پژوهش نامه انتقادی متون و برنامه های علوم انسانی
پیاپی 98 (دی 1400)

Given the significant role of quantitative data in theory building in language assessment, the need for a book covering data analysis methods is strongly felt. The two-volume book, Quantitative Data Analysis for Language Assessment (Fundamental Techniques and Advanced Methods), edited by Vahid Aryadoust and Michelle Raquel and published by Routledge fills this gap. The first volume entitled Quantitative Data Analysis for Language Assessment: Fundamental Techniques was published in 2019, and the second volume by the title of Quantitative Data Analysis for Language Assessment: Advanced methods was published in 2020. The present study is critical in goal, qualitative in methodology, and emergent in analysis. The book is comprehensive in scope and content, includes high-quality, well-written chapters follows a coherent style of writing, and is rich in the number of quantitative data analysis methods. The book has some limitations, including inexplicitness of criteria for selection of quantitative data methods and failure to include more common traditional methods. The book can generate further research in this subfield of applied linguistics, expand the subfield, and contribute to theory building in language assessment. Postgraduate students, L2 assessment practitioners, and researchers are strongly advised to read this invaluable edited book.

The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were the time for the formation of new schools of art in Europe. The rise of realism was the result of fundamental changes in the understanding of the world and a fundamental revision of the relationship between man and the world. In post-labor Europe, the approach of writers and poets, previously based on reason (classics) or on individual fantasies (romantics), changes dramatically and the individual's confrontation with his surroundings became the main subject of this literary school. Realism portrayed the collective feelings and realities around it. This literary school was divided into different branches, including magical realism, bourgeois, critical, surrealism, and so on. The traces of this literary school are also evident in the works of Iranian writers. Iran underwent fundamental political, social, and cultural changes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Therefore, literary movements in Iran have undergone important changes.  Following the Constitutional Revolution, land reform, the entry of the printing industry, translation of literary works, etc., the language and style of writing in Iran changed. Folk, fluent, simple, and humorous language replaced the court and official language. Short stories, footnotes, and socio-historical novels replaced didactic literature and mystical theology.

A look into the history of the literature of the ancient nations reveals that epics are the most fundamental works. Major role players of such epics are the heroes who have their roots in the unconscious beings of a collection of human beings and their existence provides a response to man’s wishes, aspirations, and needs. Therefore, hero-making is a phenomenon well inside man’s innate. The Indo-European tribes and then Iranians and Germans are no exception. This has resulted in such glorious epics as `Shahnameh’ and ` The Song of the Nibelungs.’ `This book has a special status in German Literature. The valuable work marks the national treasure and cultural heritage of the German language. This study tries to draw a critique and investigate the book in order to contribute to its better and more identification while encouraging Persian language scholars and literary figures to read the work. This research is the first in its kind to briefly introduce of “The Song of the Nibelungs”. After providing a concise summary of the story, this study explains concepts of the episode and epic and related history. Then while offering a careful investigation of the issue, this study criticizes the structure and content of this epic and identifies the episodic and historical elements of the work.

Quality assessment of literary texts translation has always been irregular since some theorists believe that faithful translation to the original text is impossible. Therefore, through time, various theories for literary texts assessment have been created. In this paper with the comparative study of the value system of Lorca's "The moon" romance discourse and its Persian translation by Shamloo, has been emphasized the importance of discourse and context in the analysis and translation of literary texts, via investigating the factors such as assumption, previous background, utterances, the principle of cooperation, connection and coherence and theme. Besides, it has been shown that to what extent the translator could remain faithful to the source text by observing the discourse and context of the target language; as in this way Shamloo in the translation of “The moon” romance, has preserved all the linguistic coherence and also established rhetorical coherences except in one case. Therefore, by assuming that we know the necessity of paying attention to the discourse and context of the source-language and target-language in translation, Shampoo’s translation of “The moon” romance could be considered a faithful translation to the original text.

One of the poems of Armaghan-e- Hejaz collection is "Majlis-e- Iblis". Iqbal's famous poem, which is generally taught in master's courses in Urdu language and literature. In this poem, Allama Iqbal has well exposed the conspiracies of the devilish system against Muslims. Explaining and studying the content of this system not only exposes the sinister intentions of the enemies of Islam, but also it articulates the weaknesses of Muslims. In addition, Iqbal's thoughts and philosophy are well expressed and the art of Allama Iqbal is that he has succeeded well to express a subject with such seriousness beautifully in poetic language and that the audience remains influenced by its content and form for a long time. Certainly, Iqbal's stay in England and the study of philosophy and thought played the most important role in prevailing the philosophical and political circles of that country, in preparing him to find out problems and difficulties of the Islamic world and effective factors in causing these problems and difficulties during his intellectual maturity. He composed such a poem in perfect beauty.

The present article reviews and examines the methods of teaching Russian motion verbs and provides quality strategies for teaching this category of the Russian language in our country's universities within the framework of the Russian language teaching course as a foreign language. The results of the present article, which are the result of studying new methods of teaching the Russian language, show that one of the most important measures that should be done by the teacher, especially at the beginning of the teaching, is to create a correct and objective image of Russian language as a foreign language and goals. The main thing is in the minds of language learners. Learners should know from the beginning that the language they are about to learn, especially at the beginning, will be slightly different from the languages ​​of the languages ​​in which it is considered their mother tongue. Therefore, in the present article, based on the teaching of motion verbs in the Russian language and the many problems that language learners have in the practical and applied learning of this language category, qualitative solutions to the teaching of motion verbs are proposed. The research method in this article is descriptive and analytical and it uses the data and results of teaching methods used in lesson sessions related to teaching motion verbs over several years.

“Johnson and Sa’di: Two Intimate Strangers”, written by Helen Ouliaeinia, is a very useful work in the realm of Persian-English comparative literature. It deals with the unorthodox structural and thematic similarities (and somehow differences) between Johnson’s The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia and S’adi's Golestan. She tries to show documentarily that Johnson’s Rasselas has been probably influenced both structurally and thematically by the great Persian poet and writer Sa’di of Shiraz. The present book falls within the realm of the French school of comparative literature, especially “influence studies”. The present paper is composed of three major sections. The first section introduces the author and his seminal book. The second part tries to discuss the book in terms of formal features. Here, typographical errors and some stylistic shortcomings are highlighted. The last section deals with the content of the book. At the end of this part, some points are suggested to enrich the text. To sum up, it is too difficult to accept the author’s claims about Johnsons’ influences.

After around three decades of implementing the BA program in English translator training approved in 1990 which was accompanied by many serious criticisms, finally, in 2017, its revised version was approved and implemented. This revised program first aims at enhancing the students' language skills and their translation competence and then making the major more specialized. Due to the importance of this considerable revision, in this paper, the researchers attempted to study and evaluate the program through the attitudes of ten faculty members from seven universities offering this major. The findings revealed that in their opinion, while the program has been considerably improved regarding some factors such as integrating up-to-date courses, paying attention to applied and local needs, attending to the Persian language, paying attention to new technologies and introducing various new references, it suffers from some weaknesses with regard to some courses, their syllabi, the proposed sources, and the prerequisites. In their opinion, with such weaknesses, the program will face challenges both in the process of its implementation and in achieving its aims.

The present research aimed at analyzing the book “Principles and Methodology of Translation” in terms of its formal characteristics, content, and methodology, using the critical library research method in general and McDonough, Shaw, and Masuhara’s (2013) textbook evaluative framework in particular. The findings showed that, despite the groundbreaking nature of the book, in terms of the methodology, the book does not adhere to any one linguistic theory in a systematic way, and that it presents some concepts in a rather food-recipe fashion. Content-wise, the book does not offer any big picture of the science and practice of translation, its domain, and history. Some suggestions are finally made in an attempt to enhance the quality of the book.

The introduction of “The Idea of Literature. From ‘Art for Art’s Sake’ to Writings That Intervene”, the last book by Alexandre Gefen, starts with dedicating the Nobel Prize in Literature to Bob Dylan in 2016 that caused controversial reactions. In Gefen's view, the reason for all these disagreements is the restrictive and aesthetic perception of the concept of literature which has dominated literary critique and theories in academic places from the nineteenth centuriy. In accordance with his previous works, he talks about the revival of literature and the necessity to redefine of the idea of literature, opposing all those who have been shouting for crises of discredit, decay, or even death of contemporary literature, since the beginning of the twenty-first century. In this book, he tries to present a descriptive approach of Contemporary Activist Literature and uses countless references to sources to confront it with autonomous and self-reflective literature in six areas. This essay is first trying to explore the Gefen's functionalist conception of contemporary literature which is very American and then compare it with the ideas of other scholars to find out the implications of Gefen's approach to literature, including the emergence of forms of moral criticism and ideological censorship.

English for academic purposes materials primarily focus on developing and enhancing the university students’ reading skills. The current study aimed to evaluate and compare the reading comprehension questions in the old and new generations of EAP textbooks published by SAMT. To this end, the reading comprehension questions in ten EAP textbooks (five old and five new) were identified and categorized in light of Freeman’s (2014) taxonomy. The results indicated that almost half of the questions were related to the Content category in the old textbooks while the highest frequency in the new ones belonged to the Language questions. Moreover, Lexical and Implicit comprehension types were the most frequent questions in both old and new textbooks. With regard to the Affect category, the evaluation type was the most common one. The results of Chi-square tests also revealed a significant difference between old and new EAP textbooks in terms of the frequency of content and language questions while no significant difference was found considering the effect questions. The findings of the current study carry pedagogical implications for EAP course design and material development.

Administrative correspondence is one of the standard Persian languages that has its own writing characteristics in terms of vocabulary, fixed structural and style stereotypes. Teaching such a style of language use, especially teaching language as a foreign language (based on the example of teaching Persian to Russian speakers in the subject of research) has its own characteristics and methodological solutions. Reading and translating the text of Persian administrative correspondence has difficulties for Russian speakers because of the following reasons: first, the tendency towards Arabicism in correspondence, second, the change of the meaning of some Arabic words adopted in Persian, and third, the characteristic of flattery extremism as an expression of politeness in Persian correspondence. All these reasons have made it more difficult for foreigners to read and understand the basic text of administrative and commercial correspondence. Although the book "Persian Language - Correspondence and Business Documents" written by Habib Najafov,  is a valuable treasure of the collection of administrative and commercial correspondence between Iran and the Soviet Union / Russian Federation, at the same time it has its drawbacks and the absence of a Persian-language editor in reviewing the texts of the "conversation" section, the use of incorrect stylistic applications in the language under the influence of frequent errors of Persian speakers, teaching the use of words in the language, which have become obsolete, such as "concerning the superiors" are some of them.

In this article, while examining Chekhov's latest story entitled "The Lady Bride", the author's views on the issue of women in the last stages of her literary development are examined. To understand Chekhov in this regard, one must be aware of the historical context in which the work was created. Also, while examining the story, the symbolism of the name of the work and the name of its hero, the special fate of the hero and the reason for the open end of the story have been examined. Chekhov created the story at a time when Russia was undergoing rapid changes and it was time to open new doors to the future, but there was still no clear vision for the future, yet the author hoped for a young force and its impact on the country's destiny. And this issue is quite visible in his latest work. The present study answers the question of who is Chekhov's ideal female heroine. Chekhov's ideal female protagonist was different from other Russian writers. If at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Decembrist women who went into exile with their husbands were considered the ideal women of Russia, in the late nineteenth century, women who were able to determine their own destiny were the ideal women of society.

Globalization has led to changes in the conceptual meaning of culture, one of which is the perception of people towards language in EFL contexts. Critical evaluation of teaching materials is a vital step in improving the status of the books, especially for the future. Therefore, the current study aims to evaluate the English book entitled "Prospect 2" in terms of its cultural aspects. This newly-published book is used to teach English for 8th graders in Iran. In this study, experienced English teachers in Hamedan were interviewed, using Kilickaya's (2004) questions. The results were qualitatively analyzed using Dörnyei's (2007) model. The results revealed that this book is localized to a considerable degree, and the cultural aspects of the book are about the local culture of Iran. Consequently, considering the interrelationship between language and culture, totally omitting the cultural features of the language would lead to incomplete knowledge of th

Among the books of Amir Khosrow Dehlavi, the famous Indian thinker and writer, there is a book that has serious differences with his other works, and it is really brilliant. This book is called " Dolarani and Khezer Khan ", despite its great cultural and social significance, it is an anonymous work in Iran. In this work, Amir Khosrow, while telling a love story, has briefly narrated how Islam was spread and expanded by the kings of the Ghori dynasty in India. There are important sources from the spread of Islam to Iran, but perhaps we have read and heard less about its spread to other countries, especially those with strong indigenous and patriotic civilizations. In this work, while narrating one of the Indian emotional stories, special attention is paid to the changed social, political and even cultural conditions of that time in India. The purpose of this study is to introduce and recognize this lesser known but important work, and to recognize the content by emphasizing its social paradigms. Documentary and library methods have been used to obtain the results. Findings show us that the new religion has changed some of the beliefs, traditions and social rituals of the people of that land, such as marriage in a Muslim way, attention to marriage and family formation within a group, and so on.

Joseph Conrad’s novella “Heart of Darkness ‘(1899) is one of the most important literary writings in English literature. Due to its main theme of colonial issues in the African country Congo, the work has given rise to various debates and opinions to date. Some believe that Conrad’s text bears anti-colonialist discourse, whereas others stand against it. In this study, the researcher argues that Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” is a colonial text which confirms the ideology and policy of European colonialism, especially the British one. In this regard, by using new historicist intertextual reading and critical views of eminent post-colonial critics, the researcher attempts to determine and examine the novella’s racist discourse in order to draw the conclusion that Conrad’s text is part of the European colonialist system. By misrepresenting and marginalizing Africa and its natives, Conrad has created a terrifying and unpleasant image of non-European lands and peoples to acknowledge the necessity of their colonization.

This paper is an introduction and a critical review of the book “Genki” a two-volume book for elementary education of the Japanese language which was first published in 1999 and republished in 2011 and 2020. The book has been used in many universities and language teaching centers around the world, especially in recent years. This study is an attempt to identify the strengths and weaknesses of this textbook. This critical assessment is carried out from visual and content-based aspects using Razi’s (2009) evaluation criteria. The overall conclusion of this study showed that “Genki”, which is the result of a collaboration between a group of Japanese language teaching professionals and teachers, has many strengths and advantages, but while having the strengths, the book suffers from a few shortcomings that if eliminated in future editions, it can be used as a relatively reliable educational source that has the potential to attract the positive attention of many Japanese language teachers and students, especially those who choose to study English independently on a self-study basis.

When Reynold Alleyne Nicholson mentioned some similarities between Dante's Divine Comedy and Sanā’ī’s Seyr al-‘ebād in his article "A Persian forerunner of Dante", the belief that Dante has been influenced, in the creation of his eternal work, by the Sanai’s opus came into some minds. The publication of the famous book of Spanish scholar Miguel Asin Palacios La escatologia musulmana en la «Divina Comedia» and the discovery of two old Latin and French manuscripts of Prophet Muhammad`s Me’rāj  (Liber scalae Machometi) in the Oxford library and the National Library of Paris fortified this belief. The approach of this research, which differentiates it from similar studies, is analyzing briefly the contribution of Arabic, Latin, and Persian sources that have influenced diachronically the two mentioned works. On the other hand, the emphasis of the present article, contrary to the similar works, does not affect the similarities or differences in the thematic structure of these two works, but we tried to analyze the most important sources that produced similar or identical themes in the works of both authors.