فصلنامه مطالعات زبان و ترجمه
سال چهل و هشتم شماره 4 (زمستان 1394)

Students’ Academic Background and High School National Achievement Examinations (HNAEs) as an Alternative for the Conventional University Entrance Examinations (UEEs): Evaluation of Whys, Whats , and Hows of the Change

Cultural infrastructure in adopting appropriate teaching and learning methods in EFL classes is crucial. The meaning of silence is culture-bound and cultural guidelines govern when and why one employs silence.
Learning to speak and write in English in Iranian EFL classrooms seems to be a process of challenging one’s values. Iranian EFL learners, with a “silence is gold” mentality and accustomed to a dialectic approach in education tradition, experience a totally new atmosphere in English classes including discussions and interaction with their teachers and peers.
Thus, diversity of views in educational practices underscores the necessity of understanding the meanings of silence that are common in a given socio-cultural context such as Iran. Also, the relevance of silence meanings to educational practices in Iranian EFL classrooms can assist language learners to gain the most from their EFL classroom and can improve their speaking and writing skills.
In Iran, parts of these cultural guidelines come from educational literature, religious teaching and every day culture in a society.
The present study aimed at uncovering the underlying assumptions about silence in Persian culture within the framework of Hofstede’s(1991) and Hall’s (1976) theories as well as relevance theory (Sperber & Wilson, 1986, 1995) through content analysis.
Multiple data collection sources (proverbs, literary and religious texts) were utilized both to provide in-depth information and to increase the validity of the findings. Consults with experts in the field of Persian literature and theology provided a basis for developing the scope and orientation of the research.
Didactic literature including poetry and prose on silence was garnered in chronological order during the period of the 4th to the current century. The unabridged dictionary of Persian proverbs (Dahgan, 1383) and ten thousand Persian proverbs (Shakoori Rad, 1382) were selected to draw the proverbs on silence.
Religious texts on silence, i.e., Quranic verses and Hadiths by the Prophet Muhammad, Imam Ali and other Imams were obtained respectively from Akhlagh dar Quran (Makarem shirazi, 1378), Nahjolbalaghe (Dashti, 1379), and Nahjolfesahe (Payandeh, 1383).
The data collection resulted in a corpus of 600 verses and prose, 250 proverbs as well as 180 verses and Hadiths. Themes that emerged from the coding were analyzed using the software program Nvivo8. The data collection continued until saturation was achieved.
Thus, concepts which were closely linked in meaning were formed into categories and categories with similar meanings, in turn, were brought together into a theme. Overall, 13 categories emerged. Then the categories were revised, modified and later collapsed into seven themes.
Highlights of the findings are as follows. The literary texts and proverbs take precedence firstly over intellectual and next over moral functions of silence while the priority in religious texts is first on the moral and next on the intellectual function of silence.
The intellectual function of silence drawn from literary texts highlights its role not only in saving one’s face and saving one’s life but also in saving others’ face and saving others’ lives. It seems that in a collectivist culture such as Iran, it is important to maintain unity and harmony. Intellectual function drawn from religious texts serves to protect Muslims “in situations where there is overwhelming danger of loss of life or property and where no danger to religion would occur thereby” (Mo’men, 1985, p. 102).
Promoting silence in literary texts related to moral function of silence is under the influence of religious teachings. This function places emphasis on promoting piety and salvation. According to the religious texts, the dangers and harms of tongue are many and there is no rescue from them except silence. Hence, moral function of silence (guarding one’s tongue), on one hand leads to personal self-improvement and salvation and on the other hand, leads to society prosperity by sustaining consensus and avoiding conflicts.
The results reveal that silence majorly has intellectual and moral functions in Iranian culture. Therefore, it can provide a clearer picture of Iranian culture. The findings of this study provide a detailed and localized understanding of the assumptions of silence which seems necessary to the process of teaching and learning English.

In recent years, thanks to efforts made by such scholars as Maria Tymoczko, translation studies has started a movement towards reacting to Euro-centrism in the discipline. The movement stresses the necessity for internationalization of translation theory and the significance of taking into account translation traditions all over the world. The authors of the present paper do believe that if we, too, as the Iranian, are going to play a decent role in the expansion of the translation theory and development of translation studies, then we should first achieve a comprehensive knowledge of translation traditions all through the Iranian cultural history. In line with the necessity for such type of research, we have tried to show that Sadi in his book, Gulistan [Flower Garden], besides being an author and a poet, has functioned as a translator as well. In so doing, the paper has been inspired by the theoretical framework of 'micro-history' in order to provide appropriate answers to three essential questions: (1) Has Sadi ever made use of the art of translation in his Gulistan? (2) If yes, what translation strategies have been employed by him and is it possible to compare such strategies with recent achievements of translation studies as a modern discipline? And (3) Is Sadi’s translation approach in conformity with the dominant translation norms of the time?
The present study is qualitative in nature as inspired by the analytical framework of micro-history. In order to understand Sadi's responses to cases of linguistic hybridity throughout the text of Gulistan, all Arabic expressions, sentences and poems have been studied in full to see if such hybrid forms have anything to do with translation.
Based on the data collected, we have argued that there are 4 different types of inter-lingual translation in Gulistan: (1) zero translation, (2) hidden translation, (3) free translation, and (4) source-oriented translation. ‘Zero Translation’, as intended in the paper, involves some verses of the holy Quran as well as expressions and poems that Sa’di has preferred or has been obliged to keep them in their original Arabic form without any Persian translations. We may possibly attribute Sa’di’s zero-translation strategy to the high frequency of occurrence of such Arabic expressions in the Persian language community of the time resulting in the intertextual familiarity of the target readers in question, so as to say that, Sa’di has felt no need for rendering such expressions into Persian. Some cases of zero translation in Gulistan refers to Quran verses and Nabavi Hadiths where such a decision may be attributed to Sa’di’s observation of the past literary, religious, and cultural tradition, on one hand, and his being in line with literary and cultural norms agreed by some influencing figures of literature of the time, on the other. In an attempt to find a solution for resolving the religious or normative impasse of translation of holy texts, Sa’di resorts to another strategy labeled as ‘Hidden Translation’ where the original form of the Quran verse or the Nabavi Hadith is absent and Sa’di has only mentioned its translation. Hidden translation, as intended in the paper, refers to any fragment that has passed through the filter of translation but its target version has been hidden by any reason(s). In other words, in hidden translation, there is a source text but there is no formal co-occurrence of the two texts (i.e., the source and target texts) involved. The third type of translation in Gulistan is ‘Free Translation’. We have found out, through analyzing the data, that the most frequent translation tendency in Gulistan has been free translation; a finding that can be analyzed within the scope of ‘self-translation’ framework. Self-translation is a text “authored by a writer who can compose in different languages and who translates his or her texts from one language into another” (Hokenson & Munson, 2007, p.1). And finally, the last type of translation employed in Gulistan is what we have labeled as ‘Source-oriented Translation’. In this type of translation, Arabic expressions have been translated into Persian through a formally and semantically close rendering in a way that Sa’di has not only sufficed to the transfer of the themes in question but has also recreated as precisely as possible the meaning of each and every single Arabic expressions in the form of Persian equivalents and even Persian grammatical structures.
As stated earlier, Sa’di has experienced different translation strategies in rendering Arabic expressions and sentences. In limited cases, he has adopted a more faithful approach to the source text resulting in a ‘source-oriented’ translation while in most cases, he has resorted to a ‘free translation’ method, more specifically in rendering his own writings within a self-translation process. The co-existence of both plain, uncomplicated prose translations as well as magnificent rhymed translations in Gulistan provides sufficient evidence that Sa’di, as a translator, has always taken into consideration his own high-level standards of authorship. What we may acquire by examining Sa’di’s translations, more specifically his unique source-oriented translations from Arabic to Persian or vice versa, shows that a distinguished translator can potentially and simultaneously pay attention to both the source and the target systems without decreasing the quality of the resulting work. This capability is exactly why one may rank Sa’di as a top global translator all through the history of translation.

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.
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.
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.
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.

For many students reading is the most important of the four skills in a foreign language. If we consider the study of English as a second or foreign language around the world and the situation in which most English learners find themselves, we recognize that reading is one of the main reasons why students learn the language (Richards & Renandya, 2002).Researchers believe that there are some common factors which influence L2 reading comprehension.One of them is individual factors which include “L1 knowledge, language proficiency, the use of strategy, knowledge of different text types and pragmatics, metalinguistic knowledge, background knowledge, and motivation”(Alderson, 2000, p.60 as cited in Orbea & Villabeitia, 2010).However, according to Dornyei (2005), the effect of individual differences (ID) is produced in interaction with the environment, including classroom instruction and interaction with teachers and classmates. Therefore, the present study is designed to shed light on the effect and interaction of Iranian EFL learners’ level of motivation (as one of the factors of individual differences) with the type of instruction based on receiving reciprocal teaching and cooperative grouping intervention program. The results showed that the intervention changed motivation for reading efficacy, reading challenge, reading curiosity, competition in reading, recognition for reading, reading for grades, social reasons for reading and compliance.
This study was based on a quasi-experimental, pretest/posttest design. The participants were not randomly assigned to groups but rather belonged to whole classes.There were four groups of participants. The control groups received the typical reading instruction and the experimental groups received the intervention.The study took 14 sessions of 90 minutes during a semester. Meanwhile, in order to control the effect of the text type on reading comprehension, the textbook of all groups was the same.
The results of the study show that the type of intervention is effective on reading comprehension ability of Iranian English learners. Therefore, the significant feature of the intervention which includes interaction between the teacher and the students could be considered as a key point in the process of instruction. Meanwhile, the results highlight the great influence of scaffolding as the fundamental element of the intervention. Scaffolding in the process of instruction provides opportunities for learners to improve their language knowledge and to become autonomous (Ellis, 2003).In this regard, Walqui (2006) suggests six main types of instructional scaffolding. One of them is modeling which is used in reciprocal teaching and cooperative grouping intervention program.
In addition, the study reminds us of the significant role of motivation. The intervention changes motivation for reading efficacy, reading challenge, reading curiosity, competition in reading, recognition for reading, reading for grades, social reasons for reading and compliance. Therefore, as Guthrie, Cox, Knowles, Buehl, Mazzoni, & Fasculo (2000) mentions, language learners with high intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy as well as competition and challenge are moderately active readers and high achievers in the process of reading comprehension.
This study highlights the significant role of interaction and cooperation .The related literature in educational field shows that there is a significant relationship between applying reading strategies(through reciprocal teaching and cooperative grouping intervention program) and improvement in reading comprehension ability of language learners(Topping, Thurston, Tomlie, Christie, Murray, & Karagiannidou, 2011).The results would be highly beneficial for instructors and course designers since they could form authentic and real-life contexts in which the learners would be more involved in problem solving tasks and critical thinking activities. This area of attempt needs special attention in Iran since educators do not focus on the importance of interaction and negotiation; therefore, we face reluctant readers who prefer to work individually. The practice of reciprocal teaching and cooperative intervention program would facilitate the relation between teacher and students and between students themselves.
On the other hand, learners with different features learn in different ways and give different feedback to the instruction. Therefore, instructors should prepare the learning contexts by considering learners’ individual differences in a way that the environment would satisfy each learner’s needs. Each learner with his/her own unique characteristic would like to know the course objectives and the instructor’s plan during the course. Therefore, preparing a concise lesson plan with all the explanations and details improve learners’ level of motivation and enable them to complete their tasks including reading ones in the process of instruction. Meanwhile, lack of motivation and interest towards the reading activities in the classrooms would be the result of the instructional techniques which are employed. Therefore, instruction should include a selection of appealing activities .Also, the content should be related to the learners’ educational backgrounds and level of motivation so that they could become more motivated and encouraged in the process of learning (Tomlinson, 2003).

Language teachers frequently observe a gap between their student's potential competence and their performance in the class. Anderson (1993) attributes this to the fact that human has a limited processing capacity and is not able to attend to various aspects of a task simultaneously. This limitation causes L2 learners not to be able to focus on both meaning and form at the same time. As a result, they have to attend to and prioritize only one aspect of language performance (Skehan, 1996; VanPatten, 1990). To solve the problem of limited capacity, task planning has been suggested by some scholars (e.g., Ellis, 2005; Samuda, 2001; Skehan, 1996, 1998).
Theoretical Framework: Newell and Simon (1972) were among the pioneers who suggested the idea of task planning. They considered planning as goal-oriented mental activity used by language users to attain pre-determined objectives. Ellis (2005) considers planning as a problem solving action which helps language users in making decision about linguistic devices. Task planning has long been assumed to influence the performance of both L1 and L2 writing. Studies in L1 writing have proven that the main difference between novice writers and expert ones is in the amount of time they spend on planning .Ellis (2005) proposes two main types of planning each of which can be further divided. The first type of planning called pre-task planning occurs before performing the main task and consists of rehearsal and strategic planning. The second type of planning that happens during the main task performance is called within-task planning which subsumes pressured and unpressured conditions. Rehearsal or repetition planning provides language users with an opportunity to accomplish the task before the main performance. This way learners can perform the task as a preparation for a following performance. However, strategic planning causes learners to be familiarized with the content and language they need during the main performance. Both pressured and unpressured planning happen during the task performance. While unpressured planning language learners have opportunity to engage in careful online planning.
On the other hand, language learners are provided with sufficient time for planning their output. Nonetheless, pressured planning does not allow any breathing space in planning while performing the task (Bui, 2014). Ellis (2005) believes pressured planning equips L2 learners with rapid planning.
The research sample was a total of 134 Iranian university students, 32 males and 102 females, within the age range of 23 to 48.Since level of proficiency was considered as an independent variable, the participants were selected from both BA and MA Iranian EFL students to enjoy different proficiency levels .Accordingly, 76 participants whose scores were one standard deviation below the mean made up the Low Proficiency (LP) group of the study. However, 58 participants whose scores were one standard deviation above the mean made up the High Proficiency (HP) group. The participants of both HP and LP groups were given the same types of tasks and they were to write once under pre-task planning and once under online planning. During pre-task planning condition, all the participants had an opportunity to plan for the tasks prior to the task performance. They were allowed ten minutes for planning and 15 minutes to perform the task. Regarding the on-line planning condition, the participants were also given written instructions. They were given a piece of paper and told to write down the story. They were told they could take as long as they like. The participants were given no time for pre-task planning but ample time for on-line planning.
To investigate the research questions both descriptive statistics and two-way ANOVA were calculated. Descriptive statistics revealed that the online group showed a higher mean on the accuracy of narrative writing than the pre-task group. Moreover, the results of two-way ANOVA indicated that there was a significant difference between the low and high proficiency groups’ mean scores on the accuracy of writing. The second two-way ANOVA revealed that there was a significant difference between the LP and HP groups’ means on the fluency of writing. The HP group outperformed the LP group. However, there was not any significant interaction between the types of treatment and proficiency levels .The third two-way ANOVA showed a significant difference between the two means in terms of complexity. The results showed no significant interaction between the types of planning and proficiency level. The findings indicated that neither pre-task planning nor online planning could improve writing performance .¬These findings of the study are in line with the findings of s Bygate(2001),Seyyedi, Orang and SharafiNejad(2013), Mochizuki and Ortega (2008), Mehrang and Rahimpour (2010), Shin (2008), and Meraji (2011).
Conclusions & Suggestions: The findings of the study revealed that neither type of planning could improve writing performance. The results also showed that HP group participants outperformed LP group ones in all three aspects of accuracy, fluency and complexity .It is suggested that future studies can investigate the effects of planning on the performance of different types of styles of writing such as descriptive, narrative and expository writing. Moreover, the present study adopted Ellis'(2005) model, other investigators can adopt other models such as Robinson's (2001), Skehan's (1998) and Bui's (2014) models.