Journal of Applications of Language Studies
Volume:1 Issue: 1, Dec 2017

This quasi-experimental study was an attempt to investigate possible contribution of literary plays as a medium of instruction to thedevelopment of pragmatic awareness through either explicit or implicit mode of instruction. Eighty university students majoring inEnglish were assigned to four experimental groups: two literary and two nonliterary groups. One literary group (Implicit Play) was exposed to typographically enhanced plays containing the three speech acts of apology, request, and refusal and the other (Explicit Play) received the same plus metapragmatic instruction on the speech acts. The nonliterary groups were presented with dialogs rich in the cases of the given acts; they also received enhanced input (Implicit Dialog) or input plus metapragmatic information (Explicit Dialog). Analyses of the four groups’ performance on MDCT pretest and posttest did not indicate any significant difference among the groups.

This paper provides further evidence from applied linguistics on the essentiality of a general list of academic vocabulary in academic achievement. For this purpose, the current research attempted to display that academic words assume subject-independent functions in academic writing, based on the functional framework developed by Hirsh (2010). The framework views writing from three perspectives: textual, ideational, and interpersonal – the three layers of the functional grammar of Halliday (1976). These three layers are corresponded with functional categories in the framework. Within this framework, a sample paper taken from a prestigious scholarly journal in the field of applied linguistics, including 468 academic words, was analyzed. The analysis, confirming the findings of earlier investigations with respect to coverage, showed that each occurrence of academic words could be assigned to a functional category. The paper argues that the assignment of academic vocabulary to functional categories is related to the requirements of the research community to disseminate knowledge according to uniform reporting standards. The findings emphasize the significance of academic vocabulary both in terms of assuming functions, and of pedagogy, implying that a limited, but a general, list of academic vocabulary can give a good return for learning, particularly in the realm of writing and reading in EFL contexts.

In this study “Touring” and “Travel” semantic frames are studied considering the principles of FrameNet and it is taken as first step to build Persian FrameNet. The “FrameNet” is a corpus-based project housed at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, California by Charles J. Fillmore which is built based on the theory of Frame Semantics. In this system, the meaning of words can be understood on the basis of semantic frames which are mental encyclopedic concepts. A “Semantic Frame” which is evoked by lexical items, is a description of a type of event, relation, or entity and participants in the event. In this paper, description of frame elements and examples were presented based on the realization of the standard Persian language. Lexical Units related to the frames of “Touring” and “Travel” were drawn from the two-volume Sokhan encyclopedia (Anvari, 2003) and Persian synonyms & antonyms dictionary (Khodaparasti, 1997). Furthermore, the section devoted to marked texts was completed with case sentences exerted from Google. The results showed that following Khavari (2013) and Nayebluy et al. (2015), building a Persian FrameNet is a workable idea.

Translators have always imposed their own stances and identities upon the texts they are translating. This manipulation is of primary importance when it comes to critical texts such as political ones. The concept of identity is the core one to all translations. Farahzad (2012) proposes that a thorough and careful analysis of (non)linguistic features can help the translation critic identify changes in Target text (TT) which is ideologically driven. This study, therefore, aims at comparing translations of English news, identifying the identity modifications. Then, an attempt is made to justify and explain the results in terms of CDA in order to see the rationale behind the choices. To this end, 100 pieces of the recent political news (from 2016 to 2017) were collected. When all the data had been collected, the original texts – political news – were studied and analyzed along with their translations into Persian in order to identify the implications of translators' choices in terms of CDA. The next stage was discussing the results in terms of CDA. In this final stage the researchers attempted to reveal the ideological position -identity- of the translator in his/her decision making. The results of the study were significantly revealing; out of 100 pieces, 79 news items were directly indicative of the ideology and identity of the translator.

The Present study addresses the influence of self-reflection strategies on developing speaking ability among Iranian EFL learners. These strategies were derived from framework suggested by Angelo and Cross (1993). Self-reflection strategies such as information literacy, visual learning tools, interactive notebooks and others definitely help learners improve themselves in many different aspects such as speaking ability. This study employed 60 TEFL students majoring in English Translation in Islamic Azad University of South Tehran Branch. The participants were at intermediate proficiency level and were divided into control and experimental groups. The researchers used OPT (Oxford Placement Test) for homogeneity purposes, TOEIC for pretest and TSE posttest for speaking ability measurement, Weir's analytic speaking criteria (1993) as an instrument to rate the interviews, and Angelo and Cross’s (1993) framework with the aim of direct instruction. The study employed quantitative and quasi experimental research designs. An Independent samples t-test was used to ascertain if there was any significant difference between the means of the experimental and control groups. The findings of the study displayed that students in the experimental group did not outperform the ones in the control group regarding speaking ability suggesting that self-reflection strategy-based instruction does not have any significant effect on developing speaking ability among Iranian EFL learners

This study was an attempt to consider the effect of using Telegram application for EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners' writing accuracy and learning grammar points. Twenty intermediate EFL learners were selected from the vacant language learners in a language institute to participate in this study. The students who achieved the required score on a language proficiency test (the Oxford Placement Test, OPT) were selected as the participants. Pre-test were given before the treatment sessions to control the participants' grammar knowledge and writing accuracy at the beginning of the research. During a term which has sixteen-session course, the teacher presented the instruction on grammar and accuracy in writing to the participants by instant messaging, using above application. At the end of semester, they were given the post-test. Achieved data were analyzed through Paired Samples t-tests to compare the means of the pre-test and the post-test of the learners. It has discovered that writing accuracy of the participant had improved by receiving instruction of grammar points through social network (Telegram App). There was a significant difference in the means of the participants on the pretest and posttest. They performed more effectively on the posttest, which can be attributed to instruction through social networking. The results of the study can be beneficial for language teachers, materials developers and students

The present article reports on a judgmental analysis of the items in the English subtest of Iranian University Entrance Exam (2009) investigating possible biased items. Plenty of statistical techniques, such as Logistic Regression, Mantel-Haenszel method, and IRT approaches, are developed to detect differential item functioning (DIF) and biased items. They require a pilot study of the test with a sizeable number of subjects. However, sometimes pre-testing is not possible and only subjective and judgmental analysis can be used to detect potential biased items. Off course, judgments should be informed by research findings and experts’ opinions. This study suggests that research findings and experts’ opinion can be combined to create a bias guideline for language test development. If research shed enough light on the issue of biased items and tests, a bias guideline may preempt the experimental DIF detection. This study utilized previous research findings, experts’ opinion on bias, and the author’s intuition to propose a bias guideline and figure out the possible biased items or bundles (groups of items) in the Iranian University Entrance Exam.