Bahram Kazemian

Structurally, the book is comprised of 35 chapters plus an overview (chapter 1) and an epilogue (part VI, chapter 37) by the editors each of which has its own outstanding merit and objectives. The book consists of two types of chapters: experience-based and data-based. The former chapters are listed together first in each part of the volume and are based on the authors’ direct consideration and observations of challenges in language testing, including narrations, reflections, and analyses about LTA issues. The latter chapters are deployed in the second group of chapters in each part. These chapters portray data collected and analyzed by authors. Thematically, there are five main parts in this volume, each of which featuring challenges confronted, observed, or inspected by the authors; the challenges from which language test users can derive benefits via observing the significant impacts of diversified challenges, issues, and problems and how they were approached and resolved, culminating in invaluable insight into LTA and language test use.

Drawing from an expansive perspective of LPP delineated by Shohamy (2006), this volume dissects LPP in manifold aspects: it commences with an illuminating and detailed account of both LP and Language Services (LSs) provided for the MOGs; it inquires into the impacts of language notions and outlooks on Beijing residents whose lives were influenced by MOGs; it deals with a particularized probe into English language textbooks related to the MOGs, and it spells out how the MOGs converted the linguistic landscape of Beijing. Furnishing a compelling discussion of investigating the MOGs in terms of LPP, especially how these games represent a linguistically complex and culturally diverse event, and explicating the historical growth of LPs within the MOGs, the book (Chapter 1) principally begins with an argument about LS as a theory.

This riveting book introduces an overall analytical framework and theoretical guideline for all teachers-researchers involved in inspecting the dynamic role of English on social media. It concentrates on Facebook data generated by EFL university students in Mongolia and Japan, and it accommodates a clear delineation in the trans-linguistics turn, while exploring in depth the global spread of authenticity. Structurally, the book comprises nine chapters, and thematically is classified into four parts, and can be viewed from two aspects. The first aspect, thereby, aims to elucidate the connection between English and transnational EFL university students as social media users. The focal point in the second aspect, thereby, is on numerous dynamic claims of authenticity and legitimacy by transnational EFL university students in term of their intricate association with English on social media.

Structurally, the book is comprised of 11 chapters and covers leading-edge procedures as follows. There are nine case studies, theoretical and practice-oriented chapters plus an overview (Chapter. 1) and an epilogue (Chapter. 11) by the editors each of which has its own outstanding merit and objectives. In a quasi-experimental study, Anisa Cheung (chapter. 2) engagingly deals with coalescing elearning with a process writing approach to promote the written proficiency of L2 learners in a primary school in Hong Kong (HK). In a dual case inspection of Strategies-Based Instruction (SBI) adopting the lens of activity theory, chapter 3 by Amy Kong explores the perceptions of the efficiency of SBI with reciprocal peer review stances among 20 HK secondary students. By embracing this strategy, writing instructors can open doors for student writers and reviewers as innovators of language due to mutual collaboration. In another case study of Macao secondary school students (chapter. 4), Wilson Cheong Hin Hong provides an account of his attempts to go against the advice of traditional grammar books and aims to improve EFL learners' writing by use of a minimal grammar approach of teaching dependent clauses. We believe that this study presents an innovative way for educators and researchers alike to think through the replacement of such highly-structured method(s) of writing pedagogy. In a qualitative TESOL inquiry located within the context of tertiary and secondary level in Taiwan (chapter. 5), Melissa H. Yu reminds instructors of the need to use multiple-sided studies and alternative pedagogical routes for enhancing learners' writing skills through innovative perspectives in the concepts of English as a lingua franca (ELF).

Language and politics go hand in hand and learning and comprehending political genre is to learn a language created for codifying, extending and transmitting political discourse in any text/talk. Drawing upon the theoretical framework of Fairclough’s CDA and Rhetoric, the current study aims at investigating Donald Trump’s First Speech, from the point of frequency and functions of some rhetorical strategies (Parallelism, Anaphora and the Power of Three, Antithesis and Expletive, etc.), Nominalization, Passivization, We-groups and Modality as well as Lexical and Textual Analysis, presented to the UN delivered on Sep. 19, 2017. Specifically, the study seeks to determine: (1) how President Trump succeeded in conveying his notions and assumptions to his intended audience, and in convincing and negotiating, (2) how he attempted to explicitly and implicitly pass his attitudes on his targets, and (3) how those orientations, intended notions and assumptions were seamlessly presented to his addressees in discoursal and lexico-grammatical levels; (4) and finally in this underlying trend how he achieved his own ends. The results of the study hope to enhance reading comprehension and writing in academic registers for EFL/ESL students.

In the light of Halliday's Ideational Grammatical Metaphor, Rhetoric and Critical Discourse Analysis, the major objectives of this study are to investigate and analyze Barack Obama's 2012 five speeches, which amount to 19383 words, from the point of frequency and functions of Nominalization, Rhetorical strategies, Passivization and Modality, in which we can grasp the effective and dominant principles and tropes utilized in political discourse. Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis frameworks based on a Hallidayan perspective are used to depict the orator’s deft and clever use of these strategies in the speeches which are bound up with his overall political purposes. The results represent that nominalization, parallelism, unification strategies and modality have dominated in his speeches. There are some antithesis, expletive devices as well as passive voices in these texts. Accordingly, in terms of nominalization, some implications are drawn for political writing and reading, for translators and instructors entailed in reading and writing pedagogy.

Using Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of dialogism as a theoretical starting point, this thesis investigates the manifestations of dialogic voice in Odes by John Keats. In fact, this study attempts to examine the dialogic reading of “Ode to a Nightingale”, “Ode on Grecian urn”, “Ode on Indolence”, “Ode to Psyche”, “To Autumn” and “Ode to Melancholy”, through structural viewpoints. A scrutiny upon Keats's odes through dialogical perspective may reveal that Keats is a social and an involved poet of his time. Moreover, Keats as an escapist poet chooses the world of fancy and imagination to free himself from conflicts of his society. His odes are associated with expression of joy-pain reality through which Keats in a close dialogue with readers tries to display his own social and political engagement. Examining allusions, ironies and paradoxes, all the elements of structure, may show Keats’s historical response toward a troubled society.

Language, science and politics go together and learning these genres is to learn a language created for codifying, extending and conveying scientific and political knowledge. Grammatical metaphor is divided into two broad areas: ideational and interpersonal. This article focuses on the first type of grammatical metaphor, i.e. the ideational one, which includes process types and nominalization. The principal objective of the current work is to analyze a corpus comprising 10 scientific and 10 political texts. The Ideational Grammatical Metaphor framework was used to carry out an analysis on these texts to pinpoint their similarities and dissimilarities. The analysis indicates that Ideational Grammatical Metaphor has dominated political and scientific texts and is used approximately with the same frequency in both genres and the prevailing process types in both are material and relational types. Consequently, the tone of the writing is more abstract, pretentious and formal. In science, instances of IGM enable technicalizing and rationalizing; and in politics they deal with dominance, provocation, persuasion toward an intended objective. Based on the findings of this study, some implications can be drawn for academic writing and reading as well as translators and teachers involved in writing and reading pedagogy.

Scientific Texts are generally concentrated on highly technical terms, and they are troublesome to understand due to their complexity in forms and meanings. Grammatical metaphor is divided into two broad areas: ideational and interpersonal. This paper focuses on the first type i.e. Ideational Grammatical Metaphor, which includes process types and nominalization. This paper adopts Hallidayan Systemic Functional Grammar to pinpoint and analyze nominalization and the role played by it. With a corpus of 10 authentic scientific texts drawn from very influential magazines, the analysis is conducted based on nominalization, its frequency and process types. The analysis displays that Ideational Grammatical Metaphor has permeated scientific texts and the prevailing process types are material and relational types. Consequently, the tone of the writing is more abstract, technical and formal. Instances of IGM In scientific writing enable technicality and rationality. Based on the findings of this study, some implications can be drawn for academic and scientific writing and reading as well as translators, students and instructors involved in writing and reading pedagogy.

Languages have their most natural ways of encoding the meanings which they express. This is called congruent way, and the non-congruent ways of encoding language are referred to as grammatical metaphor (GM). According to Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), GM is divided into two broad areas: ideational and interpersonal. This book focuses on the first type of GM, i.e. the ideational one, which includes process types and nominalization. Nominalization is acknowledged to be a powerful linguistic resource for realizing GM. The main objective of the current work is to analyze, compare and contrast a corpus comprising 10 scientific and 10 political texts to pinpoint their similarities and dissimilarities in terms of Nominalization and process types. In science, instances of IGM enable technicalizing and rationalizing the writing, and in politics, they deal with dominance, provocation and persuasion toward an intended and specific objective. Based on the findings of this study, some implications can be drawn for academic writing and reading as well as for translators and teachers involved in writing and reading pedagogy.

Drawing upon the recent theoretical framework of Burkean concept of identification (ID), the current study aims at probing the interaction of content and form in two letters penned by Iran’s Supreme Leader and addressed to the Youth on Jan. and Nov. 2015. To this end, the study seeks (i) to determine a role ID takes in the conveyance of intended assumptions to the targeted readers; and (ii) to observe if the writer’s objectives, i.e. to identify himself with the readers and to realize his politically-religiously-infused creeds, result in success or failure; moreover, (iii) it seeks to determine how he achieved his end to attenuate the impacts of blazing inferno of Islamophobia and anti-Islam sentiments in his addressees. The whole corpus (about 3000 words), in light of van Dijk’s Socio-cognitive approach, is critically perused to seek out contextually-coded expressions. The study tries to set out a manner in which political text/talk could be analyzed rhetorically employing ID concept. It was found that ID as a two-way process is a key component for both parties to identify with. It makes the readers align themselves with the writer and helps the writer to associate with the readers and accomplish his goals.