while performance-based language assessment has led to an increased authenticity and content validity in the practice of writing assessment, the reliability of ratings has become a major issue. research findings have shown different reactions by native english speaker (nes) and non-native english speaker (nns) teachers to students’ writings. the focus of this study is on investigating whether i...

abstract the present thesis seeks to critically read george orwell’s nineteen eighty-four and animal farm in the light of louis althusser’s thought and theory. the present thesis proceeds to examine and demonstrate althusser’s major concepts including ideological state apparatuses (isas), repressive state apparatuses (rsas), the structure, the subject, and ideological interpellation which r...

‏‎‏‎utopia has, for four centuries, accompanied that hope of progress and that striving for betterment. it now straggles against a widespread sense that this has been an illusion, or an impossible dream. the utopian idea can never entirely disappear, but utopia as a form of the social imagination has clearly weakened. if it cannot instill its vision in the public consciousness, the consequences...

abstract pragmatics is the study of communicative action in its sociocultural context. communicative action includes not only using speech acts (such as apologizing, complaining, complimenting, and requesting), but also engaging in different types of discourse and participating in speech events of varying length and complexity. the present study aimed to investigate the assessment of pragm...

this study was conducted to investigate the impact of podcasts as a learning and teaching tool on iranian efl learners’ motivation for listening as well as on their listening comprehension ability. the study also investigated the learners’ perception towards listening to podcasts and examined whether the learners were likely to accept podcasts. out of fifty-five intermediate learners studying e...

this thesis seeks to present a critical reading of virginia woolf’s mrs. dalloway and michael cunningham’s the hours in terms of an intertextual approach, concentrating on dialogic imagination, negativity, transposition and allusion. this study attempts to evaluate cunninghams perception of woolfs life and work by adopting kristevas conception of intertextuality and her consideration of the hou...