Journal of Language and Translation Studies
Year:2019 | Volume:52 | Issue:2|Papers Count:7

The main purpose of the present research is to use a statistical-descriptive analysis to assess the quality of translation services through the customer-oriented approach in translation agencies. In addition, the main concern in this study is to solve the problem of fatigue and ambiguities of decision makers in the field of qualitative assessment of translation services using various methods of customer orientation. This research was carried out with a sample size of 60 experts selected through a combination of purposive sampling and snowball sampling methods. In this regard, a set of data was obtained from the instrumentation and analysis of factors affecting the quality of translation services in Iran through a customer-oriented approach in translation agencies in Iran in February 2017. Considering the opinions of experts in evaluating the quality of translation services in Iran in the seven-point Likert scale, the most important factors affecting the quality of translation services were determined. Then, by comparing the current performance status mean of these factors with their importance mean, the analysis was done. Finally, the analysis of this study showed that the current performance status of factors in the service providers were rather poor in comparison to their importance mean, and managers should take the necessary measures in order to improve them.

There is no doubt that reading comprehension is one of the main skills of English language that plays a significant role in learning. Foreign language reading anxiety is one of the issues that can affect the quality of reading comprehension. Researchers have identified several factors such as different writing systems, and cultural issues that may be anxiety provoking while the language learners are reading foreign language texts. Given the significant role of positive and negative emotions in the process of language learning, the language learner’ s level of emotioncy regarding the content of the reading comprehension text can be considered as another factor that can cause foreign language reading anxiety. Emotioncy that consists of sense, emotion, and frequency deals with different emotions about linguistic items that language learners form due to different sensory experiences they have already had about those items. The present study tries to introduce engaging the five senses of language learners, and improving their emotioncy level for the content of reading comprehension text as possible solutions to control foreign language reading anxiety. Further studies are required to determine different types of emotioncy, and the appropriate order and combination of the five senses to control foreign language reading anxiety.

Although translators are a major group of users of bilingual dictionaries, they have been regarded by lexicographers as identical to other users and their needs have been largely neglected. Over the recent years, the development of translator dictionaries has become an important trend in both theory and practice. In this context, the present paper reports on a study to compile a bilingual dictionary of Persian and English in the field of road transportation with an emphasis on translators as the main audience. This dictionary is based on a bilingual comparable corpus which was annotated using semantic frames. A user interface was then designed to search the database with several options including meaning-oriented, as opposed to alphabetic, search. This provides translators facing an increasingly transforming job profile with another route to access more natural ways of expressing a concept in the target language. In the end, the results of this project are discussed in the context of translation-oriented lexicography.

Vygotsky’ s Socio-Cultural Theory stimulated lines of research seeking its effect on second/foreign language learning. The current research makes an endeavor to ignite the relationship between one of the central aspects of this theory, that is to say, private speech (PS), with logical reasoning (LR), and language achievement (LA) of Iranian EFL learners. This association is based on a dynamic interaction between reasoning power and learners’ PS as well as the association of each of these constructs with their academic achievement. To attain the purpose of the study, a total of 200 advanced EFL university learners from different Universities in Iran completed the questionnaires. The participants were asked to do three parts of tasks (i. e., Deduction (D), Inference Making (IM), and Evaluation of Arguments (EA)) in “ Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal” (W-GCTA) designed by Watson and Glaser (2010). Furthermore, they were requested to answer a “ Selfverbalization Questionnaire” . The Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was run to analyze the model based on the data. To determine the incongruities detected in the model, each individual path demonstrating the causal relationships was scrutinized. The data supported the theoretical expectation of an association between using learners’ LR and PS. Subsequent data analyses also indicated that the learners’ PS is positively correlated with the three elements of reasoning and also it has a great predictive power for them. Besides, the three components of reasoning strongly and positively predict the students’ LA. Finally, it can be concluded that the PS is indirectly and positively correlated with LA.

Given the prominence attached to watching foreign films and TV shows in learning a language, the present study aims to identify out-of-class language learning opportunities and activities in which university students are engaged, and to examine students’ attitudes towards watching foreign programs with the aim of learning a language. In doing so, the data were quantitatively and qualitatively gathered a select group of undergraduate students. Initial results suggest that a large number of students watch foreign programs with Persian subtitles in their spare time. Additionally, watching foreign programs, along with listening to foreign songs were found to be the most frequent out-of-class language learning activities. As a result, informal learning may take place from extensive watching of foreign cinematic programs. Other findings illustrate that students perceived the use of foreign films and TV shows relatively positive, more specifically from three aspects: improving pronunciation, learning new vocabulary and enhancing listening skills.

According to Pierre Bourdieu’ s Theory of Literary Anthropology, there are common signs of Independent Art in Taste of Cherry by Abbas Kiarostami and Hamletmachine by Heiner Muller criticizing mind control and isolation of the artist in the machinized world. Both withstand the field of power through some dialectics in-between: cultural capital versus social capital; fancy versus reality and text versus transtextuality which are discussible from three aspects including social act, aesthetic act and transtextual act. Having an outstanding placement in the world’ s independent art movement, American School of comparative literature is used in this study to compare the common themes, modes, images and performative techniques between the two selected works. In addition, a descriptive method is used for the content analysis of “ power” and the study of the interactive relations among contextual signs. The results show both works raise consciousness in the audience and change her/him into an active human subject. Opposite to Hollywood or popular art, these works do not imitate realities reflected in the media, but they discover the truth through intercultural dialogues and discussions made for the audiences. Their semiotics signify the ability of pure art in the conversion of media language and deconstruction of stereotyped realities. However, it signifies the influence of reflexivity dialectic on socio-economic structures to moderate the power field through the development of values in the conceptual art. Therefore, both postmodern works put the contradiction between objectivity and subjectivity in Symbolic violence under question through the application of cultural capital and postdramatic techniques.

Don DeLillo's recent novel, Zero K (2016), simultaneously has both modernist and postmodernist characteristics. Therefore, it cannot be considered a completely modernist novel or a very postmodernist one. Due to such outstanding juxtapositions, the present study suggests that Zero K is a metamodernist novel. As Metamodernism is an oscillation between modernism and postmodernism, this article aims to utilize Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin Van den Akker's theories on Metamodernism and analyze the metamodern juxtapositions in this novel. In order to apply their theories on the text of this novel, some oppositional modern and postmodern characteristics are chosen to be analyzed. Besides, the point of oscillation between the two poles of modernism and postmodernism is surveyed. Generally, the philosophy of modernism is based on optimism and utopianism. However, the philosophy of postmodernism is entirely focused on skepticism and pessimism. Modernists believe in utopia but postmodernist believe in dystopia. Some of the characters in this novel embody modernism and some of them embody postmodernism. There are moments that they simultaneously become the embodiment of these oppositional states. Furthermore, the language of modernist works is not ironical but the language of postmodernist works is ironical and there is no sign of sincerity in their speeches. Besides, quotidian and routine moments of life are the focus of attention in modernist works but such moments aren’ t much valuable in postmodernist works. Such oppositional characteristics exist between modernist and postmodernist in Zero K. The results of this study show that the metamodern juxtapositions are illuminated in this novel through skeptical and optimistic views toward science and technology, sincerity and irony, engagement in and indifference to present moments, and utopia and dystopia. As Zero K oscillates like a swinging pendulum between the above-mentioned juxtapositions, and depicts the both-neither dynamic, it can be labeled as a metamodernist novel.