there has been a gradual shift of focus from the study of rule systems, which have increasingly been regarded as impoverished, … to the study of systems of principles, which appear to occupy a much more central position in determining the character and variety of possible human languages. there is a set of absolute universals, notions and principles existing in ug which do not vary from one ...

abstract in a protocol analysis of second language writing from 20 adult english as a foreign language (efl) iranian students, this research observed how language-switching (l-s), i.e., first language use in l2 writing, was affected by l2 proficiency. switching interactively between first (l1) and second (l2) languages has been recognized as one of the salient characteristics of l2 writing....

although there are studies on pragmatic assessment, to date, literature has been almost silent about native and non-native english raters’ criteria for the assessment of efl learners’ pragmatic performance. focusing on this topic, this study pursued four purposes. the first one was to find criteria for rating the speech acts of apology and refusal in l2 by native and non-native english teachers...

hedging is a multi-purpose rhetorical strategy which is usually used in scientific arguments to secure ratification of claims, reduce the risk of negation, avoid conflict, manage disagreement and leave room for the audience to assess presented information. hedges are frequently used in research articles to mitigate the findings of research endeavors. the present research aims to investigate the...

the speech act of disagreement has been one of the speech acts that has received the least attention in the field of pragmatics. this study investigates the ways power relations, social distance, formality of the context, gender, and language proficiency (for efl learners) influence disagreement and politeness strategies. the participants of the study were 200 male and female native persian s...

the construct of self-efficacy has received increasing attention in research over the past two decades. many studies have been carried out 1.3 significance of the study this study has pedagogical implications since improving students’ self- efficacy and autonomy is important for promoting actual performance on classroom academic tasks. in academic settings, it has been shown that self-effi...

the present research was conducted to accomplish two purposes. firstly, it aimed to explore and describe schematic structure or what halliday and hassan (1989, p.64) have called “generic structure potential” (gsp) of american english, iranian persian and iranian english newspaper editorials within systemic functional linguistics. secondly, a quantitative cross-comparison was made to investigate...

abstract abstract of thesis (includes summary, goals, execution methods, and results) story “al-obnosat al-bayza” is one of the short stories from “hanna mineh” collection. this story is a selection of lives of some humans during a voyage together, each of them is a symbol of human nature (love, mind, kindness) and examine social, cultural, and political aspects of governing system, and it...

the major purpose of this study was to develop the translation teacher competency test (ttct) and examine its construct and predictive validity. the present study was conducted in two phases: a qualitative phase as well as a quantitative phase. in the first phase of the study, the author attempted to find out the major areas of competency required for an academic translation teacher. the second...

abstract cooperative learning refers to small groups of learners working together as a team to solve a problem, complete a task, or accomplish a common goal. in a cooperative environment one’s success is directly related to the success of other members because the focus on the individual shifts towards the group. to test the effectiveness of the method, using jigsaw technique, a study was cond...