International Journal of English and Education, 2013
This study investigates the use of attitude markers in qualitative and quantitative research arti... more This study investigates the use of attitude markers in qualitative and quantitative research articles by the use of corpus and genre analysis. In the first part of the study, the Discussion sections of 100 qualitative and 100 quantitative research articles published in five high impact journals from 2003-2009 in the field of Applied Linguistics were analysysed using WordPilot2002. The analysis showed that attitude markers appeared with similar frequency in both sub-corpora. Categorizing the attitude markers revealed that the two main categories used were adverbs and adjectives. In the second part, in order to identify in which parts of the Discussion section each of these stance features were clustered in, this feature was investigated in various moves of the Discussion sections of 10 qualitative and 10 quantitative research articles.The findings contribute to our understanding of research articles, and also have implications for pedagogy regarding the writing instruction to ESP students who are writing dissertations and research papers.
An investigation into the usability of rote and mnemonic strategies for vocabulary education amon... more An investigation into the usability of rote and mnemonic strategies for vocabulary education among elementary EFL learners.
The EAP students are not passive recipients who absorb subject-specific materials merely through ... more The EAP students are not passive recipients who absorb subject-specific materials merely through exposure to the reading skill. The dominant misleading conception surrounding the EAP courses is that exposing learners to specialized texts creates a shortcut which contributes to enhancing their knowledge of the language. However, this article discusses that discipline-specific reading materials are like one-way street which hardly develop the learners' grammatical and communicative competence. EAP learners need more general text types, tasks, activities, and exercises to learn and use the language. In the present study, the data were collected qualitatively through semistructured interviews, classroom observations, and field notes. The participants consisted of 60 students and 16 language instructors. Data analysis was based on the five curriculum structure proposed by Brown (1995): objectives, needs analysis, teaching, materials, and testing. This study attempts to shed some light on certain controversial issues and the findings can have significant implications for ESP and EAP teachers, graduate students, syllabus designers, material developers, and researchers in the field of ESP.
Iranian Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Jun 12, 2020
The acquisition of passive voice in English was studied in this quasi-experimental research throu... more The acquisition of passive voice in English was studied in this quasi-experimental research through the use of dictogloss technique as a focus on form approach. The participants, thirty-five male and female students, were English translation majors at BA level at University College of Nabi Akram in Tabriz. They were randomly assigned into two intact classes: the experimental and control groups. Nelson proficiency test indicated that they were at intermediate level of proficiency. The treatments were applied after conducting a proficiency test and a pretest in order to assure the learners' homogeneity in proficiency and their background knowledge in passive voice. The treatment and posttest tests were arranged in two forms, half of which were in multiple-choice format and the other half were supply type ones. The multiple-choice items were selected from Objective Tests (Orleans & Sealy, 1928) and the supply types were selected from two books named:
Journal of Modern Research in English Language Studies, Oct 1, 2020
Upholding the integration of form and meaning, focus on form approach can increase both accuracy ... more Upholding the integration of form and meaning, focus on form approach can increase both accuracy and fluency of EFL learners. This paper evaluates the role of focus on form approach, i.e. input enhancement, on the acquisition of passive voice in English. The degree of implicitness or explicitness of instruction is explored to ensure whether it affects learning of a specific form of the language. The pretesttreatment-posttest design was used in this quasi-experimental research with two groups: experimental (n=20) and control (n= 17). A proficiency test and a pretest were administered to guarantee the learners' homogeneity and their passive voice knowledge. The experimental group received the instruction through input enhancement technique. However, the control group was taught through the traditional method (i.e. focus on formS). The superiority of focus on form technique over the focus on formS was revealed through the one-way ANOVA and post-hoc test. The course book writers and teachers can use the findings of this research.
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Dec 1, 2017
Research articles have received a wide interest in discourse studies over the last few decades. A... more Research articles have received a wide interest in discourse studies over the last few decades. A vast number of studies have been centered on identifying the organizational patterns of research articles in various fields. Although Introduction section has enjoyed a lot of attention, very few studies have focused on rhetorical structure of qualitative and quantitative research articles. This genre-based investigation reports on a study of the Introduction sections of 15 qualitative and 15 quantitative research articles (RAs) in Applied Linguistics (AL) from five high impact journals published from 2008-2012. Based on Swales' (2004) move structure model, the present study focuses on Move 3 (introducing the present work) and examines how qualitative and quantitative research article writers introduce their work in Introduction section. The analysis revealed that there were similarities in the overall presence and use of steps in both groups. However, some differences in the overall presence and frequency of directive determinants were obvious which could be attributed to the different nature of these research designs. The findings reveal which options are available to the writers for presenting their own work in introduction sections of these two types of articles. By making explicit the norms and conventions of the community, which are normally implicit, the findings of this paper and similar genre studies can facilitate the participation of novice members in their discourse community. This, in turn, can lead to a successful academic writing.
Journal of English Language Teaching and Learning, Nov 22, 2017
If we are keen to boost the process of language learning, we need to study every aspect and compo... more If we are keen to boost the process of language learning, we need to study every aspect and component of our course. To this end, we carry out an investigation in which every detail of the course is put under microscope. Assessment of a course is an attempt in which different type of information is gathered systematically in order to study the working of a language instruction program. Certainly, program evaluation might be carried out for fulfilling different goals and purposes. Therefore, an evaluator should clarify the audience and the objectives of conducting program evaluation from the very beginning in order to obtain some adequate results. Different researchers have presented different proposals for the specific time of collecting data, type of data, and procedures of gathering data. Consequently, an evaluator should be familiar with the different dimensions of program evaluation. Also, some researchers treat program evaluation as a neat product, i. e. merely consisting of learners' end of instruction scores. Yet, others consider program evaluation as a process. At this juncture, the important issue is the selection of an appropriate design for the implementation of the actual process of the evaluation. It is suggested that the illuminative model is rather a proper design for program evaluation because of its different advantages. This article attempts to shed some light on the dimensions, goals, and design of the course study.
Journal of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics, 2013
This paper investigates how boosters are used by qualitative and quantitative research article wr... more This paper investigates how boosters are used by qualitative and quantitative research article writers to express certainty. Boosters are words such as definitely, sure, demonstrate which signal writers' assurance in what they say. Drawing on a corpus of 200 research articles in Applied Linguistics, this study compares the use of boosting words in the Discussion sections of qualitative and quantitative research articles in Applied Linguistics. The focus is on the frequency, main functions and form of boosters in these two sets of articles.
Iranian Journal of Applied Language Studies, Oct 1, 2020
Many types of research are carried out in the field of ELT. Therefore, different types of studies... more Many types of research are carried out in the field of ELT. Therefore, different types of studies are performed by postgraduate students, teachers, professors, and researchers. However, the main concern of the present article is that whether the postgraduate students, teachers, and professors have the necessary knowledge on three important research points: validity, reliability, and ethics. To this end, this article discusses these three issues and sheds some light on them. In fact, validity is concerned with the correctness of inferences according to the results and instruments. Meanwhile, reliability deals with the quality and consistency of the data collection procedures. In order to calculate the reliability of the data, Cohen Kappa's inter-rater agreement is presented and explained by means of a vivid example. Finally, ethics is an area of moral philosophy concerning the rules by which behavior needs to be directed. Finally, some means and ways of increasing and enhancing the validity, reliability, and ethics of the research are introduced and elaborated on. By providing comprehensive details and vivid examples, this article can be useful and helpful to postgraduate students, teachers, professors, and researchers in carrying out research and ensuring and quarantining their data, data collection procedures, and instruments.
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Jul 1, 2019
Semiotics as a broad field of study encompasses Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). SFL has pa... more Semiotics as a broad field of study encompasses Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). SFL has paved the way for Multimodality which is the study of different sources of meaning. This study was conducted to analyze the visual sources of meaning in children's storybooks on the basis of what Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) developed and called visual grammar. The chosen books for this study consisted of A, Apple Pie, Princess Rose and the Golden Bird, Tyrone the Horrible, and Terrible Tommy Tom Cat. The aim of this qualitative study was to investigate the interaction between the viewer and the represented participants. Accordingly, interactional meta-function was analyzed through interpreting the frequencies of each dimension of interactional meta-function in all pictures. It is supposed that there are differences in interactional meanings in storybooks in which the characters are animals and in storybooks in which the characters are human beings. The results of the present study prove the assumption of differences between the two types of storybooks. The viewer can enter into relation with represented participants in stories with human characters easier than the ones with animal characters. The findings may help teachers and syllabus designers. Specifically, teachers can choose the stories with human characters in order to make easy the process of involvement of the children with intended subject. They also can choose stories with animal characters in order to teach some strange concepts in which they do not want their students to be involved.
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Apr 1, 2018
It is now generally accepted that academic writing is a social activity by which the authors nego... more It is now generally accepted that academic writing is a social activity by which the authors negotiate with their audience to gain community acceptance for their findings. One of the ways to achieve such an acceptance is by establishing intertextual links to prior research using citation. Despite a vast research on the topic and suggestion of typologies for the form and function of citation in academic writing, few studies have focused on the rhetorical functions of citations. Using Swales' (1990) and Samraj"s (2013) typologies and analyzing 45 research articles from five high impact factor journals in the field of Applied Linguistics, this paper aims to identity the forms and rhetorical functions of citations in the Discussion sections of these articles. The analysis of the forms shows an overwhelming tendency towards using non-integral citations. Studying the functions of citations indicates that citations are used with various rhetorical functions: to compare the findings; support the explanations; to support the interpretations; and to support the recommendations. It is concluded that by referring to literature, applied linguists contextualize their propositions and try to use it as a support for their research claims in order to persuade their audience of their research outcomes soundness. The findings can enhance our understanding of the reasons behind choosing citations in various parts of discussion section and can be turned into pedagogical materials and raise rhetorical consciousness through teaching those choices explicitly to ESL students.
International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, Sep 1, 2013
Research articles have received a wide interest in discourse studies particularly in genre analys... more Research articles have received a wide interest in discourse studies particularly in genre analysis over the last few decades. A vast number of studies have focused on identifying the organizational patterns of research articles in various fields. However, to date, no study has been conducted on generic structure of qualitative and quantitative research articles. This study investigates the importance of commenting on findings in Discussion section of qualitative and quantitative research articles and the strategies that these two types of articles employ in making comments. The analysis shows that while commenting on findings is an important feature in both sets of articles, different strategies of commenting are favored in each type of articles. The differences can be attributed to the different epistemology of qualitative and quantitative research.
International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, Nov 17, 2014
Developments in the area of task-based language teaching (TBLT) research have heightened the need... more Developments in the area of task-based language teaching (TBLT) research have heightened the need to focus on the task implementation factors in the sense that they are effective in successful language performance to occur. The present study aimed to examine the effect of task repetition, as one of the task implementation variables, on Iranian high-intermediate English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' narrative writing performance. To this end, a pretest/post-test quasi-experimental design was applied; 40 participants, with 18 to 25 years of age, were non-randomly selected and considered as two groups of the experimental and control ones. Both groups took a pre-test to ensure their homogeneity in narrative writing skill. Then, for 14 sessions, the experimental group was engaged in repetitive practice of narrative writing tasks. Three weeks after the end of the treatment, both groups performed the two post-tests. The results of independent samples t-tests showed that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control one in regard with complexity on the two post-test phases (p<.05), however; the results were not significant in the case of accuracy. The findings have important pedagogical implications for EFL learners and teachers, as well as useful future research directions in EFL writing for the researchers.
Journal of language teaching, linguistics and literature, Mar 23, 2017
Academic communication is now widely seen as a social activity where writers interact with their ... more Academic communication is now widely seen as a social activity where writers interact with their audience. Various studies have shown that authorial presence is one of the key strategies for achieving this interaction. This corpus-based study examines the degree of authorial presence through the use of first person pronouns (I, we, my, our, me, us) in 150 qualitative and 150 quantitative research articles in Applied Linguistics using the concordance freeware AntcConc.3.4.1w (Anthony 2014). The analysis shows a greater use of self-mention by qualitative research writers compared with their quantitative counterparts, suggesting that research design determines the degree of personal involvement in academic communication within the same discipline. It also suggests that while quantitative research is considered "objective" in nature, the writers still position themselves in their writing and try to interact with their audience. Qualitative analysis of discourse functions of subject pronouns showed great similarity between the two sub-corpora (qualitative and quantitative), stating results/claims and elaborating arguments as being the most frequent functions.
Today, the English language enjoys a special status in the world. Consequently, English language ... more Today, the English language enjoys a special status in the world. Consequently, English language teaching and learning has become increasingly important. Generally, three important elements in every instructional context are: teachers, learners and materials. Coursebooks, part of the last element stated, namely materials, play an essential role in almost every ELT program. "Probably nothing influences the content and nature of teaching and learning more than the books and other teaching materials" (Cunningsworth, 1995, p.v). Among the different roles which the materials serve, Cunningsworth (1995), Grant (1994) and Richards (1998) agree that they determine the language content, help to provide a route map for both teachers and students, are the source of language practice, are the resource of language contact for learners and are helpful means for inexperienced teachers. However, depending on the type of educational system, syllabus or materials imposed by education authorities as well as the nature and amount of training for teachers, the degree of using coursebooks may differ among teachers (Cunningsworth, 1995). On the whole, some language teachers may not use coursebooks. They prefer to prepare their own materials because they believe that nobody knows their students better than they. Some of brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by University of Malaya Students Repository
This thesis is a mixed-method genre-based study which analyzes the Discussion section of qualitat... more This thesis is a mixed-method genre-based study which analyzes the Discussion section of qualitative and quantitative research articles in the field of Applied Linguistics. It is particularly focused on examining the generic structures and stance features of these two sets of articles. The study consists of two main parts. In the first part, 15 qualitative and 15 quantitative RAs' Discussion sections were analyzed employing Swales' (1990, 2004) move structure model. In the second part of the study, Hyland's (1999, 2005, 2008) taxonomy of stance featureshedges, boosters, attitude markers, and self mentionwas used to investigate stance features. This part of the study was conducted in two sections. In the first part, using WordPilot 2002, these four stance features were investigated in two specialized sub-corpora of 100 qualitative and 100 quantitative research articles' Discussion sections. The corpus analysis gave insightful information about the overall frequency as well as forms of stance features in the qualitative and quantitative sub-corpora. In the second part, in order to identify in which parts of the
Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Jul 1, 2016
This paper reports on a genre study of the Discussion sections of 15 qualitative research article... more This paper reports on a genre study of the Discussion sections of 15 qualitative research articles in Applied Linguistics from five high impact journals published from 2003-2009. Based on Swales' (1990, 2004) move structure model, this study aims to develop a description of move structure in this corpus and introduce the available patterns and options. The analysis reveals that there are similarities and differences between the generic structure of qualitative research articles identified in this paper and those found concerning empirical research articles. Index Terms-move structure, discussion section, qualitative research, applied linguistics I. INTRODUCTION Research articles (RAs) are a high valued genre in building and disseminating knowledge in academic communities. Writing a research report is a challenging task for writers as it requires them not only to establish the importance of their research but also to be familiar with the conventions of their discourse communities and be able to apply that knowledge in their writing. One attempt to identify community expectation has been taken through ESP genre analytical approach (Bhatia, 1993; Swales, 1990). The approach is based on the assumption that genres are communicative events which are organized by conventions that belong to discourse communities. There is a vast amount of literature on the generic features of RAs in various disciplines which have investigated either the whole article or one section of RAs within the IMRD (Introduction, Method, Results, and Discussion) framework including: research articles in Applied
A new round of trade negotiations under the World Trade Organization (WTO) was launched in 2001. ... more A new round of trade negotiations under the World Trade Organization (WTO) was launched in 2001. One of the major aims of the Doha Development Round is to reduce agricultural protection and impose greater discipline on domestic agricultural subsidies, particularly those that are the most trade distorting. In this paper we examine whether the proposed WTO modalities for agriculture will actually achieve this aim in Norway, which ranks among the top providers of government assistance for agriculture. Norway has a complex system of farm subsidies buttressed by substantial import protection. The extent to which its agricultural support policies will have to be changed in response to new WTO disciplines provides an important indication of how successful these are likely to be. We find that Norway will probably be able to sustain its current agricultural activity and production levels while staying within the new WTO rules. Following recent practice in some other WTO members, Norway will be able to reduce its notified support without making real changes in some of its programs. However, there will have to be a shift from market price support, which is paid for by consumers through higher food prices, to budgetary support paid by taxpayers and that could generate internal pressures for policy reform.
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Jul 1, 2019
Semiotics as a broad field of study encompasses Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). SFL has pa... more Semiotics as a broad field of study encompasses Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). SFL has paved the way for Multimodality which is the study of different sources of meaning. This study was conducted to analyze the visual sources of meaning in children's storybooks on the basis of what Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) developed and called visual grammar. The chosen books for this study consisted of A, Apple Pie, Princess Rose and the Golden Bird, Tyrone the Horrible, and Terrible Tommy Tom Cat. The aim of this qualitative study was to investigate the interaction between the viewer and the represented participants. Accordingly, interactional meta-function was analyzed through interpreting the frequencies of each dimension of interactional meta-function in all pictures. It is supposed that there are differences in interactional meanings in storybooks in which the characters are animals and in storybooks in which the characters are human beings. The results of the present study prove the assumption of differences between the two types of storybooks. The viewer can enter into relation with represented participants in stories with human characters easier than the ones with animal characters. The findings may help teachers and syllabus designers. Specifically, teachers can choose the stories with human characters in order to make easy the process of involvement of the children with intended subject. They also can choose stories with animal characters in order to teach some strange concepts in which they do not want their students to be involved.
International Journal of English and Education, 2013
This study investigates the use of attitude markers in qualitative and quantitative research arti... more This study investigates the use of attitude markers in qualitative and quantitative research articles by the use of corpus and genre analysis. In the first part of the study, the Discussion sections of 100 qualitative and 100 quantitative research articles published in five high impact journals from 2003-2009 in the field of Applied Linguistics were analysysed using WordPilot2002. The analysis showed that attitude markers appeared with similar frequency in both sub-corpora. Categorizing the attitude markers revealed that the two main categories used were adverbs and adjectives. In the second part, in order to identify in which parts of the Discussion section each of these stance features were clustered in, this feature was investigated in various moves of the Discussion sections of 10 qualitative and 10 quantitative research articles.The findings contribute to our understanding of research articles, and also have implications for pedagogy regarding the writing instruction to ESP students who are writing dissertations and research papers.
An investigation into the usability of rote and mnemonic strategies for vocabulary education amon... more An investigation into the usability of rote and mnemonic strategies for vocabulary education among elementary EFL learners.
The EAP students are not passive recipients who absorb subject-specific materials merely through ... more The EAP students are not passive recipients who absorb subject-specific materials merely through exposure to the reading skill. The dominant misleading conception surrounding the EAP courses is that exposing learners to specialized texts creates a shortcut which contributes to enhancing their knowledge of the language. However, this article discusses that discipline-specific reading materials are like one-way street which hardly develop the learners' grammatical and communicative competence. EAP learners need more general text types, tasks, activities, and exercises to learn and use the language. In the present study, the data were collected qualitatively through semistructured interviews, classroom observations, and field notes. The participants consisted of 60 students and 16 language instructors. Data analysis was based on the five curriculum structure proposed by Brown (1995): objectives, needs analysis, teaching, materials, and testing. This study attempts to shed some light on certain controversial issues and the findings can have significant implications for ESP and EAP teachers, graduate students, syllabus designers, material developers, and researchers in the field of ESP.
Iranian Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Jun 12, 2020
The acquisition of passive voice in English was studied in this quasi-experimental research throu... more The acquisition of passive voice in English was studied in this quasi-experimental research through the use of dictogloss technique as a focus on form approach. The participants, thirty-five male and female students, were English translation majors at BA level at University College of Nabi Akram in Tabriz. They were randomly assigned into two intact classes: the experimental and control groups. Nelson proficiency test indicated that they were at intermediate level of proficiency. The treatments were applied after conducting a proficiency test and a pretest in order to assure the learners' homogeneity in proficiency and their background knowledge in passive voice. The treatment and posttest tests were arranged in two forms, half of which were in multiple-choice format and the other half were supply type ones. The multiple-choice items were selected from Objective Tests (Orleans & Sealy, 1928) and the supply types were selected from two books named:
Journal of Modern Research in English Language Studies, Oct 1, 2020
Upholding the integration of form and meaning, focus on form approach can increase both accuracy ... more Upholding the integration of form and meaning, focus on form approach can increase both accuracy and fluency of EFL learners. This paper evaluates the role of focus on form approach, i.e. input enhancement, on the acquisition of passive voice in English. The degree of implicitness or explicitness of instruction is explored to ensure whether it affects learning of a specific form of the language. The pretesttreatment-posttest design was used in this quasi-experimental research with two groups: experimental (n=20) and control (n= 17). A proficiency test and a pretest were administered to guarantee the learners' homogeneity and their passive voice knowledge. The experimental group received the instruction through input enhancement technique. However, the control group was taught through the traditional method (i.e. focus on formS). The superiority of focus on form technique over the focus on formS was revealed through the one-way ANOVA and post-hoc test. The course book writers and teachers can use the findings of this research.
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Dec 1, 2017
Research articles have received a wide interest in discourse studies over the last few decades. A... more Research articles have received a wide interest in discourse studies over the last few decades. A vast number of studies have been centered on identifying the organizational patterns of research articles in various fields. Although Introduction section has enjoyed a lot of attention, very few studies have focused on rhetorical structure of qualitative and quantitative research articles. This genre-based investigation reports on a study of the Introduction sections of 15 qualitative and 15 quantitative research articles (RAs) in Applied Linguistics (AL) from five high impact journals published from 2008-2012. Based on Swales' (2004) move structure model, the present study focuses on Move 3 (introducing the present work) and examines how qualitative and quantitative research article writers introduce their work in Introduction section. The analysis revealed that there were similarities in the overall presence and use of steps in both groups. However, some differences in the overall presence and frequency of directive determinants were obvious which could be attributed to the different nature of these research designs. The findings reveal which options are available to the writers for presenting their own work in introduction sections of these two types of articles. By making explicit the norms and conventions of the community, which are normally implicit, the findings of this paper and similar genre studies can facilitate the participation of novice members in their discourse community. This, in turn, can lead to a successful academic writing.
Journal of English Language Teaching and Learning, Nov 22, 2017
If we are keen to boost the process of language learning, we need to study every aspect and compo... more If we are keen to boost the process of language learning, we need to study every aspect and component of our course. To this end, we carry out an investigation in which every detail of the course is put under microscope. Assessment of a course is an attempt in which different type of information is gathered systematically in order to study the working of a language instruction program. Certainly, program evaluation might be carried out for fulfilling different goals and purposes. Therefore, an evaluator should clarify the audience and the objectives of conducting program evaluation from the very beginning in order to obtain some adequate results. Different researchers have presented different proposals for the specific time of collecting data, type of data, and procedures of gathering data. Consequently, an evaluator should be familiar with the different dimensions of program evaluation. Also, some researchers treat program evaluation as a neat product, i. e. merely consisting of learners' end of instruction scores. Yet, others consider program evaluation as a process. At this juncture, the important issue is the selection of an appropriate design for the implementation of the actual process of the evaluation. It is suggested that the illuminative model is rather a proper design for program evaluation because of its different advantages. This article attempts to shed some light on the dimensions, goals, and design of the course study.
Journal of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics, 2013
This paper investigates how boosters are used by qualitative and quantitative research article wr... more This paper investigates how boosters are used by qualitative and quantitative research article writers to express certainty. Boosters are words such as definitely, sure, demonstrate which signal writers' assurance in what they say. Drawing on a corpus of 200 research articles in Applied Linguistics, this study compares the use of boosting words in the Discussion sections of qualitative and quantitative research articles in Applied Linguistics. The focus is on the frequency, main functions and form of boosters in these two sets of articles.
Iranian Journal of Applied Language Studies, Oct 1, 2020
Many types of research are carried out in the field of ELT. Therefore, different types of studies... more Many types of research are carried out in the field of ELT. Therefore, different types of studies are performed by postgraduate students, teachers, professors, and researchers. However, the main concern of the present article is that whether the postgraduate students, teachers, and professors have the necessary knowledge on three important research points: validity, reliability, and ethics. To this end, this article discusses these three issues and sheds some light on them. In fact, validity is concerned with the correctness of inferences according to the results and instruments. Meanwhile, reliability deals with the quality and consistency of the data collection procedures. In order to calculate the reliability of the data, Cohen Kappa's inter-rater agreement is presented and explained by means of a vivid example. Finally, ethics is an area of moral philosophy concerning the rules by which behavior needs to be directed. Finally, some means and ways of increasing and enhancing the validity, reliability, and ethics of the research are introduced and elaborated on. By providing comprehensive details and vivid examples, this article can be useful and helpful to postgraduate students, teachers, professors, and researchers in carrying out research and ensuring and quarantining their data, data collection procedures, and instruments.
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Jul 1, 2019
Semiotics as a broad field of study encompasses Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). SFL has pa... more Semiotics as a broad field of study encompasses Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). SFL has paved the way for Multimodality which is the study of different sources of meaning. This study was conducted to analyze the visual sources of meaning in children's storybooks on the basis of what Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) developed and called visual grammar. The chosen books for this study consisted of A, Apple Pie, Princess Rose and the Golden Bird, Tyrone the Horrible, and Terrible Tommy Tom Cat. The aim of this qualitative study was to investigate the interaction between the viewer and the represented participants. Accordingly, interactional meta-function was analyzed through interpreting the frequencies of each dimension of interactional meta-function in all pictures. It is supposed that there are differences in interactional meanings in storybooks in which the characters are animals and in storybooks in which the characters are human beings. The results of the present study prove the assumption of differences between the two types of storybooks. The viewer can enter into relation with represented participants in stories with human characters easier than the ones with animal characters. The findings may help teachers and syllabus designers. Specifically, teachers can choose the stories with human characters in order to make easy the process of involvement of the children with intended subject. They also can choose stories with animal characters in order to teach some strange concepts in which they do not want their students to be involved.
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Apr 1, 2018
It is now generally accepted that academic writing is a social activity by which the authors nego... more It is now generally accepted that academic writing is a social activity by which the authors negotiate with their audience to gain community acceptance for their findings. One of the ways to achieve such an acceptance is by establishing intertextual links to prior research using citation. Despite a vast research on the topic and suggestion of typologies for the form and function of citation in academic writing, few studies have focused on the rhetorical functions of citations. Using Swales' (1990) and Samraj"s (2013) typologies and analyzing 45 research articles from five high impact factor journals in the field of Applied Linguistics, this paper aims to identity the forms and rhetorical functions of citations in the Discussion sections of these articles. The analysis of the forms shows an overwhelming tendency towards using non-integral citations. Studying the functions of citations indicates that citations are used with various rhetorical functions: to compare the findings; support the explanations; to support the interpretations; and to support the recommendations. It is concluded that by referring to literature, applied linguists contextualize their propositions and try to use it as a support for their research claims in order to persuade their audience of their research outcomes soundness. The findings can enhance our understanding of the reasons behind choosing citations in various parts of discussion section and can be turned into pedagogical materials and raise rhetorical consciousness through teaching those choices explicitly to ESL students.
International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, Sep 1, 2013
Research articles have received a wide interest in discourse studies particularly in genre analys... more Research articles have received a wide interest in discourse studies particularly in genre analysis over the last few decades. A vast number of studies have focused on identifying the organizational patterns of research articles in various fields. However, to date, no study has been conducted on generic structure of qualitative and quantitative research articles. This study investigates the importance of commenting on findings in Discussion section of qualitative and quantitative research articles and the strategies that these two types of articles employ in making comments. The analysis shows that while commenting on findings is an important feature in both sets of articles, different strategies of commenting are favored in each type of articles. The differences can be attributed to the different epistemology of qualitative and quantitative research.
International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, Nov 17, 2014
Developments in the area of task-based language teaching (TBLT) research have heightened the need... more Developments in the area of task-based language teaching (TBLT) research have heightened the need to focus on the task implementation factors in the sense that they are effective in successful language performance to occur. The present study aimed to examine the effect of task repetition, as one of the task implementation variables, on Iranian high-intermediate English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' narrative writing performance. To this end, a pretest/post-test quasi-experimental design was applied; 40 participants, with 18 to 25 years of age, were non-randomly selected and considered as two groups of the experimental and control ones. Both groups took a pre-test to ensure their homogeneity in narrative writing skill. Then, for 14 sessions, the experimental group was engaged in repetitive practice of narrative writing tasks. Three weeks after the end of the treatment, both groups performed the two post-tests. The results of independent samples t-tests showed that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control one in regard with complexity on the two post-test phases (p<.05), however; the results were not significant in the case of accuracy. The findings have important pedagogical implications for EFL learners and teachers, as well as useful future research directions in EFL writing for the researchers.
Journal of language teaching, linguistics and literature, Mar 23, 2017
Academic communication is now widely seen as a social activity where writers interact with their ... more Academic communication is now widely seen as a social activity where writers interact with their audience. Various studies have shown that authorial presence is one of the key strategies for achieving this interaction. This corpus-based study examines the degree of authorial presence through the use of first person pronouns (I, we, my, our, me, us) in 150 qualitative and 150 quantitative research articles in Applied Linguistics using the concordance freeware AntcConc.3.4.1w (Anthony 2014). The analysis shows a greater use of self-mention by qualitative research writers compared with their quantitative counterparts, suggesting that research design determines the degree of personal involvement in academic communication within the same discipline. It also suggests that while quantitative research is considered "objective" in nature, the writers still position themselves in their writing and try to interact with their audience. Qualitative analysis of discourse functions of subject pronouns showed great similarity between the two sub-corpora (qualitative and quantitative), stating results/claims and elaborating arguments as being the most frequent functions.
Today, the English language enjoys a special status in the world. Consequently, English language ... more Today, the English language enjoys a special status in the world. Consequently, English language teaching and learning has become increasingly important. Generally, three important elements in every instructional context are: teachers, learners and materials. Coursebooks, part of the last element stated, namely materials, play an essential role in almost every ELT program. "Probably nothing influences the content and nature of teaching and learning more than the books and other teaching materials" (Cunningsworth, 1995, p.v). Among the different roles which the materials serve, Cunningsworth (1995), Grant (1994) and Richards (1998) agree that they determine the language content, help to provide a route map for both teachers and students, are the source of language practice, are the resource of language contact for learners and are helpful means for inexperienced teachers. However, depending on the type of educational system, syllabus or materials imposed by education authorities as well as the nature and amount of training for teachers, the degree of using coursebooks may differ among teachers (Cunningsworth, 1995). On the whole, some language teachers may not use coursebooks. They prefer to prepare their own materials because they believe that nobody knows their students better than they. Some of brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by University of Malaya Students Repository
This thesis is a mixed-method genre-based study which analyzes the Discussion section of qualitat... more This thesis is a mixed-method genre-based study which analyzes the Discussion section of qualitative and quantitative research articles in the field of Applied Linguistics. It is particularly focused on examining the generic structures and stance features of these two sets of articles. The study consists of two main parts. In the first part, 15 qualitative and 15 quantitative RAs' Discussion sections were analyzed employing Swales' (1990, 2004) move structure model. In the second part of the study, Hyland's (1999, 2005, 2008) taxonomy of stance featureshedges, boosters, attitude markers, and self mentionwas used to investigate stance features. This part of the study was conducted in two sections. In the first part, using WordPilot 2002, these four stance features were investigated in two specialized sub-corpora of 100 qualitative and 100 quantitative research articles' Discussion sections. The corpus analysis gave insightful information about the overall frequency as well as forms of stance features in the qualitative and quantitative sub-corpora. In the second part, in order to identify in which parts of the
Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Jul 1, 2016
This paper reports on a genre study of the Discussion sections of 15 qualitative research article... more This paper reports on a genre study of the Discussion sections of 15 qualitative research articles in Applied Linguistics from five high impact journals published from 2003-2009. Based on Swales' (1990, 2004) move structure model, this study aims to develop a description of move structure in this corpus and introduce the available patterns and options. The analysis reveals that there are similarities and differences between the generic structure of qualitative research articles identified in this paper and those found concerning empirical research articles. Index Terms-move structure, discussion section, qualitative research, applied linguistics I. INTRODUCTION Research articles (RAs) are a high valued genre in building and disseminating knowledge in academic communities. Writing a research report is a challenging task for writers as it requires them not only to establish the importance of their research but also to be familiar with the conventions of their discourse communities and be able to apply that knowledge in their writing. One attempt to identify community expectation has been taken through ESP genre analytical approach (Bhatia, 1993; Swales, 1990). The approach is based on the assumption that genres are communicative events which are organized by conventions that belong to discourse communities. There is a vast amount of literature on the generic features of RAs in various disciplines which have investigated either the whole article or one section of RAs within the IMRD (Introduction, Method, Results, and Discussion) framework including: research articles in Applied
A new round of trade negotiations under the World Trade Organization (WTO) was launched in 2001. ... more A new round of trade negotiations under the World Trade Organization (WTO) was launched in 2001. One of the major aims of the Doha Development Round is to reduce agricultural protection and impose greater discipline on domestic agricultural subsidies, particularly those that are the most trade distorting. In this paper we examine whether the proposed WTO modalities for agriculture will actually achieve this aim in Norway, which ranks among the top providers of government assistance for agriculture. Norway has a complex system of farm subsidies buttressed by substantial import protection. The extent to which its agricultural support policies will have to be changed in response to new WTO disciplines provides an important indication of how successful these are likely to be. We find that Norway will probably be able to sustain its current agricultural activity and production levels while staying within the new WTO rules. Following recent practice in some other WTO members, Norway will be able to reduce its notified support without making real changes in some of its programs. However, there will have to be a shift from market price support, which is paid for by consumers through higher food prices, to budgetary support paid by taxpayers and that could generate internal pressures for policy reform.
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Jul 1, 2019
Semiotics as a broad field of study encompasses Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). SFL has pa... more Semiotics as a broad field of study encompasses Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). SFL has paved the way for Multimodality which is the study of different sources of meaning. This study was conducted to analyze the visual sources of meaning in children's storybooks on the basis of what Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) developed and called visual grammar. The chosen books for this study consisted of A, Apple Pie, Princess Rose and the Golden Bird, Tyrone the Horrible, and Terrible Tommy Tom Cat. The aim of this qualitative study was to investigate the interaction between the viewer and the represented participants. Accordingly, interactional meta-function was analyzed through interpreting the frequencies of each dimension of interactional meta-function in all pictures. It is supposed that there are differences in interactional meanings in storybooks in which the characters are animals and in storybooks in which the characters are human beings. The results of the present study prove the assumption of differences between the two types of storybooks. The viewer can enter into relation with represented participants in stories with human characters easier than the ones with animal characters. The findings may help teachers and syllabus designers. Specifically, teachers can choose the stories with human characters in order to make easy the process of involvement of the children with intended subject. They also can choose stories with animal characters in order to teach some strange concepts in which they do not want their students to be involved.
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