JOURNAL OF CRITICAL LITERATURE AND HUMANITIES
Year:2019 | Volume:19 | Issue:6 |Papers Count:18

Textbooks are considered as one of the most essential requirements of any educational process (2003) and play an axiomatic role in many formal educational settings alongside other pivotal elements including teacher and learners. Undoubtedly, the evaluation and appraisal of such a critical component of education is not only a permanent need in any such context but also it directly enhances the quality and efficacy of educational practices. The present study critically appraises a textbook entitled "Understanding Research in Applied Linguistics". For the stated purpose, both content and facial aspects of the text are meticulously reviewed and evaluated. The most notable merits of the book include a good variety of activities designed, an extensive use and review of the related literature, and highly acceptable mechanics of writing; however, lack of rigid consistency and coverage of the stated objectives in the main text, fluctuations in the difficulty level of the language used and the inconsistency observed between the already designed ministerial syllabus and the content of the text are among the most salient shortcomings.

This paper is an attempt to introduce and review Japanese language textbook series Manabō Nihongo published by Senmon Kyouik. This textbook series at the present time, Due to characteristics such as coordinating the content of the series with the five levels of the Japanese international JLPT test, covering the ability of the Japanese language from elementary to advanced levels, and preparing various assistant books in order to improve the four skills of language, listening, speaking, reading and writing has been used as a textbook series in many universities and language teaching centers around the world in recent years. Since the adoption of the new curriculum for Japanese language and literature by the ministry of science, research and technology's ministry of higher education planning in 2015, in the department of Japanese language and literature of university of Tehran, this textbook series has been replaced Minna no Nihongo and gradually has been used. Due to the position of this textbook series in teaching Japanese in the world and Iran, the present paper tries to highlight its advantages and disadvantages.

This research is dedicated to the analysis of Russian-Persian dictionaries standardization in terms of the observance of microstructure and macrostructure criteria in lexicography. The obvious note in this study is to use the criteria of dictionary standardization in Russian lexicography for analyzing Russian-Persian dictionaries. In lexicography, the structure of dictionaries is divided into two main sections: microstructure and macrostructure. For each of these sections, relevant requirements have been defined. Macrostructure contains the general structure of dictionaries. For the bilingual dictionaries, macrostructure includes order of headwords, preface, instructions, abbreviations list, grammatical information, and appendixes. The microstructure of dictionary is general structure of the dictionary entry. For bilingual dictionaries, this is headword, phonetic information, grammatical information, discrimination of meaning, semantic information, equivalents and the references. Dictionary, which is based on the standard criteria of macrostructure and microstructure, is called a standard dictionary. In this research, the principles and criteria for dictionary compiling are first gathered from Russian references, then on their bases, we examine the three most commonly used Russian-Persian dictionaries in Iran in terms of compliance with these standards. Three analyzed Russian-Persian dictionaries are: "Russian-Persian dictionary" edited by I. K. Ovchinnikova, "Russian-Persian dictionary" by G. A. Voskanyan and "Russian-Persian dictionary" by S. D. Klevtsova.

The Effect of Persian Literature on English Literature written by Hassan Javadi is one of the sources of the course Generalities of Comparative Literature. This book addresses the effect of Persian literature on English literature from the late middle ages to the end of the twentieth century. The present book falls within the framework of comparative literature, especially the French school because Javadi mentioned these sources one by one and provided sufficient evidence and documentation on the basis of valid and first hand sources. Studying the literary relationships, especially the effectiveness and affectedness of writers and poets, in the language and literature of various countries is one of the most important areas of research of the French comparative school. The present article investigates this book in the realm of comparative literature and has three main sections: The first section introduces the work and its author and the position of this book compared to similar books and identifies its strengths and weaknesses. The second section addresses the formal analysis of the book and discusses its drawbacks and shortcomings and the third section investigates the content analysis.

The materials which are produced to be used at national level are of great importance since they are supposed to feed a wide range of audience. Therefore, critical review of such materials is among the critics’ priorities. In this review article, the newly-published English language materials for grade ten in Iran including the textbook, workbook, and CD will be analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. After reviewing the history of producing such materials in the previous periods, the current work was analyzed in terms of its structure and theoretical framework. Then, its content was analyzed via comparing its elements with those of the communicative approach as the mainstream framework in the realm of language teaching. The analyses indicated that, considering the wide range of audience, the current work is in urgent need of revision if it intends to meet the objectives of foreign language learning in the curriculum.

There seems to be a crying necessity for a coherent and comprehensive framework for teacher preparation in these times of growing economic, cultural, and educational globalization. This book introduces a state of-the-art model for developing prospective and practicing teachers into strategic thinkers, exploratory researchers, and transformative teachers. The main driving force for conceptualizing this modular model is to empower teachers to theorize what they practice and practice what they theorize by providing a scaffold for them to build a holistic understanding of what happens in the language classroom. Some outstanding features, encompassing meritorious objectives, comprehensive technical knowledge, expansive rigor of analysis, consolidated structure, catchy terms of reference, highly user-friendly academic texts make this book an authentic reference for postgraduate students, researchers, practicing teachers, teacher educators in pre-service as well as in-service program. However, the present model fails to take into account some important features, including emotional intelligence, multiple intelligence, social intelligence, willingness to communicate, stroke, sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic competence, technology-based needs, and ESP. More comments with regard to appearance, structure, and content are in order. Furthermore, we highlight the strengths, point to some weaknesses, and provide some suggestions.

In this article the suitability, from a methodological point of view and due to its significant success, of using the book “ How to comment a literary text” , by Fernando Lá zaro Carreter and Evaristo Correa Calderó n, as a basic manual for the acquisition of literary skills in different subjects, such as “ Analysis and comment on literary texts” , “ Examples of prose and poetry” and “ Spanish literature I, II and III” , will be addressed. This book is being taught at Iranian universities in the Spanish language degree studies. Moreover, taking into account the major significance it has acquired, due to its methodological excellence, it has been used in the secondary and university education, both in Spain, Hispanic America and in other countries of the world where the Spanish language is taught as a second language, to the point that it is systematically included as one of the fundamental bibliographical references in the literature studies of diverse eras, authors and specific literary movements and, undoubtedly, in analyzing and commenting literary texts.

Selecting the book tailored for criticism and theory lessons is a challenge for the professors, affecting class success and students' sense of satisfaction. This course is offered to students in different academic disciplines in Iran, and therefore, a proper book to teach this course is needed in the academic publication market in Iran. In this market, there are numerous books, most of which are translations of English-language texts. Since the course Criticism and Theory are among the most difficult lessons for students, selecting the right book can reduce the burden on the students and professors. In the present article, the author compares the Rutledge's Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory Handbook edited by Simon Malpas and Paul Vick with some examples of English criticism in English language and literature to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of this book, and evaluate in terms of educational value. It also presents suggestions for making it applicable in the classroom. Eventually, the author believes that the Rutledge's Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory Handbook is a considerable book for teaching the course Criticism and Theory, and a proper translation can meet the needs of other disciplines.

The foregoing article is a study on the teaching Spanish language at the Faculty of Foreign Languages of the Islamic Azad University (North Branch) in Tehran, along with the critical review on the usage of the Manual of Carreter and Tusó n, and the correspondence of the textbook with the teaching methods available in Iran. To this end, we present this work thoroughly, review and criticisms that result from some years of teaching experience in the Islamic Azad University of Tehran. Also, by designing a questionnaire of ten questions, We evaluate its goals. The results include the views and suggestions of the professors, masters. and students of this field and suggest that this book is very effective for the educational mechanism of Iran and by adding only a few concepts insights by the professors, it will be up-to-date.

Given the importance of materials evaluation in language teaching, particularly in Persian language teaching, the present study investigated Persian Vocabulary in Use (Volumes 1 & 2) from the perspectives of Rubdy’ s (2003) model and task-based syllabus design. To this end, a number of Persian language instructors and learners were interviewed and the two volumes of the book were analyzed. The results revealed that, according to the instructors, the book was successful in creating and developing cooperative learning, providing authentic tasks, and classifying and grading the content. However, the learners believed that the book could not develop innovative techniques for vocabulary teaching and learning, but it could provide an opportunity for cooperative learning, and authentic materials. It also well introduced Iranian culture. However, the book was not able to develop creativity. According to the learners, learners’ needs were not met throughout the book either. Regarding the tasks used in this book, it was found that the necessary tasks were missing and that there was a need for more tasks. It can be concluded that the book should be revised based on the learners and the instructor’ s ideas and that more communicative tasks should be inserted to the book.

The formalists like Shklovsky for reviewing a piece writing put the hypertext view aside, and by considering the text and intra-text components reach to the literary sides of text, and they pay less attention to the entrance of hypertext components to text. They payattention to the specialty of "wonder" in literary language of ordinary affairs. Moreover, in this way they know different types of deviations as the cause of defamiliarization. Parviz Shapour, in addition to his different look at comedy which ended to a new genre under the name cari-kalmator, uses some methods of defamiliarization, especially semantic deviation, to show his language non-repetitive the same as his genre. In this research, according to the concepts to be mentioned, we reviewed the caricatures of Perviz Shapur's book "Welcomed to My Sight", in order to find out the mystery of simple but interesting statements of this cari-kalmator writer.

In the present research, the poems of the book "Eastern Motifs" by Vasily Levovich Velichka have been studied. More than half of this work has been formed with Persian and Persian literary concepts. He was fluent in Persian, traveling to Iran and the city of Isfahan. He loved Iran so much that he was nicknamed Esfahani. The main purpose of the present research is the introduction of unknown poet in Iran, and also the comparative analysis his book "Eastern Motifs". Examining poems such as "From Khayyam", "From Ansari", " From Hafiz", "Ghazal (The persian song), " "Moon and Rose", indicates the special interest of Velichka in Persian literature and poetry as well as Islamic concepts, and it reflects the universality of the concepts of Iranian literature and wisdom. Velicka's poetry is a unique combination of Persian and Russian literary concepts, and it is one of the best examples of self-reflection in the "Other" style. Velichka has given his poetry and enriched his poetry with the use of the vocabulary, anecdotes, and sentences of the eastern Persian. This fact reflects the dynamics of Persian literature, which has been very influential not only in Iran but also in world literature.

Evaluation of teaching materials has a significant impact on the development and implementation of educational programs and it is by means of evaluation that course book developers and instructors can judge the influence of materials. The current study, using mixed method, evaluated third year high school English course book i. e. Prospect 3. 83 teachers and 470 students of this grade participated in the study, nationwide, to complete the questionnaires. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the concepts under study, 10 teachers were also interviewed. The data collected by questionnaires were analyzed using two separate descriptive statistics. The results of two multiple regression analyses revealed that for teachers the component of skills and for students the components of practices and activities were the stronger predictors of book evaluation. It could be concluded that taking these results into account helps instructors to have a clear critical evaluation of the book and to devise a more comprehensive lesson plan.

With the central role of textbooks, particularly, in centralized educational systems such as that of Iran where a single textbook is recommended for nation-wide use, evaluation textbooks, especially whilst-use evaluation, can highlight points of strength and weakness in a book and pave the way for its improvement in later editions. The present study set to evaluate Vision 1, English textbook for grade 10 in the new Iranian educational system. To this end, a questionnaire taken from Ahmadisafa et al. (1396) was distributed among 150 English teachers (selected from different provinces of the country through convenience sampling). Furthermore, 20 of the above teachers responded to a researcher-designed semi-structured interview involving: 1) general evaluation of the book, 2) advantages of the book over those previously used, 3) viewpoints of the teachers' over realization of the aims of the book, 4) its points of weakness, and 5) the teachers' suggestions for improvements in its later editions. The results indicated that the teachers were relatively satisfied with: 1) supplementary materials and teacher's book, 2) grammar, vocabulary and language functions, 3) content and language skills, 4) tasks and exercises, 5) design and layout, and 6) teaching methodology. However, the interview revealed the teachers' relative dissatisfaction with the book, with most of them considering the book unsuccessful in fulfilling the set objectives.

In this article, first we will give a brief reference to the history of Sonnet Genre and the crown of sonnets and how it entered into Russian literature. then, we will referred to the origin of the sonnet in the world literature, and then in Russia. We will review the effect of the Minarets, a crown of sonnets by Valery Mitrokhin, a poet from Crimea, that was founded on this basis. After Pushkin, the creator of the poetry Fountain of Bakhchisaray and the poem "To the Fountain of the Palace of the Bakhchisaray", in poems of the other Russian poets, Crimea's irreplaceable space, his talent, geopolitical sensibility and his love to Crimea are tangible. The traces of the poems of the Pushkin Bakhchisaray are also seen in Mitrokhin's Minarets. The main hemistichs of the "Minarets" of Mitrokhin are artistic reflection of the Pushkin Bakhchisaray. The main issue in the "Minarets" of Mitrokhin is the peaceful life of people with various and prevailing opinions about the religions in the Crimea. By using this kind of literature, he focuses on geopolitics. So by criticizing the "Minarets" of Valery Mitrokhin, we can conclude that he follows Pushkin's will and, like him, believes in maintaining unity among the peoples of the Crimea, and the historical and natural symbols of geopolitics of Crimea has influence on the creation of his sonnets.

A critical glance at certain studies and articles on "Persian Word-selection", especially in some issues of Name-Ye Farhangestan quarterly, reveals the adopting a one-sided approach of science-oriented 'word selection' in response to the pacing overflow of foreign terms, particularly English. It is implied by reading and reviewing such studies that Iranian Academy of Persian Language and Literature (Farhangestan-e Zaban va Adab-e Farsi-ye Iran) has taken on-board the act of foregrounding the 'scientific word-selection' program via centralizing the approach of 'scientific word-selection'. In other words, the approach adopted in the studies and writings published by this planning institution are more towards centralizing the activity of 'scientific word-selection'. This is while equivalent-providing for the increasing input of foreign languages is not to be solely restricted to scientific words, or more expertly expressed, to scientific terms. Undoubtedly, lingual equivalent-providing covers a wider scope of language, incorporating the more general supra-scientific discourses as well as their related lexicology. The study of the mainstream trend of equivalent-providing in Persian language and the status and magnitude of the need for lexical equivalent-providing in other supra-scientific discursive fields, as compared with the scientific discourses, is the question which the present study is going to deal with.

The aim of this article is to criticize the bilingual Persian-English Phonetics and Phonology Dictionary written by Golnaz Modarresi Ghavami which has been published by Nashre Elmi in 2015. This work almost satisfies the needs of its users in acquaintance with Western theories in Phonetics and Phonology; however, it does not thoroughly follows the main principles of Lexicography in macro-structure and micro-structure. The method of data collection is traditional and the author has not used Corpus-based methods. In some cases such as the lack of pronunciation and phonetic symbols, general information of entries, explanatory information, in-text citations, giving examples, writing and editing principles, this work requires revision and improvement. Moreover, it is necessary that the author consider new and up-to-date resources as well. If the author tried to include Islamic terminology of Phonetics and Phonology in next editions, this dictionary will become a much more comprehensive resource in these two fields.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the position and structure of proverbs in Qaisar Aminpour poetry. It is a descriptive and analytical research study, using library resources for data collection. Here, the structural features of proverbs in Qaisar Aminpour poetry are explained from two perspectives of language and literary. Aminpour uses proverbs in four functions; namely, proverbial phrases, proverb creation, manipulation with the term proverb and proverbs with different uses (manipulation in meaning). For defamiliarization, he tries to interweave proverbs with literary figures and enhance literary aspect. Among which similarity and paradox are generally received more attention. His proverbs often focus on ethics and education. For Aminpour, proverb is a figurative language and literary device owing its origin to social culture of ordinary language, while covering an artistic characteristic combined with literary and linguistic elements. As a cultural commodity, the proverb is about the language of common people changing its form and nature. Such transformation yields in spreading out different combinations and sentences of Aminpour’ s poems across the community.