Esmat Babaii; Mahmood Reza Atai; Abbas Parsazadeh
Volume 11, Issue 24 , December 2019, , Pages 55-78
Abstract
This paper seeks to probe cultural agendas pertaining to the images of celebrities in the widely-used English language textbooks. In fact, while visual analysis has solidified its position in ELT (e.g. Hurst, 2014; Mitsikopoulou, 2015; Romney, 2012; Taylor-Mendes, 2009) and caused the pendulum to swing ...
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This paper seeks to probe cultural agendas pertaining to the images of celebrities in the widely-used English language textbooks. In fact, while visual analysis has solidified its position in ELT (e.g. Hurst, 2014; Mitsikopoulou, 2015; Romney, 2012; Taylor-Mendes, 2009) and caused the pendulum to swing away from the grammatical or textual content to the visual presentation (Giaschi, 2000), research into celebrities as the cultural representatives has been a barely touched issue. To address this gap, the researchers, drawing on Kachru’s (1985) orthodox model of the usage of English across the globe, examined the images of celebrities in four widely-used English language textbook series. In so doing, the terms depiction and mention (Toprak & Aksoyalp, 2014) were taken as a yardstick to pinpoint the type of intersection between the text and the image. Further, the images were thematically explored, which notably indicated the images relating to the field of media were the far most common theme in the English language textbooks. Lastly, it was revealed that whereas the images of the inner-circle outnumbered all, the images of the expanding circle surprisingly outnumbered those of the outer circle, an outcome which could point to linguistic schizophrenia (Kachru, 1992) as the main reason.
Mahdieh Mofidi; Mohammad Reza Hashemi
Volume 11, Issue 23 , June 2019, , Pages 157-187
Abstract
The purpose of the current study was to investigate culture representation in ACT series, a recently developed EFL textbook by Iran Language Institute, with a focus on the visuals. Two models were taken into account for content analysis: Cortazzi and Jin (1990) to investigate the type of culture (i.e., ...
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The purpose of the current study was to investigate culture representation in ACT series, a recently developed EFL textbook by Iran Language Institute, with a focus on the visuals. Two models were taken into account for content analysis: Cortazzi and Jin (1990) to investigate the type of culture (i.e., source, target, & international) and Adaskou, Britten, and Fahsi (1999) to investigate the dimension of culture (aesthetic & sociological). Analysis of 1581 visuals indicated that textbook developers have placed a high value on presenting international and source cultures while target culture has received comparatively little attention to fulfill the mission for which the series was developed. Additionally, as of the two dimensions of culture, visuals representing the sociological dimension of culture outnumbered those manifesting the aesthetic dimension. To conclude, it can be claimed that ACT series can be beneficial in promoting intercultural awareness among its audience and providing the learners with an opportunity to communicate their cultural and national identity with other bilingual speakers of English. The study ends with some future lines of research for the interested researcher.
Saeed Khazaie; Gholam Reza Zarei; Ali Reza Jalilifar
Volume 5, Issue 12 , December 2013, , Pages 63-92
Abstract
This study aimed at providing learners with an opportunity not only to bring together their core and disciplinary knowledge to acquire major skills of learning English as a foreign language (EFL), and the intellectual challenge of these issues at the interface of media, language and religion, but also ...
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This study aimed at providing learners with an opportunity not only to bring together their core and disciplinary knowledge to acquire major skills of learning English as a foreign language (EFL), and the intellectual challenge of these issues at the interface of media, language and religion, but also help the materials generators to produce suitable types of content to be delivered through the medium of mobile technology. Therefore, it sought to examine the new way of teaching EFL in the form of correspondence with respect to Iranian learners' native culture and language. For the purposes of this study, English was the target language for 680 Iranian students with pre-intermediate level of language proficiency whose native languages were Persian, Arabic, Georgian, and Turkish. This study took as its point of departure the existence of important differences between the two learning materials (off the shelf vs. Islamic culture) types; thus, applying the Qur'ānic criteria of intelligence, knowledge and virtue parallel with the digital representation of common textbook materials, materials delivery was adapted to the cellphone screen to be accessed by learners' in 18 virtual sessions. Learners took part in two summative and 18 formative components included in the assessment design of this study. Also, they all answered a questionnaire which yielded information concerning their attitude towards the target language, and learning through the wireless technology. Learners' short texting correspondence as well as their performance in battery and their answers to items of questionnaires formed the reference for analyzing the results. The gains from English Islamic materials were outweighed by the effects of obtaining materials which involved more categorized cases.
Reza Abdi
Volume 1, Issue 212 , December 2008, , Pages 1-15
Abstract
Writing projects are socially-situated identities. The rhetorically-loaded aspects of writing, like metadiscourse marking, are more prone to carry such identities. Through analyzing metadiscourse strategies employment in Persian and English (as the lingua franca of academic discourse community) research ...
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Writing projects are socially-situated identities. The rhetorically-loaded aspects of writing, like metadiscourse marking, are more prone to carry such identities. Through analyzing metadiscourse strategies employment in Persian and English (as the lingua franca of academic discourse community) research articles, this study makes an attempt to find out whether Persian native writers take on the identity and norms of the discourse community in writing in their own language or preserve the cultural identity and norms of their native language. A comparison of 36 Persian and 36 English research articles showed that, on the whole, the norms of Persian language in the use of metadiscourse were different from that of the academic discourse community. Closer analysis revealed more similarities in the employment of interactive metadiscourse used to guide the readers, and significant differences in the use of interactional metadiscourse that could represent the specific cultural identity of the Persian writers.
