Journal of Research in Applied Linguistics
Volume:4 Issue: 1, Spring 2013

Language is a system of verbal elements that makes communication of meanings possible in the manners the users intend by employing certain linguistic devices which are partly language-specific. Once communicating cross-linguistically, there is always a risk of negative transfer of techniques or processes from the first language (L1) to the foreign language (L2). The current study investigates the “emphasis” issue and how it is encoded and performed as a speech act in Persian and English. The investigation, based on a descriptive method, begins by verifying overstated and understated utterances in English and Persian individually and then proceeds to evaluate the 2 bodies of data against each other. As observed in the case of Iranian learners of English, the process of emphasizing through phonological devices is heavily transferred. English mainly applies lexicalization, whereas vocalization is the preferred process in Persian. The tenets of this study may be of insight for theories of SLA. They also promise to ease English learning tasks by reducing student's negative transfer from their mother tongue.

High penetrability of wireless, mobile, portable, and handheld devices has resulted in education for all as the mobile’s challenge coincides with an unprecedented growth in access to pedagogical materials technology, particularly in developing countries (UNESCO Mobile Learning Week Report, 2011). The present study set out to discover how Muslim learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) are encouraged to think about and learn the Islamic instructions—as an integral part of their native culture—in TL by incorporating communicative skills through the pedagogically mediated application of cell-phone. The user groups of interest were 218 Iranian second-year male and female students of translation studies at Payame Noor University, from age range of 21-24, homogenized as upper-intermediate through conducting Nelson English language proficiency test, level 400 A. They were spread randomly across 109 dyads to learn technology-enhanced materials in 36 nonformal sessions. To equip the Muslim learners with lifelong linguistic and social knowledge for constructing conversational bridges for full participation in civic life at international level, abbreviated letter writing notes were already adapted to the cell-phone screen to be accessed by the learners via the SMS application. The final application was given to the participants for actual use and evaluation for a period of 1 academic semester. After the students had finished learning didactic messages, interactive SMS quizzes were sent to evaluate their performance. The analysis suggested that significant gains occurred as a result of mobile-based representation of shortened Islamic contents in English which was congruent with the learners’ favorable attitude towards embracing brevity for lifelong learning of TL contents via SMS.

Due to the growing emphasis of modern language pedagogy on meaningful communication, L2 willingness to communicate (WTC) has recently become an important concept in second language learning and communication. The present study investigated the effects of individual differences on Iranian EFL learner's willingness to communicate. As many as 431 students who were learning English as a foreign language in language centers served as the participants of the study. McCroskey's (1992) questionnaire was utilized to measure student's willingness to communicate. A series of independent-samples t-tests and one-way ANOVAs were run to provide answers to the research questions. The results indicated no significant difference among the participants in terms of gender, major, age, and personality types; however, significant difference was found with respect to other variables such as proficiency level, length of studying, being abroad, and communicating with foreigners. Therefore, the effects of Iranian EFL individual differences on their L2 WTC were partially confirmed. The importance of the present study lies in its theoretical contributions to the WTC research and the pedagogical implications for both second language teaching and learning.

The present study was an attempt to investigate the acquisition of negation properties by Persian monolingual and Kurdish-Persian bilingual learners of English across different levels of language proficiency and within a generative framework. Generative models are generally concerned with issues such as universal grammar (UG), language transfer, and morphological variability in nonprimary language development. Hence, an attempt was made to test the claims and predictions made by a number of generative theories specifically FTFA, RDH, DA, MSIH, SSH, and MSBH. To do so, 180 Persian monolingual and Kurdish-Persian bilingual learners of English participated in the study. Based on the Oxford Placement Test, they were assigned to 3 levels of language proficiency. They, then, received a grammaticality judgment test and a translation task. The results revealed that there was, first, no significant difference between the performance of the monolingual and bilingual learners at each level of language proficiency, whereas the difference was statistically significant across the levels of proficiency, and second, no single generative theory can offer a comprehensive explanation about the whole process of L2-L3 negation acquisition. Indeed, language development occurs in an incremental manner as predicted by MSBH, and the resetting of TL properties is possible with increasing level of proficiency. The findings also confirmed that knowledge of an L2 does not play a significant role in the development of the interlanguage grammars of Kurdish-Persian bilinguals, and increased L2/L3 exposure and use lead to less language transfer and consequently approximation to native-like performance. Each of these findings has been discussed in the framework of the related theories tested in the study.

This study attempted to investigate the effect of bilingualism on pragmatic awareness and development among Iranian Turkish/Persian EFL learners. Data were collected through a personal profile questionnaire with questions about the participants’ language background and a WDCT with 10 situations to determine the extent to which the bilinguals demonstrated their pragmatic awareness of requests. They were to read the situations and assess whether they realized the (in)appropriateness of the speech acts. For inappropriateness, they were also asked to explicate their selections and provide appropriate alternatives. Responses were analyzed according to 3 social factors of power, distance, and degree of imposition with the assumption that the more references to these factors, the more pragmatically aware the participants. Alternatives were coded according to the coding scheme of CCSARP. Results showed that none of the groups outperformed the others in their perception of the (in)appropriate acts and in the realization patterns of request acts in trilingual education. This failure may be due to their lack of cultural awareness, literary skills, and insufficient L2/L3 pragmatic input.

This study constitutes an attempt to see what Language assessment literacy (LAL) is for three groups of stakeholders, namely LAL test developers, LAL instructors, and LAL test-takers. The perceptions of the former group were derived from the content analysis of the latest version of the LAL test, and those of the latter 2 groups were assessed through a survey designed by the researcher. Participants were 54 M.A. TEFL students sampled conveniently. Descriptive statistical analysis of the data revealed that for test designers LAL is mainly a matter of knowledge and theory with little importance accorded to skills and even less so to principles. For instructors and test-takers, LAL was perceived to be mainly a matter of skills. Moreover, test-takers perceived of LAL as the most challenging module of the test because of its dealing with statistics, its theoretical nature, and test-taker's lack of hands-on experience with language tests.

The present study concerns editing of translations in Iran during the Iran-Iraq War,which in the official discourse of the country is known as the Sacred Defense. Itargues that editing, in its local sense, advocated a linguistic purism inspired by aredefined nationalism, which went hand in hand with identity politics andsnowballed into a movement of resistance.