Translation
Mahdi Dehghani Firouz Abadi; Mahdieh Sadat Miri
Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript, Available Online from 25 April 2024
Abstract
Translation as an effective means of communication to exchange knowledge and to link nations is very important to convey the real meaning and same information written in the source language. One significant technique for international communication is translation. The challenge of translating culture-specific ...
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Translation as an effective means of communication to exchange knowledge and to link nations is very important to convey the real meaning and same information written in the source language. One significant technique for international communication is translation. The challenge of translating culture-specific items necessitates using specific techniques by the translator to convey the meaning of cultural expressions from source to target language. In this sense, using the wrong techniques during a translation will affect how the translation turns out. The purpose of this study was to use Newmark's Model to examine culture-specific items in the Persian versions of Frances Hodgson Burnett's book, The Secret Garden. The findings of this study showed that the most effective translation strategies chosen by language translators are literal translation, functional equivalent, transference, descriptive equivalent, and, modulation. The most and the least frequently used translation strategies by the language translators were literal translation and expansion, respectively.
Seyyed Mohammad Baqerzadeh Hosseini
Volume 1, Issue 1 , December 2017, , Pages 7-29
Abstract
This quasi-experimental study was an attempt to investigate possible contribution of literary plays as a medium of instruction to thedevelopment of pragmatic awareness through either explicit or implicit mode of instruction. Eighty university students majoring inEnglish were assigned to four experimental ...
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This quasi-experimental study was an attempt to investigate possible contribution of literary plays as a medium of instruction to thedevelopment of pragmatic awareness through either explicit or implicit mode of instruction. Eighty university students majoring inEnglish were assigned to four experimental groups: two literary and two nonliterary groups. One literary group (Implicit Play) was exposed to typographically enhanced plays containing the three speech acts of apology, request, and refusal and the other (Explicit Play) received the same plus metapragmatic instruction on the speech acts. The nonliterary groups were presented with dialogs rich in the cases of the given acts; they also received enhanced input (Implicit Dialog) or input plus metapragmatic information (Explicit Dialog). Analyses of the four groups’ performance on MDCT pretest and posttest did not indicate any significant difference among the groups.
Ali Safari
Volume 1, Issue 2 , June 2018, , Pages 7-30
Abstract
The translation of advertisements is not like any kind of translation which is done across languages; rather it is done in the mind automatically, to convey meaning that advertisers want to be extracted; therefore, it is usual for companies and businesses to select special elements. Illustrations can ...
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The translation of advertisements is not like any kind of translation which is done across languages; rather it is done in the mind automatically, to convey meaning that advertisers want to be extracted; therefore, it is usual for companies and businesses to select special elements. Illustrations can provide audiences with a sense of personal identity and an awareness of cultural heritage. The present study aims to investigate pictures accompanying advertisements as an intersemiotic translation. This study takes pieces of advertising texts as well as the pictures accompanying them to show the translational relationships. Then, the study attempts to reveal the importance of pictures and the role they may play in conveying meaning. Within the first step, advertising texts containing both linguistic and visual elements were collected. Then they were studied based on the interrelationship between texts and images; an attempt was made to identify different ways in which illustrations are employed by text producers to translate linguistic elements. The corpus included the advertising texts which are collected from a wide variety of sources including internet, shops and newspapers. When all samples were studied and strategies were identified, the number and percentage of each strategy was counted and the results were presented in tables. The data analysis revealed that illustrations play an important role in translating the textual elements.
Is’haaq Akbarian
Volume 1, Issue 1 , December 2017, , Pages 31-57
Abstract
This paper provides further evidence from applied linguistics on the essentiality of a general list of academic vocabulary in academic achievement. For this purpose, the current research attempted to display that academic words assume subject-independent functions in academic writing, based on the functional ...
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This paper provides further evidence from applied linguistics on the essentiality of a general list of academic vocabulary in academic achievement. For this purpose, the current research attempted to display that academic words assume subject-independent functions in academic writing, based on the functional framework developed by Hirsh (2010). The framework views writing from three perspectives: textual, ideational, and interpersonal – the three layers of the functional grammar of Halliday (1976). These three layers are corresponded with functional categories in the framework. Within this framework, a sample paper taken from a prestigious scholarly journal in the field of applied linguistics, including 468 academic words, was analyzed. The analysis, confirming the findings of earlier investigations with respect to coverage, showed that each occurrence of academic words could be assigned to a functional category. The paper argues that the assignment of academic vocabulary to functional categories is related to the requirements of the research community to disseminate knowledge according to uniform reporting standards. The findings emphasize the significance of academic vocabulary both in terms of assuming functions, and of pedagogy, implying that a limited, but a general, list of academic vocabulary can give a good return for learning, particularly in the realm of writing and reading in EFL contexts.
Davood Borzabadi Farahani1; Shima Babapour
Volume 1, Issue 2 , June 2018, , Pages 31-73
Abstract
Recent research suggests that critical thinking is not typically an intrinsic part of instruction at any level. Students come without any training in it, while faculties tend to take it for granted as an automatic by-product of their teaching. Yet without critical thinking systematically designed into ...
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Recent research suggests that critical thinking is not typically an intrinsic part of instruction at any level. Students come without any training in it, while faculties tend to take it for granted as an automatic by-product of their teaching. Yet without critical thinking systematically designed into instruction, learning is transitory and superficial. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to investigate the impacts of teaching critical thinking skills on the development of the reading and writing abilities of Iranian EFL learners, in line with other studies confirming the positive relationship between critical thinking and language skills. The treatment consisted of 18 instructional sessions of 20 minutes on critical thinking. The participants of the study were 50 male and female students with pre-advanced proficiency level. The students in the experimental group were taught critical thinking skills beside other materials while the students in the control group did not have critical thinking instruction. The data were analyzed using several independent t-tests which were administered across pre-test and post-test scores. The results indicated that critical thinking led to students' significant improvement in reading and writing abilities in the experimental group. The results have implications for teachers, institutes and material designers.
Ali Safari; Leila- Rahmati Nejad
Volume 1, Issue 1 , December 2017, , Pages 59-76
Abstract
In this study “Touring” and “Travel” semantic frames are studied considering the principles of FrameNet and it is taken as first step to build Persian FrameNet. The “FrameNet” is a corpus-based project housed at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, ...
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In this study “Touring” and “Travel” semantic frames are studied considering the principles of FrameNet and it is taken as first step to build Persian FrameNet. The “FrameNet” is a corpus-based project housed at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, California by Charles J. Fillmore which is built based on the theory of Frame Semantics. In this system, the meaning of words can be understood on the basis of semantic frames which are mental encyclopedic concepts. A “Semantic Frame” which is evoked by lexical items, is a description of a type of event, relation, or entity and participants in the event. In this paper, description of frame elements and examples were presented based on the realization of the standard Persian language. Lexical Units related to the frames of “Touring” and “Travel” were drawn from the two-volume Sokhan encyclopedia (Anvari, 2003) and Persian synonyms & antonyms dictionary (Khodaparasti, 1997). Furthermore, the section devoted to marked texts was completed with case sentences exerted from Google. The results showed that following Khavari (2013) and Nayebluy et al. (2015), building a Persian FrameNet is a workable idea.
Reza Bagheri Nevisi; Arezou Izadi
Volume 1, Issue 2 , June 2018, , Pages 75-105
Abstract
This study aimed at investigating the effect of using rhythmic instruction on FD and FI EFL learners’ vocabulary knowledge. To this end, 30 EFL learners were selected based on their performances on the Solutions Placement Test. Group Embedded Figure Test (GEFT) was also administered to identify ...
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This study aimed at investigating the effect of using rhythmic instruction on FD and FI EFL learners’ vocabulary knowledge. To this end, 30 EFL learners were selected based on their performances on the Solutions Placement Test. Group Embedded Figure Test (GEFT) was also administered to identify groups as field dependent and field independent participants. The participants were randomly assigned to one experimental and one control group. The experimental group was provided with rhythmic instruction whereas the participants in the control group were instructed through GTM. Both groups went through a 17-week instructional period. A 50-item vocabulary test, consisting of multiple-choice, matching items, and true or false items was developed, and used as pre-test and post-test. At the end of the course, an independent samples t-test was run between the obtained means of the two groups to determine whether there was any significant difference between the mean scores of the two groups on the post-test. The results revealed there was a significant difference between the mean scores of the two groups. To conclude, the participants in the experimental group who had received rhythmic instruction outperformed those in the control group without such instruction. However, the mean difference between the participants in the FI group in comparison with FD was not significant, and it indicated that FI and FD learners exposed to rhythmic instruction performed similarly. The major implication of the study is that rhythmic instruction as a crucial method of vocabulary learning should receive further attention in language teaching programs.
Faezeh Arkan; Seyyed Sadegh Azizi Zavieh
Volume 1, Issue 1 , December 2017, , Pages 77-99
Abstract
Translators have always imposed their own stances and identities upon the texts they are translating. This manipulation is of primary importance when it comes to critical texts such as political ones. The concept of identity is the core one to all translations. Farahzad (2012) proposes that a thorough ...
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Translators have always imposed their own stances and identities upon the texts they are translating. This manipulation is of primary importance when it comes to critical texts such as political ones. The concept of identity is the core one to all translations. Farahzad (2012) proposes that a thorough and careful analysis of (non)linguistic features can help the translation critic identify changes in Target text (TT) which is ideologically driven. This study, therefore, aims at comparing translations of English news, identifying the identity modifications. Then, an attempt is made to justify and explain the results in terms of CDA in order to see the rationale behind the choices. To this end, 100 pieces of the recent political news (from 2016 to 2017) were collected. When all the data had been collected, the original texts – political news – were studied and analyzed along with their translations into Persian in order to identify the implications of translators' choices in terms of CDA. The next stage was discussing the results in terms of CDA. In this final stage the researchers attempted to reveal the ideological position -identity- of the translator in his/her decision making. The results of the study were significantly revealing; out of 100 pieces, 79 news items were directly indicative of the ideology and identity of the translator.
Ahmad Mohseni; Shayan Asadi Nezhad
Volume 1, Issue 1 , December 2017, , Pages 101-123
Abstract
The Present study addresses the influence of self-reflection strategies on developing speaking ability among Iranian EFL learners. These strategies were derived from framework suggested by Angelo and Cross (1993). Self-reflection strategies such as information literacy, visual learning tools, interactive ...
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The Present study addresses the influence of self-reflection strategies on developing speaking ability among Iranian EFL learners. These strategies were derived from framework suggested by Angelo and Cross (1993). Self-reflection strategies such as information literacy, visual learning tools, interactive notebooks and others definitely help learners improve themselves in many different aspects such as speaking ability. This study employed 60 TEFL students majoring in English Translation in Islamic Azad University of South Tehran Branch. The participants were at intermediate proficiency level and were divided into control and experimental groups. The researchers used OPT (Oxford Placement Test) for homogeneity purposes, TOEIC for pretest and TSE posttest for speaking ability measurement, Weir's analytic speaking criteria (1993) as an instrument to rate the interviews, and Angelo and Cross’s (1993) framework with the aim of direct instruction. The study employed quantitative and quasi experimental research designs. An Independent samples t-test was used to ascertain if there was any significant difference between the means of the experimental and control groups. The findings of the study displayed that students in the experimental group did not outperform the ones in the control group regarding speaking ability suggesting that self-reflection strategy-based instruction does not have any significant effect on developing speaking ability among Iranian EFL learners
Sara Beyginia
Volume 1, Issue 2 , June 2018, , Pages 107-126
Abstract
This study aimed at investigating the difference in the effects of “Find the Difference” and “Describe and Draw” activities on enhancing speaking ability of Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners. The researcher adopted an experimental approach. This study consisted of 50 female ...
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This study aimed at investigating the difference in the effects of “Find the Difference” and “Describe and Draw” activities on enhancing speaking ability of Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners. The researcher adopted an experimental approach. This study consisted of 50 female participants, who were equally and randomly divided into two experimental groups. First, the researcher administered an Oxford Placement Test, followed by two interviews to make sure that the participants’ level was pre-intermediate. Then, the researcher developed a teacher-made test and in order to prove the validity of the developed test a group of 40 participants, other than the major participants, took the test. The participants were divided into two experimental groups and the pre-test was administered before the instructional treatment. The treatment lasted for eight sessions and during this time the experimental groups received information gap activities. Finally, the post-test was administrated for the two groups and the results of the posttest were analyzed through some statistical procedures to determine the effect of the two types of information gap activities on enhancing Iranian EFL learners’ speaking ability. The results indicated that there was no significant different in the performance of the two groups on the posttest which revealed that the two instructional techniques (i.e., ‘Find the Difference’ and ‘Describe and Draw’) were equally effective on enhancing Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners’ speaking ability
Alireza Nabati
Volume 1, Issue 1 , December 2017, , Pages 125-146
Abstract
This study was an attempt to consider the effect of using Telegram application for EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners' writing accuracy and learning grammar points. Twenty intermediate EFL learners were selected from the vacant language learners in a language institute to participate in this ...
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This study was an attempt to consider the effect of using Telegram application for EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners' writing accuracy and learning grammar points. Twenty intermediate EFL learners were selected from the vacant language learners in a language institute to participate in this study. The students who achieved the required score on a language proficiency test (the Oxford Placement Test, OPT) were selected as the participants. Pre-test were given before the treatment sessions to control the participants' grammar knowledge and writing accuracy at the beginning of the research. During a term which has sixteen-session course, the teacher presented the instruction on grammar and accuracy in writing to the participants by instant messaging, using above application. At the end of semester, they were given the post-test. Achieved data were analyzed through Paired Samples t-tests to compare the means of the pre-test and the post-test of the learners. It has discovered that writing accuracy of the participant had improved by receiving instruction of grammar points through social network (Telegram App). There was a significant difference in the means of the participants on the pretest and posttest. They performed more effectively on the posttest, which can be attributed to instruction through social networking. The results of the study can be beneficial for language teachers, materials developers and students
Mariam Biabani; Siros Izadpanah
Volume 1, Issue 2 , June 2018, , Pages 127-146
Abstract
One of the most significant current discussions in learning and teaching communicative methods, especially in informal and communicative language, is the teaching and learning of American slang. There is not any study about the relationship between Kolb’s Learning Model and Learning American slang ...
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One of the most significant current discussions in learning and teaching communicative methods, especially in informal and communicative language, is the teaching and learning of American slang. There is not any study about the relationship between Kolb’s Learning Model and Learning American slang among Iranian EFL students. In this study sixty three EFL students were selected. The 63 participants took the Kolb’s (2006) Learning Style Inventory questionnaire, and then the Slang Test. The test and the questionnaire answered by the participants were scored. Then the data were analyzed using the descriptive statistics, correlation, regression and t-test. The outcomes of the study indicated that the Abstract Conceptualization (AC)/ being theorist, followed by the Active Experimentation (AE)/ being active, are the most dominant teaching and learning styles among the students. The outcomes of the correlation illustrated a significant and high positive correlation between the Kolb’s (2005) teaching and learning model and teaching and learning slang. The study demonstrated the highest correlation between the experiential teaching and learning style (Concrete Experience (CE)/ being pragmatic) and the teaching and learning slang. The findings of this study may be useful for all persons who are concerned with language teaching and learning.
Mahmood Safari
Volume 1, Issue 1 , December 2017, , Pages 147-172
Abstract
The present article reports on a judgmental analysis of the items in the English subtest of Iranian University Entrance Exam (2009) investigating possible biased items. Plenty of statistical techniques, such as Logistic Regression, Mantel-Haenszel method, and IRT approaches, are developed to detect differential ...
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The present article reports on a judgmental analysis of the items in the English subtest of Iranian University Entrance Exam (2009) investigating possible biased items. Plenty of statistical techniques, such as Logistic Regression, Mantel-Haenszel method, and IRT approaches, are developed to detect differential item functioning (DIF) and biased items. They require a pilot study of the test with a sizeable number of subjects. However, sometimes pre-testing is not possible and only subjective and judgmental analysis can be used to detect potential biased items. Off course, judgments should be informed by research findings and experts’ opinions. This study suggests that research findings and experts’ opinion can be combined to create a bias guideline for language test development. If research shed enough light on the issue of biased items and tests, a bias guideline may preempt the experimental DIF detection. This study utilized previous research findings, experts’ opinion on bias, and the author’s intuition to propose a bias guideline and figure out the possible biased items or bundles (groups of items) in the Iranian University Entrance Exam.
Mahmood Safari
Volume 1, Issue 2 , June 2018, , Pages 147-163
Abstract
This study is a critical discourse analysis of some western and Iranian newspaper headlines related to Iran’s nuclear program. Newspaper headlines serve as precursors to news reports and reveal the social, cultural, and political representations disseminated in a community at any time. Thus, comparing ...
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This study is a critical discourse analysis of some western and Iranian newspaper headlines related to Iran’s nuclear program. Newspaper headlines serve as precursors to news reports and reveal the social, cultural, and political representations disseminated in a community at any time. Thus, comparing newspaper headlines in two societies will bring into light interests and ideological intentions of the producers of those headlines. In this study 930 headlines, 460 headlines from two Iranian newspapers (Tehran Times and Iran Daily) and 470 headlines from three western newspapers (Washington Post, Fox News, and Haaretz), were analyzed for their vocabulary, topics, and referential devices. These features clearly indicated the hidden agenda or the ideological dimension underlying the construction of these headlines
