Search

The aim of this research is to investigate the speech act of assignment submission and presence of facework in submission emails sent to faculty members by native and nonnative English speaking graduate students. Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory (1987) and Spencer-Oatey’s (2002, 2008) rapport management framework were utilized to analyze the emails. The corpus consisted of 105 emails from 40 NES and NNES students. Drawing on speech event analysis approach (Merrison, Wilson, Davies, & Haugh, 2012), we analyze both submission head act as well as optional elements like openings, small talk and closings in an email. Our exploratory study revealed that, contrary to the argument that CMC is a lean medium (Duthler, 2006) in which it is difficult to achieve interpersonal communication, through the employment of opening, small talk and closing strategies, students attended to relational goals in their email communication.

This special issue continues the discussion of the impact of culture on identity, communication, politeness, and discourse strategies (see Russian Journal of Linguistics 22 (4) 2018, 23 (4) 2019, 24 (2) 2020). The topic has become particularly relevant in the context of two multidirectional processes, i.e., globalization resulting from current geopolitical trends and technological advancements, which have encouraged the intensification of contacts between people, languages, and cultures; and deglobalization focused on the preservation of national cultures and development of a multipolar and multicultural world. In our introductory article, we attempt to trace the impact of communication technologies, language, and culture contacts on digital, face-to-face, and public communication in different settings and discourses and outline its influence on communication, language variation, and change. In this introductory article we present a summary of the contributions of our authors to the issue, which showed that the implications of globalization and language contact are multifaceted, they can have both positive and negative effects on language use, maintenance, and change, as well as on cultural identity and diversity. Pursuing these latter factors contributes to developing trends of deglobalization. Our authors invite the reader to reflect on these processes. In conclusion, we sum up their major findings and suggest a brief avenue for further research.

Teaching and coaching are two different occupational roles and the responsibilities of teachers and sports coaches can be distinguished from each other. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the role of teacher-coach in sports and self-efficacy with the mediating role of sports goal orientation. This study used descriptive-correlational research. The appropriateness of the measurement model was tested by confirmatory factor analysis. Research data were obtained from 36 physical education teachers through a questionnaire. For data analysis, statistical methods of correlation test and bivariate regression using SPSS-22 and AMOS software were used. The conflict between the roles of sports teacher-coach with the presence of the mediating variable of sports goal orientation indicated a positive and significant effect on self-efficacy. Sports goal orientation also had a positive and direct effect on self-efficacy. The results of the present study displayed a comprehensive view. Accordingly, physical education teachers who have an intermediate role (teacher-centered and coach-centered) showed high self-efficacy and sports goal-orientation. The findings of this study offered valuable information to improve the quality of learning and teaching for sport coaches and physical education teachers.

Language and Ideology is an area of critical discourse analysis that has increasingly gained importance in the linguistic sciences. The vast influence of the media has provided a need for the explicit analysis of common linguistic mechanisms, particularly those in political discourse. Codeswitching, general pattern in a speech community of switching between two or more available languages or dialects with respect to certain extralinguistic factors (Blom & Gumperz 1972) is strategically employed by politicians to gain support for elections (Jarraya 2013; Craig 2013). Senator Tim Kaine was one of the first White politicians to engage in code-switching during the 2016 presidential election, however his use of Spanish when engaging in political discourse was met with great resistance and skepticism by the media and voters, many of whom felt that he was pandering to Spanish-speaking citizens. Using a language ideologies framework, the present paper seeks to determine how code-switching was used as a political discourse device by Senator Kaine, and how its use varied based on the context of each speech. To answer these questions, four speeches given by Senator Tim Kaine during the 2016 presidential campaign were transcribed and translated. Following descriptive coding procedures by Saldaña (2015), two raters coded instances of codeswitching in each speech for key features of political discourse: a) dissemination of personal information or background; b) repetition; c) hyperbole; d) metaphor; e) metonymy; f) comparisons; 1. promises for the future; h) solidarity; i) legitimization of self as authority; and j) florid verbiage. Results show that Senator Kaine relied most heavily on code-switching during his speech in Miami, Florida, and used it as a tactic to gain support and build solidarity between himself and members of the audience. Additionally, Senator Kaine engaged in much repetition through code-switching to emphasize key points of his speech and political goals. The present study illustrates how codeswitching can be used to cultivate political favor, forge alliances, and demonstrate cultural similarities between White politicians and biand multilingual voters.

Based on the widespread development in information and communication technologies, the emergence of a new type of learning called e-learning is provided. Electronic learning is the provision and use of distributed electronic media knowledge based on information technology such as television, smartphones, social media and a variety of communication networks like satellite and computer networks. In the present study, both field study and search in library sources have been used, and the results gained out of past researches, the research data were collected and it was conducted through survey and experiment, with the aim of comparing the use of e-learning technology and the traditional method in teaching English to employees of Fars Combined Cycle Power Plant. Considering the results of the study, the positive and negative effects of E-Technology were studied and it was observed that the process of using social media and sending messages through Telegram to teach specialized English words in Fars CCGT Power Plant employees was satisfactory and the efficiency of training them through this way has been calculated as above 90%.

Trying to acquire and maintain power, politicians make use of certain rhetorical and linguistic devices to persuade voters in favor of their particular views constructed in the political discourse. The current study was an attempt to investigate Iranian president Hassan Rouhani’s use of persuasive rhetorical-discursive devices during his campaign for presidency in 2013. Specific attention was paid to the levels of language that constituted his political discourse through: 1) scrutinizing the level of sound, 2) investigating his selection of lexical elements, and 3) looking into syntactic structures employed to convey political nuances. Additionally, a critical discourse analysis (CDA) approach, drawing upon Fairclough’s three-dimensional analytical framework (2010), was adopted to probe the discourse-power relationship in his discourse, on the one hand, and the socio-cultural, religious, and political values underlying the rhetorical devices, on the other. The results revealed that Rouhani’s political discourse was embroidered with different rhetorical-discursive devices such as tripartite constructions, repetition in parallel lines, alliteration, and metaphor to influence the public opinion. Moreover, perhaps, using a concise and succinct message, visual symbols, and dynamic metaphors helped him reach out to the audience with an air of emotion and mobilize significant numbers of the electorate for himself.