fatemeh ahmadinasab

This study examines the pronunciation errors of English consonant clusters among Iraqi EFL learners through the lens of Optimality Theory (OT).  For this aim, 40 first-year university students of different majors aged 18-25 years were selected from beginner and lower-intermediate levels based on their scores on Oxford Placement Test. Using different instruments, such as reading instruction and read-aloud test, and being informed from the category of major pronunciation problems by Arabic learners presented by Yavaş (2011), an Optimality Theory-based analysis was adopted in the research. Findings indicated that in pronouncing initial clusters of two consonants, *COMPLEX onset as the high-ranked constraint is frequently violated in Iraqi Arabic (IA), because in IA there are many words started with #CCV. Also, *#CCC is never violated in IA. Since constraints are universal, languages differ only in how they rank them. In pronouncing a coda cluster consisting of two consonants, although *CCcoda is never violated in IA, this constraint is not permuted in the pronunciation of the participants. However, to pronounce words with the structure of VCCC(C)#, it seems that the two low-ranked constraints, namely *CCCCcoda and *CCCcoda in English are permuted to high-ranked constraints in the pronunciation of IA learners.

The Language is the most important human communication tool, and there have been different approaches to language for a long time . One of the new approaches in language research, especially semantics is context of the text.The present research work studies the literally similar verses in Adam story.The verses in which words play great role to convey meaning. The aim of this study is to survey the words of the story of the prostration of angels to Adam (AS) and the devil's disobedience to the divine command with the approach of linguistic context with a descriptive-analytical method. The findings of this study showed that the words used in similar verses of the story of Adam's prostration in the scattered chapters of the Holy Quran are related to each other in a semantic chain in such a way that its words are used in such a context that it can be replaced based on Syntagmatic axis and Paradimatic axis.

English as a First Language (EFL) and English as an Additional Language (The results indicated that both EFL and EAL students used a diverse array of linguistic features to express their ideas in academic prose, with the prospective categories being the most commonly used.

AbstractBooklets of disciplining written from the late Safavid period to the Constitutional Revolution have formal and content characteristics of a separate genre, due to the confrontation of male vs. female discourses. "Co-occurrence of the concepts of disciplining and gender in the title of booklets of disciplining", "collection of individual booklets of disciplining in a single volume for publication" and "the role of author gender in educational orientation of the booklet" are three main paratextual and formal characteristics of this genre. In addition, "alignment of the textual world of booklets of disciplining with the titles", "the role of intertextual and interdiscoursal relations in the development of booklets of disciplining", and "the sources of legitimacy for antifeminist and feminist discourse" are among the content characteristics of the disciplining genre. The set of formal and content characteristics of the booklets of disciplining distinguishes these texts from those which are classified in didactic genre. The texts belonging to the genre of disciplining men and women have a different style and discourse that can be identified on a continuum of antifeminist, male-centered, female-centered and feminist.Keywords: booklets of disciplining women, booklets of disciplining men, genre, paratext, feminism, Qajar literature.

Given that television is one of the most influential media that uses written language in various TV programs, like advertisements and subtitles, it can be considered as one of the best tools for expanding and teaching the orthography approved by Persian Academy of Language and Literature. In this regard, the present study addresses the representation of Persian orthography in the national media and its compliance with the guidelines approved by the Academy. In this research, an extension of TOPSIS method has been used in the framework of Multiple Attribute Decision Making. To this aim, orthographic content of seven IRIB TV channels namely, One, Two, Three, Four, iFilm, Tamasha and News were analyzed. Then, the compliance rate of each was verified by the “Guidelines on Persian Orthography” approved by the Academy and the channels were ranked by linear assessment method. Findings indicate that none of the seven channels are fully compliant with the guidelines.

Investigating the meaning of words based on context is important because one of the common methods of understanding lexical semantics in a text is the contextual approach. Actually, we can understand real meaning by studying the semantic layers of words and achieve meaning based on two axes of syntagmatic and paradigmatic. The present study using a descriptive-analytical method and relying on the two axes of syntagmatic and paradigmatic has tried to structurally study the similar verses to the story of the temptation of the devil and his expulsion from heaven. Some research results showed that in the axis of Paradigmatic, the words" “Tempted, Slipped”, “Go out, Descend "and “Adorning, Sitting” have been selected according to the textual context and the atmosphere of the story. And this factor has been effective in the coherence and completion of the semantic chain between the substitute words so that to induce the concept and meaning intended by the speaker, the substitute words serve the context of the text and give a new semantic load according to the context and verses back and forth to the story space, and somehow lead to the semantic expansion of the text.

Numerous studies in the last decade that have investigated the stylistic features of literary works in morphological layer do not help much in advancing stylistic studies and historical behavior of Persian language. In the present study, which evaluates the literature of stylistics in morphological layer, twenty-seven research papers and dissertations written in the Iranian departments of Persian language and literature of academia have been reviewed and critiqued. Numerous studies in the last decade that have investigated the stylistic features of literary works in morphological layer do not help much in advancing stylistic studies and historical behavior of Persian language. In the present study, which evaluates the literature of stylistics in morphological layer, twenty-seven research papers and dissertations written in the departments of Persian language and literature in Iran have been reviewed and critiqued. The findings indicate that these studies suffer several shortcomings, including: misunderstanding the basic morphological concepts, defining overlapping morphological categories, misreading texts and misidentifying the grammatical role of words, neglecting the diachronic behavior of Persian language, confusing research strategies and introducing unnecessary and redundant models and some other common mistakes. These problems are serious hurdles in the way of stylistic studies in morphological layer and also understanding Persian language changes. Finally, some suggestions have been made to address the aforementioned problems.

The purpose of the study is to examine the figures of speech in the headlines of the news program 20:30, which is one of the most attractive and popular programs of the national media. This qualitative research conducted based on the Shamisa's rhetorical techniques division, through content analysis and purposeful sampling. For this purpose, news headlines for one month were collected, which contained about 218 news stories from 2016-12-21 to 2017-01-19. The findings indicate that in 158 news titles (75%), rhetorical figures have been used, and only 25% of them were without rhetorical figures. Metonymy (20.25%), simile (12%) and oxymoron (11.39%) of the most used and hyperbole (63%) and allusion (63%) were the least used in news stories. Other findings include the use of slang in the news program 20:30 as a rhetorical technique to empathy with the audience. Also, the figures have been used in 2.75% of news headlines had unclear semantic relationship and made the sense difficulty. In addition, the findings showed that the rhetorical figures in the headlines were used not only for informiation, but also to shape messages or directing the audiences’ perspectives.

English abstracts are the only way through which non-speaking readers can access Persian papers, the quality of English abstracts from the viewpoint of semantic and syntax should be controlled. Adopting a linguistic framework, the present study sought to determine the linguistic and orthographic problems embedded in English abstracts of MSRT’s high ranking basic sciences journals, aiming to determine the degree to which these abstracts corresponded to ISO-214 standard for the compilation of abstracts.
The design used was a descriptive-comparative one. Twenty four MSRT high ranking journals (220 English abstracts) of sciences comprised the sample data of the study extracted from a population of 44 MSRT sciences journals.
Findings: The analysis revealed that there were 1439 errors (of 27 types) in the 220 abstracts analyzed. The error type “inappropriate use of definite article ‘the’” (198 cases, 13.75%) was the most frequent one whereas “spacing problems” (150 cases, 10.42%) and “punctuation problems” (124 cases, 8.61%) ranked second and third. Further, the adherence of the English abstracts to Iso-214 was found to be 74% (X=7.16, SD=1.34).

Persian language is the target language which imports scientific and technical words from English. Technical words are imported into Persian through borrowing, loan translations and other Persian word-formation processes. By adopting a morphological and semantic framework, the present study sought to determine the morphological and semantic problems of Persian technical terms in librarianship and information science.
This descriptive-comparative study is conducted through content analysis. 1510 Persian technical terms were compared to their English equivalents. The sample data of the study were extracted from "Vocabulary of Information & Librarianship" by Abolfazl Hashemi.
Findings: The results showed that Persian technical terms of librarianship and information science were made by the processes of syntactic groups (77/21%), derivation and compounding (18/14%), borrowing (2/98%), and finally conjunction. Clipping, acronymy, and abbreviation are not common in Persian. Some Persian technical terms of librarianship and information science suffer from duplicate redundant surface forms, ignoring lexical dependencies, ignoring lexical clusters, extreme loan-translation, deviation from Persian grammar, use of definitions rather than equivalents, missing the emotive sense of lexical items, use of long lexical forms, mismatch of word form and meaning, and ignoring equivalents approved by the Academy of Persian Language and Literature.

This paper aims at offering a series of syllabi for information literacy workshops for research staff of libraries and information centers, on the basis of the results of a research project executed by the first author of the paper entitled ' Improving information literacy skills of research staff of libraries and information centers: a case study of the research staff of Regional Information Center for Science and Technology' and information literacy competency standards for higher education. Besides, the effectiveness of the syllabi of the held information literacy workshops will be assessed. In this study, first, the level of participants’ information literacy skills was measured and then their emotional intelligence, critical thinking and creative thinking were determined because of the significant relationship between these three skills and information literacy. Second, participants were surveyed on the basis of their gender, degree level, field of study, graduation time and working experience. In addition, their prior knowledge, expertise and experience were measured. Finally, the statistical population of the study was decreased to 30 participants out of 35 after normalization. In the next phase of the study, a series of syllabi was offered by the project executor after surveying pretests. It was tried to minimize the impact of external and internal factors on this experiential research. In order to assess the effectiveness of the suggested syllabi, participants were given evaluation forms after every workshop. Finally, the post-tests showed a significant difference between information literacy skills of participants before and after their attendance in workshops. They considered these syllabi effective and advantageous. The significant relationship between pre-test and post-test scores supports the effectiveness of the suggested syllabi in improving their information literacy skills.