farah ghaderi

In the 1990s, the first wave of trauma theories was raised to extend the boundaries of psychological trauma studies into other fields, including literary theories and literature. Jeannette Walls (1960-), an American author and journalist, writes about her characters’ resistance to life’s adversities in her novels. Despite the existing studies on her most well-known novel The Glass Castle (2006), her other novel, The Silver Star (2013), has been marginalized since its publication. Thus, this study addresses The Silver Star and examines the “trauma and recovery” of the two main characters, Charlotte and Liz. It deploys Judith Herman’s trauma theory which focuses on the symptoms, effects, and recovery process of “post-traumatic stress disorder”. Following the experienced traumatic moments, Charlotte and Liz bear three main symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, including “hyperarousal”, “intrusion”, and “constriction”. As a primary effect of PTSD, they also disconnect themselves from their family and society while desperately seeking help to be recovered. The study argues that Walls represents social support as the most influential element in the “recovery” process of PTSD. The findings show that the recovery process varies according to the support that each character receives; Charlotte is not able to progress in the recovery process without receiving sufficient support from others while Liz recovers by getting enough support to construct a sense of safety.

Due to its diasporic features and being 'in-between' competing Pakistani-American discourses, Mohsin Hamid (1971--)'s The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007) has the potential to deconstruct the dominant perceptions about influential incidents like the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. The major concept which is dislodged in this novel is the paradigm shift which occurs in the West and especially the United States after the event. The United States claims that its strategic alteration toward the Muslim immigrants in the post 9/11 era is a reaction against the fundamentalism and terrorism engendered by them; whereas, Hamid's critical reading against the grain, regards the post 9/11 alterations in the reception of Muslim migrants as anterior to the global fundamentalism and terrorism, rather than posterior to them. Put differently, the marginalized and oft-neglected narrative of a Muslim migrant author of the post 9/11 tumults, recognizes the United States as the origin of the global fundamentalism and terrorism and not the victim of them as widely claimed. The redefinition of this change in American policies in post 9/11 is depicted through the perspective of Changez, the novel's protagonist. He is a Muslim Pakistani young man, a Princeton graduate, and employed by a prosperous economic company. Hamid's redefinition of the post 9/11 paradigm shift is investigated along three axes and three important binary oppositions are deconstructed in his novel; the cosmopolitan/nationalist United States, the religious/ economic fundamentalism, and the military/economic terrorism.

The present study explored the development of language teacher immunity among Iranian in-service English as a Foreign/Second Language (EFL) teachers (N=15) working at public high schools. Drawing on semi-structured interview data, the study found that low self-confidence, students’ demotivation, low income, limited facilities, lack of enough time to teach English, parental expectations, and negative attitudes toward English were the main triggers of language teacher immunity among the participants. Reflecting on those disturbances, the participants employed certain coping strategies such as prior preparation, establishing a good rapport with learners, and exercising agency in providing required facilities and negotiating objectives with learners’ parents. The strategies adopted by the participants revealed that reflective practice should be an integrated undertaking involving reflection on personal, sociocultural, and educational factors rather than being limited to practice per se. The study introduced imposed maladaptive immunity as a transitional stage from exercising agency to setting into a state of complete indifference due to lack of support from macro-level educational policy makers. Finally, the study implied that language teacher education programs should raise EFL teachers’ awareness of the developmental stages of language teacher immunity as an integrated reflective practice.

This quasi-experimental study aimed to investigate the effect of task repetition under four conditions on the three dimensions of oral production (accuracy, complexity and fluency) and grammatical knowledge gain of learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). 40 young learners of English as a Foreign Language in four classes were randomly assigned into one of the following groups: repetition in three successive sessions during a week, repetition once a week over three weeks, repetition with one week interval in between over five weeks, and repetition with two weeks interval in between over seven weeks. A Grammatical Judgment Test (GJT) including the prepositions of movement as the target structure was designed to measure learners’ grammatical knowledge both before and after the study. Also, tasks were developed for measuring oral performance of the participants. The findings indicated significant differences in the performance of the groups from pre-test to post-test in terms of accuracy (ratio of error-free clauses) and complexity (syntactic and lexical) dimensions of oral production as well as gains in grammatical knowledge; they however failed to show significant effects for fluency development across distinct time intervals. The paper discusses further findings and implications.

In the world of globalized English, the focus is more on learning practical skills of language than on language as a tool for expression. This concentration has marginalized English literary studies. The very little scholarship on teaching English literature either does not come from within the discipline or is not generally targeted at an EFL context. English Studies Beyond the ‘Center’ offers a long-awaited take on the why and how of teaching English literature in an EFL context from the perspective of a literature specialist. The volume is an attempt to address three interdependent issues: the place of English literature education in the world of globalized English studies, the main goal behind teaching literature as part of English studies and the way literature is taught. Indeed it seeks to “make a case for literary study in this expanded, essential, globalized English studies” (p. 1). As a Canadian educated in North America and a professor teaching in Japanese universities, Myles Chilton brings in his educational backgrounds from the ‘center’ of English studies and his experiences of teaching literature from universities ‘beyond the center’ to this book, making it very useful for people who are involved in teaching English literature especially in an EFL context.

The task of shouldering the burden of fulfilling the expectations of students,parents,and principals and in a broader sense,the educational system,exposes teachers to highly stressful situations which are likely to bring about a host of mental disorders. The current study was intended to investigate the relationship between Iranian English and non-English teacher's mental disorder (i.e.,distress,anxiety,somatization,& depression),their job satisfaction and effectiveness. To this end,173 English and nonEnglish teachers working in English language centers and public high schools were conveniently selected. Umme Kulsum's Teacher Effectiveness Scale,Lester's Teacher Job Satisfaction and Terluin's Four Dimensional Symptom questionnaires were used to collect data. The findings revealed an inverse and significant correlation between Iranian English teacher's psychological disorder and their job satisfaction. However,for nonEnglish teachers,only depression subscale of mental disorder was found to be negatively correlated with their job satisfaction. Significant correlations were also found between both English and nonEnglish teacher's psychological disorder and their effectiveness. The results suggest important implications for policymakers and stakeholders in education to reduce the level of stress and job dissatisfaction among teachers through developing mentoring programs and identification of the sources of stress and dissatisfaction in teachers.

The huge corpus of travel literature, penned by the British male and female writers on Persia during the high noon of imperialism, should not be taken simply as an ‘innocent transcription’ of the other world; rather, it has been asserted by postcolonial critics that the mapping out of non-European nations through a matrix of textual production in stereotypical attributes plays a crucial role in perpetuating and legitimizing the imperial domination. Lady Sheil’s portrayal proceeded with her husband’s Notes, authored within the constraining frame of colonial discourse and backed up by the discursive authority, presents ‘a living tableau of queerness’ of the Persians as the other inferior Orient in need of Messianic British mission. To set this study in context, it initially defines the key concepts of the field, and then it moves on to a postcolonial scrutiny, not only to probe into the stereotypical images, but also to unravel the exploitative side of the imperial project lurking in the narrative.

Saeb Tabrizi is regarded as being exceptionally good at portraying intense meaning through use of imagery tactics. As the best poet of the Indian style, much of his poetry collection is characterized by personification, persistent wittiness, innovative themes and imaginative far-fetched analo- gies. There is a remarkable likeness in the method of employing the same lit- erary techniques in the poetry of John Donne – the front-runner of the metaphysical poetry of seventeenth century England. Donne’s poetry is significantly witty and rich in meaning, making use of personification, pun, elaborate conceits and startling parallels. Generally, his poetry relies on conceit as the most influential device not only to create innovative themes but as a reaction to clichéd comparisons utilized in Petrarchan poetry of late sixteenth century.According to T.S. Eliot in his article on physical Poets”, imploying conceit is the key element in composing a poetry that is not only intellectual but emotional. The concern of this article is to examine some literary devices utilized by Saeb and Donne, and it goes on to argue that these two poets share a set of notable similarities in their poetry.