IRANIAN JOURNAL OF APPLIED LINGUISTICS (IJAL)
Year:2005 | Volume:8 | Issue:2|Papers Count:5

This study aimed at extracting and categorizing the range of strategies used in performing the speech act of apologizing in Persian. The first objective was to see if Persian apologies were as formulaic in pragmatic structure as in English apologies are said to be (Wolfson, 1983; Holmes, 1990; Bergman and Kasper, 1993). The other issue explored in this study was the investigation of the effect of the values assigned to the two context-external variables of social distance and social dominance on the frequency of the apology intensifiers. To this end, Persian apologetic utterances were collected and analyzed. The research findings indicated that Persian apologies are as formulaic in pragmatic structures as are English apologies. Also, the values assigned to the two context-external variables were found to have significant effect on the frequency of the intensifiers in different situations.

The research on the nature of the underlying reading sub-skills is still unsettled. Nor is there any consensus over the divisibility of reading into a set of component skills. Improving construct validity of tests of L2 reading comprehension requires further investigation on the variables underlying reading ability and the possibility of operationalizing the underlying traits. To this end, a Test of Reading Sub-skills (TRS) was developed which operationalized the components of the Comprehensive Taxonomy of Reading Sub-skills (CTRS) derived from major taxonomies in the literature through a detailed comparative analysis of their proposed components. The TRS employed a wide variety of test methods in two general categories of the Expected Response Format, namely, ‘Selected Response’ and ‘Constructed Response’. Data was collected on the performance of 1606 Iranian EFL learners including English majors and non- English majors, each subject randomly answering one of the eight forms of the TRS. Data were analyzed using Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis. The results showed that L2 reading ability is composed of a number of underlying latent traits or macro-skills. It is maintained that a componential approach to reading assessment and pedagogy should be informed by empirical evidence on the nature of variables underlying reading ability.

The C-test is widely known as a test of overall language proficiency. Most of the evidence in this regard has been obtained through correlational studies. Nonetheless, construct validity of the C-test is just partially established. Moreover, such studies do not reveal anything about the mental processes going on in the mind of the testees. Verbal protocol analysis has been recommended as an important tool to validate the C-test. A C-test consisting of 5 texts with 100 deletions was given to a sample of 26 Iranian English seniors, and subsequently a retrospective verbal protocol analysis was carried out to learn what happened in the mind of the testees while they were restoring the test items. The results of the study showed that the subjects used 13 different strategies, consisting of both bottom-up and top-down processes. However, the use of different strategies varied as a function of both the types of items in the C-test as well as the proficiency level of the subjects. The results of the study suggest construct validity of the C-test as a test of overall language proficiency.

This study was an attempt to explore the effects of EFL students’ L2 proficiency and age on their overall pattern of vocabulary learning strategy use. In order to conduct the study, two hundred and thirteen language students (112 male and 101 female) from different levels of language proficiency and different age groups (13-60) took part in the study. Two instruments were used in the study. First, a truncated test of TOEFL was used to classify the students into three proficiency levels and then a 56-item vocabulary learning strategy questionnaire was used to elicit information on the strategies used by the students to learn vocabulary. Several statistical analyses were conducted to analyze the obtained data. Through factor analysis, strategies were loaded in four factors and were named as cognitive, relational, social, and contextual. The results showed that both proficiency and age had some effects on the use of vocabulary learning strategies. Students with higher proficiency tended to use cognitive strategies more than the other two proficiency levels. Moreover, it was found that as students’ age increased, their use of cognitive strategies increased while their use of social and contextual strategies decreased.

This study investigates the way a political issue as well as its main participants and their actions are represented in newspaper headlines. Employing a number of analytical tools from Van Dijk (1998) and Halliday’s transitivity model, the study examines the headlines of news stories on Iran’s nuclear program published by a number of British newspapers to identify the specific ideology propagated by the newspapers. The findings of the study indicate that the British newspapers’ coverage of Iran’s nuclear program tends to present a negative image of Iran and its nuclear program in the context of “Us” and “Them”. The findings provide evidence to support the claim that news media do not simply reflect the social reality but articulate dominant ideologies in representing political events. The study contributes to the understanding of the ideological role of language within news discourse in constructing representations of a society.