فصلنامه مطالعات زبان و ترجمه
سال پنجاه و پنجم شماره 1 (بهار 1401)

The advent of radio and the ability to send audio messages to distant parts of the earth have turned this medium into an opportunity for informing and advertising. That is the reason why global media services began to work rapidly, especially during World War II. Translation is the main pillar of the World Service Channels. Radio Pars Today, affiliated with IRIB World Service channels, has been very active in translating various cultural, political and economic texts into 30 languages, especially after the Islamic Revolution. It has however received lesser scholarly attention because it only sends auditory messages. The current case study presents the researcher’s personal accounts and experiences during his presence in Radio Pars Today and analyzes the role and position of translation in intercultural communication and pinpoints the difficulties of cultural translation. The statical population of the research includes Pars Today’s political and cultural programs and the sample was purposefully selected for the analysis. The results show that translation is the main communicative factor in international media services and translating cultural-specific references is of difficulty due to historical and linguistic differences between the languages. Figurative concepts, metaphors and Islamic terms were the main area of difficulty for translation. Choosing wrong translation equivalents, along with using literal translation can prevent the audience from decoding the foreign message. This is also the case of direct transfer of the original structures and genres, which are sometimes unfamiliar to the audience. Therefore, the unit of translation is not “word” or “sentence” but culture, when it comes to cultural translation.

In recent years, teachers’ professional identity has been considered the core of their professional development. In line with this novel approach, this study aimed at constructing and validating a questionnaire to assess EFL prospective teachers’ professional identity. Through a comprehensive review of related literature and previously-validated scales, the most common subscales and items were carefully identified. After assuring reliability and content validity of the initial questionnaire, a convenience sample of of 186 prospective teachers majoring in teaching English as a foreign language filled out the questionnaire. The results of the confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses indicated that the professional identity of the target group consists of seven components, namely, task orientation (6 items), professional commitment (4 items), self-concept (7 items), self-efficacy (5 items), career motivation (9 items), job attachment (5 items) and collective identity (4 items). Therefore, the validated questionnaire can be used for assessing EFL prospective teachers’ professional identity. This questionnaire can be used as a suitable instrument to assess the professional identity of applicants to teacher education programs and assess the formation and evolution of the professional identity in the target group from admission to graduation.

Interdisciplinary research is becoming increasingly important in academia. Language teaching has also an interdisciplinary nature, and modern theories can be applied for better development of language teaching. The present descriptive study has been conducted on the application of chaos theory to French language teaching in Iran. Two research questions motived this study, namely, how teaching French language can be defined in light of chaos/complexity theory and how chaos/complexity theory can constructively contribute to the development of French language teaching in Iran. First, the principles of chaos/complexity theory were nailed down and their application in language teaching was examined. To investigate to what extent the theory can be applied to foreign language teaching in Iran, fifteen French language classes in language institutes located in Tehran were observed. The results showed that recent approaches of language teaching cover some principles of the chaos/complexity theory, including complexity, dynamics and nonlinear approach in French language classrooms. However, the Iranian system of French language class remains a closed and predictable system that has a negative impact on class performance. Additionally, to properly apply this theory to the language classroom, measures should be taken to raise awareness of education systems and educators of dynamics, flexibility, and sensitivity of the language classroom.

Given the differences between first language and second language learning in adults, simulating first language learning can help us have an improved picture of the nature of second language learning. During first language learning, we learn the concepts in our interactions with the immediate environment. In second language learning, however, the relevant world knowledge is transferred from the first language and we only learn the word knowledge. Thus, in the current study, we sought to simulate first language learning and introduce the null experimental research method with its roots in the emotioncy model. This research method applies to those studies in which adult language learners deal with some concepts that they have no knowledge about and begin to learn them in the class. Reviewing the conventional research methods, we explained the null experimental research method and provided an example from an electroencephalography (EEG) experiment. The behavioral and electrophysiological results revealed that, as we have more interactions with the sensory environment, the retrieval of word knowledge and world knowledge is facilitated.

In the Iranian Constitutional Revolution period, intellectuals played an important role in the creation of changes in the society, and to some degree translation and writing accomplished this mission. There has been much research concerning the role of translation in transferring the contemporary modernity in the Iranian Constitutional Revolution. Yet, the research has failed to offer a translational account of this issue. To fill this gap, it is advisable to examine the issue of modernity from a translation perspective, hence a cross-comparison of translations with original texts can yield new insights. Drawing on Skopos theory and the discourse of modernity, the present investigation attempts to examine modernity in Gil Blas, the novel by Alain-René Lesage along with its translation by Habib Esfahani. The results of the study suggest that despite the important role of translation in igniting some changes, the translation failed to have a successful performance in complete and accurate transfer of modernity ideas.

IELTS tests measure English knowledge of candidates who wish to work, live or pursue their studies in English-speaking countries according to the most valid international standards for testing. Using a survey method, this study aimed to examine learning and efficiency of IELTS academic tests administered in 22 Asian countries in order to present an interactive model. To this end, the receptive skills of reading and listening and the productive skills of speaking and writing were identified. The required data for this study consisted of relevant documents on accessible databases and the research sample was identified through purposive sampling. The results indicate that there is a significant correlation between the four skills of the IELTS exam. The findings of the present study also show that Iran and India have the same mean scores in terms of the IELTS test, and the mean scores of Malaysia are much higher than those of Iran and India in 2018. In order to provide a comprehensive and extensible model of English language learning, the speaking skill as a productive skill plays a vital important and effective role among other four skills in IELTS academic tests and it affects how the learner learns other skills of the test. Overall, integrating the main four language skills is recommended for English classes.

There are numerous films that the director or scriptwriter decides to use bilingual characters in them. Moreover, a foreign language may be observed because of shooting a film in a foreign country. In this case, the translator and the dubbing team may face difficulties. The aim of the present study is to examine the translation strategies in multilingual films. To this end, 713 minutes from six films were scrutinized to gather all the third language instances based on Zabalbeascoa and Corrius’s (2014) model. Then, their counterpart translations were extracted from the dubbed versions and classified based on Corrius and Zabalbeascoa’s (2019) model. The results revealed that the third language was maintained in most cases. In this sense, the character’s voice was repeated or the voice actor read the phonological translation. The results could be useful for translator trainees to become familiar with the possible translation strategies in multilingual films. Moreover, further research on this issue can improve dubbing quality, at least at linguistic level. However, further investigations are demanded to have a comprehensive list of possible alternatives for dubbing or subtitling multilingual films.