Journal of Research in Applied Linguistics
Volume:1 Issue: 2, Autumn 2010

Previous research has identified the nominal group as the most distinctive feature of the research article title. In contrast, the findings reported in this paper suggest Theme/Rheme is the dominant structure in title text. Theme/Rheme structures order and tie nominal groups in titles. When a title starts with a methodological term the first position nominal group acts as a theme marker. Thus, the following nominal groups yield coherence and generate summarization. This finding is based on an analysis of 347 research article titles randomly selected from 99 SSCI journals in linguistics. Focusing on titles with a research construct in first position, and using the most frequently found term, effect, as the basis for comparison, this article presents an analysis of how titles summarize content. The combination of nominal groups, Theme/Rheme, and coherence summarizes the content of the research article more effectively compared to titles that rely solely on the information packaging function of high-density nominalization.

Pink Floyd was a British band whose work began in the late 60s. Roger Waters, the main contributor of the band, wrote almost all the lyrics and was also a main figure behind producing the motion picture of the album. He deliberately attacks Western media in both the lyrics he has written for the band and his solo projects. The present study finds this tendency of assaulting the media deeply rooted in the works of Western philosophers who are known as postmodern and have skeptically scrutinized the power relations underlying such apparatuses. This study sets to approach Roger Water's oeuvre with regard to the speculations of such theorists as Benjamin, Baudrillard and McLuhan.

The goal of this study was to investigate the kinds of discourse goals thatIranian EFL learners perceive as the most probable reasons behind theutterance of figurative language, metaphors and similes, with reference to 4independent variables of Figure Type (Metaphor or Simile), TenorConcreteness (Concrete or Abstract), Context (List Format or Story), andModality (Oral, Written, and Both). The participants were presented with 16sentences, featuring both metaphors and similes, and they were asked to markas many 12 discourse goals as possible they believed to be the reasons fortheir production. The results indicated that most of the participants leanedtowards the choice of Compare Similarities for the similes as the bestcandidate for describing the intention of the writer or the speaker, signifyingthe effect of the independent variable Figure Type. The factor of Contextinfluenced the choice of the discourse goals Provoke Thought, Get Attention,Clarify, and Contrast Differences, while the factor of Modality affected onlyAdd Emphasis. Also, 3 goals of Add Interest, Clarify, and Show PositiveEmotion turned out to have significant interaction with Tenor Concreteness.

This study addresses Samuel Beckett’s most celebrated play, Waiting for Godot, in an effort to analyze its characters from a novel perspective. Since Greek mythology has been undisputedly influential on Western culture and literature, the researcher attempts to investigate a connection between Greek mythology and the play. This study aims to reveal that even after more than fifty seven years of writing criticisms, analyses, interpretations, and reviews on Beckett’s Waiting for Godot there are still some new points in this masterpiece that have not been found. Godot can be interpreted as Zeus, Pozzo as the disguised Zeus, Lucky and the Boy as Atlas and Hermes, and finally Vladimir and Estragon as the human beings living in the last years of the Golden Age. Although Beckett has not directly pronounced to be influenced by Greek Mythology, traces of mythological characters, as the researcher examines, are seen in Waiting for Godot.

It holds true that a flourishing field of Contrastive Rhetoric (CR) research has begun to address the way various text types and/or genres may differ across cultures and languages (Corner, 1996). Very much in line with this development, this study was an attempt to characterize the linguistic structures of headlines in the sports section of 2 English newspapers: one non-Iranian (The Times) and one Iranian (Tehran Times). The content analysis was based on a 3-week corpus of the headlines. The variability of syntactic and lexical features of the sample headlines in both newspapers was analyzed contrastively. The results of the qualitative and quantitative analyses of syntactic and lexical features indicated that the sports headlines of both newspapers were similar in using type of verb (dynamic and stative), headline types (verbal and nominal), voice (passive and active), tense (simple past, present, progressive, and future), and functional types (statement, question, and command), but significantly different in their quantitative use of headline types by predications (simple, complex, and compound). Besides, quantitative differences were observed in the type of modifications (premodification/postmodification), type of nouns (proper, common, and acronym) and exclamation type of headlines. The pedagogical implications of the study have been offered.

There are two common ways to assign relative importance in spoken language: tonic prominence and thematization. The former is expressing the main points of information units in speech (Halliday, 1994), and the latter is putting an element at the beginning of a clause. This study explores how relative importance is realized in English and Persian. It also investigates how advanced Persian learners of English assign it in English. 20 Persian declaratives were given to 30 Persian Native Speakers (PNSs) to assign relative importance in whatever way. Results revealed that PNSs more thematize rather than use tonic prominence. Then, the English equivalents of the 20 Persian declaratives were given to 10 English Native Speakers (ENSs). Results demonstrated that ENSs thematize more too. Finally, the same English clauses were given to 20 learners of English. Contrary to expectations, results showed their greater use of tonic prominence.

Much has been written in the past few decades about the reasons why many research articles (RAs) do not find their ways into well-established academic journals. While some doubt viable comparison between "big" English-language journals (to use Swale's 2004 words) or international journals (IJs) and "small" ones published in other local languages, there is still a good many reasons to hope for the development of a typology of factors that cause these discrepancies. Among some possible factors, one of the main reasons,, as Yakhontova (1997) notes is the writer's unawareness of the generic structure of international RAs. Having this in mind, and drawing on Kanoksilapatham (2007), Nwogu (1991), and Swales's (1990) models and using top-down and bottom-up analytic procedures, effort was made to compare the generic structure of Introduction and Discussion sections of international and Iranian local (IL) RAs in sub-disciplines of Applied Linguistics. The findings showed no significant differences regarding the obligatory Moves of Introduction section across the two corpora; however, significant differences in the Discussion section were revealed. The obtained results can help both experienced and novice researchers in order to report their research findings in a more permissible style. Moreover, this study provides researchers with better analytical tools for use in academic writing.