Fereshteh Khosravian - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Fereshteh Khosravian

The study of Applied Linguistics (AL), as "the theoretical and empirical investigation of re... more The study of Applied Linguistics (AL), as "the theoretical and empirical investigation of real-world problems in which language is a central issue" (Brumfit, 1997) has been the focus of attention and interest for many years. A substantial body of research has been dedicated to the comparison of different sections of research articles (RAs) in Applied Linguistics concerning various fields of study. However, both content and structure parallelism of the main sections of research articles among main sub-disciplines of AL has infrequently gained attention. To fill this gap, the current study investigated the convergence and divergence of research articles in Applied Linguistics in Iranian context using Khany's (2011) model of content and structure parallelism. To this end, a corpus of 240 research articles written by both Iranian and foreign researchers were analyzed through a developed checklist to identify the parallelism (extraction) in different conventional sections o...

International Journal of Linguistics, 2014

This study investigated the validity of an achievement test as a measure for Iranian English as a... more This study investigated the validity of an achievement test as a measure for Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' reading comprehension strategies at the pre-intermediate level at Ilam University. Different reading strategies have been introduced to aid learners in the process of comprehension, four of which, namely making connections, visualizing, inferencing (inferring), and questioning the author were selected for the purpose of the study. Adopting a reductionist approach to collecting validity evidence for the sake of practicality, the researchers made an attempt to focus merely on construct validity based on the Bachman and Palmer's (1996) framework. The evidence to examine the construct validity of the developed test was gathered through the differential-groups design, which involves selecting a sample with two mastery and non-mastery groups. The results demonstrate that the developed achievement test is a valid measure to assess the above-mentioned reading comprehension strategies for Iranian EFL learners.

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2014

English Language Teaching, 2014

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2013

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2014

English Language Teaching, 2014

This study sought answers related to the distribution of colour terms in Persian poems and their ... more This study sought answers related to the distribution of colour terms in Persian poems and their metaphoric reflection in poets' beliefs, ideas, or values. In so doing, 137 Persian verses from two poetry books with colour terms in content were considered for the analysis. Four raters who studied literature of Persian scrutinized the verses for the evaluation of the colour metaphoric conceptualizations. To validate the raters' suggestions, a focus group of sixteen commented on the recommended connotations. Results indicated that colours are not similarly distributed in Persian poems, are used with different conceptualizations and stood for both positive and negative connotations. Therefore, since colours are part of the authors' and speakers' daily lives to express information, knowledge of metaphoric expressions is suggested to be an inseparable part of language classes.

The use of technology and related tools has long been of interest in language pedagogy. Among the... more The use of technology and related tools has long been of interest in language pedagogy. Among these tools, wikis have gained increasing notice in the cyberspace community mainly because of their ease of use. Among wikis on the web, Wikipedia is one of the most visited wikis. Though, much has been written on the benefits of the application of the wikis in language pedagogy in general and Wikipedia in particular, we are still far from having a vivid picture of how Wikipedia can be put in the syllabi of EFL and ESL learners. Accordingly, the present study attempts to 1. Justify the position of Wikipedia as a potential language teaching and learning tool and 2. Show the feasible ways in which this tool can improve the learners’ reading skill in Iranian context. In so doing, first, the theoretical underpinning of the tool is presented followed by the discussion of the application of the tool in an EFL context in which a total of 36 intermediate EFL students participated. The results of t...

Linguistic capital has been the subject of interest and study to many linguists and sociolinguist... more Linguistic capital has been the subject of interest and study to many linguists and sociolinguists in the past decade, a central point in this relation can be found in Bourdieu's (1992) claim that language is not simply an object of study; and that it is an instrument of action and power and also has the power to produce existence. This capitalism can be considered as a threatening factor for the national unity in bi or multilingual countries. Iran as a multilingual country is not an exception to this threat; however, few studies have addressed the issue in the society. In response to this shortcoming, the present study investigated linguistic capital in different situations to see how power is distributed among the languages of the country. Accordingly, Persian as the official language of the country and Turkish, Kurdish and Luri, major indigenous languages of the country, were brought under investigation. In so doing, a researcher-made questionnaire was administrated to 220 subjects who were all bilingual male and female within the age range of 18 to 80 having fourteen different professions. The results of the paired sample t-test analysis indicate meaningful difference in participants' choice of mother tongue and Persian as the official language in non-official conditions which stands for the power of the latter. Moreover, the regression analysis demonstrated that age, gender, job, degree of education, field of study, and residency were significant for the prediction of the dependent variables. Yet, gender predicted the best. Therefore, EFL teachers should be aware of the power of each language the learners speak and distinguish the difference between the knowledge they possess and the language they use to express.

This study investigated the distribution of color terms in Persian proverbs in three Iranian prov... more This study investigated the distribution of color terms in Persian proverbs in three Iranian proverbs books and their metaphoric reflection in the users’ beliefs, ideas, or values. Through investigating as many as 4710 proverbs in the pertinent books, a corpus of 56 Persian proverbs with color terms in content was selected and analyzed. The results suggested that colors are not distributed equally in Persian proverbs and that they stood for both positive and negative connotations. Since metaphoric expressions are inseparable feature of scientific and non-scientific writings, language users are suggested to attain adequate awareness of these expressions in different domains.

The current study investigated the convergence and divergence of research articles in Applied Lin... more The current study investigated the convergence and divergence of research articles in Applied Linguistics in Iranian context using Khany’s (2011) model of content and structure parallelism. To this end, a corpus of 240 research articles written by both Iranian and foreign researchers were analyzed through a developed checklist to identify the parallelism in different conventional sections of research articles on the basis of the model. The results indicated that the rhetorical type, as a section of the model, had the highest percentage (88.5%) of extraction among Iranian research articles. To check the normality of the gained results, Kolmogorov-Smirnov was run. The findings of this research have implications for different areas of language teaching, especially in teaching writing to graduate students as well as scientific researchers in different areas of applied linguistics.

The present study examined the reliability of an achievement test to measure the efficacy of task... more The present study examined the reliability of an achievement test to measure the efficacy of task-based writing activities to improve Iranian EFL learners’ reading comprehension at the intermediate level in a private language institute in Ilam, Iran, namely Alefba language institute. To achieve the goal, the techniques for evaluating reliability of criterion-referenced tests proposed by Brown and Hudson (2002) were employed. To calculate the reliability of the developed test, or using Brown and Hudson’s (2002) term “dependability”, two coefficients of agreement (ρo) and Kappa (к) were computed following the appropriate way Brown and Hudson have offered. The results demonstrate that the developed achievement test is a reliable measure to assess the efficacy of task-based writing activities to advance the selected participants’ reading comprehension skill. Implications of present findings and suggestions for further research are discussed as well.

The study of Applied Linguistics (AL), as "the theoretical and empirical investigation of real-wo... more The study of Applied Linguistics (AL), as "the theoretical and empirical investigation of real-world problems in which language is a central issue" (Brumfit, 1997) has been the focus of attention and interest for many years. A substantial body of research has been dedicated to the comparison of different sections of research articles (RAs) in Applied Linguistics concerning various fields of study. However, both content and structure parallelism of the main sections of research articles among main sub-disciplines of AL has infrequently gained attention. To fill this gap, the current study investigated the convergence and divergence of research articles in Applied Linguistics in Iranian context using Khany's (2011) model of content and structure parallelism. To this end, a corpus of 240 research articles written by both Iranian and foreign researchers were analyzed through a developed checklist to identify the parallelism (extraction) in different conventional sections of research articles on the basis of the model. The findings indicated that the rhetorical type, as a section of the model, had the highest percentage (88.5%) of extraction among Iranian research articles. Moreover, it was revealed that among the eight selected sub-disciplines of AL, extraction (parallelism) primarily occurred in contrastive and typological studies (75.45%). To check the normality of the gained results, Kolmogorov-Smirnov was run. The findings of the study can be used by practitioners in the field especially those involved in teaching writing to graduate/higher education students as well as scientific researchers in different subfields of Applied Linguistics.

This study examined the types and frequency of hedges employed by Persian and English native spea... more This study examined the types and frequency of hedges employed by Persian and English native speakers in the introduction section of academic research articles in the field of literature. In so doing, a corpus of forty research articles published in national and international journals were randomly selected and analyzed through descriptive statistics in terms of frequency. In the introduction section, hedges allow researchers to establish an early niche for their research. The results of the study indicate that English writers are more tentative in putting forward claims and in rejecting or confirming the ideas of others than Persian writers. English native writers used modal auxiliaries, evidential main verbs, adjectives and nouns in RAs more frequently than their Persian native writers' counterparts. The present findings can be employed to design tasks and materials for teaching writing that focus not only on grammar but also on rhetorical structures and various genres of writing. The study also recommends that as hedges are used differently across languages and non-native authors mostly desire to publish their scholastic writings in prestigious journals, adequate consideration seems necessary to be paid to the descriptions of linguistic and rhetorical devices in English.

This study investigated the validity of an achievement test as a measure for Iranian English as a... more This study investigated the validity of an achievement test as a measure for Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ reading comprehension strategies at the pre-intermediate level at Ilam University. Different reading strategies have been introduced to aid learners in the process of comprehension, four of which, namely making connections, visualizing, inferencing (inferring), and questioning the author were selected for the purpose of the study. Adopting a reductionist approach to collecting validity evidence for the sake of practicality, the researchers made an attempt to focus merely on construct validity based on the Bachman and Palmer’s (1996) framework. The evidence to examine the construct validity of the developed test was gathered through the differential-groups design, which involves selecting a sample with two mastery and non-mastery groups. The results demonstrate that the developed achievement test is a valid measure to assess the above-mentioned reading comprehension strategies for Iranian EFL learners.

Countless theories, approaches, and methods have been recommended. With all these, however, more ... more Countless theories, approaches, and methods have been recommended. With all these, however, more inclusive L2 theories and models ought to be considered to come up with real classroom practices. One of such crucial practices is authenticity, being straightforwardly found in web-based materials in general and Wikipedia texts and tasks in particular. In the same line and based on sound theoretical underpinnings, the place of Wikipedia is investigated in this study as a prospective tool to teach and learn a major language component with practical procedures i.e. vocabulary knowledge. To this end, 36 intermediate Iranian EFL students assigned to two control and experimental groups took part in the study. The results of the tests administered divulged that the learners in the Wikipedia group surpassed those of the control group. Hence, Wikipedia is considered as an encouraging authentic resource to assist EFL learners in improving their vocabulary knowledge. Implications of present findings and suggestions for further research are discussed.

International Journal of Linguistics, 2014

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2014

English Language Teaching, 2014

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2013

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2014

English Language Teaching, 2014

This study investigated the validity of an achievement test as a measure for Iranian English as a... more This study investigated the validity of an achievement test as a measure for Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ reading comprehension strategies at the pre-intermediate level at Ilam University. Different reading strategies have been introduced to aid learners in the process of comprehension, four of which, namely making connections, visualizing, inferencing (inferring), and questioning the author were selected for the purpose of the study. Adopting a reductionist approach to collecting validity evidence for the sake of practicality, the researchers made an attempt to focus merely on construct validity based on the Bachman and Palmer’s (1996) framework. The evidence to examine the construct validity of the developed test was gathered through the differential-groups design, which involves selecting a sample with two mastery and non-mastery groups. The results demonstrate that the developed achievement test is a valid measure to assess the above-mentioned reading comprehension strategies for Iranian EFL learners.