فهرست مطالب

Research in English Language Pedagogy
Volume:2 Issue: 2, Winter-Spring 2015

  • تاریخ انتشار: 1394/09/13
  • تعداد عناوین: 8
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  • Hamada Dawood*, Nimer A. A. Abuzahra, Mohammed Farrah Pages 7-22
    This paper aims to examine, reveal and analyse Shylock's speech in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, by connecting his words to the power, identity, and ideology in the play. The purposes of this study are to examine the effects of linguistic manipulation on power, to link language with the structure of a society, and to find the impact of a combination of different ideologies on each other. Hence, this descriptive qualitative study explores the literature to answer the aforementioned questions. What is found in this paper is that Shylock, the Jew, lacks power, Jewish ideology and Jewish identity, but when he tries to find these aspects, he fails to gain any of them. The reasons behind Shylock's failure in obtaining "the self" can be attributed to his brutal character. His insistence on the literal implementation of the bond leads to his destruction. He neglects the fact that those charged with power are able to edit the language of "his bond" the way they like. To conclude, language is one of the most influencing factors aiding in imposing power, destroying "unwanted" identities, and appropriating other's ideology by the "upper hands" in any society.
    Keywords: The Merchant of Venice, Shylock\'s Speech, Critical Discourse Analysis
  • Dr. Ali Roohani* Pages 23-35
    This study aims at investigating the linguistic representation of male and female social actors in the Four Corners 4 textbook, drawing on CDA. More specifically, van Leeuwen’s (1996) framework, which highlights the connection of linguistic and social practices, is used as the analytical framework to examine gendered social actors in this English language teaching (ELT) textbook. To this end, content analysis was done to explore the frequency and proportion of each social actor. Quantitative and qualitative data analysis showed that there were some differences, though not statistically significant, between males and females regarding substitution, individualization, and activation. Males, in contrast with females, were included more as active and famous actors in social circumstances and they were more individualized. In addition, they were more activated through circumstantialization and participation. On the other hand, the case of formalization was mostly observed for males. Moreover, males and females were distributed equally in the textbook in terms of classification, genericization, and collectivization. The results reveal that the gender bias still exists, though to a small degree, in this ELT textbook, which is taught as a substitution for the previous ELT textbooks in many language schools in Iran.
    Keywords: Critical Discourse Analysis, Social Actors, Gender, Textbook Evaluation, Four Corners
  • Farhad Ghorbandordinejad* Pages 36-45
    Individual variables in foreign language learning have received much attention in foreign language learning research in recent years. However, little research exists that has investigated the relationship between students’ levels of perfectionism and their achievements in the foreign language learning classroom settings. To bridge this gap, this study aims to answer whether there is a significant relationship between student’s levels of perfectionism and their English achievement. The population of this study is defined as all third graders (n. 239, 110 males and 129 females) who learn English in the public schools of ministry of education in a small city in the Northern Khorasan. All these students participated in the study, so the sample size includes the whole population. Participant's scores on their levels of perfectionism were measured by a questionnaire and their scores of the final English exam were also used as the measure of their English achievements. The results indicated that there isn’t any significant relationship between students’ levels of perfectionism and their achievement (F = .515, p > .05) although an association between perfectionism and academic achievement has been found in a number of previous studies, perfectionism was not proved to be of great significance in the EFL learning process in the current study. At the end, some implications for both teachers and learners, and suggestions for future research are provided.
    Keywords: Perfectionism, English language achievement, high school third grader students
  • Habibollah Mashhady*, Nasser Fallah Pages 46-61
    The present study aimed at exploring the potential relationship between language learning strategies (LLS) and factors such as major fields of study, sex, and language proficiency among university students across different fields such as medicine, sciences, engineering, humanities, and English. To this end, 200 master students were collected and tested. In addition, 25 English teachers were included. The findings showed that there was no significant difference among English students and students of other fields of study in terms of strategy use. It was also found that there was no significant relationship between language learning strategies and variables of sex, and language proficiency. Another line of the findings indicated that students enjoyed a high level of metacognitive knowledge of what they were doing. Finally, to examine how students viewed their language needs across different fields of study, the fourth-year students of medicine, engineering, science, and humanities were asked to express their own ideas about the present status of ESP courses. After analyzing the students’ responses to the questionnaire, it could be understood that ESP courses had not been beneficial because they were far away from the students’ needs and expectations.
    Keywords: Language Learning Strategies, Language Proficiency, Field of Study, Gender
  • Elahe Sadeghi*, Mohammad Hassan Tahririan Pages 63-77
    Educators have not started talking about affective factors in ESP until lately (Makrami, 2010). ESP has found its way in daily lives of a majority of people and it has also become a part of tertiary education programme in Iranian universities. However, rarely has anything been done after putting these ESP courses into work while many obstacles appear soon after putting ESP courses into practice. The current study aims to investigate the attitudes and views instructors and students hold in ESP courses. Data were gathered by interviewing instructors and students of psychology and law in Islamic Azad University, Khorasgan Branch. The results showed that crowded classes, lack of motivation and poor infrastructure are the main issues that they are dealing with. Furthermore, the need for integration of some aspects of English like pronunciation and grammar is felt in ESP courses. The findings of this study could be of help for to practitioners and material designers.
    Keywords: ESP, psychology, law, tertiary students
  • Saeed Ameri*, Khalil Ghazizadeh Pages 78-96
    This study takes a norm-based approach to analyzing the dubbing and non-professional subtitling of English swearing into Persian in an American movie. The article revolves around three main theoretical frameworks, i.e., Wajnryb (2005), Toury (1995, 2012a, 2012b), and Chesterman (1997). After analyzing the strategies in rendering the original swearing into Persian, the researchers achieved a model of four basic strategies: (a) direct translation with strong force, (b) direct translation with weak force, (c) deletion, and (d) foreignization. On the whole, the results of this research showed that both dubbed and non-professional subtitled versions were target language-oriented with deleting the original swearing as the most frequent strategy. But, the vulgarity and the degree of offensiveness of swearing in the original version were to some extent euphemized in the dubbed version. On the other hand, the non-professional subtitled version, in comparison with the dubbed version, employed more direct translation of the original swearing with strong force. The article then proceeded to delve into why these strategies were employed by the dubbed and non-professional subtitled producers, and why there were remarkable differences between the two versions. The findings provided useful information within descriptive translation studies nevertheless, they cannot be generalized since the study was limited by a relatively small corpus and utilized a non-probability sampling procedure.
    Keywords: Swearing, Translation, Dubbing, Non, Professional Subtitling, Norms, Omission
  • Ashraf Haji Maibodi* Pages 97-108
    This experimental study examined the effect of critical thinking skills on reading English novels and its influence on EFL learners reading proficiency. For the purpose of this study participants in addition to their text book read and received instructions on the unabridged short novels for one semester. Sixty Iranian EFL junior undergraduates participated in this study and were randomly divided to two groups of thirty each. To test the hypothesis, two independent t-tests were conducted to see the difference between the two groups. The results of the study showed that students in group A were more critically oriented than their counterparts in group B. The pedagogical implication of this study suggests that direct instruction in critical thinking has an impact on EFL learners’ reading proficiency. This article is intended to help teachers who are interested in developing and encouraging critical thinking in their language classrooms. EFL learners need to learn how to establish realistic goals, monitor their own learning and reflect and challenge their own attitudes so that they may get closer to the idea of being good language learners. The findings of this study revealed that there was a significant improvement in students’ attitudes, confidence, and interest especially, in their novel-reading ability.
    Keywords: Critical thinking, Critical literacy, Reading proficiency, English novels, Language awareness
  • Sahar Najarzadegan*, Azizollah Dabaghi Pages 109-118
    Nonverbal communication (NVC) plays a highly important role in different aspects of human life. Regarding teachers, however, it is more important, and they should be very cautious about what type of NVC they use and how they perform it in their teaching process. While practical tangible teaching techniques driven from nonverbal behaviors can help English language teachers incorporate this essential element into their classrooms, little attention has been given to this area. This article tries to shed light on the often neglected, unexplored area of research concerning nonverbal communication. It begins by mentioning the indispensable role of NVC in the communicative process and then explaining different forms and functions of these NVBs, attempt has been made to incorporate those NVCs into language classes and give some practical techniques to be considered in the classrooms, in order for the learners to be as Pennycook (1985) puts it «not only bilingual but also bi- kinesics».
    Keywords: Nonverbal Communication (NVC), Nonverbal Behavior (NVB), Kinesics