This study linked background TV and socioeconomic status to minority children’s Persian vocabulary development. To this end, 80 Iranian preschool children from two minority groups of Arabs and Turks were selected using stratified random sampling. They were simultaneous bilinguals, i.e., their mother tongue was either Arabic or Azari and their first language was Persian. Language sample analysis was used to measure vocabulary development through a 15-min interview by language experts. The LSA measures included total number of utterances, total number of (...) words, total number of new words, and mean length of utterance. A series of independent-samples t test, paired-samples t test, and repeated measures MANOVA tests were ran to examine data. Results showed significant improvements in children’s vocabulary scores from pretest to posttest for all children. In addition, high-SES children scored higher on the vocabulary measures in pretest and posttest. Moreover, background TV was associated with higher means in the TNW and the NDW in groups. The researchers concluded that background TV may be related to higher vocabulary scores in low-SES families as it may compensate for some linguistics gaps in these families including lower amount of child-parent interaction, play, and parents’ level of literacy. (shrink)

The present study used quantitative and qualitative measures to examine Iranian applied linguists’ (mis-) conceptions of ethical issues in research. For this purpose, one hundred and twelve applied linguists completed a research ethics questionnaire constructed and validated by the researchers. In the follow-up qualitative phase, 15 applied linguists who were faculty members participated in semi-instructed interviews. Data were analyzed using exploratory factors analyses for the first phase and theme analyses for the second phase. Quantitative results showed that the most important (...) misconceptions among Iranian applied linguists lingered on working with data (data collection and data analyses). For example, removing an outlier was a prevalent act conducted by applied linguists in the present study. Teachers using their students as participants of their own research as well as how they treated those students after a study were other controversial issues. The qualitative results revealed several themes including _lack of knowledge, conflict with real-world practices, a product-oriented approach to education and a publish or perish mentality_ as the reasons for misconceptions of ethics in applied linguistics among Iranian researchers. On general terms, there was an implicit agreement regarding the lack of training on research ethics among Iranian applied linguists. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Seneca, Ethics, and the Body: The Treatment of Cruelty in Medieval ThoughtDaniel BarazIn an impassioned article written in 1941 Lucien Febvre urges the writing of a history of human sensibility and suggests in particular writing a history of cruelty. 1 The general direction indicated by Febvre has been followed, but as far as cruelty is concerned his plea is still as relevant today as it was five decades ago. (...) And since cruelty is one of the attributes commonly associated with the Middle Ages, 2 it is particularly interesting to examine what and how medieval thinkers wrote on the subject.An examination of sources dealing with cruelty from late antiquity to the early modern period yields surprising results. Whereas the writings of the thinkers of late classical antiquity and of the early modern period do include discussions of the issue, the writings of medieval thinkers before the thirteenth century contain only brief remarks. The first and only exception until the end of the Middle Ages is a short question on cruelty in Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae. Other types of medieval sources, such as legal texts, chronicles, and literary texts, reveal the same scarcity of references to the subject during most of the Middle Ages. Thus this period seems to represent a gap between antiquity and the early modern period, with a reawakening of interest in the issue of cruelty towards the end of the Middle Ages.The relative silence of medieval sources calls for identifying the factors which affected the treatment of cruelty by medieval thinkers. What are the [End Page 195] reasons for the neglect of the subject as well as for the late revival of interest in it? And when the issue is discussed, what factors shape the discussion? Two issues seem crucial to me in answering these questions: the conception of the relation between body and soul and the relative weight given to actions vs. intentions in the dominant ethical framework. A third issue, of equal importance, provides a focus for the investigation of the treatment of cruelty in the Middle Ages and the factors affecting it; and this is the reception of Seneca. As interest in Seneca’s writings grew, so did the preoccupation with cruelty. There is a close thematic interaction between these two processes, beyond the chrono-logical coincidence.Most obviously, discussions of cruelty as a subject per se referred explicitly to Seneca’s writings on the subject. Less directly, when cruelty was treated only in passing in the context of the Christian tradition, the manner in which the subject was addressed reflected a lack of Senecan influence, so that Seneca’s influence was felt through its absence. Nevertheless, the Christian tradition continued to influence references to cruelty even after the revival of Senecan influence during the high Middle Ages and to a certain degree even served as a filter, determining which aspects of Seneca’s writings on cruelty were used.Thomas Aquinas and SenecaThe first medieval discussion of cruelty as a subject per se is the question De crudelitate (2-2-159) in the section on temperance in Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae. Aquinas bases his discussion almost exclusively on classical sources, primarily Seneca’s De clementia. 3 Seneca referred to cruelty in detail both in this work and in another moral essay, De ira. His De clementia was written at the beginning of Nero’s reign, and it is addressed to the young emperor, his former pupil. Its stated aim is to praise Nero for possessing the quality of clementia, and to show how important this quality is for rulers. 4 The concept of clementia describes a quality of political men, the term having acquired political significance since the times of Caesar and Augustus. 5De clementia was written before most of the actions which earned Nero his reputation were perpetrated; the only concrete action which may have inspired Seneca to write it was the murder of Britannicus, of which Nero was suspected. Regardless, the emperors preceding Nero were certainly not renowned for their [End Page 196] clemency. Suetonius tells that one of Caligula’s amusements was to attend sessions of torture and execution; that he insisted on slow... (shrink)

Academic emotions can play a major role in students’ learning in their English classes. The literature about emotional scaffolding strategies is not widely developed; most of the studies merely focus on negative emotions in EFL contexts. However, in today’s world of varied psychological elements, it is more critical than ever before to scaffold students’ positive emotions to provide more opportunities for their classroom engagement. This study is to explore teachers’ strategies of enhancing students’ positive emotions in English classes in Iran. (...) To investigate the correspondence between students’ and teachers’ views on the effective emotional scaffolding strategies of English teachers, an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design was conducted. First, the researcher conducted semi-structured interviews with 11 high school students of Salami School in Kazeroun to collect in-depth qualitative data. Then, the interview-based Likert scale questionnaires were distributed and completed by 60 high school English teachers in Kazeroun for the quantitative data. According to the teachers’ self-reports, expressing optimism and hope about the students’ future lives and prospective jobs was the most frequently used strategy. There was a significant difference among the teachers’ views on the emotional scaffolding strategies. Moreover, some of the strategies taken into consideration as effective strategies by the students are the least frequently used ones according to the teachers’ reports. The results and findings have several theoretical and practical implications for English teachers in EFL contexts; they might bolster their understanding of appropriate emotional scaffolding strategies preparing them to play a contributing role as great facilitators in English classes. (shrink)

Baraz examines the rhetorical battle that Cicero stages in his philosophical prefaces - a battle between the forces that would oppose or support his project. He presents his philosophy as intimately connected to the new political circumstances and his exclusion from politics.

This paper proposes a new synthetic account of the presence of Cicero as both character and source in Lucan's Bellum Ciuile. Lucan's treatment is derived primarily from Virgil's technique for creating intertextually complex characters, but further builds on Sallust's displacement of Cicero in his narrative of the Catilinarian conspiracy and on the declamatory practice of reducing the orator to a few prominent and recognizable traits. Cicero the character, as he briefly appears at the opening of the seventh book, is not (...) simply an ahistorical caricature: he is constructed through a careful series of allusions designed to indict his use of violence in the suppression of Catiline. Other prominent aspects of Cicero in the tradition are displaced and transferred to other characters more important to Lucan's design, Cato and Pompey. Lucan's depiction of Pompey, especially his death and decapitation, draws on the language and affect of the tradition associated with Cicero, using Cicero's own words and the obituary of Cicero in the lost historical epic of Cornelius Severus. Finally, the language of Cicero's peace-making efforts in his correspondence, suppressed in Lucan's depiction of him as a warmonger, forms an important part of the narrator's own emotional evocations of the impending catastrophe of civil war. The combination of models Lucan uses is more broadly reflective of his technique in composing a historical epic. (shrink)

A large number of investigations have highlighted the importance of incorporating literary texts into English language teaching programs. Nevertheless, there are scarce studies on how short stories from L1 and L2 literature play a role in reconstructing learner identity in tertiary contexts. The present research study examines the identities of four non-native undergraduate students concerning aspirations for language investment or consumption. Data collection instruments were semi-structured interviews, open-ended questionnaires, and diary writings. The materials taught in the course consisted of three (...) translated Persian and four target fictions related to loyalty and justice. The researchers used qualitative content analysis to explore the language learners’ self-images of initial, story-based, and prospective learning stages. Nearly all the participants regarded language learning as language consumption for pleasure in different stages except for the future aspiration stage; they did not aspire for personal economic benefits. The findings may enlighten curriculum designers in EFL contexts to incorporate literary texts from the native and target cultures into language education materials to provide opportunities for learners to experience diverse identities and meet individual preferences. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage est une réédition numérique d’un livre paru au XXe siècle, désormais indisponible dans son format d’origine.

This book explores the uniquely Roman articulation of pride as a negative emotion and traces its partial rehabilitation that begins in the texts of the Augustan poets at the time of great political change using a combination of a lexical approach and a script-based approach that considers the emotion as a process.

Dans la foulée des publications récentes sur Cicéron philosophe, cette excel­lente étude explore à nouveaux frais son projet « encyclopédique » (sous la dicta­ture de César, 46-44) par le biais d’un examen des prologues. Yelena Baraz (désormais Y.B.) justifie dans son introduction cette approche méthodologique. Cicéron possédait un cahier de prologues (volumen prohoemiorum) et écrivait des prologues indépendamment de l’ouvrage (ad Att. XVI, 6, 4). Cela signifie, explique-t-elle, qu’il conceva...

Name der Zeitschrift: Klio Jahrgang: 98 Heft: 1 Seiten: 354-356.

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 94 Heft: 1 Seiten: 192-219.

Sūkṣmāgama I: Chapters 1–13. Critical Edition. Edited with an introduction by S. Sambandhaśivācārya and T. Ganesan. Collection Indologie, vol. 114, no. 1. Pondicherry: Institut Français de Pondichéry / École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 2010. Pp. l + 203. 650 Rs., € 28. Sūkṣmāgama II: Chapters 14–53. Critical Edition. Edited with an introduction by S. Sambandhaśivācārya, B. Dagens, M.-l. Barazer-Billoret, and T. Ganesan. Jean Filliozat Series in South Asian Culture and History, no. 3. Pondicherry: institut Français de Pondichéry, 2012. Pp. clxiii + 403.

Sūkṣmāgama: Volume III, Chapters 54 to 85. Critical Edition. By S. Sambandhaśivācarya, B. Dagens, M.-L. Barazer-Billoret, and T. Ganesan with the collaboration of J.-M. Creisméas. Collection Indologie, vol. 114.3. Pondichéry: institut FranCçais de Pondichéry, 2018. Pp. cxcviii + 348.