فصلنامه مطالعات زبان و ترجمه
سال پنجاه و پنجم شماره 2 (تابستان 1401)

Dubbing is the prevalent modality of audiovisual translation in Iran. Although dubbing uses both acoustic and visual channels, the acoustic dimension has not been thoroughly researched. Since dubbing primarily deals with voice, researching paralinguistic code (e.g., voice quality and tone) is of primary significance as changes in voice quality play a pivotal role in recreating the character differently in the dubbed version and affect dubbing overall quality and audience perception. Therefore, this mixed-methods research aims to determine effects of voice quality change through dubbing on characterization from audiences’ viewpoint by examining the official Persian dubbing of the BBC One’s Sherlock series. In doing so, Van Leeuwen’s (1999) categorization of voice quality characteristics was selected to design a self-made questionnaire and compare the original actor and the dubbing actor’s voice qualities. Accordingly, the views of 32 participants were collected and analyzed. Finally, the comparison of the actor and dubbing actor’s voice quality characteristics showed that out of seven pairs of voice quality features (tension, breathiness, vibrato, nasality, roughness, loudness and pitch), the dubbing actor’s voice was similar to that of the original actor in only four features, and it was different in three features (roughness, loudness and pitch). Based on the current research findings, these slight changes in the dubbing actor’s voice quality resulted in minor changes in the dubbed version’s characterization, as it made the dubbed character look more aggressive and less attractive to the target audiences’ eyes. The results suggest that voice is a significant quality issue for the audience and the right choice of dubbing talent can enhance audience reception of cinematic products.

The present article tries to examine how translations of European texts in Iran appeared on the historical horizon of Iran and what effects they had on translation of texts in the pre-constitutional period. As far as the translation of European texts, together with the historical developments of Iran in the pre-constitutional period are concerned, there are two dominant views. The first view sees this move as the result of the efforts of some religious preachers and foreign political figures, including Gobineau. According to the followers of this view, the movement of the Orientalists and the representatives of foreign policy apparatuses was for the betterment of society as a whole or it was for religious propaganda and advancing the political goals of their respective countries. The second view maintains that the translation movement is for the insight and liberalism of a number of rulers and chancellors. According to this view, this group possessed an observational or epistemological knowledge of European developments, and they were aware of the historical developments of Europe. Therefore, they turned to translation to adapt new intellectual and cultural patterns and translation helped them experience the outside world. The proponents of each perspective took their stance on this issue; therefore, they failed to well-understand this issue. The relationship between the translation movement and the emergence of developments in this historical era must be considered dialectal; in other words, reciprocal influences. As a matter of fact, translating European scientific and intellectual thought and ideas formed a new historical horizon for Iranians, which paved the way for advancing developments in the Qajar era. Conversely, the quality of changes affected the content and orientations of the translation movement (a thematic typology of translations).

Extensive research has been done to investigate the correlation between L2 teachers’ beliefs and their actual practices. The evidence shows that there is not necessarily a relationship between teachers’ actual classroom practices and their beliefs. Given this background, the current study examined the correspondence and non-correspondence between EFL teachers’ cognitive and behavioral manifestations of pedagogical beliefs and effects of teacher passion on the relationship between these two manifestations. The initial participants of the study were 72 male and female EFL teachers teaching at a language institution. From this initial pool of participants, four groups of thirteen teachers were selected to examine the alignment and non-alignment of their pedagogical beliefs and practices. Two groups included teachers who possessed high levels of teacher harmonious and obsessive passion, whereas the other two groups included teachers with low levels of teacher harmonious and obsessive passion. Two instructional sessions per teacher were observed. Comparisons between the four groups of teachers showed that although participants in each group valued pedagogical beliefs relatively equally, only the teachers with high levels of harmonious and obsessive passion showed strong evidence of correspondence in their actual classroom practices. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that teacher passion can play an important role in the correlation between EFL teachers’ self-reported pedagogical beliefs and their actual practices.

The phenomenon of language attrition has been identified as an important obstacle that runs counter to the process of language learning. This paper investigates whether foreign language attrition affects the levels of accuracy, fluency and complexity in speaking skills of Iranian EFL learners. In doing so, 37 English language learners within an age range of 18 to 35 were selected from intermediate and advanced levels of oral proficiency based on convenience sampling. To assess the speaking ability of the participants, an IELTS speaking mock test was administered with various topics at four different stages of the study over a period of nine months—at the beginning of the loss of contact with the language, three months, six months and nine months after the loss of contact with the language learning experience. In order to answer the research questions, a repeated-measures ANOVA was used. The first research question was concerned with the impact of attrition on the complexity level of Iranian EFL learners’ speaking skills across the four stages. The results indicated that attrition significantly affected complexity. As for accuracy, significant and meaningful differences were found across the four stages. Similarly, regarding fluency that relates to the third research question, the results suggested a significant impact of attrition on this aspect of speaking. Moreover, the results of the effect size demonstrated that attrition had the highest impact on fluency and the lowest on accuracy.

The present study aimed at testing a causal model of structural relationships between test anxiety and English academic achievement with the mediation of learning anxiety and motivation. A correlation/regression analysis using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was employed. A random selection procedure yielded an initial sample of 340 English language learners from various high schools in the province of Esfahan. The required data were obtained through Test Anxiety Scale (Sarason, 1984), English Class Anxiety Scale (Gardner, 2004), Motivation to Learn English Scale (Gardner, 2004), and National English Achievement Tests. Out of 340 questionnaires distributed, 303 participants (142 males and 161 females) finally provided data on all scales. Analyses were done through confirmatory factor analysis, and inferential and descriptive statistics. The results of SEM showed that the two stress-causing factors (i.e., test anxiety and learning anxiety) negatively influenced academic achievement through their direct influences on learning motivation. English learning anxiety and motivation mediated the effect of test anxiety on academic achievement; however, the direct effect of learning anxiety on achievement was not confirmed. The proposed structural model was confirmed against the data and 46% of the total variance was explained by its specified factors. Based on the results, a decrease in the extent and level of test anxiety and learning anxiety will increase the level of motivation which, in turn, will increase achievement performance.

Since the human mind is temporal, his/her thoughts and the incidents s/he remembers from the past and narrates are temporally interpreted as well. Therefore, understanding the temporal dimension of the narratives leads to a profound recognition of both narratives and life which can be interpreted through textual signs. From this viewpoint, the present paper attempts to engage critically with Tom Stoppard, the contemporary British playwright who utilizes time-plays for conveying his thoughts. This study intends to deal with the hows and whys of the historical past in light of Paul Ricoeur’s narrative theory. Travesties, going under the sub-genre of ‘memory play’, put prominent figures of politics and literature from different times and places along with each other to reveal their outlooks by representing opposed discourses regarding the definitions of art. To examine temporality in the narrative, the genre of drama was chosen for the opposed discourses as this genre offers the opportunity to represent binary dialogues in a dialectic manner based on their spokesmen’s lived experiences. Thus, each concept is pitted against its ‘other’, some of them have been characters, schools of thought, or even dimensions of time. This openness to the ‘other’ points to morality, and consequently, the order resides in the narrative that this study reflects. In this regard, time is considered metaphorically to get a hermeneutic understanding of the narrative. For this purpose, the time-plays are interpreted with a narratological approach. Correlative is Ricoeur’s three phases of mimesis, memory, and forgetting, and the related ‘narrative time’ theory.

Listening has recently attracted the attention of both researchers and practitioners worldwide and research into L2 listening strategy use has focused on metacognitive strategies. The present study is an attempt to investigate the effects of metacognitive intervention through dialogic interaction on upper-intermediate Iranian EFL learners’ multimedia listening and their metacognitive awareness in listening. The sample of the study included 720 male and female Iranian upper-intermediate learners ranging from 15 to 23 years of age in three groups. The first two groups, which were experimental (N=480), were trained through a structured intervention program with a focus on metacognitive instruction through dialogic interaction (MIDI) and metacognitive instruction (MI) for 15 sessions. The students in the experimental group were involved in 60 minutes of practice twice a week. The third group was the control group (N=240) wherein the students were trained through regular classroom listening activities without receiving the structured intervention program. Multimedia listening tests and the Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire were used to track the upper-intermediate learners’ listening comprehension and metacognitive awareness. The results showed that metacognitive intervention through dialogic interaction did improve both the upper-intermediate learners’ multimedia listening and their metacognitive awareness in listening. The results also revealed that the EFL learners in the first experimental group outperformed their peers in the second experimental group in both multimedia listening and metacognitive awareness.