in light of the claim that what is targeted to be measured by testing, in particular by tests of higher stakes, would strongly determine and shape what gets taught and learnt at the lower stakes. Clear examples are various University Entrance Examinations (UEEs) which have long appeared to have immense importance for the people and institutions involved. In fact, high-stakes tests such as the UEEs are widely perceived to have the potential to shape curricular teaching and learning. Such a test consequential effect, i.e., ‘test washback’, has encouraged decision makers and educators to manage for a test-based change to promote the quality of education in general and the quality of learning and teaching in particular. Reform policies as such have also been increasingly recognized by policymakers, educators, and research community in Iran, during the past decade. Such a recognition and appreciation of reform policies consequently led to reform initiatives that aimed at enhancing the quality of high school learning and teaching through reforming the conventional UEEs system of the country. The outcome was the ‘Act of Student Admission at Universities (ASAU)’ which mandates gradual replacement of the English requirements of the UEEs with high school National English Achievement Tests (NEATs) students have to take over their four high school years. However, the existing evidence shows that success is not necessarily ensured as hoped. Reasons for such a failure were mostly studied after ‘implementation’ or at the ‘completion phase’ of a reformed test but not during its ‘implementation phase’. Such an early evaluation has been mostly neglected. Taking into account the perceptions and perspectives of the English Language Teaching (ELT) practitioners of the country, the present study aimed to explore the effectiveness of the UEEs program change in improving the ELT context of the Ministry of Education (ME). 2. MethodologyA mixed-methods approach was employed to collect both qualitative and quantitative data. For such a purpose, semi-structured interviews with 16 ELT professors and head-teachers followed by questionnaire data from English language teachers were used. Participants were instructors of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology (MSRT) and ME. Eight university professors and 8 ME teachers, selected through purposive sampling, participated in the qualitative phase, and 406 English teachers (both males and females, with teaching experience of 5 to 30 years), selected through cluster and convenient sampling procedures, participated in different phases of the study. The interview guide was prepared on the basis of the information obtained from the Act, higher-order policy documents of the country, available literature, and the researchers’ experience and knowledge of the two admission systems. The interview guide questions sought interviewees’ views about the consequences of the new tests on the ME’s English Foreign Language (EFL) teaching and learning. The interviews were tape recorded, transcribed, and then carefully content-analyzed.Next, quantitative data were collected through the researcher-made ‘Questionnaire of Change Consequences-Teachers’ version (QCC-Ts)’ that was distributed among 406 English teachers. The interview analyses together with a review of the related literature gave more than one hundred categories and behaviors showing high-stakes test impacts (e.g., teachers’ considerations of practicing the skills measured by high-stakes tests) which later led to the development of a temporary driven model of change impact stated through the QCC-Ts, with a total of 82 items forming three main scales: Teachers’ Planning and Instruction, Learning Objectives, and Fairness in admission. A series of factor analyses, both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were run to substantiate the whole scale. 3. Discussion3.1. Interviews: Professors and Head-TeachersData analysis of qualitative phase resulted into the identification of more than 200 themes that were finally subsumed under 14 categories. The necessity of “Adequacy of the new admission criteria”, “fairness in assessment through the new program”, “Students’ quality and depth of knowledge” as well as considerations about the “quality of the output of the ME”, and “Resurgence of the similar coaching for the UEEs” were the most commonly mentioned areas perceived to be negatively influenced by the NEATs-based program. A relative dissatisfaction was found in the interviewees’ views on the final outcome of the NEATs program in terms of its effects on the quality, quantity, rate, and depth of learning. In teaching area, the participants reported a probability for integrating a balanced teaching and learning of the main skills of the English language in the ELT contexts of high schools. However, the respondents found the consequences positive on “students’ learning activities” and “teachers’ assessment of students’ learning”. That is, the new program will lead to more student engagement in learning activities, and increased regular assessment by teachers. 3.2. Questionnaire Surveys: English TeachersThe results of the factor analysis of the QCC-Ts revealed a significantly good-fitting model for the constructed scales (CMIN/DF=2.79, RMSEA=0.04, CFI=0.981, GFI=0.984, and a small χ2=42). “Classroom activities and time-arrangement”, and “teaching materials” teachers would use in their classes were perceived as the two areas being most strongly driven by the new high-stakes tests (X=4.40, SD=.96; X=4.35, SD=.79 for classroom activities and materials, respectively). For instance, perceived consequences of the NEATs on ‘types and structures of classroom activities’ ‘students’ test-taking skills and strategies’, ‘extra time spent on grammar instruction’, and on ‘particular classroom activities purposefully adopted (e.g., vocab., translation, and structure drills) to increase students’ scores in the NEATs’ were reported by mean scores clustering around 4.5 in the Likert scale that illustrates ‘agreement’ or near ‘complete agreement’ with the NEATs impacts. Inconsistency between the desired policies and the observed practices was found for teachers’ ‘methods of teaching’ and ‘content of teaching’ that came up with the mean values of 4.01 and 3.59, respectively. For instance, two-thirds of the participants said that they change their teaching methods in order to ‘develop students’ NEAT-taking skills’ or ‘increase students’ scores in these tests’. These show how measurement-driven program of the ME obliges EFL teachers to change their adopted methods, employed activities, and applied materials in the direction of meeting testing objectives rather than learning objectives. As to the NEATs consequences on learning-related factors, EFL teachers were almost neutral about the NEATs consequences on learning-related factors, especially with regard to ‘affective consequences’ (2.5
Gholam Hassan Khajavy; Behzad Ghonsooly; Azar Hosseini Fatemi
Abstract
1. IntroductionIn recent years, research on emotions has attracted the attention of many researchers (Butz, Stupnisky, & Pekrun, 2015; Frenzel, 2014). Teachers’ emotions can be as important as students’ emotions. Although many studies have focused on investigating emotions among students, ...
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1. IntroductionIn recent years, research on emotions has attracted the attention of many researchers (Butz, Stupnisky, & Pekrun, 2015; Frenzel, 2014). Teachers’ emotions can be as important as students’ emotions. Although many studies have focused on investigating emotions among students, very few studies have examined emotions among teachers (Chang, 2009; Frenzel, 2014). Moreover, the studies which have examined emotions among teachers have mostly examined them in general education, and very few studies have been conducted on English language teachers’ emotions. To have a better understanding of learning and teaching English, it is necessary to get more familiar with teachers’ emotions. Teaching consists of different positive and negative emotions (Hargreaves, 1998). However, six discrete emotions are considered as the most salient ones (Frenzel, 2014). These emotions include enjoyment, pride, anxiety, anger, boredom, and shame. Although previous research has developed a scale for assessing emotions, this scale is limited only to enjoyment, anxiety, and anger, while other emotions among teachers have not been examined.Teaching is full of emotions and these emotions play a vital role in teachers’ professional career (Hargreaves, 1998). Motivation, cognition, and emotions are considered to be three main components of the mind (Sutton & Wheatley, 2003). Teachers experience both positive and negative emotions. The importance of teachers’ emotions lies in the fact that they are related to other individual difference constructs which are related to both teachers and students.. For example, previous research has shown that negative emotions are directly related to teachers’ burnout, while positive emotions can hinder burnout (Chang, 2009, 2013). Among both positive and negative emotions, enjoyment is the most dominant emotion that teachers experience (Frenzel, 2014). Among negative emotions, anger is the main emotion experienced by teachers (Frenzel, 2014). The main reason for teachers’ anger has been reported to be students’ disruptive behavior (Chang, 2009). The purpose of the present study was to develop and validate a scale for assessing English language teachers’ emotions. This scale included items from previous studies as well as new items developed by the researchers.2. MethodologyA total number of 326 teachers who were teaching English in language institues took part in this study. Among the participants, there were 227 female and 95 male teachers. Five participants did not write their gender. Teachers’ age ranged between 20 and 40 with a mean of 27.88. Moreover, teachers had between 1 and 21 years of teaching experience. In order to assess emotions, the newly developed qustionnaire was sent for the teachers online. The questionnaire assessed six emotions of enjoyment, pride, anxiety, anger, boredom, and shame. Each subscale included four items measured on a six-point Likert scale rangigng from strongly disagree to strongly agree. In order to analyze the data, exploratory factor analysis was run by SPSS. To check the unidimensionality of the scale, Rasch analysis was run by Winsteps. Finally, confirmatory factor analysis was run by Mplus.3. ResultsIn order to check the unidimensionality of the scale, Rasch analysis was conducted. MNSQ statistics confirmed the unidimensionality of the scale. Following this, exploratory factor analysis was run. Before that, KMO and Bartlett test of sphricity were investigated in order to be sure that the data were ready for factor analysis. Upon confirming the factorability of the scale, exploratory factor analysis with principal component analysis and varimax rotation was run. The results showed a six-factor solution and items loading on each factor. Three items did not load on any factor due to very low factor loadings and therefore were removed for further analyses. Finally, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted and goodness-of-fit indices were all within the acceptable range. In addition to validity, reliability of the subscales was also investigated using Cronbach’s alpha coefficients. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranged from .64 to .88 which confirmed the reliability of the subscales.4. ConclusionsThis study was conducted to develop and validate a scale for measuring English language teachers’ emotions in the Iranian context. Results of Rasch analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the construct validity of the scale. This questionnaire can be used by researchers for future research. Supervisors in English language institutes can also benefit from this scale. For example, using this questionnaire, supervisors can become aware of their teachers’ emotions and provide more support for the teachers accordingly. Like all studies, this research had some limitations. While we tried to develop a scale for the most important emotions, there are still other emotions which were not included in the present scale. Therefore, future research is needed to develop scales for other emotions. Moreover, validity and reliability of this research are limited to the present study and further research is needed to confirm the validity and reliability of this research in other contexts.
Mehrnoosh Mehrabi; Habib Kamali
Abstract
This article compares the motif invulnerability in greek , Persian and Germanic mythology , specially in three greatest world literary epics : "Iliad , Shahnameh and Nibelungenlied " . The central figures of the epics are mythical gods and Heroes, supernatural beings and wonder animals . Mythology is ...
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This article compares the motif invulnerability in greek , Persian and Germanic mythology , specially in three greatest world literary epics : "Iliad , Shahnameh and Nibelungenlied " . The central figures of the epics are mythical gods and Heroes, supernatural beings and wonder animals . Mythology is about myths and myths belong to people and addresses their origin, history, ancestors, and heroes .It is also about magical qualities of heroes like invulnerability. Invulnerability is one of the major motifs in mythology . Invulnerable heroes have in spite of their strength a blind spot and a deadly weakness which can actually lead to their downfall .Although Achilles , Siegfried and Esfandiar qualify as great , mighty men of these great works and have powers of invulnerability eventually die and their death is a direct consequence of the deception. As these three epics root in Indo-germanic languages , we can assume that they may have a similar history and culture . This article attempts to find such similarities of the mythical motif " Invulnerability ".
Mahsa Nadri; Purya Baghaei; Zahra Zohoorian
Abstract
The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between a number of cognitive abilities (auditory/visual attention, processing speed, and fluid intelligence) and listening comprehension. A total of 97 undergraduate EFL students participated in the study. Tests of auditory and visual attention, ...
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The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between a number of cognitive abilities (auditory/visual attention, processing speed, and fluid intelligence) and listening comprehension. A total of 97 undergraduate EFL students participated in the study. Tests of auditory and visual attention, processing speed, verbal and nonverbal fluid intelligence, overall English language proficiency, and listening comprehension were administered to the participants. The results indicated that the measure of English proficiency had the highest correlation with the listening test followed by measures of attention and processing speed. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that 17% of the variance in listening comprehension was explained by the cognitive factors. The addition of second language proficiency to the regression model in the second step added another 25% to the total variance explained. That is, foreign language proficiency, after controlling for cognitive abilities, can explain 25% of the variance in listening comprehension. These findings suggest that understanding when listening in L2 involves cognitive information processing skills in addition to proficiency in that language. Although correlations are not indicative of causality, future research should investigate the impact of targeted interventions on listening comprehension. Interventions that focus on supporting attention, reasoning, and processing speed may be essential to minimize the adverse consequences of poor cognitive abilities on listening comprehension. Likewise, effective teaching techniques for reducing cognitive loads in listening activities, like simplifying complex tasks by reducing speech rate and repeating tasks, may also help learners overcome their cognitive failures. In addition, teaching and facilitating learners’ use of listening strategies can mitigate the adverse consequences of cognitive failure in listening comprehension.
Raheleh Abdollahzadeh Borzu; Mohammad Reihani
Abstract
The story “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” by Richard Bach and the story “the Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry which have been written in the form of two pilots, and are reports of allegorical journeys for self-knowledge and perfection. Campbell believes that on ...
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The story “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” by Richard Bach and the story “the Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry which have been written in the form of two pilots, and are reports of allegorical journeys for self-knowledge and perfection. Campbell believes that on a journey to the unconscious the heroes must first leave their land for an unknown land, and face with unknown forces and passes experiences and then return to their homeland with the help of this journey to make a transformation. Pearson, who is a contributor to Joseph Campbell's single-mythological theory, believes that during three stages of the journey, the hero must develop twelve Jungian archetype: innocent, orphan, warrior, patron, cursor, destroyer, creator, old man, ruler, farce, lover and the witch in his own psyche to reach the stage of self-knowledge and rebirth. A review of two stories from this perspective, suggests that both stories have raised these twelve patterns in their deepest structure in the form of symbols that lead the hero toward individuality. However, the sequence of the emergence of some Jungian archetypes in two stories is not observed by Pearson’s theory.
Parisa Taheri; Majid Elahi Shirvan; Behzad Ghonsooly; Ahmad Saffar Moghadam
Abstract
In today’s multiculturally interconnected world, cultural understanding is the key to communication and a buffer to communication breakdown. That is, the objectives of language learning cannot be viewed as a mainly linguistic task anymore; they should be directed towards achievement of intercultural ...
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In today’s multiculturally interconnected world, cultural understanding is the key to communication and a buffer to communication breakdown. That is, the objectives of language learning cannot be viewed as a mainly linguistic task anymore; they should be directed towards achievement of intercultural communicative competence. Therefore, the foreign language teachers should utilize and promote the acquisition of intercultural competence in their learners. However, they themselves, in the first place, ought to be sufficiently familiar with the foreign cultures of the language they teach. Hence, the rational of this study was to explore how familiar Iranian teachers are with the foreign cultures and to what extent they are prepared for teaching intercultural competence. On the other hand, this study addresses teachers’ perceptions of their pupils’ language-and-culture learning profile as well. To do so, 120 Iranian English teachers teaching in private English institutes of Mashhad were asked to answer the sections 4 and 5 of a survey entitled ‘Foreign Language Teachers and Intercultural Competence’ organized by Lies Sercu (2005). The findings revealed that teachers need additional familiarity and preparation to interculturalize their foreign language education and improve their students’ culture learning profile in terms of intercultural competence.
Manoochehr Jafarigohar; Afsar Rouhi; Majid Ghelichi
Abstract
1. IntroductionThe role of phrases especially in a universal grammar (UG) sense and the presentation of grammar based on the lexical-functional grammar (LFG) in the form of C-structure rules (Thomann, 2002) and the role of phrase-based instruction in learning seem to be under-researched. Of particular ...
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1. IntroductionThe role of phrases especially in a universal grammar (UG) sense and the presentation of grammar based on the lexical-functional grammar (LFG) in the form of C-structure rules (Thomann, 2002) and the role of phrase-based instruction in learning seem to be under-researched. Of particular relevance to this issue is the role of grammar instruction which has been very controversial in second language acquisition (SLA) literature (e.g., Ellis, 2008; Krashen, 1993; Pienemann, 1984). One famous view about the effectiveness of grammar teaching is the teachability hypothesis (TH) which proposes a hierarchy of six stages of syntactic acquisition which second language (L2) learners must pass through in the process of acquiring the grammar of a L2 (Pienemann, 1984). It states that instruction will be effective only if learners have developed the pre-requisite processing procedures for processing higher-level linguistic structures. Therefore, this study aims to answer the question of whether, despite the developmental constraints proposed by the TH, explicitly instructing L2 learners to recognize the concept, boundary, and structure of English phrases and the specific grammatical relationships and inter-relationships held by each phrase will enhance their grammatical accuracy in written and oral production and help them develop to the next, next + 1, and 2 stages.2. MethodologyA total number of 37 female learners of English in a language institute participated in this study. They went through a series of pretests of oral and written processability theory (PT) stages until 23 learners who turned out to be homogeneous in phrase knowledge, written grammatical accuracy, and current PT stages were left. Finally, the learners were randomly assigned to one of the three groups: a contrastive experimental group (CEG, n = 9), an L2-only experimental group (L2EG, n = 7), and a comparison group (CG, n = 7).The Nelson English Language Test was used to measure participants’ general English proficiency. Two Phrase Knowledge Tests were used to measure participants’ knowledge of English phrases and two Written Affirmative Sentences Tests to check their writing accuracy on the pretest and posttest. Two equivalent Picture Differences Tests (adopted from Spada & Lightbown, 1999) were used to specify learners’ current PT stages in oral production and, a Picture-Cued Written Scrambled Questions Test (adopted from Spada & Lightbown, 1999) was used to check their PT stages in writing. But an equivalent written scrambled test was developed for the posttest. After pretesting, the two experimental classes received the treatment as follows. The CEG was provided with contrastive L1-L2 meta-linguistic instruction about the concept, boundary, and structure of English NP, VP, and PP together with intra- and inter-phrasal parsing and phrase re-synthesis practice. The instruction lasted for 7 sessions (two hours each session) and focused on introducing the head and complement, structure, boundary, and configuration of English phrases together with the place and function of each phrase and inter-phrasal relationships in both affirmative and interrogative sentences. This treatment was replicated for the L2EG only in English language rather than being contrastive. The CG only received the focused task for meaning negotiation. After the treatment, participants were post-tested on English phrases, writing grammatical accuracy, and PT stages in oral and written production based on the exact assessment procedures on the pretest. Fisher’s Exact Test was used to compare the percentage of learners in each group who had gained structures at the next, next + 1, and next +2 stages in oral and written production.3. DiscussionWith reference to theoretical assumptions and empirical findings about the role of phrases in linguistic knowledge and production, this study hypothesized that contrastive teaching of phrase configuration and function together with phrase re-synthesis practice would facilitate gaining the TH next and next +1 or 2 stages, contrary to what the TH has proposed. In line with theoretical and empirical support for phrase-dependency of linguistic knowledge, this study showed that when learners develop the ability to recognize the structure and boundary of phrases, they will be able to learn different stages simultaneously because all of those stages share a common building block. The only condition which needed to be met was learning the interrogative word order which constituted the interrogative inter-phrasal parsing practice in this study. Overall, the results provided support for this hypothesis. The results agree with those in Carrie (2012) and Spada, Lightbown, and White (2006) who found counter-evidence against the TH prediction that beyond the next stage cannot be acquired through instruction. The finding in this study that contrastive teaching and input significantly facilitated acquisition corroborate the results of Kupferberg (1995) and Kupferberg and Olshtain (1996) who found that contrastive linguistic input and explicit contrastive instruction triggered noticing and contributed to achievement in both recognition and production tasks. The results in this study seem to be refuting the TH by indicating that developmental constraints are not insurmountable and instruction does not necessarily have to target the immediately next stage, as they have shown that instruction can facilitate advancing to higher-than-next stages. In other words, the results contradict Pienemann’s (2005) view that “…the Teachability Hypothesis defines CONSTRAINTS on Teachability. It does not predict sufficient conditions for teaching to be successful” (p. 73), because there seem to be conditions which are likely to modify the effects of the constraints themselves. The results also support those in Farley and McCollam (2004) and Spada and Lightbown (1999) who found that readiness failed as a predictor of acquisition as ready learners did not develop to higher stages more than unready learners. In other words, the present study, in accordance with these two studies, indicates that developmental readiness is not the only factor determining acquisition, but instructional intervention also makes a difference. Overall, both the contrastive and non-contrastive forms of instruction proved more effective than the treatment given to CG. However, taking the effects on phrase knowledge development, canonical word order and advancing to next + 1 and 2 TH stages in oral and written production, the contrastive form seemed to be the most effective form of treatment. However, one point of caution needs to be added, and it is the fact that small sample sizes and lack of a delayed posttest in this study may weaken our claims. But, it is likely that a longer treatment period might have contributed to even better results.4. Conclusion Contrary to the TH, the study encourages redefining the role of instruction as facilitating and the influence of developmental constraints as surmountable by using adequate means of instructional intervention. The results suggest that for L2 learners to succeed in acquiring the grammar of a second language they must develop an awareness of the structure of phrases. The ability to re-synthesize phrases from the flow of otherwise segmented words can contribute to their syntactic development. The study also reveals that provision of contrastive input and meta-linguistic instruction is more likely to help learners notice L2 particularities such as linguistic configuration of phrases by using the filter of their L1 knowledge.Therefore, the general conclusion out of this study would be that phrase re-synthesis instruction and practice especially in its contrastive/comparative form is a useful technique for helping language learners acquire not only the next stage in the TH sense but also advance to higher stages as well. That is, by utilizing the right technique for teaching the grammar of a second language one need not be concerned too much about the constraints proposed by the TH.
Vahide Sayyedi
Abstract
1. Introduction
Reza Barahani(1984), in his “Male History”, focuses on the murder of son by father, in Ferdowsi’s Rustam and Sohrab, in the canonical epic of Shahnameh. He, thence, juxtaposes it to father’s murder by son, in Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex”, to conclude that in oriental culture, ...
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1. Introduction
Reza Barahani(1984), in his “Male History”, focuses on the murder of son by father, in Ferdowsi’s Rustam and Sohrab, in the canonical epic of Shahnameh. He, thence, juxtaposes it to father’s murder by son, in Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex”, to conclude that in oriental culture, it is always the “New” that is sacrificed by the hands of the “Old”, whereas in western culture it is the contrary. Barahani furthers the cause stating that this is the underlying rationale for the Western world’s advancements and East’s, or rather, Iran’s devolution. The present paper attempts to explore a few substantial questions in this respect: 1. Which western (Greek) hero seems most appropriately fit as counterpart for Rustam? 2. Are there remarkable examples of filicide (killing one’s children) in Greek literature, too? 3. If so, what would be the theoretical and social consequences of overlooking such examples, and attributing filicide solely to the east? 4. Could the presence of filicide in both eastern and western literature serve to reveal some indispensable virile feature of the hero figure, no matter where it originates from? Answering these questions will, most readily, lead the quester to the greatest Greek epic hero, Hercules, the legendary savior of Greece, who unwittingly murdered his three young sons, and his wife, too. Probing further into mythical aspects of Rustam and Hercules, such as their infantile extraordinary power, even from the cradle, will leave no doubt that they should make the fittest counterparts. Rustam and Hercules, both, struggle through life to fight off threats against the throne and their people, never even once, thinking of taking possession of the crown for themselves. Accordingly, the reliability of Barahani’s analogy between Rustam and Oedipus will be disputed. Such an analogy stereotypes eastern culture and literature, representing it as coarse, barbaric, even cannibalistic, as compared with the west’s “much more refined manners”. The findings of this study show that the filicide archetype is not restricted to Persian literature or oriental culture, but, rather, it seems to be an essential aspect of the virile hero, in the west, too. Thus, in stereotyping the east, and representing it as constantly at war with novelties and innovations, there will arise the problem of ignoring other aspects at both ends.
2. Methodology
The present paper is qualitative in nature. It aims to probe into the nature and impact of misrepresentations of Persian literature and its social, theoretical consequences, using Edward Said (1978) and Gerald Vizenor’s (1994) theories of orientalism and simulation, respectively, as the methods of analysis. Vizenor defines “simulation” as the postindian’s alternative, in postmodern time, in the form of humorous stories, when the real history is absent (1994: 1978). A purposeful sampling of Greek tragedies, including Euripides’ Medea and Hercules, as well as Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, has been used in order to present examples of filicide predominant over parricide in Greek classics- hence, the omnipresence of filicide in literatures of both east and west.
3. Discussion
This paper initially focuses on Barahani’s strict dichotomizing of the “orient” versus the “west” in “The Male History”, where Oedipus’ parricide has been highlighted, even disregarding his father’s attempt at annihilating him as a baby, (as opposite to Rustam). Thence, it explores in more details the correspondence between Hercules and Rustam, both of whom have committed filicide unwittingly. They are both at the service of a not too kind king, undergoing a series of ordeals, all of which seem next to impossible. Rustam fulfills seven tasks, a symbolic number, while Hercules has to go through twelve. Wrestling with a lion and defeating it is not the only challenging ordeal they both fulfill, but there are others, too, needing more wit. Hercules, despite all his fondness for his sons, as the consequence of a fit of madness sent to him by Hera, out of jealousy over Zeus’ offspring of other women, slaughters his three young sons, as well as his wife, Megara, mistaking them for enemy troops. In the case of Rustam, his son, Sohrab, does show up to him as an enemy warrior, and father comes to identify son, in all regret, only after the latter is fatally wounded by him. Here the ungrateful king, who owes his throne and life to him, does not offer him the reviving potion “nooshdaroo” in proper time. As it is clearly observed, the filicide in both Greek and Persian heroes has been committed unconsciously, hence possible implication of an indispensable, virile feature in both as the hero figure. The coinage of the term “herstory” by Robin Morgan in 1970, in her monumental edition of Sisterhood is Powerful, as a revolt against the male history in the west, is another evidence that the issue has been a global problem, over ages.
The present paper, then, examines the tragedy of Medea by Euripides, where the protagonist, Medea, kills her two young sons, as revenge from her disloyal husband. A scene most disgusted by its contemporary Greek audience, and only justifiable to them as she was a foreigner (barbaric) in their land, coming from Asia. However, Barahani reads it as a case of Greek gender indiscrimination.This article, as well, briefly hints at Agamemnon’s daughter, Iphigenia, sacrificed by father, in order to cause favorable winds to set off for the sack of Troy, as another example in Greek classics for filicide.
The paper, finally, applies Said’s and Vizenor’s theories to the aforementioned gaps in “The Male History” to find how such rigid dichotomies of the “orient” and the west would lead to a justification of the latter’s political, even military assails, while ruining the dignity and assertiveness needful among the citizens of the east, especially its intelligentsia.
4. Conclusion
Representing “oriental” or Persian literature in a stereotypical manner, in enmity with all novelties, as stated in “The Male History” results in its restrictive, dichotomous categorization with the west. Thus, various dimensions of the two ends, east and west, will, most likely, be overlooked. This leads to a distorted, misrepresented image of the oppressed culture, which, in turn, will deprive the intellectuals, as well as the citizens, of their essential assertiveness. The intelligentsia of the “orient” will, thence, more readily give way to whatever intellectual diet is offered them from outside, thinking they do not have the sufficient, needful capability of innovating theories of their own. Hence, paving the way for further failures.
Mohammadreza Lorzadeh; Ahmad Moinzadeh; Abbas Eslami-Rasekh
Abstract
In a theatrical event, dramaturgy often includes drafting a play, observing the performance, modifying various performative elements, etc. In Lessingian tradition, dramaturgy needs managerial/criticizing skills, while according to Brecht, it has two textual/production facets. In the present paper, by ...
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In a theatrical event, dramaturgy often includes drafting a play, observing the performance, modifying various performative elements, etc. In Lessingian tradition, dramaturgy needs managerial/criticizing skills, while according to Brecht, it has two textual/production facets. In the present paper, by analyzing the first scenes of Act One of "A Man for All Seasons", and its Persian translations (Alerasoul & Taheri), along with the performed version, it is tried to explore the structure of the Iranian dramaturgy and to determine the relation of translator to dramaturg(y). Studying this complex process under the modified version of Kowzan's model suggests that drama translation is often a starting point for (even textual) dramaturgy and translator cannot be claimed to be dramaturg, although if various dramaturges with different skill would be imagined, the title of "translational dramaturg" fits translator.
Mehrnoosh Fakharzadeh; Ahmad Dabaghzadeh Dezfouli
Abstract
Translator studies, as a recent subfield of Translation Studies, focuses explicitly on translators rather than translated texts since translators create texts. While translators have been studied from different cultural and cognitive perspectives, their translatorial style from sociological perspectives ...
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Translator studies, as a recent subfield of Translation Studies, focuses explicitly on translators rather than translated texts since translators create texts. While translators have been studied from different cultural and cognitive perspectives, their translatorial style from sociological perspectives has been remained underexplored. Against this backdrop, this study used Bourdieu’s theory of practice as a sociological theory to study major traces of Saleh Hosseini’s habitus in his translatorial style. To this end, a corpus from samples of Moby-Dick; Or the Whale and To the Lighthouse and their Persian translations was made. To study the samples, AntConc outputs were examined at morphological, lexical, and phrasal levels. Moreover, a semi-structured interview was conducted with Saleh Hosseini to complement and validate the findings. The results indicated that several aspects of Saleh Hosseini’s translatorial style, including his tendency towards using Arabic, literary, and archaic words, together with his inclination to use a wide variety of lexical items and sequence of genitive can be accounted for by the fields he comes from; in other words, his cultural capital and his primary and secondary habitus. His fields, life experiences, and interactions with various agents have shaped his style in translation, which can be known as Saleh Hosseini’s archaic style.
Alireza Khazaee Farid; Khalil Ghazizadeh
Abstract
1. IntroductionAccording to Toury (1995), translation is a norm-based behavior. In the course of their direct and indirect trainings, translators familiarize themselves with the linguistic, cultural and social norms which are used by the contemporary translators and later, as professional translators, ...
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1. IntroductionAccording to Toury (1995), translation is a norm-based behavior. In the course of their direct and indirect trainings, translators familiarize themselves with the linguistic, cultural and social norms which are used by the contemporary translators and later, as professional translators, use them consciously or unconsciously in their translations. In other words, translations are written under the influence of the linguistic, cultural and social norms of the target culture. However, Toury believes that translators are free to follow or reject a norm even though they prefer to follow the norms to avoid punishment. The present paper is based on the hypothesis that there has been a change in the style of the Quran translations after the Islamic Revolution. This new style is literary as opposed to the word-for-word translations published before the Revolution. The translation of Elahi Qomsheie was a turning point in that it was neither literary nor word-for-word. The great number of literary translations that followed it showed a strong tendency toward a literary style. It is hypothesized that these translations provide a clear example of the influence of norms on translation. While each new translation is expected to present a new linguistic and stylistic style, the study shows that the translations not only differ in style, but also in their interpretation of the meaning of the Quran. 2. MethodologyThe research hypothesis states that most of the contemporary Persian translations of the Quran show a literary style.In other words, it is hypothesized that the translators of these texts have had literary backgrounds and considered the Quran as a literary text. It is further hypothesized that the trend toward literary translation has gradually established a norm for the new translations to follow. To prove the research hypothesis, three different translations of the surah Al-Shams has been selected and compared with each other. 3. DiscussionWhat are literary features? And how is the literary style defined? The term style has been given various definitions. A literary style has also been described based on various features .To meet the goals of the study , style is defined as comprising three sets of elements: words, figurative language, and syntax. These three elements can be combined in different ways to form different styles. Words provide the most important feature. To a great extent, the translator can change the text style through their choice of words. For example, the high frequency of colloquial words used in a text gives the text a colloquial style. The same is true about literary words. Syntax is probably the second most important element of determining the style of a text. Each language has its own syntactic rules while each language has also syntactic rules marking a certain period. Some of these rules are used in all types of texts while others are used exclusively in literary texts. Finally, figurative expressions are often used with a high frequency in literary texts. To verify the hypotheses of the study, a surah of the Quran was selected, and three contemporary translations of the surah were compared with each other. The basis of the comparison was the literary elements mentioned above. As for the procedure used, first a translation was made of the surah in a stylistically neutral style, and then the translations were compared with this neutral translation.4. ConclusionIn light of great books such as the Quran, each new translation is expected to be different to justify itself. The difference could be justified in terms of hermeneutics, style or audience. However, both in the past and the present the translations of the Quran have followed suit. The translations appearing before the one done by Elahi Qomshei were word-for-word; they were not meant to be beautiful. In fact, the main goal was to achieve accuracy; by accuracy they meant word-for-word translation ,nor were such translations addressed to a particular audience. On the contrary, the contemporary translations do have a particular audience; one that is educated and intellectual appreciating the aesthetic and literary aspects of the translations. The contemporary translators also defined accuracy not in terms of the source, but also the target language. The research hypothesis was that in each period translators may prefer to follow the accepted and established norms rather than present new experiences in translation. This is particularly true in cases where following the norms is politically or economically encouraged. A change of the audience required a new type of the Quran translation; one that happened to be received warmly by the political system. It was no coincidence that almost all the translators who were engaged in the translations of the Quran were literary men, neither religious scholars nor linguists and translation scholars. The great tendency of these translators towards using a literary language is shown in the analysis of the three translations of the same surah.
Saba Azimi; Shideh Ahmadzadeh Heravi
Abstract
Representational studies of the body in literature are not new phenomena; however, the concerns of a new field of body studies, formed in the 1980s in sociology and becoming interdisciplinary soon after, transformed the concept of the body and the meaning of body studies. There are few studies which ...
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Representational studies of the body in literature are not new phenomena; however, the concerns of a new field of body studies, formed in the 1980s in sociology and becoming interdisciplinary soon after, transformed the concept of the body and the meaning of body studies. There are few studies which sketch this paradigm shift for literary researchers and consequently a great many are still confused about what is the body in "body studies". The present research maps out the assemblages which paved the way for this new definition of the body and tries to figure out the sociological studies' line of flight from the previous approaches to the body and also from the present understanding of the body in literary studies. At the end, the present problematics of body studies in literature are briefly analyzed within this framework.
Sara Soroosh; Negar Mazari; Tahereh Khamneh Bagheri
Abstract
This paper tends to investigate Immorality written by Andre Gide, famous French writer of the 20th century. This research studies imagines of soil element in the Immorality which is seen frequently in reverie of characters in this book. We show how author’s point of view and imagination result ...
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This paper tends to investigate Immorality written by Andre Gide, famous French writer of the 20th century. This research studies imagines of soil element in the Immorality which is seen frequently in reverie of characters in this book. We show how author’s point of view and imagination result in speculations subject to this element, creating images to show internal spiritualities of characters in this fiction. This paper tends to study imagination of the writer through his reveries and created images on soil element. There are some images used in this work subject to the above element and it is evidence on dualistic vision of Gide. This paper studies unconscious tendencies and the reveries appeared frequently in writer’s consciousness. Toward this goal, we use Gaston Bachelard's literary criticism approach. Based on this, literary images on soil element let us recognize speculation of Gide.
Salimeh Salamati; Parina Ghomi
Abstract
Any translated content, especially audiovisual translation, is often manipulated by the dominant ideology of the target society. The present study adopts a descriptive quantitative method to examine the ideological aspects of these manipulations in the dubbed movies broadcasted from the Islamic Republic ...
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Any translated content, especially audiovisual translation, is often manipulated by the dominant ideology of the target society. The present study adopts a descriptive quantitative method to examine the ideological aspects of these manipulations in the dubbed movies broadcasted from the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) in three decades after the Islamic Revolution in Iran. In this study, the text-internal and text-external manipulations were examined in nine historical and adventure movies in the periods of 1997-2005, 2005-2013, and 2013-2018. It was also attempted to identify the reasons behind these manipulations in terms of the governments’ policies and dominant values. Since audiovisual translation involves nonverbal elements such as image, sound, and music distinguishing it from written texts, the researchers attempted to adapt Dukāte’s model of manipulation according to the specific features of audiovisual translation. To this end, each manipulation classification was divided into two subcategories of verbally-induced and nonverbally-induced manipulations. After a comprehensive analysis of the movies along with their dubbed versions, five manipulation strategies, including addition, deletion, substitution, attenuation, and accentuation were identified. The results showed that in the period of 2005-2013, the volume of the manipulations in the conservative government outweighs that of the reformist government. The dominant strategy used in the conservative government was substitution and deletion while it was attenuation in the reformist government. Furthermore, nonverbally-induced manipulations were significantly more than verbally-induced ones in the dubbed movies.
Zahra Jahani; Shima Ebrahimi; Samira Bameshki
Abstract
Books written about the history of Persian language appears to focus on transferring knowledge to students only. Despite the significance of students’ needs and their individual differences as well as their personality traits, books have failed to take into account these factors. Of these considerations, ...
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Books written about the history of Persian language appears to focus on transferring knowledge to students only. Despite the significance of students’ needs and their individual differences as well as their personality traits, books have failed to take into account these factors. Of these considerations, mentions could be made of emotions and feelings of students as they largely contribute to positive learning. Emotioncy (emotion + frequency) stresses on emotions evoked by the senses from which we receive inputs, hence learning happens. It stands on a hierarchical matrix of six levels, including Null (0), Auditory (1), Visual (2), Kinesthetic (3), Inner (4), and Arch (5) or more specifically, avolvement (null) and exvolvement (auditory, visual, and kinesthetic) to involvement (inner and arch). Drawing on the concept of emotioncy, the present study aims at analyzing and evaluating the content of books written about the history of Persian language. The corpus of the investigation consists of five academic books, namely, The History of Persian Language (by Natel-Khanlari), The History of Persian language (by Abolghasemi), The Brief History of Persian language (by Bagheri) and the History of Iranian Languages (by Rezaei Bagh Bidi). Different levels of emotioncy were examined in the above-mentioned books and the analysis was guided with Chi-squared tests. The findings suggest that there are significant differences among the books in terms of employing emotioncy; therefore, new or updated content would benefit the books. It appears that the employment of emotioncy in drafting books about the history of Persian language could facilitate learning for students as they become emotionally engaged with the teaching content, hence the learnt materials are easily transferred to permanent memory.
Ghasem Modarresi
Abstract
To date, some research has been carried out on Persian neologisms from linguistics, linguistic typology or sociolinguistics perspectives; however, research from a psycholinguistic perspective offers new insights into Persian neologisms and their foreign equivalents. Employing the concept of emotioncy ...
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To date, some research has been carried out on Persian neologisms from linguistics, linguistic typology or sociolinguistics perspectives; however, research from a psycholinguistic perspective offers new insights into Persian neologisms and their foreign equivalents. Employing the concept of emotioncy (emotioncy+frequency of senses), the present study compares the cultural weight of seven Persian neologisms and their foreign equivalents to discover why the public accept or reject the words, approved by the academy of Persian language and literature. Moreover, the study examines the role of their native language in the application of these words. To this end, 223 participants in the quantitative phase and 61 participants in the qualitative phase of the study were selected from the public based on convenience sampling and data saturation to participate in the study. The study follows a sequential mixed-methods design which consists of qualitative and quantitively phases to collect the relevant data. The results of the t-test show that there is a significant difference between the six pairs in terms of emotioncy. Moreover, the results of One-way ANOVA confirm that there is a significant difference in three of the selected words with respect to the native language of the speakers, including Persian, Kurdish and Turkish in terms of emotioncy. After determining the inter-rater agreement and inter-rater reliability of the data, the qualitative results reveal 16 reasons for the acceptance of the foreign equivalents, such as positive association, beautiful-sounding words and high frequency. Also, eight reasons for the non-acceptance of the Persian neologisms are identified like negative association, hard sounding words and low frequency. Indeed, to promote the acceptance and application of neologisms, the academy of Persian language and literature should take not only linguistic but also psycho-sociolinguistics issues into consideration.
Shaghayegh Shayesteh
Abstract
Given the differences between first language and second language learning in adults, simulating first language learning can help us have an improved picture of the nature of second language learning. During first language learning, we learn the concepts in our interactions with the immediate environment. ...
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Given the differences between first language and second language learning in adults, simulating first language learning can help us have an improved picture of the nature of second language learning. During first language learning, we learn the concepts in our interactions with the immediate environment. In second language learning, however, the relevant world knowledge is transferred from the first language and we only learn the word knowledge. Thus, in the current study, we sought to simulate first language learning and introduce the null experimental research method with its roots in the emotioncy model. This research method applies to those studies in which adult language learners deal with some concepts that they have no knowledge about and begin to learn them in the class. Reviewing the conventional research methods, we explained the null experimental research method and provided an example from an electroencephalography (EEG) experiment. The behavioral and electrophysiological results revealed that, as we have more interactions with the sensory environment, the retrieval of word knowledge and world knowledge is facilitated.
Fatemeh Rezaee Shervedanee; Elham Naji Meidani
Abstract
The concept of “intelligence” lost its one-dimensional sense many years ago and is now considered a multidimensional concept that encompasses all abilities of individuals. One type of intelligence that is based on time-related individual differences is “temporal intelligence”, ...
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The concept of “intelligence” lost its one-dimensional sense many years ago and is now considered a multidimensional concept that encompasses all abilities of individuals. One type of intelligence that is based on time-related individual differences is “temporal intelligence”, which refers to the thoughts, views, and behaviors of people in relation to time. Although this variable has been researched in the field of managerial science, it has not received much attention in the field of education. Since the concept of time is closely related to culture and language, the present study attempted to compare the effects of studying three different languages on students’ temporal intelligence. Two objectives were considered in this study: first, to investigate the effects of studying English, Persian and Arabic languages on students’ temporal intelligence by considering the Applied ELT approach, activity theory, and habitual theory; and second, to investigate the possibility of significant differences among undergraduate students in English, Persian and Arabic in terms of temporal intelligence. For this purpose, the General Temporal Intelligence Scale was completed by 100 students of English language and literature, 100 students of Persian language and literature, and 90 students of Arabic language and literature. The results of the independent samples t-test on the data showed a significantly-negative effect of studying Persian and English on the temporal intelligence of students in these fields (p < 0.05), meaning that the temporal intelligence of second-semester students was higher than the temporal intelligence of eighth-semester students. Regarding the second purpose of the study, the findings indicated that there was a significant difference among these three groups in terms of temporal intelligence; in other words, English students had higher temporal intelligence (p < 0.05). Finally, the results and implications of this study were discussed in the context of language education.
Farrokhlagha Heidari; Zahra Bahrami
Abstract
The present study explored the relationship between thinking styles and metacognitive awareness of Iranian EFL university students majoring in English Literature, English Translation, and English Language Teaching. In addition, the study pursued whether thinking styles could act as the predictors of ...
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The present study explored the relationship between thinking styles and metacognitive awareness of Iranian EFL university students majoring in English Literature, English Translation, and English Language Teaching. In addition, the study pursued whether thinking styles could act as the predictors of metacognition. Thinking Styles Inventory (TSI) and Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) were administered to 100 Iranian senior undergraduate EFL students at the University of Sistan and Baluchestan and Islamic Azad University of Zahedan. The reliability of TSI and MAI was confirmed, and the analysis of data through Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient indicated that functions and levels of thinking styles were positively correlated with metacognitive awareness. Moreover, positive and significant correlations were found between hierarchical, anarchic, and external styles and metacognitive awareness. However, results manifested no significant relationship between monarchic, oligarchic, and conservative styles and metacognitive awareness. The analysis of data also showed positive and significant relationship between the two scopes of thinking styles, namely internal and external, and knowledge of cognition as one of the components of metacognition, whereas merely external style was positively and significantly correlated with the other component of metacognition called regulation of cognition.
Hussein Mollanazar; Arghavan Omranipour
Abstract
Dubbing can transfer and (re)produce manifestations of hybridity in target culture products. The multimodal system of dubbing can multiply the degree of hybridity since such manifestations may be identified at different audio-verbal, audio-nonverbal, visual-verbal, and visual-nonverbal layers. The present ...
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Dubbing can transfer and (re)produce manifestations of hybridity in target culture products. The multimodal system of dubbing can multiply the degree of hybridity since such manifestations may be identified at different audio-verbal, audio-nonverbal, visual-verbal, and visual-nonverbal layers. The present paper explored the non-verbal manifestations of hybridity in English feature films dubbed into Persian by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting. The results of the study revealed that various non-verbal manifestations of hybridity exist in audio and visual layers of dubbing. Both audio-nonverbal and visual-nonverbal layers can play an important role in (re)creating manifestations of hybridity in dubbing. The visual-nonverbal layer showed the most frequent manifestations of hybridity among non-verbal layers. The category of Dress Code and Ornaments occupied the first place at the visual-nonverbal layer. The categories of Objects and Body Language occupied the second and third place at the same layer, respectively. Various audio-nonverbal manifestations of hybridity were identified and subcategorized as Sounds, Songs, and Music among which Music held the first place.
Fatemeh Heidary; Ali Alizadeh
Abstract
Since different cultures have different discourses, it is not possible to pour the discourse in another discourse mold (format) without any trouble or any manipulation. This adjustment or manipulation leads to domestication. Toury and Venuti believe that the superior language imposes its features to ...
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Since different cultures have different discourses, it is not possible to pour the discourse in another discourse mold (format) without any trouble or any manipulation. This adjustment or manipulation leads to domestication. Toury and Venuti believe that the superior language imposes its features to the inferior language. In other words, the other languages approximate themselves to the English but this process is reversed in the translation from English to other languages. This paper shows that this matter is not a general rule.After the comparison of “The Scarlet Letter” written by Nathaniel Howthorne with its translation by Simin Daneshvar as "داغ ننگ", it will be revealed that the translator has tried to standardize and to domesticate the text in an artistic manner, in fact she has prevented the cultural and linguistic interference
