phatic communion is a cultural concept which differs across cultures. according to hofstede (2001), the u.s. tends to have individualistic culture; however, asian countries tend to have collectivistic cultures. these cultures view phatic communion differently. in individualistic cultures like u.s., phatic communion reflects speakers’ socio-cultural relationships in conversations. to see whether...

chapter two presents three m-admissible function algebras ab, bd, and sl, to construct the universal abelian, band, and semilattice compactifications, respectively. the main results are (11.3), (12.3), and (12.4). some inclusion relationships between these function algebras and the other well-known ones, presented in section 8, are made via the devico of compactifications. chpter three is about...

nitric oxide (no) is a small molecule synthesized by most of mammalian cells with diverse biological activities including vasodilatation, host defense and wound healing. impaired wound healing is a common occurrence among diabetics and patients receiving glucocorticoid therapy. on the other hand the application of laser in biomedical area have been increased. thus, the current studies were desi...

data envelopment analysis (dea) is a powerful tool for measuring relative efficiency of organizational units referred to as decision making units (dmus). in most cases dmus have network structures with internal linking activities. traditional dea models, however, consider dmus as black boxes with no regard to their linking activities and therefore do not provide decision makers with the reasons...

this study investigates the strategies native english and persian speakers employ for expressing gratitude in different situations. the strategies of persian efl learners are also compared with english strategies in order to find the differences that may exist between these two languages. social status and size of imposition of the favor are social variables which are investigated in detail for...

from 1950s onward, new theories and critical approaches burgeoned across humanities. these theories were context-oriented; as a result, the analysis of discursive practices gained significance. thus, social, political, historical and cultural discourses that have been hitherto marginalized and considered inferior to literary texts, were introduced as important texts to be analyzed by critics. o...

in fact, this study focused on the following questions: 1. is there any difference between the effect of functional/notional approach and the structural approaches to language teaching on the proficiency test of efl learners? 2. can a rather innovative language test referred to as "functional test" ge devised so so to measure the proficiency test of efl learners, and thus be as much reliable an...

the current study examined iranian undergraduate efl students’ willingness to communicate with regard to their vocabulary knowledge. in general, participants were somewhat willing to communicate in english. the total mean score of 730 university students’ perception of willing to communicate was 83.53 out of 135. results, regarding four parts of willingness to communicate, revealed that part...

abstract the aim of this study was threefold: (1) to investigate the relationship between knowledge of semantic prosody and efl learners general language proficiency; (2) to examine the relationship between qualitative as well as quantitative knowledge of words, and (3) to compare the performance of efl learner on receptive and productive measures of semantic prosody. the study is based on a...

the study of air infiltration into the buildings is important from several perspectives that may be noted to energy and design of hvac systems, indoor air quality and thermal comfort and design of smoke control systems. given the importance of this issue, an experimental and numerical study of air infiltration through conventional doors and windows has been explored in iran. to this end, at fir...