جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه « Linguistic Imperialism » در نشریات گروه « ادبیات و زبان ها »

Language shaming is a prevalent issue in Malaysia, particularly in the online sphere, where English language speakers often face targeted discrimination due to linguistic imperialism and misconceptions. This study aimed to identify the linguistic features and themes underlying language shaming practices and assess the awareness of Malaysian adults and YouTube users regarding this issue. The study combined content analysis of 240 YouTube comments exported using YouTube API and a survey of 100 respondents using qualitative and quantitative approaches. The statements were categorized based on speech acts by Searle and were, further, classified according to Rezvan et al.’s (2018) 5 types of Internet harassment. Findings reveal a significant number of statements classified as expressive speech acts, primarily falling into categories such as intellectual harassment, followed by racial harassment, appearance-related harassment, and political harassment. The analysis also uncovers instances of offensive language shaming directed at public figures in YouTube comments, whereas responses from the survey revealed that a number of Malaysians engage in shaming other YouTube users using derogatory terms and phrases. The study suggests that promoting awareness and a sense of responsibility among Malaysians can help overcome this social issue. Addressing language shaming can create a more inclusive society and prevent individuals from being marginalized based on their language proficiency.

The recent social turn that applied linguistics has taken defies monolingual ideologies and reorganizes multilingualism as the global standard. Accordingly, institutions are eager to encourage linguistic and cultural diversity inasmuch as several languages can be employed, contrary to neoliberalism, which promotes globalization with English, and neo-nationalism whose common thread is xenophobia. This study explores Iranian school officials and teaching professionals’ perceptions of adopting a multilingual education policy, which can accommodate more foreign languages other than English. Framed by interviews and drawing on experts’ opinions in the first phase, it then finds through a questionnaire survey that professionals and school authorities come up with similar ideas regarding the benefits that the language policy reform can bring about mainly for resisting English imperialism and taking account of personal preferences. Both groups also hold similar opinions on the requirements of the new language in education policy in that in-service education was reported as an urgent need. Professionals and school officials, however, perceived challenges to this proposed plan including inadequate staffing and pessimism, differently.

The global spread of English and its role as a lingua franca has created a great demand for learning English worldwide. Up to the present time, this demand has been mostly met by major international publishers of English-speaking countries such as the United States and Britain. However, the promotion of Anglo-American cultural content and ideology through international coursebooks has long been criticized in the EFL settings in which they are used. The current study investigated the cultural appropriacy of these coursebooks for the Iranian context. The main instruments were four researcher-made questionnaires. The questionnaires were first piloted and then administered among 197 teachers and 186 students who were selected based on availability and willingness to cooperate. Next, a one-sample t-test was run on the data and the results showed that the coursebooks spread the hegemony of English. Also, it was found that the coursebooks promote a concept of gender equality which is in contrast with the Iranian concept that assumes equal rights for both sexes in primary rights and not in secondary rights. The findings also suggest that the international teaching materials do not promote nonIslamic western values. Suggestions for developing localized language teaching materials have been put forward.

Considered as a new shift in ELT, critical pedagogy (henceforth CP) puts sociopolitical issues high on the classroom agenda (Ford, 2009) incorporating a set of tenets aiming to both change the nature of schooling and the larger society (Pennycook, 1990). Therefore, in the post-method era, ESP instructors, like other language teachers, are required to both enhance language skills and apply CP principles in their ESP classes. Despite the significance of this issue, it remains to be seen whether English as Specific Purpose (ESP) is informed by CP principles or not. This study, hence, seeks to investigate the extent to which teaching ESP courses is informed by CP tenets and examines whether or not the field of study affects the application of CP principles. Hence, a CP scale for ESP developed by Kazemi and Tabatabaei (2015) was employed. Ninety-six university instructors, selected through convenience sampling, with more than four years of experience in teaching in Kohgiluyeh & Boyerahmad, Bandarabas, and Lorestan Universities of Iran participated in the study. An independent samples t-test was conducted to compare the means of ET (English Teachers) and NET (Non-English Teachers) groups. Findings revealed that both groups support and apply CP principles while teaching ESP courses although their fields of study made no significant difference in the extent to which CP principles are applied. The results of this study provide insights for universities to give due attention to CP principles when designing curriculum and developing teaching materials for ESP courses.

Teaching English in an Iranian and Islamic culture poses complex questions for both teachers and learners. In this paper, the authors intend to shed light on what it means to teach English as a foreign language (TEFL) in an Islamic-Iranian context. Having reviewed the colonial and postmodern views of English language teaching, the authors took a look beyond the current state of TEFL in Iran, which is marked by its continuing global tendency, and into the future with an emphasis on the importance of including the local specificities of the Iranian culture and religion. The status of the TEFL in Iran and the direction it should take in the future are accompanied by offering some solutions to inherent problems. Iranian TEFL is introduced as the successful assertion of Iranian local culture against the cultural and ideological domination of the West, which can be an antidote to the harshness of all marginalizations Iranians have suffered for centuries.