Literature

The paper focuses on the struggle of women who aspire to be independent, achieve distinct position for herself and to get education, freedom and identity in the society. Manju Kapur's A Married Woman highlights Astha's struggle and survival as a new woman insisting on liberation from patriarchal social structure and thinking. She emerges as a free woman, destroying the chain of tradition. Kapur thus portrays the woman from different angle by placing her in the midst of socio-economic struggles.

This study aims at analyzing the relations between EFL learners’ locus of control, self-directed learning readiness and the choice of vocabulary learning strategies. The participants were 137 undergraduate students from Islamic Azad university- Rasht branch. Oxford Placement Test (2004) was administered to them in order to specify the homogeneity of the participants in terms of language proficiency. In order to measure the variables of the study self-report questionnaires of locus of control, self-directed learning readiness and vocabulary learning strategies were used. To achieve the purpose of the study spearman rank-ordered correlations, independent sample t-tests, two Man-Whitney tests, two-way factorial MANOVA, simple linear regressions and one-way ANOVA analyses were conducted. The results revealed that self-directed learning readiness positively correlated with both discovery and consolidation vocabulary learning strategies and that self-directed learning readiness’s levels predict the use of two types of vocabulary learning strategies.

This article presents a Bourdieuian reading of Isabella Whitney`s A Sweet Nosegay (1573) and offers some important insights regarding the social status of women in the patriarchal society of the Renaissance era. This study embodies two primary aims; firstly, to investigate women`s social status based on Bourdieu`s theory concerning cultural, social, and economic capital and secondly, to ascertain that both habitus and field have a central role in determining one`s social position. The research data for this study are collected using Bourdieu`s assumptions regarding women`s perspectives in society that, to some extent, are in line with theories of Hélèn Cixous and Elaine Showalter concerning “écriture féminine”. Taken together, this study confirms previous findings and contributes evidence that suggests whether or not women had experienced the renaissance of female consciousness in the sixteenth century. Keywords: A Sweet Nosegay, Ecriture feminine, Elaine Showalter, Hélèn Cixous, Isabella Whitney, Pierre Bourdieu.

This paper traces the colonial perspective in Amitav Ghosh’s The Glass Palace, a historical novel that presents the colonization of Burma and its impact on the royalty as well as the commoners. Post Colonial Literature is a body of literary writing that deals with the problems and consequences of the European colonization of the Middle East, Asia and Africa. The novel deals with the European greed and the cruelty of colonization as it unfolds over a period of hundred years of pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial Burmese history from the late 19th century to the end of the 20th century. It describes the effortlessness with which the country is captured by the British and the Burmese royalty deported to India and the aftermath of this incident in the lives of people. Through the life of RajKumar, the protagonist of the novel, the author unfolds the poignant accounts of people scattered through post- imperialist dislocation in various parts of the Asian Continent. The natives are presented as victims rather than foes of the colonizers. This paper presents the sordid reality of imperialism and its destructive effect on the social, psychological and ecological aspects of human life. The aspirations and disappointments of the colonized people are also brought forth as they try to ‘figure out their place in the world’

Writers have long been interested in dealing with the adverse effects of science on the life of the human race. Earlier, the science achievements on various fields of life were looked at positively. However, sci-fi writers, since H. G. Wells' dark pessimistic view of man's future under the control of scientists, robots, or computers altered the general perspective, have been concerned with the undeniable damaging consequences of man's complete reliance on advancement of technology in managing his life. Douglas Adams believed that science should be viewed as dangerous and destructive because it neither ameliorated man's life nor it kept as it is; rather, devastated not only man's achievement throughout history, but also brought all humans' hopes of perfection to a horrible end. The Hitchhiker Guide to the Galaxy is clearly a document that condemns the destructive science that is responsible for the massacres perpetrated in many parts of this world. This paper, therefore, attempts at detecting Adams's views of man's future life, bearing in mind all the radical changes that are still taking place in this life.

The significance and effectiveness of pre-reading activities in the contexts of both ESL and EFL has been acknowledged by many researchers. If students lack the required background knowledge, a teacher must activate students’ background knowledge or offer background information prior to reading a text. The present study aimed at investigating the role of pre-reading questions plus extensive reading in affecting the reading engagement of Iranian EFL learners. Participants of the study included two groups of 30 EFL learners with similar language proficiency. Reading engagement was measured using Reading Engagement Index developed by Wigfield and Guthrie (2004). Language learners were pretested on reading engagement and it was found that the two groups of the study were not significantly different in terms of reading engagement. Afterwards, one group received extensive reading plus pre-reading questions and another group received just extensive reading. The two groups’ reading engagement was measured after treatment to explore the effect of treatment on reading engagement of language learners. The results of paired samples and independent samples t-test indicated that pre-reading plus extensive reading was more successful in enhancing reading engagement of language learners compared to extensive reading.

It is necessary to know the language and concepts of terms, because every science has the specific feature and Hafiz can be also considered in this way, therefore it is necessary to consider the titles and concepts such as faith and disbelief in his gazelles, because the concept of belief and disbelief refer to religion, hence it is necessary, they are considered in the field of knowing Hafiz, and this essay tries to search the meanings of belief, disbelief and love in his gazelles. I tried to concern the religious principles, my theism due to religion. There has been found a new approach in Hafiz’s poems other than the common a theism, as matter of fact, it is mystical atheism, in order to reach the love way which is higher than faith.

The purpose of this paper is to present some instructional ideas for second language (L2) listening comprehension and their alignment with listening assessment. Among the suggestions are using spoken texts as instructional input, introducing the micro- and macro markers and providing students with authentic texts. In addition, the paper also highlights the importance of awareness-raising on the differences between spoken and written language among L2 learners. To expand the extant of the scope of possible instructional ideas for L2 listening, the discussion on pre-teaching of listening input and its connection to learners’ schemata is also included. To consolidate the discussion on instructional ideas, communicative reciprocal listening instruction is recommended for L2 listening instruction. Apart from instructional ideas, suggestions on how to develop a ‘considerate’ listening assessment that is in alignment with classroom instruction are also presented in this paper.

Research in common parlance refers to a search of knowledge. It is also defined as a scientific and systematic exploration for pertinent information on a specific topic. It is a movement from the known to the unknown and a voyage of discovery. It comprises defining and redefining problems, formulating hypothesis or suggested solutions; collecting, organizing and evaluating data; making deductions and reaching conclusions and at last carefully testing the conclusions to determine whether they fit the formulating hypothesis. Research is thus, an original contribution to the existing stock of knowledge making for its advancement. It is the pursuit of truth with the help of study, observation, comparison and experiment. The purpose of research is to discover answers to questions through the application of scientific procedures. The main aim of research is to find out the truth which is hidden and which has not been discovered.

Wole Soyinka remains unarguably the most published and the most widely read/studied African author. As such, the price he has to pay for the popularity of his works is that various scholars across the globe tend to interpret them from different perspectives with the result that there seems to be no end to fresh insights being given his especially dramatic works some of which date as far back as 1950s. But, as Ogunbiyi (1981) notes, while some of Soyinka’s plays like The Lion and the Jewel make easy reading, others become almost incomprehensible to the majority of either audience or reader. Many studies into this “obscurantism” in Soyinka have been carried on from the linguistic and semiotic points of view. This study adds to the quest to explain away the source of difficulty level in Soyinka’s The Road. The researcher applies the text to Rowland Barthes’ theory in Narratology with the purpose to finding out how the symbolic character contributes to making the understanding of a literary text difficult.