Journal of Research in Applied Linguistics
Volume:2 Issue: 1, Spring 2011

Aptness, defined as how the vehicle is well able to cover the salient features of the tenor (e.g., oil is like liquid gold vs. a train is like a worm), is claimed to be an important factor in the preference for metaphors over similes, or vice versa. This study was an attempt to test for the supposed correlation between the perceived degree of aptness and a priori stylistic preference for metaphors and similes by Iranian L2 learners. Participants, aged 20-25, were selected from 80 EFL Translation undergraduates. In the first place, they were asked to read 2 alternative lists of the same sentences (lists A and B) and to rate each sentence as to its appropriateness by filling in a number between 2 endpoints of 1 (very inappropriate) and 7 (very appropriate). In the second place, they were invited to consider the 2 alternative forms of the same sentence and to say which one they preferred: the metaphor or the simile form. Results revealed no such strong or moderate relationship between the perceived mean aptness ratings and the mean preference scores for the simile and metaphor versions (r = -0.014 for the metaphors; r = 0.014 for the similes). All things considered, the perceived degree of aptness failed to predict the stylistic preference for metaphors and similes. This comes to the rejection of the validity of the claim put forth by Chiappe and Kennedy (1999) regarding the predictive power of aptness to inform the preference of metaphors and similes by Iranian L2 learners.

The concept of teacher efficacy has received significant attention in educational contexts in the recent years and has been empirically probed at 2 levels: individual teacher efficacy and collective teacher efficacy. Having their origins in the social cognitive theory, teacher and collective efficacy perceptions are quite distinct constructs, each affecting educational decisions and student achievement particularly. Furthermore, teacher efficacy is a context and culture specific construct rarely investigated in an ELT context. The current study explored the relationship between collective teacher efficacy and teacher self-efficacy as well as its3 subcomponents, that is, efficacy for classroom management, efficacy for student engagement, and efficacy for instructional strategies in the ELT context of Iran. Moreover, this study was an attempt to discover which of the factors/subscales of teacher self-efficacy accounts for most of the variance observed in collective teacher efficacy. Data were collected from 90 English instructors through Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy‘s (2001) Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES) and Goddard‘s (2002) Collective Teacher Efficacy Scale (CTES) questionnaires. Informal interviews were also held to tap more into different teacher efficacy aspects. Correlation analysis illustrated no significant relationship between the English instructors‘ collective teacher efficacy and teacher self-efficacy as well as its3 subscales. Furthermore, multiple regression analysis indicated that none of the 3 subscales of teacher self-efficacy was a strong predictor of collective teacher efficacy.

Although the use of metaphorical markers in corpora has been studied to a large extent (e.g., Glucksberg & Keysar 1993; Skorczynska & Deignan, 2006; Sznjder, 2005), no attempt—to the best of the researchers‘ knowledge—has been made to describe metaphorical marking in a comparative analysis of 2 corpora in both national and international journals of applied linguistics in Iran. The gap envisaged has prompted the researchers to formulate the hypothesis that metaphorical marking may vary in different registers, as metaphor performs a variety of discourse functions. The present study, thus, aimed at showing the possible differences or similarities between published articles in Iranian and international journals of applied linguistics with regard to metaphorical markers, as classified and defined by Goatly (1997), in a data-driven study of articles with the Introduction, Method, Result, and Discussion (IMRD) sections. In order to identify the possible differences or similarities among the journals, the frequency and the percentage of each marker in each journal were obtained. The results indicated that: (1) All the markers, more or less, were used in both groups of journals, (2) the frequencies of explicit markers, superordinate terms, and misperception terms were less than other metaphorical markers, and (3) the frequencies of using markers in the international journals were more than the Iranian journals, although they were used in similar ways in both groups of journals.

Every language involves friendly and polite as well as hostile and impolite situations in which language users have to use the context-appropriate language. However, unlike politeness which has generated a great number of studies, few studies have been conducted on impoliteness especially in EFL contexts. The present study aimed to see whether language learners and teachers hold the same idea concerning teaching impoliteness in an Iranian EFL context. One hundred EFL learners and 70 EFL teachers were surveyed through a questionnaire. The results indicated that the language learners and teachers differed significantly in their attitudes towards most of the issues related to impoliteness. However, gender was not a determining factor in this regard, as the only aspect of impoliteness in which gender made a significant difference was the level of proficiency deemed appropriate for teaching impoliteness.

This study examined the effect of explicit instruction of hedging on English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) reading comprehension performance of English Language Learning (ELL) university students. A reading comprehension test was developed and validated as the pretest and the posttest. The test, including items for assessing the comprehension of the students in their area of specialization, was administered to 180 undergraduates (B.S.), of whom 100 students were selected and randomly assigned to experimental and control conditions. Then, all the participants attended 10 sessions of awareness-raising treatment. During the first 3 sessions, the participants in the experimental condition were instructed on the essential meaning of a hedge, as well as the types and functions of hedging devices. The next sessions focused on the practical use of these markers as they appear in academic texts. After the treatment, the test was again given to the same students as the post-test. The results of two t tests and a two-way ANOVA provided empirical support for the facilitative effect of explicit instruction in recognizing hedging devices that improved their language proficiency and therefore improved their reading comprehension scores.

This study is an attempt at a colonial and postcolonial reading of Joseph Conrad‘s Lord Jim. It is specifically focused on the narrative strategies used in the novel. In other words, it investigates the connection between the narrative strategy and a possible tone of imperialism in Conrad‘s novel. For the introduction, a brief review of Conrad‘s manner of writing and his peculiar ambiguity is presented. Then, there is an analysis of the overall politics in Lord Jim. Finally, the study considers the employment of narrative devices and several narrative voices in Lord Jim. It goes on to distinguish between Marlow (the character-narrator of the story), the frame narrator, and other voices in the novel in order to shed light on the narrative structure and its relation to the colonialist discourse in the novel. In parallel with this examination, Conrad‘s role as the writer, as reflected in Marlow‘s voice and other voices, is analyzed to see where he might stand in the narration of Lord Jim.

For us, readers of Chaucer living in an age when appeal to religious passions and sentiments as a means for the realization of worldly objectives by some charlatans has grown significantly, reviewing the theme of religious hypocrisy treated in The Canterbury Tales can be useful in a way that it proves a helpful means for recognizing and dealing with the hypocrites. The Pardoner of the Tales is definitely and consensually the most horrible hypocrite character in English literature, and this is evident from both the narrator‘s description of this character in the General Prologue and in his own self-confession in the prologue to his tale. Accordingly, the hypocrisy of the Pardoner has been a matter of debates and discussions from the very beginning of critical tradition on this character and his tale. The basic view of this critical tradition, however, is that in dealing with the hypocrisy of the Pardoner and in creating this character, Chaucer has drawn on different literary and theological sources. The first part of this study is an attempt to trace instances of the influence of Biblical definition of the word hypocrisy and biblical description of hypocrites in the character of the Pardoner. In the second part, the presence of traces of the Antichrist tradition with hypocrisy as a major attribute of the Antichrist figure will be treated in this character.