رضا پیش قدم

Since birth and throughout all stages of development, humans have been social beings, as effective communication and interaction with others has been crucial for them. The capability to understand ideas, emotions, and views, and to be aware of and sensitive to them in social interactions, helps develop friendly relationships, promotes self-awareness and self-acceptance, and improves group cohesion. Living in an interconnected world means that we will inevitably face difficulties, and consequently, will regularly need the assistance of others. Iranians have long had a reputation for being kind and helpful to their fellow citizens. It is essential to remember that providing verbal support and assistance to others can also protect them from potential dangers (Andreoni et al., 2016).When seeing other people’s problems and issues, individuals use various verbal and functional approaches in accordance with their own perception and understanding of the situation, as well as the mental and emotional state of others. This indicates their level of care and concern for others. Concern for someone is defined as the emotional and cognitive ability to understand emotions and react to the mental and emotional states of others. Interpersonal interactions and socioemotional aspects help differentiate between “apathy” (having no feelings), “sympathy” (observing feelings), “empathy” (understanding feelings), and “metapathy” (changing feelings).The current research aims to assess people’s level of concern for others by analyzing the language expressions they use in various situations. In other words, the concept of 'cultuling' (language + culture) of concern for others introduces a new perspective on concern, which is influenced by both the extent of people’s engagement with the problem and the closeness between individuals.

Considering the rapid progress of technology in the fields of cognition, robotics, and artificial intelligence, as well as the abundance and easy access to educational materials in cyberspace, traditional education no longer meets the actual needs of society. Informal education has overcome formal education by placing a greater emphasis on techniques and skills. In this article, two types of education were introduced: a) Mindsetting education (including mind-filling education and mind-developing education) and b) Brainsetting education (including brain-exercising education and brain-generating education). The first relates to thinking and thoughts, and the second is knowledge and skills. In fact, with the advent of intelligent educational systems, there has been a shift from soft, mental, and human approaches to more hard, cerebral, and machine approaches, which teachers and educational specialists need to consider.

Writing scientific and academic books, articles, and delivering lectures on various scientific topics are among the effective ways of communicating knowledge and information to audiences and learners. Therefore, it is worth noting that researchers, scholars, and teachers in various fields of research should adopt a writing or lecturing style that effectively and successfully communicates information to the audience, enabling them to easily benefit from learning new content and information. Priority should be given to using scientific language, which is plain, direct in interpretation, and has logical structures and order that utilize words in their true meaning, guiding the audience directly to the intended meaning.However, some authors, researchers, and speakers opt for a sublime and glorious style of presentation, aiming to deliver eloquent speech or writing. Despite this, they should consider that the primary and crucial goal of presenting scientific content is to convey it properly and explicitly to the audience. Therefore, teachers should pay attention to differences such as gender, education, and field of study among their audience when choosing their presentation style. Each variable affects people's preferences for learning. For example, studies in applied linguistics have shown that gender differences play a role in the use of language tools, with men and women differing in their use of lexical items. Additionally, individuals' level of education and their expertise and specialization shape the way they use lexical items or grammatical structures. If the audience is trained according to their preferences in receiving and processing information, they will achieve better academic results.Due to these differences among learners, the education system needs to consider learners' learning styles and emotions, as they are essential factors in the field of education. Emotions not only affect students' preparation and motivation to deal with problems but also their efforts and the strategies they use to understand the course content. In this regard, utilizing the emo-sensory style (involving the senses and evoking emotions) and engaging different senses of students in the process of grasping information can be beneficial.Given the importance of considering audience differences and their needs when selecting the writing and speaking style of authors and speakers, the present study aims to examine the language preferences of students of different genders, various levels of education, and fields of study. This analysis is conducted using a new measure that examines sublime, emo-sensory, and simple styles. The paper seeks to answer the question of whether gender, level of education, and field of study significantly influence learners' preferences regarding these styles.

The major objective of the study was to develop and validate a Teacher Energy scale in light of the metapathy concept. To do so, first, a model was developed classifying teachers into energy creators, energy boosters, energizers, energy drainers, and energy killers. This was followed by the development of a 30-item scale. A total of 283 language learners (170 women and 113 men) between the ages of 15 and 51were asked to answer the Teacher Energy scale. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was employed to analyze the data. The findings showed that the scale was invalid due to the similarity of items—since the learners gave identical answers to the items and did not distinguish between the factors underlying the questionnaire. Then, the scale was reduced to 12 items, and SEM was used. The results showed that the Teacher Energy scale with two subconstructs of energy-boosting and energy-draining was valid. The results were discussed, and some suggestions were made for researchers and educators.

This study defines parenting styles based on the level of parental concern. A qualitative research design was chosen to address the research questions. A total of 473 statements from 388 parents’ naturally occurring conversations and 512 statements from 428 parents’ conversations in 45 Iranian TV series and films, which were relevant to parental concern, were analyzed using the conceptual model of cultuling. Results demonstrated that parents in unequal and informal situations were concerned with matters such as matters as assistance, consultation, persuasion, advice, forcing their opinions, saving face, avoiding blame, blaming, complaining, protesting, and avoiding responsibility. These expressions   could indicate cultural patterns, such as masculinity, collectivism, and holism, particularly in parents with traditional thinking. In addition, a new classification of parenting styles in terms of concern levels was introduced: Apathic, Sympatric, Empathic, and Metapathic parents (a: imposed and b: persuasive). The findings revealed the most common forms of parents’ concern were empathy, metapathy, and then sympathy. This demonstrates that the majority of parents interact with their children empathically, and the imposition of opinions in traditional Iranian families has declined in recent years as more individuals move toward individualism. Moreover, some families prefer apathetic and sympatric parenting styles. In extreme cases, this may create an emotional and generational chasm between parents and children with long-term repercussions for children. Therefore, it is essential to establish a balance between parenting styles.

A strong, healthy teacher-student connection helps to create an environment conducive to personal and academic progress. Stroke is the point at which a healthy relationship starts to deviate from an unhealthy one in terms of behavior and words. Generally, strokes have been given in a conventional and non-literary manner, but the literary form of strokes has been advocated as a way to open up an opportunity for the creative use of language, as well as the construction of a relationship between language, culture, and literature. The purpose of this quantitative research is to determine students' preferences for literary and non-literary strokes. Gender disparities in preference for literary and non-literary strokes are investigated to account for males' and females' preferences. Despite growing up in the same biological and cultural environment, they may have opposing viewpoints. The convenience sample technique was used to choose 411 students (133 men and 278 females) from a variety of majors and stages of study. The data was collected using a researcher-made questionnaire with literary and non-literary strokes. Results suggested that female students tended to choose non-literary strokes, while male students favored literary strokes. The reason for female students’ preference for non-literary strokes and male students’ preference for literary strokes may be attributed to their personality traits, communication styles and social status. Other contributing aspects include the lack of intimate relationships between teachers and students of the opposite gender as well as differences in literary and non-literary language features.

A dictionary is a repository of various kinds of linguistic information about words. It presents general information about words such as the words’ meaning, pronunciation, etymology, and the syntactic category to which it belongs, collocational or idiomatic structures in which it may be found. Given the significance of linguistic information presented in the dictionaries, Persian dictionaries suffer from lack of psycho-cultural information which reflects and presents the culture of a society and as the result, should necessarily be included in them. Keeping the importance of this kind of information in mind, and considering the significance of psychological factors in speakers’ knowledge of the world as well as considering sensory experience as the cornerstone of emotional and cognitive abilities and believing that reality is relative, drawing upon the newly proposed sensory concept of emotioncy, this study attempts to introduce emotioncy and its components (emotion, sense and frequency) as useful tools in dictionary making. To this end, the present study will shed some light on sensory and emotional experiences of words of the languages so as to ultimately uncover the origins of the gap in the current dictionaries and enrich them by adding some missed but important and useful information about the words of the languages. Finally, although the findings of the present study is suggestive, further research into the this may help develop it in a broader empirical framework.

It is safe to say that motivation is one of the most controversial concepts of study in all social sciences especially psychology. Concerned with this controversy, the purpose of this study was to investigate the problems of defining and theorizing about motivation. To this end, the tendency and capability of Iranian English learners and native speakers to distinguish motive and motivation was investigated. Moreover, the problems were situated in a historical context to shed light on the reasons behind them through a structural and genealogical approach. Based on the results all the participants including only distinguished motivation and motive where both of them were present, otherwise, they were treated synonymously. The structural analysis of motivation as a word resulted in a very broad definition: the whole process of moving toward a goal. This extensive meaning, which includes both mental and outside factors, cannot be accounted for in a single theory. Therefore, in the process of becoming a concept and then a measurable construct, the range of meaning has shrunk. It, in technical terms, is the inevitable result of embracing the ontology of analytical philosophy, which ends up in moving toward fixity and identity, by most psychologists. Being aware of these facts can play a major role in preventing motivational scholars from making unjustified conclusion based on their findings.

The Academy of Persian Language and Literature is the regulatory body for preserving the Persian language and its orthography, trying to protect the Persian language from fragmentation and possible related dangers. As the name implies, the Academy of Persian Language and Literature is expected to focus on culture and identity as well. Notwithstanding this expectation, the goals, duties and performance of the academy suggest that its main focus is on its lexical and linguistic functions. It goes without saying that culture and language are inextricably linked; therefore, when you speak of language, you cannot overlook the role of culture. The present paper introduces the new concept of cultulinguia, meaning an arena for displaying cultulings (the culture within the language). Along with the academy, cultulinguia can play an effective role. The academy appears to have a top-down, power-oriented, prescriptive, monophonic, and word-centered approach, with a strong focus on the form of the word than meaning. Consequently, people may not be interested in using these words as they become exvolved in such words. Cultulinguia, in contrast, follows a bottom-up approach, which is people-oriented, descriptive, polyphonic and culture-oriented, meaning that all people within the society can constructively contribute to it. Additionally, cultulinguia tries to achieve the culture hidden in the language by focusing on cultulings and paves the way for cultural excellence by replacing defective cultural memes. Through this, people become more involved in cultulings and the views of the majority of people are taken into account when it comes to make a decision. This should be noted that the academy and the cultulinguia act like two wings for the linguistic and cultural excellence of the given society and they can complement each other and meaningfully contribute to linguistic and cultural planning.

The current study sought to investigate Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ willingness to receive feedback and its relation to burnout. To this end, Teachers’ Willingness to Receive Feedback Scale (TWRFS), along with Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) were administered to 200 English language teachers working at different private language institutes of Mashhad. The data was analyzed by means of Pearson Correlation Coefficient, SEM Path Analysis, and Multiple Correspondence Analysis. Considering the directionality of feedback, the obtained results indicated a significant negative relationship between willingness to receive direct feedback and burnout; the more willing teachers are to receive direct feedback, the later they might experience burnout. With regard to the valency of feedback, willingness to receive negative feedback significantly predicted teacher burnout; that is, teachers who are more open to negative feedback seem to be more prone to burnout. Ultimately, the implications of these findings for the training and support of teachers were discussed, and interventions to treat or prevent burnout were put forward.

Of the effective ways to have successful interactions, the proper use of words could be mentioned. The vocabulary items chosen by the speaker can act as conversation starters. Consciously chosen vocabulary items that are attractive and functional enough could make a profound impact on the audience. The success of the speaker's utterance is effectively ensured by a web of vocabulary items that may have been carefully picked up in accordance with the theme of the discussion and the audience's taste. The present study, therefore, sets forth the concept of "language decoration" as an interdisciplinary approach in establishing effective communications. Language decoration means ornamenting the content and form of the utterance so as to affect the audience significantly. In fact, language decoration can reveal individuals' identity and personality and is firmly rooted within their linguistic competence. In view of the importance of thinking, emotion, sense, and culture in conversations and considering the fact that "postlocution" moves beyond communicative competence, the current study endeavors to put forward literary ornaments, psychological ornaments, cultural ornaments, sensory ornaments at the forefront of language decoration. Moreover, it advances this view that through cogbination (cognition+combination), emobination (emotion+combination), culbination (culture+combination), and sensbination (sense+combination), people could decorate their utterances and consequently, improve their communicative performance.

Language is a tool for effective communication between members of a community in which the ways it is used matter much. That implies that people use language to express their opinions, thoughts, and feelings. Indeed, they describe their relationship through language. From this point of view, language serves as a tool for giving people an identity, and how language is used in conversations is of significance for achieving goals and intentions.
This should be noted that in addition to exchanging information in conversations, attention should also be paid to the audience's understanding and selection of appropriate elements for a talk, and merely transferring information to the audience without considering the effect of lexical items on them may lead to poor communication. Broadly speaking, listeners tend to follow a conversation that is interesting, valuable, and useful and is presented with a simple and understandable language. Therefore, the type of lexical items used by a speaker and the extent of his efforts to attract the audience's attention are essential factors in any conversation. It is undeniable that for delivering an effective speech, people should plan and organize their content and gain the necessary experience and skills to convey it to others. If an individual wishes to have an effective conversation, he must know how to embellish his words to yield a positive effect on the audience and their emotions. Given that each individual has a degree of feelings and the emotional load of words varies from person to person, how to use lexical items in conversation is of paramount importance. Therefore, we can improve the quality of our daily interactions and communication through embellishing the speech and applying its principles. Accordingly, language, like environmental objects, can be decorated and presented to the audience in a more beautiful way. Therefore, paying attention to such elements as emotions, senses, and culture matters in communicating with others.
In view of the importance of this issue, the authors of the present inquiry attempt to explore an approach that goes beyond communicative competence. This novel approach not only transmits the message but also takes into account the audience's emotional and cognitive aspects in any communication. Therefore, after examining the concepts related to communicative competence, the theoretical framework is introduced, and based on that, the concept of language decoration is proposed, and relevant solutions are presented.

Literature Review

The main function of language is "communication", which is the reason why language theories such as "communicative competence" proposed by Hymes (1972) have well-addressed this issue. For Hymes (1972), communicative competence refers to the knowledge that a person can rely on to have effective and efficient communication with others and to determine whether a sentence is appropriate in certain situations or not. Canale and Swain (1980) considered communicative competence to consist of four dimensions, which should be taken into consideration for building a successful relationship with others.
A. Grammatical competence: knowing the lexical capacity and grammar (mastering words and grammar) and determining grammatically-correct sentences.
B. Discourse competence: knowing how to relate sentences to each other in terms of form and meaning (coherence) and achieving verbal cohesion.
C. Sociolinguistic competence: obtaining necessary information on how to choose words based on the audience type and socio-cultural context.
D. Strategic competence: using linguistic and non-linguistic strategies necessary to start, end, continue, repair and change the direction of communication.
Pishghadam et al. (2019) are of the view that in addition to the above-mentioned types of competence, another dimension called emo-sensory competence is also important for establishing effective communication. This is because people should pay attention to the audience emotionally to communicate more effectively. Accordingly, the smaller the emotional distance between the speaker and the audience, the more common understanding of the subject is formed, and consequently, the greater the rate of learning and understanding. Given that the theory of communicative competence only focuses on communicating and achieving personal desires and goals in conversation, Pishghadam and Ebrahimi (2020) introduced "linguo-therapeutic competence" (language for a better life) to complement the above-mentioned types of competence on effective communication. In this type of competence, language is seen as a tool for behavioral change, growth and a tool for improving another person's well-being. It is clear that if the speaker creates a balance between these language roles in their communication, pays more attention to the mentioned types of competence, and be more aware of them, they can build a more successful relationship with the audience. Besides this competence, speakers should also pay attention to speech acts in an effective conversation. Austin (1975) introduced the speech act theory and believes that the speaker does the actions through uttering sentences. Each sentence consists of the locutionary act (i.e., the literal meaning), the illocutionary act (i.e., the speaker's intention for communication), and the perlocutionary act (i.e., the effect of a sentence on the audience). These acts make people pursue a specific goal through uttering a sentence even though this goal may or may not be achieved.Pishghadam and Ebrahimi (2020) also introduced the concept of "postlocution" and maintained that utterances may have a long-term effect on the audience. At times, utterances can have a long-term effect on people; therefore, individuals should consider the "postlocution" of their words in a successful conversation. This should be noted that in communicative competence, the speaker tends to achieve his own personal goals and intentions through language. Therefore, any use of language is self-oriented. The concept of "postlocution" is, however, other-oriented language wherein the individual pays attention to not only themselves but also others, and in fact, they attempt to make others feel good. Therefore, they are of the view although achieving the goal is important for effective and successful communication, boosting the audience's mood also matters.

In the present study, the concept of language decoration is proposed as an interdisciplinary approach in building effective communications. Language decoration means embellishing lexical items in terms of content and meaning to have a greater impact on the audience during the conversation. As a matter of fact, language decoration manifests the identity and personality of people with a high level of verbal intelligence, and by highlighting the main functions of language, it makes speech more attractive. Given the importance of emotions, feelings, and culture in effective communications and considering the concept of "postlocution", which goes beyond communicative competence, the authors of the present work have proposed literary, psychological, cultural, and sensory decoration strategies. They are of the view that individuals can decorate their talk and speech through such techniques as cogbination (cognition+combination), emobination (emotion+combination), culbination (culture+combination), and sensbination (sense+combination), and consequently, improve the quality of their daily interactions and communications.

Given the fact that the most important part of any communication is how to convey information, learning the main principles and skills of effective communication is of importance in building a strong relationship. Therefore, the art of having effective communication is a key factor in measuring individuals' success. That is why the ability to speak well and decorate the talk play important roles in making conversations more interesting and creating effective relationships. Given that such components as attitudes, cultures, emotions, and senses affect the quality of communication, they can also serve as linguistic ornaments.
Language decoration skills can be learned, and individuals can enhance these skills by learning related techniques. Employing interdisciplinary knowledge and putting together areas of sociology, psychology, linguistics, anthropology, etc., can help individuals communicate effectively through language decoration. In the present study, language decoration included literary, psychological, cultural, and sensory ornaments. It should be noted that for individuals to be successful in language decoration, they should use cogbination (using thoughtful quotes by famous people like Saadi and Descartes), emobination (using stimulating words), culbination (paying attention to traditional and modern cultural expressions), and sensbination (engaging audience visually and auditorily, etc.).
Overall, this can be concluded that for having effective communication, all people, regardless of their profession, need to know the techniques of giving a good speech mastering the art of language decoration. Mastery over language decoration techniques and oratory skills can help people communicate more effectively with their audience and successfully persuade and influence them.In other words, if people harness and use techniques of language decoration, the audience will be more receptive to their talk and will listen with more interest. Therefore, the speaker is successful in any communication, and their message—which is accompanied by attractiveness and proper applications—is easily conveyed to the audience without evoking any negative emotions in them, which is the overall goal of language decoration.

The verbal interaction among students, teachers, parents, and school administrators plays a significant role in achieving educational goals as the language used in educational settings while mirroring the dominant educational culture, functions as an important tool in shaping and reshaping their beliefs. Thus, the culture language in any educational setting needs to be studied in order to identify the dominant culture. To this end, 400 natural conversations among 23 administrators, 52 teachers, 100 students, and 100 parents were reviewed and labeled according to the SPEAKING model. Results show that the used language is indicative of certain features of Iranian culture such as indirectness, collectivism, being shame oriented, holism, and added exaggeration are being exploited in pursuing goals such as complementing and admiration, blaming and demeaning, advice giving, motivating, wish fulfillment, power and domination maintenance, and threating in relation to the students. By informing educational staff of these features and their applications they can be helped in improving their language when giving feedback to students.

Binary oppositions have long been helping humans to label what is going on around, and sometimes put them on the horns of a dilemma. Such a reflection can be traced in people’s cultures, and since language is an indispensable part of a culture, examining cultulings (culture + language) can help us understand the beliefs and values of a given society. The present study, therefore, utilizes Hymes’ (1967) SPEAKING model to qualitatively analyze “the Cultuling of Liminality.” To this end, 712 contexts and 317 utterances, in which binary oppositions had been used were chosen based on purposive sampling and by observing private/public, formal/informal dialogues from 115 female and 97 male speakers (15 to 74 years old), from different academic backgrounds, professions, and social status from Mashhad, Iran. The results indicated that Iranians use this cultuling for different purposes (e.g., showing uncertainty, avoiding direct remarks and misunderstandings, defending, shirking responsibilities, showing mental struggles, avoiding stress, observing formalities, and lack of knowledge) in different contexts. This cultuling can be used as an indicator of high ambiguity intolerance in Iranian culture, meaning that they do not like to be in limbo, and due to their collectivist nature, they use binary oppositions to express their suspense to directly/indirectly ask for help to make decisions and to be out of liminality.

Repetition, as an effective way to learn vocabulary, has long been the subject of language instruction. However, it seems that the effective number of repetitions in language classrooms has been less considered by the linguistic research and consequently language instructors. Capitalizing on the emotioncy (emotion+ frequency) concept, this study investigates the effective number of word repetitions in class and based on a review of research in linguistic areas and cognitive psychology, it elucidates the spaced repetition method. To this end, 100 participants with intermediate proficiency level were randomly assigned to five groups (1, 2, 3, 4, and no repetition(s)). Then, 15 words about which the participants knew nothing were taught. To compare the results of the retention test of the five groups, one-way ANOVA was utilized. The findings demonstrated a significant difference in favor of the two repetitions group. Therefore, two spaced repetitions, along with the learners' emotioncy level towards the new words can play a pivotal role in vocabulary learning in language classrooms.

The significance of the five senses and the sense-induced emotions are clear to everyone. Therefore, the newly-developed concept of emotioncy which includes emotion as one of its basic components has been introduced to the field of foreign language learning. The present study attempts to investigate the effects of the emotioncy-based vocabulary instruction on the learners’ success. To this end, nine avolved vocabulary items were selected and instructed to the participants through different emotioncy kinds. Then, the participants performed a sentence comprehension task, and, based on the instruction, decided whether the sentences were correct or not. The analysis of the behavioral data revealed that employing different emotioncy levels to teach the words could lead into a significant difference among them both in terms of the response accuracy and the response time. The findings of this study can emphasize the significance of the sense-induced emotions in, among others, teaching and testing new linguistic items.

The significance of teaching language has motivated various studies in which many procedures have been suggested like applying literature in language teaching. Most of these studies have focused on cultural issues and the direct use or rewriting of literary texts. Yet, this study aimed to use the language framework applied in these texts to produce educational material. The concern of this study was to observe which literary text could provide a suitable pattern for language teaching and what features they should have to ease the learning process. The authenticity and comprehensibility are the first factors suggested. Accordingly, Ferdowsi’s Shahname was selected for analysis as its authenticity and validity and its effective role in maintaining Farsi. In comparison to other texts, it is much older and its language is still comprehensible. Also, it seems that by investigating lexical combinations in Shahname, the way it preserves the lexis can be shown. This descriptive-analytic investigation of lexical relations in the statistical sample shows about 40% of the lexes have dual combinations, half of which are excluded from the general description of collocations. Therefore, the phrase “binary lexes” was suggested here. Additionally, about 70% of binary combinations are meaningful types, this means that the reader is dealing with a great number of binary lexes in the text and reader has tried to understand the words and content by activating his former knowledge about lexes. This feature can help design educational material for language teaching.New perspectives and attitudes toward teaching language and its skills have led to the proposal of new challenges and approaches. Using literature in language teaching is just one of these approaches and based on this theory, literary language with all its special features attracts learners in addition to providing the cultural background of the language, it helps the learner understand language on multiple semantic levels while it also increases their linguistic awareness, which in turn increases their language proficiency and ability in interpreting sentences (Lazar, 1993).Various studies have been conducted on the use of literature in teaching Farsi, which often focuses on the function of literature in transmitting cultural matters, however, some have also examined the impact of literature on enhancing the learners’ language understanding and proficiency. The aim of this study was to investigate the use of literature as context and framework for teaching educational content, which has been the focus of few studies based on the researchers’ knowledge.For this matter, it was required to refer to authentic and reliable texts whose language was also meaningful for the audience (Mishan, 2005; Tomlinson, 2011). With this hypothesis that Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh has had a unique role in the survival and enhancement of Farsi, and it also holds an active, reliable and authentic language, in this study we tried to investigate one of its linguistic features in language teaching. As learning vocabulary is a significant step in all major approaches (Bottom-up approach, Top-down approach, Interactive approach) in language teaching and various solutions have been suggested to ease the process (like lexical network, collocations), it seems that investigating lexical relations in Shahnameh could also be a good framework and contribute to designing educational material.For this purpose, after reviewing the related studies and background as well as recognizing the theoretical foundations, parts of the Shahnameh (Volume 1 through 5) were selected randomly. In the descriptive-analytical method, the lexical relations of meaning (reckoning, confrontation, contradiction, proportion and association), structural (spatial and syntactic), and phonetic in all terms were extracted and categorized. The reliability of the data was verified by a group of graduates and PhD students in the Persian language and literature.Results showed that lexical relations in Shahnameh show that there is a dual link (beyond the definition of the collocation) in a vast volume of text (nearly half of it), which along with other lexical relations places almost the whole text within a network as there are no words left aside without having any connection with other words. This feature makes the language of the text available and understandable to the reader. The authors proposed the term “lexical binaries” and believe that this feature could be used to develop Persian language teaching resources and to facilitate the learning of learners.

Depending on the frequency of encounters and the sense induced the emotions involved, people develop different conceptualizations of a phenomenon.

The authors of the present study, therefore, have utilized the concept of emotioncy to introduce the emotioncy profile, in which emotions about a given concept and their frequencies can be considered as a propel to produce motivation at individual and social levels. This emotioncy profile emo-sensory motivation can be further categorized into EMOTIONcy (emotion>frequency), emotionCY (emotion<frequency), and EMOTIONCY (emotion=frequency), based on which people may experience different levels of motivation and immersion. The results of the present study indicate that at the EMOTIONcy level, emotions can be so affective that they move individuals from exvolvement to involvement..The results of the present study indicate that at the EMOTIONcy level, where people experience more emotions, it might be so effective that it moves them from exvolvement to involvement. Also, if a person has positive emotions about a concept, it increases flow, which consequently leads to willingness to repeat and positive attitudes. Contrarily, negative emotions can lead to extreme avoidance, and demotivation, and negative attitudes.

The standard situation is the time emotions and senses go hand in hand, creating optimal motivation and immersion. The normal situation is the time when emotions and senses go hand in hand, creating optimal motivation and immersion. This can lead to congruent attitudes at individual, local, and global levels. Moreover, individual, local, and global attitudes can change when there is no balance between sense and emotion.

Shame and guilt, as universal and self-conscious emotions, exist in every aspect of our every-day lives. These two feelings effectively enhance the process of human socialization; they normally occur as a response to a negative evaluation of the self, which is typically based on societal standards. The above-mentioned emotions are considered as universal phenomena, however, culture can affect both. The way we value the emotions is under the influence of culture. Given the culture-specific patterns of emotions, the present research made an investigation of “shame” and “guilt”, as concepts based on culture in the Persian context. This study aimed at studying the linguistic elements stating the emotions of shame (sharmsâri, rou siyâhi, khajelat, nang, biâberouei, khejâlat, khajoul, hayâ, âberou, kamrou, etc.) and guilt (taghsir, moghaser, gonâhkâr, etc.) in the Persian language. In order to achieve this purpose, 756 natural contexts in which the utterances related to shame and guilt have been used were recorded. The data collected was then analyzed based on Dell Hymes’ SPEAKING model (1967); the various social aspects which were related to these two emotions were, then, extracted. The research made use of a corpus-based approach, and the findings of the study pointed out the importance and dominance of shame in the Iranian culture compared to guilt. The reason has its roots in the dominance of the collectivist culture among Iranians.

This study aims to explore English language proficiency tests of Iran’s Ministry of Higher Education and universities by analyzing the needs of the participants (PhD candidates and graduates) and then propose a standard and uniform test. To this end, after thematizing the qualitative answers obtained through semi-structured interviews with 30 faculty members (19 females and 11 males) and 35 PhD candidates and graduates (13 females and 22 males) from different cities and majors in universities throughout Iran, a researcher-made questionnaire was developed. To validate the designed questionnaire, first 200 PhD graduates and candidates (117 males and 83 females), studying various majors in universities across Iran, answered the questionnaire (convenience sampling). Then 442 participants (223 males and 219 females) including PhD graduates (N= 57), PhD candidates (N= 320), and faculty members (N= 65) answered the validated questionnaire. Totally, 642 participants expressed their views on the problems of English language proficiency tests in terms of four criteria: validity, reliability, impact, and fairness of the test. The findings show that the participants are not satisfied with these tests and believe that these tests are designed based on the old versions of TOEFL and IELTS international tests and cultural and local considerations are overlooked. Finally, some suggestions are made to improve the quality of English language proficiency tests in Iran.

Given the importance of cultural issues in different societies, scholars have introduced the ethnography of communication to examine the differences in light of language and context. Related to this theory is Hymes’ SPEAKING model (1967), in which setting and scene, participants, ends, acts sequence, key, instrumentalities, norms, and genre are taken into account to analyze speech events. Since the words and expressions we use in everyday speech have emotional loads, adding an emotional aspect to this model (E-SPEAKING) seems to provide a more comprehensive picture regarding cultural and linguistic interpretations. The present study; therefore, first, introduces the concept of emoling by analyzing [Naaz Kardan]-related vocabularies, and then, by considering closing and opening discourse, tries to relate the concepts of ethnography of communication and emotional ethnography. Such cultural emolings can reduce the existing gap between social and psychological studies and lead to a more holistic view on language and culture, which consequently prevent separating emotions from cultures.

Proverbs are short utterances in verse or prose, showing parts of the culture of people using them. They will be transmitted to the next generations and their origins can be traced. They can be considered a case of cultuling, that is (culture in language), and demonstrate the culture, worldview and the attitude of the speakers. The present study, a qualitative one, aimed to investigate the “positive thinking” cultuling in Persian proverbs from the viewpoint of the SPEAKING model of Hymes (1967). To this end, of the total 99621 Persian proverbs, 777 proverbs were delineated to include the “Positive Thinking” cultuling. The researchers were seeking to find different ends of using the proverbs by Persian speakers. The data were investigated by two Applied linguists professors and an M.A graduate in Linguistics. The most recurrent ends of using proverbs encompass giving advice 101 cases (30%), good wish 7 cases (2%), religious beliefs 92 cases (27%), encouraging to be patient 27 cases (8%), being grateful 7 cases (2%), being happy 9 cases (3%), showing exaggeration 16 cases (5%) and solidarity and cooperation 13 cases (4%). The keys include admonitory 83 cases (45%), praising 14 cases (8%), hopeful 67 cases (36%), humorous 14 cases (8%) and good wish 7 cases (4%). The findings show that among all, the most occurring end, of using the “positive thinking” cultuling in Persian proverbs accrues giving advice (30%) and the most recurrent key, accrues admonitory (45%). The multiplicity of the cases of advice and admonitory displays the indirectness of Iranians. The paper concludes with some implications.

Effective communication can be considered as a social process reflected in lexical chains. In fact, speaking can be considered as a communicative mediator which hinges on the speaker’s linguistic competence, but if the aim of a given dialogue is to have a more effective communication, one should move beyond the speaker’s subliminal intentions. The present study, therefore, tries to examine the influence of “postlocution” as a level beyond communicative competence, and attempts to introduce “brainling” based on brain structures. This model considers language as a tool for behavioral changes and developments, and offers the four concepts of cogling (cognition in language), emoling (emotions in language), cultuling (culture in language), and sensoling (senses in language). The proposed model can be used to portray a different and more comprehensive picture of brain’s macro functions, which is useful for a better and more effective communication. From this perspective, in addition to paying attention to self-oriented language, a dialogue should take other-oriented language into consideration, and individuals should attend to both communicative competence and linguo-therapeutic competence (language for a better life).

Given their diverse cultural backgrounds, language learners should possess an appropriate level of cultural intelligence to learn Persian as a second language. In recent years, various students from different cultural backgrounds have joined the education system of Iran, most of whom are non-native Persian speakers with little previous exposure to the Persian language. In such a situation, owing to the lack of intercultural adaptation, individuals may experience culture shock. Culture shock is the type of experience that second language learners might face while learning a language in a different context. Therefore, learning the target culture in second language learning classes turns into a crucial concern. Cultural intelligence which is nowadays a buzzword refers to individuals' sensitivity and adaptability to cultural issues, contributing to more intercultural understanding. Cultural intelligence, which manifests itself in intercultural communcations, is a form of communicitve competence that highlights effective interpersonal interactions in culture-bound situations. According to Earley and Ang (2003), cultural intelligence corresponds to the individuals’ successful compatibility with the cultural environments which are different from those of their own. Students’ cultural intelligence can help them understand the target language norms and values and have more effective communication with their teachers. Owing to the importance of this new form of intelligence and its potential role in the enrichment of Persian teaching methods, the current study intends to introduce and thereafter implement the emotioncy-based language instruction (EBLI) model, constituting avolvement (null), exvolvement (auditory, visual, and kinesthetic) and involvement (inner and arch). Emotioncy, which is a blend of emotion and frequency of the exposure to different senses, was first introduced by Pishghadam, Tabatabeeyan, and Navari (2013, p. 149). The concept is based on developmental, individual differences, relationship-based (DIR) model that takes emotions as the basis of learning. According to the emotioncy model, the vocabularies of a given language have different emotional levels for different people, and the higher the level of emotioncy for a word is, the easier it is to be learned. Emotioncy consists of different types and kinds including avolvement (null), exvolvement (auditory, visual, and kinesthetic), and involvement (inner and arch). In this categorization, null refers the person with no previous experience of a given item/concept. At the auditory level, the person is supposed to have heard some points about the given word. At the visual level, the person has not only heard about the concept but has seen it as well. The next level is the kinesthetic, at which the person touches the item in addition to involving the senses mentioned above. At the inner level, the person directly experiences the item and at the final level, namely arch, the person reaches the highest level of knowledge about the concept by conducting research on it. It should be also mentioned that emotioncy levels are hierarchical. To evaluate the extent to which this model contributes to the build-up of the Persian language learners’ cultural intelligence, the emotioncy and cultural intelligence scales were used to collect data from 60 non-Persian female students coming from 16 different nationalities. The participants were categorized into four groups and were instructed based on the varieties of the EBLI in a total of 22 sessions during 6 weeks. Four cultural issues addressing different dimensions of the Iranian culture were selected in a way to be unfamiliar to the participants. To check the level of familiarity, the participants were asked to take a scale containing 12 culture-related issues and concepts to guarantee that they had zero knowledge of them. To make the comparisons more logical, the researchers tried to teach all cultural issues and concepts to all groups of participants in a way that everybody could experience all types of emotioncy levels (null, auditory, visual, kinesthetic, inner, and arch). The instructor’s overall evaluation of the learners revealed that the EBLI could significantly boost the non-Persian language learners’ level of cultural intelligence. It was further concluded that those language learners with higher levels of cultural intelligence see classes as a place where they can improve their linguistic competence, have better ideas and stronger relations, and communicate more effectively with their teachers and classmates. They, therefore, can openly express their feelings, easily accept others, and speed up their own language learning process. Consequently, The EBLI is suggested to be applied in Persian language teaching classes. In the end, it is our belief that this new perspective which places more emphasis on the interface of sense and emotion can open up new horizons for second language teachers to do more research into it, contributing to language learning processes.

Drawing upon the newly-proposed concept of emotioncy in psychology (emotion + frequency of senses), the present study attempts to measure the cultural weight of 6 selected Persian neologisms and their foreign equivalents. To this end, in the quantitative phase, 148 participants were asked to take an emotioncy scale on a number of selected words. Also, to conduct the qualitative phase of the current study, 75 individuals were interviewed about the senses of the words under study. The findings indicated that emotioncy analysis could be an effective and useful method of measuring the cultural weight of words. Moreover, the outcomes revealed that, in most cases, foreign words have recorded higher degrees of emotioncy than their Persian neologisms

Audiovisual translation is a thriving new area of research on a-century-old practice of an intercultural communication mode. Subtitling as one of the most popular forms of audiovisual translation has been practiced by professionals in various ways. Traditionally, subtitlers have been asked to individually carry out the linguistic transfer between languages, to decide the in and out times of subtitles on screen, as well as to carry out the simulation, revision and quality control of the subtitles; an obsolete attitude which may not be compatible with today’s real world facts and working conditions and demands. Subtitling has also gained a special attention by language teaching experts as a very useful educational tool with many benefits for foreign language learners, hence the importance of subtitling education development. The present article investigates the influence of subtitle training classroom experience on subtitler trainees’ attitude towards teamwork skills in subtitling practice. Considering the special time constraints of subtitling projects and the different skills required for this translation, the role of teamwork has been typically highlighted in such projects both at the professional and freelance levels. To study the current situation and the relationship between subtitling education and teamwork in the Iranian training setting, 167 male and female English translation students at undergraduate level were selected to contribute to this project. The participants attended a 5-month subtitler training program in the form of 6 separate classes to learn and improve their subtitling skills. The quasi-experimental research based on a pre-test post-test model was used to collect data on the students’ attitude about teamwork skills before the training and after they have attended the course and have completed three real market-based subtitling projects in teams. The reliability and validity of the self-designed questionnaire to study the translation students’ attitudes towards teamwork skills were statistically established using confirmatory factor analysis and scale reliability analysis. The results of the study are discussed in relation to the related literature.