Literature

Speech act theory is a widely disputed field and issues such as what speech acts are and how they are classified seem to be culture specific, and not as universal as some of the studies presented above have described. Evidence on speech act production and recognition from different cultures have demonstrated that more research needs to be done in order to provide a theory that has an integrated approach to speech acts. Thus, besides carefully defining the term used in the research and creating an appropriate taxonomy, social, cultural, and pragmatic influences on the meaning, perception, and production of speech acts need to be considered. This study aims at comparing the strategies used by Native English speakers and Iranian EFL learners for expressing promising in different situations. The participants of this study were 27 among whom 20 were Iranian EFL learners and 7 were native English speakers. The participants were both male and female, aging from 18 to 31 years old. An open-ended data collection technique (DCT) was employed for studying participants' responses and verbal reactions to different situations. Iranian EFL learners’ sensitivity to L1 made them use inappropriate expressions and strategies in their English responses. It suggested that Persian learners of English transfer some of their L1 pragmatic norms to L2 because they perceive these norms to be universal.

This study investigates the effects of scaffolding on Iranian students of advanced level in English writing system. Participants are 30 students who were studying passage one in an institute in NourAbad, Iran. This study was conducted to determine whether the scaffolding affect on their writing ability. Data were collected using language proficiency test. Then data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings indicate that scaffolding can improve students’ writing ability and help them to write more effectively.

It is obvious that learning new vocabularies in the process of acquiring a second language has always been significant. First and best medium in every language is vocabulary. No connection is possible without knowing the words. Using words means connection. Without using vocabularies and knowing their meanings, speaking is worthless and meaningless. Acquisition of new words is of various procedures. Some learn new words through speaking and some learn by reading. In second language teaching and learning vocabulary through reading, there are two instructional techniques: incidental learning and intentional learning. This case study explores the role of reading in S2 vocabulary acquisition, and the effect of different vocabulary instructional techniques on the vocabulary learning of Iranian advanced EFL students who learn English in English institutes. The results of the study produce the following findings: 1) Both instructional treatments result in significant gains in learners` receptive vocabulary knowledge, but the combination of the incidental and intentional learning instruction leads to greater vocabulary gains and better retention. 2) Students` vocabulary size plays a decisive role in acquiring the productive aspect of the vocabulary knowledge.

Characterization and Type creation of male protagonists in Persian old stories is based upon traditions which are derived from ancient Iranian kingdom and religions. A survey based on six cases proves that there are three types ?of male characters in the ancient Iranian stories. The First type, is the mythical hero of the Sam dynasty in Sh?hn?meh which is an Indo-Iranian myth by origin. The second type is related to the characters who possess the Divine virtue or “Farr”,that belongs to ancient Iranian kings and the third type is the amorous wine loving “troubadour”.

Brahiminism remains a pervasive force in the works of U.R. Ananthamurthy. The places where Brahiminism is strong remain undeveloped with Brahmins becoming a part of unproductive society. Ananthamurthy’s works show that Brahmins remain a backward and unproductive society because of orthodoxy. Ananthamurthy’s heroes rebel against the oppressive system and try to justify their existence by rebelling against the customs. Incidentally all the heroes are Brahmins who know their society intimately, but they are liberal, open-minded and modern individuals who understand that if the Brahmins have to prosper in the modern world then they have to shun their attitude and fit into the modern economic system. The current paper studies different works of U.R. Ananthamurthy and shows how his heroes develop recalcitrance while trying to wake up their society to the evils that emanate from their anachronic customs and professions.

Narayan’s women characters embody situations of female repression and exploitation within a patriarchal regime that is challenged by their resourcefulness and independence, to the extent where they enact terrible myths like that of the Goddess Kali. The characters’ symbolic primitivism is blended with western literary techniques in cases like that of “Selvi”, who personifies the Divine Singer Saraswati; Rosie the seducer who represents the Sacred Dancer Mohini; or Savitri and Shanta Bai, who are opposite faces of the loyal and perfect companions Savitri and Sita.

Linguists interest in discourse in recent years is gradually shifting from the traditional focus on ideational dimension of texts and speech to the ways they function interpersonally. Such a view argues that writers or speakers do not simply produce a text to convey information and to represent an external reality. They, however, seek to ensure that the information they present is understandable and acceptable. In this regard, they draw their addressees in, and try to motivate them to follow along. To communicate effectively, they anticipate their receivers' expectations, requirements and resources, and try to engage them in their texts and affect their understandings of them. Writing or speaking is, therefore, viewed as a social and communicative process between writers or speakers and readers or listeners.

Lectures are inevitable in university classes and are used as a way of imparting knowledge to students. They must be comprehensible and salient especially for students of other languages who need help in understanding the content and in appropriating the language. Appropriate use of discourse markers (DMs) are believed to play an important role in producing a meaningful and coherent message. In the literature of second language acquisition, the field of discourse markers has been largely omitted so far and most of the studies on DMs have focused on native (or bilingual) speakers of English, who acquire this pragmatic competence in their childhood. This paper is an attempt to compare English (native) and Iranian (non-native) EFL lectures in the frequency and use of various discourse markers to identify the possible differences and related implications. For this purpose, a corpus of ten spoken lectures (5 North-American English lectures (NAC) taken from MICASE (Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English), and 5 Iranian EFL lectures (IC) recorded at Najafabad Azad University) were analyzed. The results of the study revealed that DMs were used more in the IC than in the NAC.

There has been a varied advancement in the English language teaching materials for second language learners. Even though materials are in abundance, poetry seems to lack its appropriate usage in the process of second language teaching. Traditionally poetry may have lost its function as an attractive tool to impart novelty in teaching a language; the present study focuses to teach the four basic language skills and the linguistic role in learning English Language through poetry. Teaching second language through poetry is effectual since it made the learners to stir out their own insightful thinking and to stimulate their creativity. The interpretative ability of the learners had a gradual increase when a few lines were given to interpret. Thus the paper suggests that poetry is very beneficial for the teachers of English in second language learning classrooms.

This study examines to analyze and compare errors of concord students often conflict when speaking or writing essay. The comparison was made after 4 month of first term, examination in the case of the SS1 and SS3 classes respectively. The respondents were made up of Senior Secondary one (SS1) and Senior Secondary three (SS3) classes of Ogbemudein Mixed Senior Secondary School, Agbor, Delta State, Nigeria. Both respondents were asked to write an essay twice with four months interval on the same topic. In each writing sessions, there were 60 essays written by respondents, giving a grand total of 120 essays being analyzed. The results showed an increase in errors resulting to 3.40% among students in the senior secondary one (SS1) but with drastic reduction of 10.48% among the Senior Secondary three (SS3) which of course performed below expectation.