نشریه پژوهش های زبانشناختی در زبان های خارجی
سال هفتم شماره 2 (پاییز و زمستان 1396)

In the educational systems around the world the idea of teaching 'how to think' rather than 'what to think' on the one hand and the use of content as a thinking tool within various disciplines has turned Critical Thinking (CT) into a substantive concept and an educational ideal. Conducting research to realize to what extent critical thinking as an educational ideal has become an educational reality is essential. This study aims to investigate the Iranian educational system with a focus on critical thinking. A nationwide survey was conducted among 300 school and university students and graduates. The results revealed that an overwhelming majority of Iranian graduates in all levels of education from diploma to PhD lack a substantive concept of CT and experienced a more or less didactic paradigm of education which focuses on mere memorization. Comparison of different groups of graduates belonging to various disciplines did not show significant differences as well.

This study aimed at investigating the effect of Project-Based Learning approach on improving EFL learners’ knowledge of English idiomatic expressions. To this end, 60 male and female Iranian EFL intermediate learners were selected on the basis of Oxford Placement Test results and were randomly assigned into experimental and control groups. The participants in the experimental group were asked to do projects on the instructed idioms. The projects included scenario writing, making dub smash, audio role plays on animation and movie episodes. The students in the control group received bilingual idiom list (English and the Persian equivalence) and instructed through traditional present, practice and produce model. The data were collected through pre- and post-test design and a structured interview. The results of ANCOVA (analysis of covariance) indicated that experimental group outperformed the control group. Besides, theme elicitation through open coding on structured interview approved efficacy of project-based learning in terms of its potential in increasing learner autonomy, motivation and cooperation. The implications and suggestions for further study are discussed.

The time for comedy to go back to Plato. Today, a variety of theories on satire are presented in the field of linguistic and literary knowledge. These theories provide the ability to analyze construction. Between the lines of Resaleye Delgosha, there are some darned realities that, in their structure, we see the ambiguity. Since the " Humor theory’s Fonagi" is based on the structure of ambiguity. the present research has conducted a descriptive-analytical method in the structure of the ambiguity of the delusional treatise of satire. The findings show that there are four types of syntactic ambiguity in the humorous narrative of Resaleye Delgosha, which is consistent with the pattern of ambiguity. This study contributes to determine the role of syntactic ambiguity in the work. There are four types of ambiguities in this work.Deconstruction in the context of the deployment of phrases and sentences plays a role in creating syntactic ambiguity. Among the four most commonly used models in the satire of this work, the deep structure ambiguity is remarkable.

This study is some attempt to realize the temporal order or relations of situations in Persian what traditionally known as “Sequence of Tense” (SOT). Declerck's theory (1991a), together with particular Semantics and pragmatics coming from Grice's conversation Maxims, helps us to provide proper hypothesis to answer SOT questions. According to the hypothesis, subclause situation is shown in unmarked case by relative tense and in marked case by absolute tense. Investigting tense relations in future domain involves more edges of the theory. Priority in this domain is shown with past or present perfect, simultaneity with present, and posteriority with future or futurish forms. Each of these tense forms can be central orientation time of a new domain and create a subdomain. All rules governing on extending tense domains are also used in extending subdomains. In addition to indirect speech, the explanatory force of this analysis is visible in the other kinds of complex sentences even independent ones which following each other

Faster translations are one of the urgent needs of the profession. Team work always leads to a greater pace and an improvement of the quality in performing high-stake tasks. Despite some practical limitations – such as being limited to content-oriented texts, team translation, if done properly, includes great advantages like increased motivation and creativity, higher quality translations, and a considerable decrease in the completion time. Such an idea, if embraced by professional translators, can bring about great changes to the translation market. However, such a change requires the acquisition of the knowledge of and the skills for the establishment of translator teams and the subsequent contribution to such team work. Therefore, after additional research is done to confirm the validity of this idea, we recommend that translation team work courses be incorporated into the curricula of translations studies programs. Regarding the country’s macro-policies in the education system, the design and incorporation of such courses can be a significant stride towards training more professional translators within college translation studies programs.

The purpose of the present study is to develop bilingual story books for improving 8 to 14-year-old students’ emotional literacy, because most of the available materials and books in ELT markets are based on methods and approaches which is rooted in linguistics, psychology or other social schools. However, few of them have considered the aspects of emotion in biliteracy. To do so, it was developed some bilingual story books with the activities which are based on Bowkett and Percival (2010) model of emotional intelligence and Bruner (1969) intellectual development. Then, these story books were taught to a group of 30 students between 8 to 14. In addition, the classroom observation was gathered and also after teaching the story books, an unstructured interview was conducted regarding the students’ opinions about the story book. The results indicated that the developed story books are valid enough to improve 8 to 14-year-old students’ emotional literacy.

The present paper reports on an empirical study that involved the structural move analysis of encyclopedic genre. For purposes of the current study, a corpus of 240 encyclopedic entries (120 topical entries and 120 biographical entries) were randomly chosen from Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature. They were then converted into *.txt files and fed into AntMover, the computer software developed for structural move analysis by Anthony (2003). A human coder also coded the texts at two different times with a three-week interval. To avoid random carry-over effect, the human coder used the counter-balanced design in his coding of the texts. Rasmeenin’s (2006) and Yang and Allison’s (2003) frameworks were employed to identify the obligatory, conventional, and optional moves in the texts. Results indicated that topical and biographical encyclopedic entries do differ in rhetorical structure. The findings of this study can help Iranian encyclopediographers to better understand the standard structure of encyclopedia entries.

Flipped learning is a relatively new approach in teaching. In flipped learning the place of teacher’s lectures and the homework is reversed to enhance active learning and engagement. This study was done to examine the effect of flipped classroom on English language novice teachers’ engagement and to examine their attitude towards flipped classroom. About 150 English female teachers were selected among different institutes and private schools of Tehran. The teachers were divided randomly into experimental and control groups. There were 75 teachers in two flipped classrooms and 75 teachers in two traditional classrooms. They were taught a course of “classroom management” in 6 weeks. Data was collected by a questionnaire which was completed by teachers to examine their perception of their engagements and their attitudes on flipped professional development. Results indicated that teachers in flipped professional development had higher engagement levels than teachers in lecture-based classes. Furthermore teachers had a positive attitude toward this instructional model.

Teaching grammar in English language teaching (ELT) is known as one of the controversial issues that due to the advent of new approaches in ELT has faced ups and downs. After the emergence of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and its undeniable expansion, teaching or not teaching grammar is still known as an argumentative issue. Thus, this paper attempts firstly to study the rationale for applying grammar in CLT. Then because of inclusion of grammar in the newly-developed CLT-based English course books, it tries to survey the teacher's perception on the topic. Doing so, using a qualitative method and through focus group, eight teachers were interviewed. The findings revealed that the teachers are strongly influenced by a common misconception in a way that most of them maintain that teaching grammar does not correspond CLT. Implementing the new approach in Iranian high schools, this result necessitates firstly the training of teachers on the topic.

The current study was carried out to investigate the acquisition of English modal auxiliary verbs by adult Persian EFL learners. In order to fulfill the intended objectives, 34 intermediate and 33 advanced participants studying English at a language institute were chosen. The selected L2 learners were assessed both on their production (translation task) and perception (forced choice elicitation task) of the intended modal verbs including can, may, must, should, have to, will, and would. The data analysis revealed that they suffered inability in the production of simple and perfective forms of dynamic modal auxiliary would, due to the lack of such constructions in their L1. Persian EFL learners faced some ambiguities identifying the appropriate deontic auxiliary verb due to the lack of such a distinction in L1. Even, the functional roles of modal auxiliary verb may, which were not accessible in their L1 could cause problems. These findings rejects the principles of full transfer/ full access theory.

This research investigated the views of the editor-in-chiefs, professors, and post-graduate students about the reasons for committing plagiarism in Iran and the ways it can be prevented. Twelve editor-in-chiefs, 41 professors, and 112 post-graduate students of English-related majors took part in the study by answering two essay-type questions and a modified version of iThenticate questionnaire through email. The results indicated that lack of proper training and consciousness-raising from the early stages of education, prevalence of laziness and cheating among Iranian students, pressuring professors and university students to publish papers to gain higher degrees, ranks and promotions, and the ease of admissions to the universities at the post-graduate level were among the main reasons for committing plagiarism in Iran. Appropriate awareness-raising, training and educating students from the very beginning, and laying down strict regulations to seriously punish plagiarizers were among the most important strategies suggested by the participants to avoid and deal with plagiarism.

Current studies in Translation Studies emphasize on the role of the translator as the cultural mediator. These studies believe that the personal and gender identities of translators could affect the translation of texts. In this study, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman was selected, which has received social feedback and also feedback from the critics of gender theories. This text was given to male and female translators and then the quality of their translations and the potential role of gender in the translation were investigated having in mind the framework introduced by Lakoff (1975). The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of woman’s language and gender attitudes of male and female translators in the translation and the source text. Finally, the results showed that female translators have been more sensitive to the special language of the source author and more faithful to its reproduction in their final work.