charles dickens was a voracious reader even in his childhood. his early reading of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century picaresque fiction greatly influenced his writing style. his first novel, the pickwick papers, is a tale of rogues and swindlers, adventures and quests, satire and comedy, and innocence and experience. oliver twist, dickens’ second novel, is a young boy’s progress through a cor...

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...

colonialism is an important factor in cultural production and many of cultural constructs all over the world. english and english language teaching are at the center of the contemporary world. postcolonial literature, the genre achebe exercised, is a kind of historical text which has become central to different debates and criticisms. in this thesis, different elements related to the colonial...

as far as bandura’s (1977) conceptualization of the sense of self-efficacy is concerned, it is argued to be context- and even task-specific, compared to other concepts like self-esteem (brown, 2000); therefore, upon the previous research studies, related theories and definitions, and the ideas and views obtained from the interviews conducted with the scholars, the current research study aimed a...

abstract in written mode of language, metadiscourse markers are used commonly to help writers in general and academic writers in particular to produce coherent and professional texts. the purpose of the present study was to compare introduction sections of applied linguistics and physics articles regarding their use of interactive and interactional metadiscourse markers based on the model pro...

cohesion is an indispensable linguistic feature in discourse analysis. lexicald such a differe cohesion and conjunction in particular as two crucial elements to textual cohesion and comprehension has been the focus of a wide range of studies up to now. yet the relationship between the open register and cohesive devices has not been thoroughly investigated in discourse studies. this study concen...

the present thesis is going to investigate the theme of despair, darkness and pesimism in philip larkins poetry. larkin is a british poet whose poems were composed in the dark and gloomy years of postwar. so, his poetry contains and reflects the same darkness and despair of his age. a good number of poems form different collections of his poetry are chosen and will be analyzed in the light of t...

educational researchers have provided evidence that teachers’ emotional intelligence has strong effects on various aspects of teaching and learning. yet, in the field of teaching english to speakers of other languages (tesol), inquiry into teachers’ emotional intelligence is nearly limited. given its documented powerful impact on teaching practices and student learning, it is critical to pursue...

the present study was carried on to investigate the use of face-keeping strategies in reaction to complaints by male and female in two different cultures, persian and american english. to see if apology strategies are affected by cultural, contextual preferences and gender of interlocutors in two distinct languages of persian and american english. the hypotheses to be tested were 1) ifids, acce...

asymmetric membranes are widely used in many industrial membrane separation processes. the major advantage of membrane filtration over the conventional process is its ability to remove a wider spectrum of particles without using any chemicals. hollow fiber configuration offer many advantages over flat-sheet or tubular membranes. the spinning process of hollow fiber may look simple, yet it is te...