---

Abstract
This paper offers a critical exploration of the postwar psychological and political terrain depicted in David Hare’s Plenty, with a particular emphasis on the interplay of power and emergent political trajectories. Anchored in Organski’s Power Transition Theory, the study interrogates the residual impacts of World War II on personal identity formation and shifting power dynamics. Employing a single-case cultural analysis centered on the character of Susan Traherne, the research foregrounds the tension between wartime idealism and the pervasive disillusionment of the postwar period. Through qualitative and interpretive methodologies—drawing on frameworks from political psychology and critical discourse analysis—the study uncovers the ways in which sociopolitical ruptures destabilize subjectivity and reconfigure hegemonic structures. The findings reveal that Plenty stages the disintegration of ideological coherence and the psychological ramifications of geopolitical transformation, ultimately portraying individual crises as symptomatic reflections of broader global realignments.

---

effectiveness, however, challenges such as academic dishonesty remain significant concerns. Un-proctored online assessments, especially multiple-choice exams, are particularly vulnerable to cheating and plagiarism, threatening the integrity of student evaluation. While numerous strategies have been proposed to mitigate cheating, the effectiveness of specific measures in un-proctored settings remains underexplored. This study investigates the impact of several anti-cheating strategies on un-proctored online multiple-choice exams administered through Moodle. Strategies tested included fixed time limits, limited exam availability,restriction on backtracking, and auto-submit on time expiration. The TOEFL reading section was administered to 608 students to assess the effectiveness of these strategies. Results showed a Variance-Covariance Matrix value of +0.386 and a -2log likelihood of +37.913.919, indicating validity for the sample and effective mitigation of cheating. Item and person reliability analysis revealed that fewer than 4% of participants exceeded the outfit index of 1.2, suggesting minimal instances of random guessing or dishonesty. This research contributes to the growing body of literature by providing empirical evidence on the effectiveness of specific anti-cheating measures in un-proctored online assessments.
 

---

While the previous studies showed the impact of the music on the words’ learning and retention, this study explores the effect of traditional music as an input mode on Iranian upper intermediate learners’ learning and retention of difficult English words. Eighty participants were divided into four groups. Two groups were exposed to western music while other two groups were exposed to Iranian traditional music. Each group received a pretest first, followed by instruction on selected difficult vocabulary items, and then posttest and delayed posttest. Repeated measures ANOVA indicated significant main impacts of time on vocabulary learning and retention. Descriptive statistics showed that those who were exposed to western music were outperformed by the ones who were exposed to Iranian traditional music in both immediate and delayed tests, although no significant interaction between time and music type was found. These results show that culturally familiar musical input may ease vocabulary learning and retention in L2 contexts. For language teaching and curriculum design implications are discussed.
 

---

This study explores the interplay cultural identity (CI), cultural intelligence/cultural quotient (CQ), and critical intercultural awareness (CIA) among English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners with a focus on the potential influence of gender and educational context. To this end, a total of 192 EFL learners (122 language institute and 70 senior secondary school) in Tehran (120 females and 72 males) of different ages (17-35) from different language institutes and senior secondary schools took part in the study. The participants completed the Cultural Identity Clarity Scale (Usborne & Taylor, 2010), the Cultural Intelligence Scale (Ang et al., 2007), and the Critical Intercultural Awareness Questionnaire (Susilo, 2022). The results indicated that EFL learners’ cultural identity and intelligence/cultural quotient (CQ) were significantly associated with critical intercultural awareness (CIA). Moreover, EFL learners’ CQ was found to be the strongest predictor of critical intercultural awareness (CIA). The findings also revealed that gender and educational context played significant roles: female EFL learners had higher levels of cultural identity, cultural intelligence/cultural quotient, and critical intercultural awareness than their male counterparts. Moreover, the results designated that EFL learners in language institutes had higher levels of cultural identity, cultural intelligence/cultural quotient, and critical intercultural awareness than senior secondary school counterparts. The results can offer valuable insights for EFL policymakers, managers, curriculum developers seeking to enhance intercultural competence in language education within the Iranian context.
 

---

Abstract

The increasing popularity of AI writing tools raises the question of how students perceive the fairness of automated feedback, particularly in comparison with teacher feedback. The perceived fairness of the feedback is an underexplored subject. This paper investigated the perceived fairness of AI writing feedback among English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students compared to teacher writing feedback and the relationship between students’ acceptance of AI writing feedback. The design was quantitative, within-subjects and it was based on 35 B1–B2 EFL students who were enrolled in an English language institute. The participants were given a brief writing assignment and were provided with teacher feedback as well as AI feedback. Subsequently, they completed a survey that assessed perceived fairness, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and acceptance (intention to use) AI feedback. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-tests, correlation, and regression. Findings indicated that teacher feedback was perceived as significantly fairer than AI feedback. The AI feedback was positively evaluated. Perceived fairness was related to students’ acceptance of AI feedback. The regression analyses indicated that acceptance was predicted by perceived fairness, usefulness and perceived ease of use jointly, but usefulness emerged as the strongest predictor. The findings imply that AI feedback is most effective when it is used as a complement to teacher feedback in EFL writing instruction.
 

---

As oral language proficiency assessment relies on human judgment, raters play a crucial role in performance-based testing. Among rater-related variables, rating experience has received considerable attention. Previous research on rater training has shown that extremely severe or lenient raters often benefit most from training, leading to changes in rating behavior. However, many of these studies have applied FACETS to only one or two facets and have rarely employed pre- and post-training designs. In addition, empirical findings have been inconsistent, providing no clear evidence as to whether experienced or inexperienced raters demonstrate greater rating reliability. The present study investigated the impact of rater training on experienced and inexperienced raters. Twenty raters evaluated the oral performances of 200 test takers before and after participating in a training program. The results indicated that training increased interrater consistency and reduced bias in the use of rating scale categories. The findings further suggested that, given the difficulty of fully eliminating rater variability, rater training should prioritize improving intrarater reliability rather than focusing exclusively on agreement among raters. Both experienced and inexperienced raters showed improved rating quality following training; however, inexperienced raters demonstrated greater gains. These results suggest that inexperienced raters should not be excluded from rating solely due to limited experience. As inexperienced raters are also more cost-effective, the findings imply that testing authorities may benefit more from investing in effective rater-training programs than from allocating substantial resources to recruiting highly experienced raters.
 

---

---

IELTS writing is a critical factor in facilitating academic and professional mobility and success of both EFL learners and non-English majors globally. This study systematically identifies and categorizes the principal research themes, methodological trends, learners’ challenges, and proposed solutions through a scoping review of the previous literature. In accordance with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, relevant studies on IELTS writing task 2 were identified and screened from Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science, and ResearchGate. Through a multi-stage screening process based on rigorous exclusion and inclusion criteria, 30 peer-reviewed studies were selected for the final content analysis. Thematic content analysis employing manual open coding was applied to these chosen studies in order to identify the recurring patterns regarding the themes, methodology, problems, and solutions. The analysis yielded five primary themes: linguistic features, cross-linguistic transfer, pedagogical interventions, assessment and washback, and emerging AI-based evaluation. The findings showed that IELTS writing research is mainly employing qualitative approach, followed by mixed-methods, making use of corpus analysis, discourse analysis, surveys, and classroom interventions. According to these studies, candidates consistently face challenges in grammar, lexical range, coherence, L1 transfer, and task management, while the proposed solutions strongly emphasize genre-based instruction, model-essay noticing, contrastive rhetoric teaching, focused feedback, strategy training, and AI-supported diagnostic tools.
 

---

A significant advantage associated with peer corrective feedback (CF) is the opportunity it provides for teachers in terms of increasing the opportunities for language learning and practice. Studies have even proved its influential role and higher impact for effective learning compared to the teacher-provided feedback. Nevertheless, teachers seem to practice caution in using it in their classes. One of their significant concerns is the emotional repercussions associated with this correction resource. The present study is an attempt to shed light on the dark parts of teachers’ perception of peer correction by seeking learners’ views and comparing them with those of teachers. For this purpose, semi-structured interviews were carried out with 31 Iranian EFL teachers as well as 159 Iranian EFL learners on the most critical issues discussed in the literature in relation to peer CF. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using Braun and Clark’s (2005) thematic analysis framework. The results pointed to teachers’ misconceptions about how their learners might react to correction from peers; while teachers had a conservative attitude to peer-provided correction due to their emotional concerns, learners looked at it as an effective learning resource and their major concern was related to the quality of the provided peer corrections. The findings have valuable implications for language instructors and teacher development programs.
 

---

This study examines how emotion wrods are reflected in EFL (English as a Foreign Language) textbooks. This research focuses on two textbook series, namely Touch Stone and Four Corners, and evaluates them based on emotional words. To investigate the emotional impact of the textbooks, TagAnt and AntConc tools were employed, using the English word database of emotional terms (EMOTE) by Daniel Grühn. Emotion words with a range higher than 5 and lower than 2 were selected to gauge their degree of emotionality refelected in the analyzed textbooks. The findings indicate that the Touch Stone series contains a higher range of emotional words compared to Four Corners. Finally, the attitudes and experiences of teachers towards the emotion words represented were examined through interviews with a focused group of English language teachers.
 

---

This qualitative study explored how mentoring and reflection can really support the development of preservice EFL teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) at a public teacher training university in Iran. The research which is grounded in an interpretive paradigm tried to understand the lived experiences of eight preservice teachers in their final year of undergraduate study. The data for the study were gathered through semi-structured interviews, reflective journals, and classroom observations. The analysis tried to follow Strauss and Corbin’s coding procedures. It included open, axial, and selective coding. After the analysis, five main themes emerged: the integration of theory and practice, the reflective transformation of teaching beliefs, the impact of mentorship on professional identity, challenges within teacher education programs, and the importance of peer collaboration and communities of practice. The findings clearly showed that mentoring and reflection could be vital in helping preservice teachers to connect pedagogical theory with classroom application, and to create context-sensitive teaching strategies, and to gain confidence in their instructional decisions. However, the study also highlighted the existing shortcomings in the current teacher education system, such as insufficient ongoing mentoring and limited opportunities for peer reflection. The research concludes that developing structured mentorship, reflective engagement, and collaborative professional communities can strengthen preservice EFL teachers’ PCK to a great extent and help close the gap between theory and practice which are apparent in Iranian teacher education.
 

---

This study explores the challenges of translating humor and cultural references in the Persian subtitles of The Golden Girls, Season 5, Episode 24. The primary objective is to identify and analyze the translation strategies used in semiprofessional Persian subtitles and to compare them with AI-generated translations, to determine whether the loss of comedic tone, dilution of culture-specific elements, and difficulty conveying sarcasm persist or manifest differently within subtitling constraints when using AI tools. The analysis reveals common human strategies like adaptation, omission, and domestication used to address these challenges. Our findings indicate that while AI translations may achieve greater literal accuracy and consistency, they often exhibit a more pronounced failure in replicating comedic timing, recognizing nuanced sarcasm, and making contextually appropriate cultural substitutions, instead defaulting to overly literal or culturally neutral renderings that further diminish the source text's humor and cultural specificity. The paper proposes solutions, including cultural adaptation, creative clarification, and hybrid human-AI workflows to improve viewer understanding. The findings underscore the critical balance between staying faithful to the source and ensuring accessibility for the target audience in audiovisual translation, highlighting the continued irreplaceable role of human cultural and comedic intuition.

---

Neologisms emerge within the language mainstream and constitute an indispensable aspect, particularly in literature and new phenomena in our lives. These novel terms, born from creative minds, often lack defined equivalents in other languages, posing challenges for translators. In the realm of translation studies, neologisms, especially those related to the coronavirus pandemic, have garnered significant attention. This study focuses on slang "coroneologisms" and their translations compiled by Thone (2020). Utilizing the resources provided by english-corpora.org, the frequency of coroneologisms was examined.  A questionnaire featuring a selection of the most frequently occurring neologisms was randomly selected and distributed to twenty-nine translators to gauge their translation approaches. The results, classified according to Newmark's (1988) taxonomy to reveal the normalization status of equivalents. Strategies employed for translating normalized examples are identified using Molina and Albir's (2020) framework. The study finds that various neologism types, such as blends and derived words, undergo normalization, primarily through translation into blends. While translators employ diverse strategies like amplification and generalization, they generally lead to normalization. However, old words with new meanings often face mistranslations or omissions rather than normalization. Overall, blends emerge as the most normalized neologism type, whereas old words with new senses exhibit the least normalization.

---

Abstract: In the globalized world today, translation plays an important role to make people of all around the world closer together by introducing each other’s cultures. However, translation is impossible in some cases or it is, sometimes, a severely challenging task for translator, due to the existence of cultural items or conceptualizations. This study determined and rated the translation strategies applied in the translation of a sample of culture specific items (CSIs) in the English translation of the novel “Missing Soluch” by Dowlatabadi. To do so, 46 culture-specific items were selected from this novel, based on purposive sampling and text analysis of the field of Cultural Linguistics. Then, the applied strategies for translating these items were determined and classified through utilizing the Newmark’s (1988) translation classification. Results revealed that the most frequent translation strategies were “functional equivalence”, “literal translation” and “descriptive equivalence. However, the most successful strategy was applying “functional equivalence” which leads to more loyalty of target text to the source text and preserving the source text impression on the target audience.