Bahram Behin
Volume 11, Issue 1 , April 2023, , Pages 1-4
Abstract
I came across this hypothetical exchange on the Net the other day: “Q: Why is linguistics important? / A: Linguistics helps us understand our world.” With my personal interest in the significance of everyday life and the real world in our education, as a response to the exchange, I immediately ...
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I came across this hypothetical exchange on the Net the other day: “Q: Why is linguistics important? / A: Linguistics helps us understand our world.” With my personal interest in the significance of everyday life and the real world in our education, as a response to the exchange, I immediately started contemplating the meaning of the world, and especially of ‘our world’ in the exchange. “Do we have a common world to call it ‘our world’”? “How big is this world?” “What aspects of it are we supposed to understand by means of linguistics?” “What is meant by ‘understanding the world’?” My assumption is that those behind the hypothetical exchange should be ready to answer such questions, regardless of whether the answers are agreeable or not. But what matters in this regard is that such general statements as “Linguistics helps us understand our world” should be rendered in the direction of the concretization of findings so that all scientific endeavours may turn out to be fruitful in the context of our everyday lives in the real world.
Bahram Behin
Volume 9, Issue 2 , October 2021, , Pages 1-2
Abstract
Dear JALDA ReaderThe job being done by the young and zealous members of the team behind The Journal of Applied Linguistics and Applied Literature can be regarded as a reflection of what happens generally in Iran in relation to English language. With a fire of enthusiasm burning inside young adults ...
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Dear JALDA ReaderThe job being done by the young and zealous members of the team behind The Journal of Applied Linguistics and Applied Literature can be regarded as a reflection of what happens generally in Iran in relation to English language. With a fire of enthusiasm burning inside young adults in Iran to reach out to the world in its colourful facets for several purposes, it is quite visible how there has been a rush to learn English in different walks of society. The enthusiasm taken to the academic level results in the determination to contribute to the field by any decent means available. Launching a new journal with goals resulting from the context of culture and the context of situation is a demanding endeavour that has proved to be a major means of contribution to the field and its context-oriented causes. Our Journal with the ups and downs it has experienced throughout its rather short life is now in a position that shows its potential to reach excellence, especially with reference to the great number of research articles that it receives both nationally and internationally from scholars in the fields of applied linguistics and applied literature. All this is actually the consequence of the hard work that the young team behind the Journal has already done. It should not be an exaggeration if I dare say that one could see degrees of “the agony and sweat of the human spirit” in my young colleagues working for the Journal; they really deserve a big round of applause, then!
1. Applied Linguistics (Language Teaching and Learning)
Jalil Yazdankhah; Bahram Behin; Mohammad Hossein Yousefi; Hassan Asadollahfam
Abstract
Adopting a qualitative design, the present study investigated Iranian EFL teachers’ attitudes toward critical thinking as well as its role in language teaching. To meet these objectives, 36 EFL teachers were selected through purposeful sampling as the participants of the study. For the purpose ...
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Adopting a qualitative design, the present study investigated Iranian EFL teachers’ attitudes toward critical thinking as well as its role in language teaching. To meet these objectives, 36 EFL teachers were selected through purposeful sampling as the participants of the study. For the purpose of the data collection, in-depth interviews, focus group interviews, and teachers’ narratives were utilized. To assure the trustworthiness of the data, several measures have been taken. The lead author conducted the in-depth as well as focus group interviews and elicited teachers’ narratives. The interviews were conducted in Persian language and the whole procedures were audiotaped. The data were transcribed verbatim and after member checking the data with the participants, they were translated into English. The data were analyzed through thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). To assure inter coder reliability, coding the data was done by the second and third authors independently. The third and fourth authors were involved in finding the potential themes and sub-themes. Finally, five themes of efficiency, intelligence, change, success and initiation were generated as a result of the data analysis. The present study revealed that the participants emphasized some fundamental building blocks of critical thinking. The participant teachers also advocated critical thinking - focused programs in teacher education as well as its application in language teaching. The study has a number of implications for language pedagogy, teacher education and policy makers.
Bahram Behin
Abstract
In this editorial, the segregationalist view of academic disciplines is criticized and the transdisciplinary nature of studies in language education is highlighted. No doubt knowledge of teaching methods, such as those invented according to the expertise in the 70s and 80s, for instance, can be regarded ...
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In this editorial, the segregationalist view of academic disciplines is criticized and the transdisciplinary nature of studies in language education is highlighted. No doubt knowledge of teaching methods, such as those invented according to the expertise in the 70s and 80s, for instance, can be regarded as tools in a teacher’s workshop, but they seem rather outdated in the frenzy of rapid changes the world is experiencing. Today’s need in knowledge, from a rather Arnoldian perspective, is not mechanical knowledge; what is needed is getting closer to people and study them within the context of culture and context of situation, elements which are not regarded as stable anymore and without which any study would be a decontextualized event meaningless to the proponents of cultural turns. An interesting point in this topic is that in Arnold’s view of culture our knowledge of culture should result in knowledge of ourselves and of the world. In the same vein, Kumaravadivelu should take the first step in the formulation of his model for language teacher education towards determining a sense of Self, the concept of “teacher identity” in his model. And if for Arnold literature is the best that has been thought and said in the world, the concept “disciplinarity” in English language education should change and give way to “interdisciplinarity”, “transdisciplinartiy”, or any term or concept that would bring in the complexities of the world to the field.
Bahram Behin
Abstract
A new vocabulary item has been added to English dictionaries: Covid-19. For linguists, the addition of a meaningful linguistic element to any language should change the whole language as, for T. S. Eliot, a new poem changes the whole literature of a nation. But let us see how seriously the addition of ...
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A new vocabulary item has been added to English dictionaries: Covid-19. For linguists, the addition of a meaningful linguistic element to any language should change the whole language as, for T. S. Eliot, a new poem changes the whole literature of a nation. But let us see how seriously the addition of the vocabulary item Covid-19 might change the English language. According to Cambridge online dictionary, Covid-19 is “an infectious disease caused by a coronavirus (= a type of virus), that usually causes fever, tiredness, and a cough, and can also cause breathing problems. I do not think that the change brought about by the item is a radical one especially when the definition claims that most often the disease caused by the virus is not serious! (I wonder whether there is a Newspeak type conspiracy going on!) But when one turns to the “real world,” the situation turns out to be extremely serious: Not only has Covid-19 brought the whole world almost to a total stop, but it has also been the cause of many deaths all over the world. People have died, families have lost their breadwinners, doctors and nurses have been affected and died while on duty and we are still on the verge of being affected by the virus everyday if the necessary safety measures are not taken. Millions have lost their jobs and economies are on the verge of collapse. Governments are keen to see their state enemies crush under the heavy burdens by Covid-19 upon their economies and medical systems! Schools are shut down and much more other factual events can be added to these, all of which lead many to claim that in the post-Covid-19 era peoples’ behaviours should change.
Bahram Behin
Abstract
According to Patrick Colm Hogan, in the US academic context, few people in literary theory or comparative literature have much familiarity with non-Western literary theories, and fewer still have research expertise in the field. While working on a project in non-Western literary theory, he was surprised ...
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According to Patrick Colm Hogan, in the US academic context, few people in literary theory or comparative literature have much familiarity with non-Western literary theories, and fewer still have research expertise in the field. While working on a project in non-Western literary theory, he was surprised to find that many of his friends and colleagues found it difficult to understand what non-Western literary theory might be. And when he explained that by non-Western theory he meant theory before European colonialism, he was, more often than not, faced with looks of blank incomprehension. Hogan blames ethnocentrism for this blank incomprehension because “it is at least in part a matter of assuming that theoretical reasoning is somehow peculiarly Western, that abstract reflection must have its source and impetus west of the Black Sea and north of the Mediterranean. It is closely related to the blank incomprehension which greets such phrases as ‘Classical Indian logic,’ ‘Medieval Arabic mathematics,’ and ‘Ancient Chinese empirical science and technology.’”
Bahram Behin; Nigel Lowther Love
Abstract
Nigel Lowther Love is associate professor of linguistics at University of Cape Town. He was born in 1950 in the U.K. He received his B.A. (1973), M.A. (1976) and D. Phil. (1976) from Oxford University. His Ph.D. thesis title was: The generative phonological analysis of non-vocalic alternations in Modern ...
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Nigel Lowther Love is associate professor of linguistics at University of Cape Town. He was born in 1950 in the U.K. He received his B.A. (1973), M.A. (1976) and D. Phil. (1976) from Oxford University. His Ph.D. thesis title was: The generative phonological analysis of non-vocalic alternations in Modern French. Nigel Love has been the invited lecturer or conference speaker at universities in: Athens, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Cambridge, Cape Town, Chicago, Copenhagen, Durban, Edinburgh, Grahamstown, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Jyväskylä, Kirksville, Montpellier, Mumbai, New Orleans, Nottingham, Odense, Oxford, Paris, Pittsburgh, Quebec, Seville, Stellenbosch, Tambov, Warsaw and Williamsburg. He was the head of Linguistics Department at University of Cape Town (1995-1998). He has been the editorial board member (since 1992) and associate editor (since 2019) of journal of Language and Communication. He was the editor of the journal of Language Sciences (1997-2014). Among his authored and coauthored publications are Generative Phonology: A Case-Study from French (1981), The Foundations of Linguistic Theory: Selected Writings of Roy Harris (1990), Linguistics Inside Out: Roy Harris and His Critics (1997), and Language and History: Integrationist Perspectives (2006). JALDA’s editor-in-chief, Dr. Bahram Behin had the following short communication with Nigel Love.
Bahram Behin
Abstract
JALDA, therefore, would like to show inclination towards the view that the reality of the world is not a fixed entity standing out there to be measured by our pre-fabricated ‘scientific’ instruments. In line with Haghshenas’ argumentation, not only can theories and instruments shrink ...
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JALDA, therefore, would like to show inclination towards the view that the reality of the world is not a fixed entity standing out there to be measured by our pre-fabricated ‘scientific’ instruments. In line with Haghshenas’ argumentation, not only can theories and instruments shrink to ornamental entities but also they can turn into what Karl Popper calls pseudo-science, knowledge of an ‘ideological’ rather than of a ‘scientific’ nature (see Fuller, 1996). The knowledge based on positivism is prone to shrink to pseudo-science, for instance, because it is knowledge based solely on natural phenomena and their properties and relations that are accounted for according to man-made networks of laws. Any biased insistence upon such knowledge and hostility towards what lies outside the network, the darkness of the world, an experience of the recent politico-scientific history of the world, should push what was expected to be ‘scientific’ towards ‘pseudo-science.’ JALDA’s policy is to see its pages colourfully arrayed with findings and views from even the darkest corners of the world, where things are seen in ways quite different from the ways we are used to seeing them.
Farshid Sadatsharifi; Bahram Behin
Abstract
Farshid Sadatsharifi has been visiting scholar at the Institute of Islamic Studies in McGill University, Montreal, Canada since 2016. He received his PhD and MA in Persian Language and Literature from Shiraz University, Iran. He also completed his post-doc fellowship in Interdisciplinary Approaches to ...
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Farshid Sadatsharifi has been visiting scholar at the Institute of Islamic Studies in McGill University, Montreal, Canada since 2016. He received his PhD and MA in Persian Language and Literature from Shiraz University, Iran. He also completed his post-doc fellowship in Interdisciplinary Approaches to Literature at the same university. Dr. Sadatsharifi is the co-founder and director of Samaak Institution, the center for Persian Language and Literature in applied approach. He is the affiliated researcher of Hafez Studies Center, and a permanent member of Iranian Society of Persian Humor (ISPH). Dr. Sadatsharifi has spent ten years celebrating literary theories, the meaning of life, existentialism, and other subjects related to studying and teaching Persian Language and Literature in a multidisciplinary and applied approach. He hopes to have the chance to establish “applied literature” as a well-recognized part of literary studies. He believes that an applied approach is unavoidable for any form of art, humanities and literature nowadays. In pursuit of JALDA’s fundamental goal of spotlighting the nature of applied literature, the journal’s editor-in-chief, Dr. Bahram Behin, had a short conversation with Dr. Sadatsharifi.
3. Applied Literature
Bahram Behin
Abstract
Applied literature is a term that is the outcome of a need to put literature to tangible uses in the “real” world. A medical practitioner looking for a definition of life, for instance, finds literature a useful source for the answer. With paradigm shifts in scientific studies, interdisciplinarity ...
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Applied literature is a term that is the outcome of a need to put literature to tangible uses in the “real” world. A medical practitioner looking for a definition of life, for instance, finds literature a useful source for the answer. With paradigm shifts in scientific studies, interdisciplinarity has been a method to overcome the alienations that resulted from the isolation of disciplines from one another. Some would go even further to problematize the concept of being solely confined to the limits of disciplines or the textuality of literature because they are still hindrances to coming into direct contact with the “real” world. Arguing that tangible real world should lie at the core of applied literary studies, this paper is an attempt to show how a path may be opened up towards the diverse nature of reality in literary studies through a critical review of relevant aspects of literary theory and by drawing upon studies of cultures.
Bahram Behin
Abstract
The decision by the Ministry of Higher Education in Iran to revise and update the subjects for the MA and PhD courses in TESOL should pave the way towards a more comprehensive understanding of teaching English to speakers of other languages. The Ministry’s revisions can be seen in line with the ...
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The decision by the Ministry of Higher Education in Iran to revise and update the subjects for the MA and PhD courses in TESOL should pave the way towards a more comprehensive understanding of teaching English to speakers of other languages. The Ministry’s revisions can be seen in line with the English language teacher’s awareness. Awareness of context in social sciences and humanities should have significant consequences for us in TESOL. One of the consequences, for instance, is our need for tracing the history of TESOL in Iran (or any area and country), and the building of an archive, without which TESOL in Iran maybe being trapped in the vicious circle of doing experiments that do not relate to our situation in a useful way. The Ministry’s new subjects should provide us with an invaluable opportunity to experience new horizons in researching TESOL. Scientific attitude we all have been brought up with has led to an epistemology that does not seem adequate in today’s world anymore. It is not adequate because it is reductionist in nature; it sees the social phenomena relating to one another solely on the basis of cause and effect relationship; it treats human beings as objects and it does not leave room for competing epistemologies. The new materials should be regarded as a platform to throw us into the unknown world of social world whose existence for us is a matter of interpretation rather than description. Science and critique in the sense we have learned and used them so far have turned into fixed standard curricula preventing us from experiencing an authentic life. All over the world, Englishes are learned by people wishing to communicate with one another for different reasons, and English teachers should see what they can do to help them in this regard.
Bahram Behin
Abstract
Adrian Holliday is Professor of Applied Linguistics & Intercultural Education at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK where he directs PhD programs in Education and Applied Linguistics and has been the Head of The Graduate School between 2002 and 2017. Professor Holliday got his bachelors’ ...
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Adrian Holliday is Professor of Applied Linguistics & Intercultural Education at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK where he directs PhD programs in Education and Applied Linguistics and has been the Head of The Graduate School between 2002 and 2017. Professor Holliday got his bachelors’ degree in Sociology from London University. He began his career in English Language Education in Iran in the early 1970’s at the British Council Centre in Tehran, and then managed a small British Council curriculum unit in Ahwaz. After completing his master’s degree in Applied Linguistics at Lancaster University, he set up educational projects in Syria and Egypt between 1980 and 1990, which provided the experience of the global politics of English and the ethnographic material that informed his PhD thesis at Lancaster University in 1991. Professor Holliday supervises PhD students in critical qualitative studies in the sociology and cultural politics of English language education and intercultural communication, where he has published widely including Understanding Intercultural Communication: Negotiating a Grammar of Culture (2nd Ed., 2018), Intercultural Communication: An Advanced Resource Book for Students (3rd Ed., 2016), Doing and Writing Qualitative Research (3rd Ed., 2016), (En)countering Native Speakerism: Global Perspectives (2015), Intercultural Communication and Ideology (2011) and The Struggle to Teach English as an International Language (2005). JALDA has hosted Professor Holliday in a scholarly conversation with Dr. Bahram Behin, who himself is a fanatic upholder of Holliday’s thoughts in conducting courses in the socio-culture of English language teaching.
Bahram Behin
Abstract
The editor’s notes in our Journal have been so far a site for the clarification of the Journal’s policy and the task still continues. With an inclination towards solving our real world problems in language teaching (and literary studies, which I will discuss in the next issue of the Journal), ...
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The editor’s notes in our Journal have been so far a site for the clarification of the Journal’s policy and the task still continues. With an inclination towards solving our real world problems in language teaching (and literary studies, which I will discuss in the next issue of the Journal), we would like to take that the introduction of the concept of “life-world” to Social Sciences can be a ground-breaking movement to open up new horizons for researchers. I will further illustrate JALDA's position and policy here. The current issue of JALDA features an interview, seven research papers of national and international scope and a book review. The interview is with Professor Glenn Fulcher, the distinguished British applied linguist working in the field of language testing and assessment. The first paper by Behrooz Azabdaftari is a tribute to Professor Henry Widdowson on his visit to Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University in 2018. Cosmas Rai Amenorvi draws on the theory of cohesion to show how both linguistic and aesthetic effects are achieved in Malcolm X’s ‘The Ballot or the Bullet’. The paper by Sarvandy and Ekstam focuses on English as Lingua Franca with attention to Iranian context. The paper by Karimnia and Sabbaghi is a study of Ta’ziyeh and its discourse with an emphasis on how language varieties help frame a culturee’s perception of religion. Ameri's contibution is an example of applied literature. She applies New Jungian findings to the reading of Sweetness in the Belly. The paper by Abbasi and Khosrowshahi explores the role of experience in EFL teachers’ satisfaction of the in-service teacher education programs in Iran, and Ashrafi and Ajideh explore culture-related content in the advanced series of Iran Language Institute. And, finally, Jane Ekstam has reviewed Loving Literature: A Cultural History, by Deirde Shauna Lynch for us.
Bahram Behin
Abstract
Glenn Fulcher is the Professor of Applied Linguistics and Language Assessment in the English Department at the University of Leicester, UK. He got his PhD in Applied Linguistics and Language Testing from Lancaster University (1993) and his MA in Applied Linguistics from the University of Birmingham (1987). ...
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Glenn Fulcher is the Professor of Applied Linguistics and Language Assessment in the English Department at the University of Leicester, UK. He got his PhD in Applied Linguistics and Language Testing from Lancaster University (1993) and his MA in Applied Linguistics from the University of Birmingham (1987). Professor Fulcher has been the editor of Sage's Language Testing (2006-2015) and an influential member of the Executive Board of The International Language Testing Association (ILTA) for many years. He has extensive experience and expertise in the philosophy of assessment, test design, the development of data-based rating scales as well as teaching language assessment. Professor Fulcher's book Language Testing and Assessment co-authored by Davidson (2007) has been the main resource for the ELT masters' courses in language testing in Iran for many years. Among his other publications are Re-examining Language Testing: A Philosophical and Social Inquiry (2015, the winner of the 2016 SAGE/LTA Book Award), The Rutledge Handbook of Language Testing (2012), Practical Language Testing (2010), Testing Second Language Speaking (2003) , and Writing in the English Language Classroom (1997). In an online interview, Professor Glenn Fulcher has joined Dr. Bahram Behin who is a zealous adherent of Fulcher's philosophy of assessment and has presented language testing courses based on his books.
Bahram Behin
Abstract
Our Journal's tendency towards the real world in applied linguistics and literary studies should have significant epistemological and methodological consequences in researching the fields. The interest in the real world makes the problems we may have in our everyday lives our 'points of departure' in ...
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Our Journal's tendency towards the real world in applied linguistics and literary studies should have significant epistemological and methodological consequences in researching the fields. The interest in the real world makes the problems we may have in our everyday lives our 'points of departure' in research. According to my experience of research in our universities throughout their history, researchers in both applied linguistics and literary studies have attributed great significance to ‘learning’ theories giant scholars have formulated and their main job has been to put the theories to use in the Iranian context for the purpose of teaching English language and literature. The assumption that researchers should confine themselves to theories, frameworks, methodologies and the use of instruments that are of positivistic nature is a dominant characteristic in the Iran context. The paradigm shift, as I understand it, is required firstly as a turning away from linguistics as a science and the unlearning of linguistic theories because no linguistic theory is comprehensive enough to provide us with a real world description of language; new ways of analyzing and understanding language are needed. According to this view, applied linguistics should not be confined to ‘language teaching.’ Its function should be ‘language teaching in the context of the real world,’ although, according to Rajagopalan (2004, p. 415), “There is still a long way to go and many stubborn resistances … to be overcome.”
Bahram Behin
Abstract
Peter Mühlhäusler is the Foundation Professor of Linguistics at the University of Adelaide, and Supernumerary Fellow of Linacre College, Oxford. He has taught at the Technical University of Berlin and in the University of Oxford. He is an active researcher in several areas of linguistics, including ...
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Peter Mühlhäusler is the Foundation Professor of Linguistics at the University of Adelaide, and Supernumerary Fellow of Linacre College, Oxford. He has taught at the Technical University of Berlin and in the University of Oxford. He is an active researcher in several areas of linguistics, including ecolinguistics, language planning, and language policy and language contact in the Australian-Pacific area. His current research focuses on the Pitkern-Norf'k language of Norfolk Island and Aboriginal languages of the West Coast of South Australia. His recent book publications are Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, Language of Environment-Environment of Language, Early Forms of Aboriginal English in South Australia (with Foster and Monaghan), and Herrmann Koeler's Adelaide-Observations on Language and Culture of South Australia. He continues to publish on theoretical and applied ecolinguistics. JALDA's Editor in Chief, Dr. Bahram Behin has sat, in an online chat, with professor Mühlhäusler on the issue of ecolinguistics and its relevence to the studies of language and language teaching.
Bahram Behin
Abstract
Applied Literature, however, does not have literature at its centre. Literature in this domain is a tool to solve problems and achieve goals. Using literature to teach and learn languages, the application of literature to language education, is a very handy example. Health Humanities (by Crawford, et ...
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Applied Literature, however, does not have literature at its centre. Literature in this domain is a tool to solve problems and achieve goals. Using literature to teach and learn languages, the application of literature to language education, is a very handy example. Health Humanities (by Crawford, et al. and reviewed by A. Ramazani in our Journal's previous issue) comprises chapters on how literature can be used for health purposes. Medical Humanities is introduced as “the engagement of medicine with the humanities and arts, social sciences, health policy, medical education, patient experience and the public at large.” A shift is observable here from pure objective scientific endeavour based on the segregation of seemingly unrelated fields to the integration of them for more practical purposes.The role attributed to the public at large in these equations demands careful consideration. In traditional literary studies, as stated above, the textuality of literature is central. But in Applied Literature the text is no longer our precious object. Some reader-oriented literary theories have shifted our attentionradically from the text to the reader. In these theories, the literary critic is no longer the sole source of justification and interpretation of literature.Determining the literariness of the text and its interpretation lies with the reader. This might eventually lead to the well-beingness of the reader, which, once achieved, fulfils the applied literature critic’s wish! Thus, those with inclination towards the reader in literary studies may have an affinitywith applied literature critics that move towards the public at large.
4. Dynamics between Applied Studies on Language and Literature
Bahram Behin
Abstract
Applied Linguistics and Applied Literature in the sense that we would like to use them should result in academic activities that are social in their orientation. Academics are not isolated individuals equipped with scientific tools and working within laboratory like situations. Their close encounter ...
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Applied Linguistics and Applied Literature in the sense that we would like to use them should result in academic activities that are social in their orientation. Academics are not isolated individuals equipped with scientific tools and working within laboratory like situations. Their close encounter with the real world situations is a fundamental necessity. Reading theories and literary texts in the library is not undertaken for the sake of creating mentalities to judge what lies outside our reading and library. There should, instead, be an interactional process between what we read and what we experience in the world out there that seems to be unruly and messy in nature. This attitude seems to have consequences for us in our academic behaviour. One of them, for instance, should be our attempts to look for non-traditional forms and formations of research and practice. Employing mere quantitative research methods, what we have inherited in the name of ‘science’ from the past, we may end up in failures. ‘Science’ is no longer a sacred institution whose colossal columns are untouchable, especially for us in developing countries that seem to be lagging behind the fast moving states and institutions forming categories of insiders and outsiders for themselves, for instance. There have been so many glossy theories of language and literature that are regarded either as totally obsolete or impractical for many reasons today.
Farzad Salahshoor; Hamideh Baggali; Bahram Behin
Abstract
Bakhtin's dialogism respects differences and appreciates dialogue. Different fields of the humanities are increasingly apprehending dialogism; however, few studies have applied it in the realm of critical discourse analysis. The present study presupposes that a fundamental similarity exists between ...
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Bakhtin's dialogism respects differences and appreciates dialogue. Different fields of the humanities are increasingly apprehending dialogism; however, few studies have applied it in the realm of critical discourse analysis. The present study presupposes that a fundamental similarity exists between dialogism and critical discourse analysis in their respect for different human voices to be heard. To present a study embracing dialogism in the given field, this research analyzed Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" and Malcolm X's "The Ballot or the Bullet", as two leading political speeches in the history, using two master concepts of dialogism, self and other, in line with utterance, polyphony, centripetal and centrifugal forces and architectonics. The results showed that the explored political utterances were the locus of struggle between centrifugal and centripetal forces through which self-other architectonics in "The Ballot or the Bullet" appeared primarily in the form of binary opposition and relative dominance of one voice; in contrast, the architectonics in "I Have a Dream" showed various examples of polyphony and reconciliation of the voices. The domination of a single voice in the former and plurality of the voices in the latter yielded the speech utterances respectively as the monologic and dialogic utterances where covert maintenance of power in monologism, in contrast to dialogism, can serve the aim of critical discourse analysis to study the relation between discourse and power.
