Volume 10, Issue 1 , April 2022
Editorial
Volume 10, Issue 1 , April 2022, Pages 1-2
Interview
Jean-Marc Dewaele; Davoud Amini
Abstract
Jean-Marc Dewaele (Ph.D. in Romance languages and literature, Free University of Brussels, 1993) is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Multilingualism at the Department of Languages, Cultures and Applied Linguistics, Birkbeck, University of London. He does research on individual differences in psycholinguistic, ...
Read More
Jean-Marc Dewaele (Ph.D. in Romance languages and literature, Free University of Brussels, 1993) is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Multilingualism at the Department of Languages, Cultures and Applied Linguistics, Birkbeck, University of London. He does research on individual differences in psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic, pragmatic, psychological and emotional aspects of Second Language Acquisition and Multilingualism. Professor Dewaele is particularly interested in the interface between applied linguistics and psychology. He has published widely on multilingual emotions and Foreign Language Enjoyment and Anxiety. He has published over 300 papers and chapters, seven books and seven special issues. Professor Dewaele is the author of the monograph Emotions in Multiple Languages in 2010 (2nd ed. in 2013). Professor Dewaele has answered JALDA’s questions about emotion research in SLA studies in an offline interview with Davoud Amini, Associate Professor of TEFL at Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University.
Research Article
1. Applied Linguistics (Language Teaching and Learning)
Afsheen Rezai; Zeinab Azizi; Ehsan Namaziandost
Abstract
The present study sought out to examine the relationship between Iranian EFL teachers’ professional competence and job performance quantitatively and qualitatively. To this end, a total of 330 EFL teachers, including males (n = 185) and females (n = 145) for the quantitative part, as well as a ...
Read More
The present study sought out to examine the relationship between Iranian EFL teachers’ professional competence and job performance quantitatively and qualitatively. To this end, a total of 330 EFL teachers, including males (n = 185) and females (n = 145) for the quantitative part, as well as a sample of 25 high school English teachers, consisting of males (n = 11) and females (n = 14) for the qualitative part were selected using a random sampling method in Khorramabad City and Borujerd City, Iran. The participants responded to an EFL Teachers’ Job performance Questionnaire, an EFL Teachers’ Professional Competence Questionnaire, and a reflective written statement. The collected data were analyzed through a Pearson correlation analysis, a multiple regression analysis, and a standard thematic coding analysis. Findings evidenced a positive correlation between the participants’ professional competence and their job performance. Additionally, the results evidenced that the participants’ job performance was mainly impacted by skills, knowledge, and attitudes factors, comprising their professional competence. The complementary qualitative findings yielded four overarching themes: “increased job effectiveness”, “improved teaching self-efficacy”, “increased teaching motivation”, and “promoted organizational acceptance”. The study concludes with offering a range of implications and avenues for further research.
Research Article
1. Applied Linguistics (Language Teaching and Learning)
Shokouh Rashvand Semiyari; Mahnaz Azad
Abstract
A great deal of individual difference with reference to learners’ beliefs, thoughts, and behaviors can be explained in terms of the learning style the individuals adopt during the learning process. These learning styles have been labeled initiating, experiencing, creating / imagining, reflecting, ...
Read More
A great deal of individual difference with reference to learners’ beliefs, thoughts, and behaviors can be explained in terms of the learning style the individuals adopt during the learning process. These learning styles have been labeled initiating, experiencing, creating / imagining, reflecting, analyzing, thinking, deciding, acting, and balancing according to Kolb and Kolb (2013). This research was conducted to develop and validate a multidimensional structure of the Kolb learning style inventory v. 4.0 (KLSI 4.0) in an Iranian context. KLSI 4.0 which is conceptualized in Experiential Learning Theory was then developed and evaluated through a series of validation procedures. Eight hundred thirty-three EFL learners studying English as ESP in IAU East Tehran Branch participated in the main phase of this study. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) through Structural Equation Modeling validated the proposed nine types KLSI 4.0. The outcomes of the initial piloting of the KLSI 4.0 did not show an acceptable fit due to high degree of correlation between some factors under the broad construct of learning style. Three factors indicating the highest degree of correlation were thus merged and the model was run again with modified six-factor LSI. Findings confirmed that learning style is a multidimensional construct in which the six factors are conceptually related. Reliability and validity estimates were examined and provided satisfactory psychometric properties of the inventory. In fact, the six-factor-correlated model of KLSI 4.0 revealed an acceptable model fit. Pedagogical implications and suggestions for further research were also discussed. The CFA applied in the research is distinguished from the initial assumptions in the literature and is more straightforward than originally presumed. This paper might be therefore used as a starting empirical point for further cross-validation analyses and educational implications.
Research Article
1. Applied Linguistics (Language Teaching and Learning)
Sara Salehpour; Biook Behnam; Zohreh Seifoori
Abstract
To surmount the obstacles a deficient productive vocabulary retrieval places in the way of EFL teachers, the current study sought to ascertain whether or not involving trainee teachers in interactive input-output activities enhance their vocabulary retention. To this end, a convenience sample including ...
Read More
To surmount the obstacles a deficient productive vocabulary retrieval places in the way of EFL teachers, the current study sought to ascertain whether or not involving trainee teachers in interactive input-output activities enhance their vocabulary retention. To this end, a convenience sample including 49 Iranian EFL trainee teachers were recruited to take part in a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest-delayed posttest study. Having been grouped into three comparison groups, the participants were exposed to the same literary texts; however, the differential treatment of the study entailed three different interaction modes (individual, collaborative, and collaborative-cooperative) and two types of input / output processing (non-reciprocal and reciprocal). A repeated measure analysis of covariance (RM ANCOVA) was performed on the participants’ achievements in the pre- post- and delayed posttest measures and the results revealed that the two groups involved in literature-based interactive (collaborative and collaborative-cooperative) reciprocal input-output activities showed significantly higher levels of vocabulary retention compared to the group exposed to literature-based individual non-reciprocal input-output tasks. Additionally, contributing to significantly higher levels of long-term retention, the collaborative-cooperative mode of interaction was found to be more effective than the collaborative one. The findings corroborated the need for including literature-based interactive input-output tasks in EFL teacher training curriculum.
Research Article
1. Applied Linguistics (Language Teaching and Learning)
Mehdi Mehranirad; Foad Behzadpoor
Abstract
The field of language teaching has recently witnessed a resurgent wave of interest in the value of educational research and its impact on teachers’ practice. Consequently, various strands of inquiry have commenced to investigate the relationship between research and practice. Within these discussions, ...
Read More
The field of language teaching has recently witnessed a resurgent wave of interest in the value of educational research and its impact on teachers’ practice. Consequently, various strands of inquiry have commenced to investigate the relationship between research and practice. Within these discussions, however, the opinions of teachers are mostly ignored or reflected only circumstantially. The purpose of this study was to take teachers’ views about research on board by exploring the extent to which they use and conduct research as well as the barriers that may hinder their research engagement. To collect data, a survey questionnaire was designed and validated through soliciting experts’ opinions and conducting factor analysis. The questionnaire was then administered among a large sample of Iranian English teachers. Participants’ responses showed moderate levels of research engagement among English teachers. Results also indicated that four categories of barriers can best account for teachers’ lack of research engagement: problems related to the nature and quality of research, restrictive educational policies, lack of systematic partnership, and problems associated with the use of research in educational settings. The findings suggest that the research-practice division is the result of a complex interaction of an array of factors that cannot be simply reduced to technical matters. Thus, reconfiguration of the gap requires multidimensional strands of development in research and practice communities as well as in educational policies.
Research Article
1. Applied Linguistics (Language Teaching and Learning)
Seyed Foad Ebrahimi; Maryam Farnia
Abstract
Research article abstract acts as an important device to manage information and to let the reader decide whether it is merit to continue reading the research article. In this paper, we intend to investigate the frequencies and discourse functions of types of grammatical subject (unmarked theme) used ...
Read More
Research article abstract acts as an important device to manage information and to let the reader decide whether it is merit to continue reading the research article. In this paper, we intend to investigate the frequencies and discourse functions of types of grammatical subject (unmarked theme) used in research article abstracts from four disciplines. To this end, 300 research article abstracts were randomly selected (75 from each discipline) from leading prestigious journals in the four disciplines namely Applied Linguistics, Economics, Agriculture, and Applied Physics, and were analyzed based on Gosden’s (1993) classifications that include 16 types of grammatical subject. The results indicated that only six types of grammatical subject were used in the corpus and the frequencies of these types varied across the four disciplines. Besides, the results reported high similarities concerning the discourse functions served using the grammatical subject types. Thus, it could be concluded that the selection and discourse functions of the grammatical subject types are imposed by conventions of writing research article abstracts. The results could add to the existing knowledge of writing research article abstract in the analyzed disciplines by increasing awareness concerning selections of grammatical subject types.
Research Article
2. Applied Linguistics (Inspirations from neighbor disciplines)
Mohammad Saber Khaghaninejad; Maryam Azarian; Fatemeh Javanmardi
Abstract
This study aimed at investigating the manifestations of objectivity in American academic texts across different disciplines and various time spans. To achieve this, the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) was surveyed in terms of the frequency of occurrence of the four identified linguistic ...
Read More
This study aimed at investigating the manifestations of objectivity in American academic texts across different disciplines and various time spans. To achieve this, the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) was surveyed in terms of the frequency of occurrence of the four identified linguistic features (i.e., passive voice, impersonality, hedging, and attitude markers) as the indicators of objectivity (e.g., Alvin, 2014; Bal-Gezegin & Baş, 2020) to find the cross-disciplinary differences during the last twenty years. The results indicated that passive voice was employed differently across the academic disciplines of COCA and the notion of impersonality was more realized in hard sciences in comparison to soft ones. Moreover, the findings revealed a decline in the occurrence of passive voice through time in all the academic disciplines. In addition, hedging and attitude markers were more manifested in hard sciences probably due to the writers’ inclination to be judged objectively. Finally, objectivity was shown to have a steady increase in American academic texts implying that, though the authors of academic texts revealed less inclination to employ passive voice to avoid difficulty and ambiguity, they have employed less personal authorial references to stick to the notion of objectivity and impartiality during the recent years.
Research Article
2. Applied Linguistics (Inspirations from neighbor disciplines)
Cosmas Rai Amenorvi; Richard Baffour Okyere
Abstract
This study investigates the major themes that permeate the anthems of the three oldest and the three youngest public universities in Ghana and how the themes are conveyed linguistically and literarily. The University of Ghana, University of Cape Coast, and University of Education, Winneba are purposively ...
Read More
This study investigates the major themes that permeate the anthems of the three oldest and the three youngest public universities in Ghana and how the themes are conveyed linguistically and literarily. The University of Ghana, University of Cape Coast, and University of Education, Winneba are purposively sampled as representatives of the oldest public universities in Ghana. Representatives of the youngest universities sampled are University of Energy and Natural Resources, University of Health and Allied Sciences, and University of Mines. Findings reveal self-importance, knowledge, and religion as the major themes in the anthems of all six universities. These themes are projected linguistically by conscious content lexical items, namely, nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Literarily, these themes are cast in such literary devices as metaphor, hyperbole, pleonasm, and personification. There is a major difference between the presentation of the theme of self-importance between the two groups of universities in that generally, the oldest universities are more definite and categorical in projecting their self-importance while the youngest universities are rather indirect and less categorical in their presentation of the theme of self-importance. This may be as a result of conscious respect for the oldest universities.
Research Article
3. Applied Literature
Mohammadreza Touzideh; Farshid Nowrouzi Roshnavand
Abstract
The ethical relation with the Other becomes of great significance in the postmodern ethos which considers the decentralization of subjectivity as one of its main philosophical and literary objectives. Emmanuel Levinas was one of the first philosophers who redefined the notion of ethics as a critical ...
Read More
The ethical relation with the Other becomes of great significance in the postmodern ethos which considers the decentralization of subjectivity as one of its main philosophical and literary objectives. Emmanuel Levinas was one of the first philosophers who redefined the notion of ethics as a critical moment in which the subject’s encounter with the Other solely occurs through the use of ethical language, a mode of communication that essentially escapes any form of totalization in favor of the subject’s consciousness. Such an ethical meeting with the Other can be traced in Conrad Aiken’s short story “Silent Snow, Secret Snow,” which narrates the twelve-year-old protagonist’s encounter with the mysterious voice of snow. The results of the study show that the protagonist, once exposed to the speaking face of the Other, initiates an ethical conversation with it and, in so doing, loses his subjectivity to the ethical manifestation that the Other issues upon him.
Research Article
3. Applied Literature
Masoud Farahmandfar; Ghiasuddin Alizadeh
Abstract
Shelley’s “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” has suffered a critical overlook compared with the immense bulk of studies dedicated to his poetical and philosophical works. The reason behind the poem’s resistance to understanding is that it stands in stark contrast to Shelley’s ...
Read More
Shelley’s “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” has suffered a critical overlook compared with the immense bulk of studies dedicated to his poetical and philosophical works. The reason behind the poem’s resistance to understanding is that it stands in stark contrast to Shelley’s theological and philosophical opinions which he held throughout his life. Shelley's poem is torn between the need for a transcendental signified which would bestow meaning on human existence and the tragic realization that no such an ultimate guarantee can ever exist, that the lack in the Other is ontological and, as such, can never be compensated for. Availing itself of the theories of Slavoj Žižek, the present article argues that Shelley’s illusion is twofold: besides his opinion that a full access to Beauty will eradicate uncertainty and inconstancy from the human life, he locates the roots of the present universal discontent and suffering in the absence of the Spirit, rather than seeking the causes of failure in the very essential defectiveness of the symbolic reality.
Research Article
3. Applied Literature
Ali Emamipour; Farideh Pourgiv
Abstract
It has been quite a while since research in different disciplines has become widely cross-fertilized. The cultural matrix of our era has made it possible for ideas and metaphors to move across disciplines. John Barth has been one of the most-celebrated cross-disciplinary fiction writers, who has been ...
Read More
It has been quite a while since research in different disciplines has become widely cross-fertilized. The cultural matrix of our era has made it possible for ideas and metaphors to move across disciplines. John Barth has been one of the most-celebrated cross-disciplinary fiction writers, who has been perceptive of and receptive to breakthroughs in other disciplines to reinvigorate fiction. Despite the fact that Barth’s literary career, particularly from Lost in the Funhouse (Funhouse), coincides with the coronation of Quantum Mechanics as the regime capable of addressing reality in a more precise way, the recognition of the influence of Quantum Mechanics on Funhouse has been conspicuously absent from the critical enterprise, and the bulk of research has viewed it in the light of Poststructuralism, whose application to contemporary fiction has been exhaustible by now. Establishing the framework of the Article based on some concepts for which the Copenhagen Interpretation and the Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics are famous, the present study offers a new perspective to approach the idiosyncrasies of Ambrose in the series, thereby employing an unprecedented methodology to replenish a work which has been subjected to a barrage of metafictional readings.
Research Article
3. Applied Literature
Mehri Nour Mohamad Nezhad Baghayi; Abolfazl Ramazani; Sara Saei Dibavar
Abstract
“I CAN’T HELP READING!” is the common comment uttered by Detective Fiction readers who lose control over themselves as they begin reading a crime novel. The genre is a crystal clear formulaic structure which abounds with repetition: following a crime, an investigation is initiated by ...
Read More
“I CAN’T HELP READING!” is the common comment uttered by Detective Fiction readers who lose control over themselves as they begin reading a crime novel. The genre is a crystal clear formulaic structure which abounds with repetition: following a crime, an investigation is initiated by a detective to capture the criminal. Still, its clichéd nature does not lessen the universality of Detective Fiction. How could a story replete with puzzles and vague incidents be enticing? More importantly, why would the reader avoid discarding a book which sketches horrible deeds and inhuman interests of the criminal? What is the powerful element of Detective Fiction which places it among popular literature? This paper intends to answer these crucial questions by focusing on “conjecture,” a term introduced by Umberto Eco as the key feature of Detective Fiction’s appeal. To this end, an article by William F. Brewer and Edward H. Lichtenstein entitled, “Stories Are to Entertain: A Structural-Affect Theory of Stories” (1982) is targeted to shed light on the claim of conjecture as a way to knowledge by elaborating on three analytical components—surprise, suspense, and curiosity—of a story which make it strikingly attractive.
Research Article
3. Applied Literature
Masoumeh Baei; Behzad Pourgharib; Abdolbaghi Rezaei Talarposhti
Abstract
The endeavor to establish reconciliation between the opposing demands of two cultural communities lies at the heart of some literary works associated with postcolonial literature. This theme, which is also central to the novels of Bharati Mukherjee, especially The Tree Bride, forms the plot of the novel ...
Read More
The endeavor to establish reconciliation between the opposing demands of two cultural communities lies at the heart of some literary works associated with postcolonial literature. This theme, which is also central to the novels of Bharati Mukherjee, especially The Tree Bride, forms the plot of the novel and serves as an axis around which the characters are developed. The present article adopts the theories of Homi. K. Bhabha to expound upon the gap that distances the oriental and the occidental cultures from one another and renders fragmented the identity of the postcolonial individual. Bhabha’s notions of the uncanny and the hybrid identity are two central concepts that can serve as keys to explaining the postcolonial encounter. They can significantly contribute to the discussion of the novel as they can prepare the ground for the investigation of how anti-colonial resistance becomes possible through the third space that is created through hybridity and the uncanny. In The Tree Bride, the protagonist finds herself between two cultures that attempt to draw her into their own orbits. The protagonist’s mimicry of the target culture is an ironic one, since it consists of acceptance and rejection at the same time. In other words, while Tara Chatterjee mimics the norms and criteria of the target culture toward which she strives, she is influenced by her ancestral culture. The paper argues that such uncanny condition can be detrimental to the individual and plunge her into a deep identity crisis.
Book Review
Rajab Esfandiari
Abstract
Exploring language assessment and testing: Language in action is an updated version of its 2014 predecessor. Although this second edition remains intact in its structure and organisation, it is a welcome and timely addition to the field of language assessment, because thematically it reflects the most ...
Read More
Exploring language assessment and testing: Language in action is an updated version of its 2014 predecessor. Although this second edition remains intact in its structure and organisation, it is a welcome and timely addition to the field of language assessment, because thematically it reflects the most recent developments in the field. In addition to much new content information, Green has also updated the glossary in which the terminology used in the book is briefly explained, more recent references are added to Further Reading section, and more new references are included in the reference list to reflect the new changes in the field. Green has adopted a pragmatic approach in writing this textbook and presenting the information in that the real-world problems and experiences are introduced first, followed by practical examples to steer readers towards the discussion of language assessment points, before the readers relate the experiences, problems, and points to theoretical perspectives. Although the textbook is primarily written to be “an indispensable introduction for postgraduate and advanced undergraduate students”, in language education and applied linguistics, I highly recommend it to all the members of community of practice in language assessment (and more specifically language teachers) because of the advantages it offers in classroom-based assessment, highly accessible presentation of the assessment points, and the author’s lucid, user-friendly style.
Volume 10, Issue 1 , April 2022, Pages 241-252
