testing plays a vital role in any language teaching program. it allows teachers and stakeholders, including program administrators, parents, admissions officers and prospective employers to be assured that the learners are progressing according to an accepted standard (douglas, 2010). the problems currently facing language testers have both practical and theoretical implications but the first i...

abstract: the present study is an attempt to find out cultural exophoric references in iranian high-school elt textbooks and touch stone series to compare the frequency of occurrence of such references in these books. the purpose is to find out which of the series of the books under investigation impose a greater referential burden on efl learners as far as their reading comprehension of the ...

deployable scissor type structures are composed of the so-called scissor-like elements (sles), which are connected to each other at an intermediate point through a pivotal connection and allow them to be folded into a compact bundle for storage or transport. several sles are connected to each other in order to form units with regular polygonal plan views. the sides and radii of the polygons are...

in this research we have studied the effect of some transition-metals (cu, ag and au) substitutions on two-electron reduction potential of flavins by application of dft method. all geometries have been optimized at blyp level of theory and “6-31+g** + lanl2dz” mixed basis set. the frequency job at the same method and basis sets has been performed to obtain gibbs free energy of compounds. it h...

abstract foreign and iranian cultures are far distinct in the constraints imposed on writing and translating for children, since the iranian literary system is mainly concerned with cultural and religious instructions which lead to manipulation of translated texts. this study sought to identify the cultural and social constraints and norms which determined the strategies applied in the transl...

phatic communion is a cultural concept which differs across cultures. according to hofstede (2001), the u.s. tends to have individualistic culture; however, asian countries tend to have collectivistic cultures. these cultures view phatic communion differently. in individualistic cultures like u.s., phatic communion reflects speakers’ socio-cultural relationships in conversations. to see whether...

the current study examined iranian undergraduate efl students’ willingness to communicate with regard to their vocabulary knowledge. in general, participants were somewhat willing to communicate in english. the total mean score of 730 university students’ perception of willing to communicate was 83.53 out of 135. results, regarding four parts of willingness to communicate, revealed that part...

the present study aimed at exploring cognitions of iranian english teachers within the context of english for academic purposes (eap). to this end, the cognitions of two groups of eap teachers with respect to their pedagogical content knowledge (pck) and their sense of professional identity (pi) were probed. two language teachers and two content instructors who had at least five years of eap te...

tennessee williams (1911-1983), the modern american dramatist, had his own unique school of dramaturgy. the dramas which he depicted are populated by characters who are lonely, desperate, in anxiety, alienated and in one word lost. they face challenges which they may overcome or not, through the choices they make. all these moods and conditions are clearly seen and explained in the theory of ex...

abstract a fundamental study of “historio-graphic metafiction” and “literary genres”, as introduced in “new historical philosophy”, and tracing them in the works of julian barnes having studied the two novels, the porcupine and arthur & george, by julian barnes, the researcher has applied linda hutcheon’s historio-graphic metafictional theories to them. the thesis is divided into five cha...