Linguistics & Translation

This study is an attempt to find the differences of the progressive aspect in English and Persian, concerning both form and function. To find such differences, first, the structure and the functions of progressive forms in English and Persian are compared and contrasted. And it is explained how differences in grammatical and lexical aspects in these languages account for a higher frequency of progressive forms in English. Then, all the past progressive verbs in a selected English text are compared with their counterparts in the Persian translation text. The selected texts consist of 11 chapters of the English novel ‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte (1950) and its Persian translation by Mohammad Taghi Bahrami-harran (1998). The data shows a clearly higher frequency of progressive form in English compared with the Persian. Based on the contrastive analysis done the reasons for such difference are; differences in functions related to lexical aspects inherited in verbs, employing an imperfective form in the Persian system which has no grammatical realization in English, expressing progressive meaning through lexical realization in some Persian sentences, and impermissibility of negative progressive form in Persian.

Scholars believe that the detection of DMs is a tricky task, which necessitates their disambiguation or the identification of their pragmatic occurrence. Among DMs, like is said to be one of the most difficult to detect owing to the fact that the word like functions as a DM, adjective, adverb, verb, noun, preposition, and conjunction, which all in all necessitates a high level of skill and proficiency for its identification and detection. Accordingly, this study aimed at investigating if learners’ proficiency can be indicative of their ability in detecting the word like when functioning as a DM. Therefore, two intact classes, 20 sophomores and 27 seniors representing novice and skilled learners respectively, of Iranian EFL majors studying at the University of Kashan participated in this study. From Collins COBUILD, 14 sentences including the word LIKE with its seven functions (2 sentences for each function) were chosen and the participants were asked to translate them into their mother tongue (Persian) and indicate the function of the word like within parentheses in front of each sentence. Using two-way ANOVA, the researcher investigated mean differences among function scores. The results indicated that the participants found detecting the word like when functioning as a DM the most difficult and that the level of proficiency can be indicative of the participants’ success in identifying the DM like

Test-task characteristics have been considered as an important factor affecting the test takers’ performance on a test (Bachman, 1990, p. 156). Response format is one part of test-task characteristics that affects the performance of test takers. This study investigates whether the kind of response format would affect the performance of test takers. For this reason two test methods - - multiple-choice and free-response - - have been compared. The tests, together with a checklist of test taking strategies were administered to forty undergraduate English students of Rasht Azad University. The analysis showed that two tests with identical content but different formats did not yield measures of the same trait. In addition, the discrimination indices showed that two reading tests could discriminate students differently. This was more investigated by analyzing data obtained from the checklists of test taking strategies.

Language is the means of communication among people. Gilaki language is an ancient and living Caspian language, and a member of the northwestern Iranian language branch, spoken in Iran’Gilan province. Gilaki is one of the branches of Pahlavi Ashkani language i.e. Parti, which is spoken in the north of Iran and the south parts of the Caspian Sea. Gilaki language and English language are included in the Indo-European branch of languages in language classifications. In this paper similar vocabularies in Gilaki and English languages are investigated. Among found vocabularies, some are completely similar both in terms of phonetic and semantic; some are semantically similar but phonetically different and some are phonetically similar but semantically different. And finally some words have slight differences both phonetically and semantically.

This study examines stereotypical representations and roles of women in action movie posters across three eras of Hollywood. Adopting a semiotic approach, the research analyzed 30 movie posters from 1930 to 2012 with the following objectives: i) to examine the visual representation of women in movie posters, ii) to investigate gender bias in titles and taglines of movie posters, and iii) to show the shift in the representations and roles of women in movie posters. Findings showed four major role categories: lover, damsel in distress, sex object, and heroine. Lovers were both centralized and marginalized in posters across three eras. The submissive lovers of the classical period transformed into multifaceted characters in the post-classical posters when they wielded guns or were juxtaposed with outlaws. Damsels in distress were backgrounded through reduced image sizes, gloomy colors, and long shots in the classical and post-classical posters. A shift came about when new Hollywood featured woman and her rescuer in close shots. Women’s nudity was obscured through use of unnatural colors, small sizes, and public shots in the post-classical era. In the new era, heroines were given weapons to indicate their physical prowess. Though female characters were given equal space with male heroes, they were still placed at a subordinate classification level. Movie titles and taglines mainly referred to male heroes’ missions or actions and women’s villainy, besides other themes such as racial conflicts or war.

The present study aimed at investigating different reading comprehension strategies applied by Iranian B.A students of translation while translating a text from English to Persian. In doing so, thirty-two students (sixteen sophomores and sixteen seniors) were given a text with a nearly high level of difficulty to be translated. This level of difficulty was double-checked by two professors in advance. Each and every step taken during the process of translation was then tape-recorded and further placed in the classes of ‘general’ vs. ‘local’ reading comprehension strategies pointed out by Block (1992), which is based on think-aloud protocols. The results of the Chi-Square tests indicated that there were statistically significant differences in terms of the frequencies of local strategies among the ‘higher’ vs. the ‘lower’ level of students. The findings also revealed that there were no statistically significant differences in using the general strategies among such students.

This study was an attempt to evaluate Iranian high school English textbooks in terms of vocabulary, grammatical structures and compatibility between reading comprehension texts and grammar exercises. Readability formula and experts’ judgment were used to ensure that high school textbooks, English American headway and English American file books were at the same level of difficulty .The findings revealed that, there were a significant lack of compatibility between the grammatical structures and reading comprehension passages in each lesson and also between high school textbooks and English American headway and English American file books in terms of the order of presentation and content.

This paper attempted to explore vocabulary learning strategy use by English Translation students. It also aimed at studying the participants’ level of creativity. Moreover, it attempted to investigate the relationship between students’ vocabulary learning strategy use and creativity. In addition, it tried to examine the impact of students’ level of education and gender on the relationship between their vocabulary learning strategy use and creativity. Sixty four English Translation students took part in the study. The vocabulary learning strategy questionnaire (Jones, 2006) was utilized to investigate the participants’ vocabulary learning strategy use. In order to measure their creativity level, Torrance test of creative thinking (Torrance, 1999) was administered. It was explored that dictionary and social strategies were reported as the most frequent strategies utilized by all students and study preferences were the least frequent ones. The result also showed that the participants displayed a low level of creativity. Their creativity level had no significant relationship with their vocabulary learning strategies except for the guessing strategies (r= .282, P< 0.05). Freshmen and seniors’ level of education did not affect the relationship between the two variables while junior students displayed a significant impact on the relationship between creativity and vocabulary learning strategy use with respect to guessing strategies. Finally, it was explored that gender affected their relationship with regard to guessing strategies and social strategies for females and males, respectively.

The notion of "washback" is common in the language teaching and testing literature, and tests are held to be powerful determiners of what happens in classrooms (Alderson and Wall, 1993). "Washback" refers to the influence of language testing on teaching and learning (Cheng, Watanabe, & Curtis, 2004). Milanovic and Weir's book Changing Language Teaching Through Language Testing: A Washback Study offers insights into the concept that a test can be used to encourage innovation in the classroom.

The present paper addresses politeness strategies used by young adults in Kenyan Universities to replace linguistically tabooed words and phrases related to sex. The main aim of this paper is to guide users on appropriate linguistic strategies to use when confronted with linguistic taboos. The study adopted Brown and Levinson’s Politeness theory (1978) to analyze 11 examples. The study revealed that youths in Kenyan universities employ a variety of politeness strategies to avoid linguistic taboos related to sexuality. The findings could be used to improve current intervention measures on youth’s risky sexual behaviors.