Purpose: The purpose of this applied research is to study the effectiveness of gamification on corporate training.  Methodology: A gamified course was designed and implemented to train the location of Fire Hosing Cabinet for 24 employees of a firefighting maintenance company in Iran Mall shopping Center in Tehran. Using a quantitative quasi-experimental research plan (post-test only control group design) the participants of the study were randomly assigned to treatment (12) and control (12) groups and trained for a week.  Conclusion: The descriptive and interpretive result of the posttest analyses indicated the effectiveness of gamification of the training performed for the employees of the firefighting maintenance company in Iran Mall shopping Center in Tehran. Moreover, the descriptive result of Gamification Acceptance Questionnaire answered by the members of the experimental group after gamified training indicated that all the participants in the experimental group were satisfied with the gamified training course.

Introduction Human beings are social phenomena and like to stay connected with each other through an available means called language. According to Marzban and Noori (2020), writing is a useful skill for students to convey their feelings, ideas thoughts and express their needs. In fact, interaction is the basic factor in learning human language and an important element in human’ s social life (Ramazani et al, 2018). There is a large body of research that examined the INTERACTIONAL RESOURCES that writers use through a variety of research frameworks. In the same vein, the purpose of the current study is to focus on the effect of the language used in letter writing and the writer's gender on the length of text production and the extent to which the INTERACTIONAL meanings are used in the letter. Materials and methods Participants of this study included 60 elementary young learners (30 boys and 30 girls) studying in an English Language Institute with the age range of 12-14. All of them were at the same level of proficiency. They took placement test of English Language Institute and passed three terms in the Institute. All of them were at the elementary level of English proficiency. Pseudonyms were used for all the participants in this study. Personal letter, as suggested by Lindgren and Stevenson (2013), was selected as suitable task for data collection. The same task was used in both L1 and FL. The Farsi text was written first and after a three-week interval, the English text was written. Both tasks were undertaken in the classroom for 20 minutes and the participants were not allowed to use any RESOURCES. C-unit chosen for data analysis in the current study consists of two parts: Macro and Micro analysis. The former focuses on the analysis of the rhetorical content. The latter focuses on the analysis of discourse-semantic expression of C-units. Results and discussion This study has examined whether language and gender influence the expression of INTERACTIONAL meanings in the letters of young Iranian learners through both quantitative and qualitative analysis of data. Considering the first research question, the findings revealed that both boys’ and girls’ text production in their L1 was more than their text production in their FL. Similar to other studies on young FL writers (e. g., Lindgren & Muñ oz, 2013), it was found that participants wrote significantly shorter texts in FL. Although these young writers can be said to be developing literacy in two languages, not surprisingly, there still appear to be considerable differences in their proficiency in L1 and FL writing. They are more fluent writers in Farsi than in English, and have a better command of the Iranian language system. The findings are also in line with Lindgren and Stevenson (2013) who stated that young writers’ text production in their L1 is more than their text production in FL. Regarding the second research question, the findings showed that girls’ text production in L1 and FL is more than boys’ text production in L1 and FL. The findings of this study are consistent with some previous studies in the field of discourse analysis and gender differences (e. g., Argamon et al., 2003; Jones & Myhill, 2007; Canaris, 1999). In terms of interactive expressions in language writing, it has been claimed that "women's writing contains more features that indicate conflict, while in men's writing there is a tendency to provide and share more information. " It is seen more, as it shows the author as the possessor of knowledge” (Jones, 2012: 168). However, the studies of some other researchers did not report a significant difference between the use of interactive cues by male and female language learners, and the results of the present study are not consistent with them (e. g., Kuhi, Yavari & Azar, 2012; Tajeddin & Alemi, 2012; Aziz, Jin & Nordin, 2016). The findings of the third and fourth questions showed that there were effects of language and gender on learners. Boys asked more questions at the end of text than girls in both languages. Girls presented their attitudes more strongly than the boys, wrote more evaluative about people in both languages, and used more emotive and affective language (e. g., Argamon et al., 2003; Canaris, 1999; Tajeddin & Alami, 2012). Conclusion This study has focused on the use of INTERACTIONAL RESOURCES in writing letters by 60 young EFL learners to a friend in Farsi (L1) and English (FL). The findings obtained showed that both boys’ and girls’ text production in their L1 was more than their text production in their FL and the girls used more aspects of text production such as number of c-units and characters than the boys. The findings can be used to help the EFL teachers in the sense of finding and distinguishing the differences in the boys’ and girls’ use of INTERACTIONAL RESOURCES to communicate with their audience. Thus, if knowing better, they can monitor their expectations of their language learners’ writings and teach them according to their writing preferences. Besides these results, it should be pointed out that this research had some limitations, e. g., the use of availability sampling method which has a low generalizability, focusing on one special age and level of English proficiency, focusing on one specific genre, and examining the effects of merely two variables of writers’ gender and text language. Future studies are recommended to be conducted using more rigorous and rigorous sampling methods, focus on a wider age range and language proficiency level, consider different genres, and investigate the effects of more variables.

This article tries to explain the Islamic revolution using a multi-cause solution. This model explores the Islamic revolution in three levels: indirect structural elements, direct voluntary elements and intermediary elements. At first level, the emphasis is on structural elements of social condition which have created unnormal opportunities or obstacles, since the renewal process in Iranian revolution has played a pivotal role in creating such a social condition. At the level of voluntary elements, executers of the revolution and their power to mobilize people and how and why some people and groups are absorbed to revolutionary actions are investigated. Finally at the level of intermediary elements, relative feeling of deprivation has been discussed as a psycho-social factor and as an intermediary for previous two levels.

The main purpose of this paper is to study the impact of INTERACTIONAL feedback on inter language variation in terms of accuracy, complexity, and fluency of learners' discourse in performing planned vs. unplanned tasks. The forty upper-intermediate participants of the study who were both male and female young adult learners were randomly assigned into an experimental and a control group. Every participant of both groups was required to perform both a planned and an unplanned task. The experimental group received INTERACTIONAL feedback while performing each task, but the control group was not provided with any feedback. The results of statistical analysis revealed that the participants exposed to INTERACTIONAL feedback while performing both the planned and the unplanned tasks achieved greater accuracy and complexity, but lower fluency. While feedback hindered fluency in both planned and unplanned tasks, greatest fluency was related to the performance condition in which the participants benefited from a plaJlt1ing time period and were not interrupted with feedback moves. The findings highlight the need to consider INTERACTIONAL feedback as a task implementation condition in task grading and sequencing and the necessity of considering this task condition for accomplishing accuracy, complexity, and/or fluency in task response.

Introduction: Since the ultimate purpose of learning a foreign language is being capable of communicating in that language, the concept of INTERACTIONAL competence is of dire importance in teaching and learning a second language. INTERACTIONAL competence is the ability to use language in different social contexts. Furthermore, as a paralinguistic code, intonation has direct influence on the accent of learner or the so-called foreign accent. Literature Review: Chomsky (1965) introduces performance versus competence. Hymes (1972) broadens competence to include language use in social situations that he calls communicative competence. According to Kramsch (1986) concepts of addressee and communication context are main factors that differentiate INTERACTIONAL competence from communicative competence. Based on Young (2011), INTERACTIONAL competence includes identity, linguistic and INTERACTIONAL RESOURCES. Markee (2008) views INTERACTIONAL competence in three elements, namely, a formal system, a semiotic system and paralinguistic features.  Methodology: This article aims at going from linguistic and communicative competence to INTERACTIONAL competence that is both context- and interactants-dependent, in order to study intonation in real conversation. To this end, functions of intonation in German language are introduced and described in the process of reaching INTERACTIONAL competence and maintaining successful communication in this language. Results: In teaching a foreign language, we should engage the learners in social and cultural aspects of the language in order to improve and develop their INTERACTIONAL skills and reach near native accent.

This presentation will introduce the state-of-the-art in Biolinguistics, and the philosophical, theoretical, and descriptive issues that challenge Biolinguistics’s foundations will be mentioned. The current study will benefit from the author’s published articles both in English and Persian and his books published and in press in  Persian to discuss the following topics : (a)  Left periphery in the Minimalist Program and its implications for the theory of language in general and syntax- pragmatics interface in particular, (b) Word order/ constituent order peculiarities of Ancient, Middle, and Modern Iranian Languages undermine the current assumptions in Biolinguistics, and (c) Split alignment is a hallmark of the majority of the Iranian Languages ( past and present). The most common grammatical tool to encode some grammatical functions in these languages is Indexation/agreement. In these languages, three syntactic domains have been grammaticalized (the CP- domain, the VP- domain, and the PP+ V- domain) to host the pronominal clitics, which index the grammatical subject of past tense (transitive) verbs. This topic is interesting because the pronominal clitics are mobile within the relevant syntactic domain, which is grammaticalized by a particular language. Their mobility is sensitive to Information Structure, most specifically focus marking. This study will argue that these observations suggest a strong interdependence (not merely interface) between the syntax module and the information structure, namely the pragmatics module. This presentation will benefit from the findings in items (a)-(c) to argue in favor of a model of language with philosophical, theoretical, and analytic underpinnings which the Biolinguistics Program is not equipped with.

The concept of INTERACTIONAL competence and its assessment as a complex language ability has long been a concern for research. A more recent approach to testing this construct has called for an investigation into the commonly-used concept of washback which refers to the effect of testing on teaching and learning.  This study aimed to investigate the washback effect of an INTERACTIONAL competence checklist on EFL teaching and learning. The study combined qualitative and quantitative research methods within a comparative design between an experimental and a control group of 27 advanced English learners. Data was collected through students’ oral performance, teacher and student surveys, the IC checklist, and classroom observations. The data were analyzed using mixed ANOVA and content analysis using coding schemes and themes to compare the scores obtained before and after the treatment. The study revealed a statistically significant difference in learners’ interactive oral performance before and after the implementation of the checklist. Results indicated positive washback in aspects including familiarity with the checklist, test quality, interpretation and use, motivation, professional development, and learners’ studying habits. The implications for the classroom are that language program administrators and curriculum designers can introduce modifications in developing materials that foreground a focus on INTERACTIONAL competence.

By generalizing and developing Richards’s view and by counting limitations of both the substitution and comparison theories, Max Black explains his interaction theory of metaphor. Words in Blacks view, interact in a metaphorical expression to produce a meaning that is the result of this interaction. Black analyzes this interaction as an interaction between the framework and focus of metaphor in which framework, by providing a unique context to focus, imposes an extension of meaning to the focus word. The focus word acquires a new meaning from this interaction. This article is intended to provide a comprehensive and clear study of interaction theory.

This study investigated the use and functions of metadiscourse markers in English as a foreign language (EFL) virtual classroom during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study examined which metadiscourse markers—interactive or INTERACTIONAL—were used more frequently and how they were employed in an EFL context. It explored two interactive metadiscourse RESOURCES (code glosses and evidentials) and two INTERACTIONAL metadiscourse RESOURCES (attitude and engagement markers). The study utilized a mixed-method approach, using Hyland’s (2004) two-componential taxonomy, to analyze a corpus of 303,148 words from 35 online lectures (90 minutes each) delivered by three university instructors in the UAE. The Mann-Whitney U test was employed to determine any significant differences in the use of these RESOURCES and their subcategories. The results revealed that the three instructors used more INTERACTIONAL than interactive RESOURCES. The qualitative analysis showed that code glosses and evidentials were primarily used to manage the flow of information, provide elaboration on propositional content, and provide evidence to support arguments. They were also employed to achieve cohesion and logical coherence in online classrooms. In contrast, attitude and engagement markers were used to engage students and signal the instructors’ attitudes toward their material and audience. The study concludes with pedagogical implications for EFL instructors, students, and syllabus designers to foster social justice and fairness in the online learning environment, ensuring all students feel valued and empowered in their educational journey.