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Transfer of learning from English course to other contexts is one of the most fundamental objectives of EAP instruction. Providing opportunities to transfer the acquired knowledge from the ESAP writing course to writing tasks of specialized disciplines as well as analyzing students’ perceptions of transfer catalysts and barriers might suggest a foundation for future educational planning. This study examines how engineering graduates learning ESAP assessed the four constructs of learning transfer inventory that might facilitate or inhibit the transfer of learning in discipline-specific academic writing programs. ۶۰ engineering graduate students participated in this study. During the ESAP course, collaboratively designed discipline-specific writing tasks were presented and practiced through multimodal input. The catalysts and the barriers to the learning transfer act were identified by administering the Learning Transfer System Inventory (LTSI). Results indicated that the students could obtain significant levels of academic writing skills and finally transfer their acquired instruction to authentic discipline practices. Furthermore, data analysis demonstrated that transfer of writing outcomes will be increased if more consideration of work-related factors is considered in higher education. All participants reported personal capacity as the main impediment induced by the work-related construct. Students’ positive attitudes toward three ability factors and all motivational factors suggested that an auspicious foundation for future educational planning exists if disciplinary and institutional considerations are embraced.

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This study examined blurbs in the discipline of economics to investigate how evaluative lexico-grammatical resources are employed in the logogenetic constructions of these blurbs. The study was informed by the appraisal framework proposed by Martin and White (۲۰۰۵), which describes the language of our attitudes, viewpoints, and personal judgments toward people, objects, and things. All three categories of the appraisal framework, including attitude, engagement, and graduation, were thoroughly explored. Findings demonstrated that economics blurbs are densely packed with appreciation. Graduation was also found to be realized both as intensification and quantification. The study showed that blurbs can be dialogically or monologically constructed based on the presence or absence of external voices as well as engagement resources and locutions. Meanwhile, lexico-grammatical realizations were found  not to be restricted to one type of grammatical structures. Various forms  including adjectival qualities, nominalized qualities, and processes are employed for encoding evaluative resources. The findings of the study provide those interested in this genre insights into the practical details of blurbs’ advertising discourse and keep them informed of the curricular rules and regularities dominating promotional discourse

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The present study sought to cast light on differences in strategies of compliment responses used across Persian and American English. For this purpose, ۱۱۰ participants, under three groups of Persian native speakers, American native speakers, and Persian learners of English, answered a Discourse Completion Test (DCT), followed by a semi-structured interview with the Persian learners of English to cross-check the findings of the DCTs. The collected responses from the DCTs were coded at macro and micro-levels. Moreover, a macro-level of Persian cultural schemas was used for the Persian groups. The chi-square test revealed the independent performance of the three groups. Judged by the written DCTs while performing in English, the learners’ responses displayed cases of utilizing the native Persian cultural schemas. More specifically, the English learner respondents employed different instances of ta’arof and shekaste-nafsi. Confirmed by the interview, such failures resulted from insufficient exposure to the American English culture and more importantly from their lack of instruction and awareness of cross-cultural pragmatic differences.

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در طول تاریخ، محققان امر فراگیری زبان در تلاش بوده اند تا مسئله فراگیری زبان را که ذهن بشر را به خود مشغول کرده است توصیف و تشریح نمایند. در این راستا، دو مکتب فلسفی تجربه گرایی و عقل گرایی همیشه با هم در تعارض بوده اند. یک گروه از مکتب تجربه گرایی (یعنی مثبت گرایان) نقش ذهن را در یادگیری حذف می کنند و ادعا می کنند که قرار گرفتن در معرض زبان به تنهایی می تواند باعث فراگیری زبان شود. از طرف دیگر، طرفداران مکتب عقل گرایی مهمترین نقش در یادگیری زبان را به ذهن منتسب می‌کنند. این گروه ادعا می کنند که انسان دارای استعدادی ذاتی به نام زبان تفکر است که با قرار گرفتن در معرض زبان طبیعی (مادری) فعال شده و زبان طبیعی را فرا می‌گیرد. قرار گرفتن در معرض زبان طبیعی که به نظر چامسکی (۱۹۸۰) آینه زبان تفکر است تنها زبان تفکر را فعال می کند و بنابراین نقش عمده ای در کیفیت زبان تفکر ندارد. در این مقاله انتقادی، بحث می‌شود که علیرغم شهرت و آوازه این نظریه شواهد نظری و تجربی موجود نظریه زبان تفکر را باطل می سازد: توانایی خود تعبیری زبان تفکر(self-(interpretive، عدم دسترسی پردازش های شناختی به مفاهیم حقیقت-مدار (truth-conditional (meaning تجربه‌های معنادار، عدم امکان آزمون حافظه جهت آزمایش آن، مشکلات نظریه تخصیص دهنیmodulaity) ) و ارتباط آن با سیستم مرکزی ذهن و همچنین تکامل بیولوژیکی مشکلاتی هستند که نظریه زبان تفکر را به چالش می کشاند. در پایان این مقاله با در نظر گرفتن مشکلات نظریه زبان تفکر که زیر بنای دستور جهانی چامسکی را تشکیل می دهد ، چار چوبی بر پایه نظریه های ویتگنشتاین و ویگوتسکی ارایه شده است که شاید بتواند پدیده زبان آموزی را بهتر توجیه نماید.