Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics

6

Authors: Azamat Akbarov & Hadicha Muhiddinova

In the process of teaching language the most important task is to know the peculiarities of interconnection of words. And one of the effective factors of learning and teaching Uzbek as a second language is to conduct specific research on interconnection and interrelation features of words and to compose special dictionaries of the Uzbek language for Russian-speaking students. Meanwhile, the issue of interconnection and interrelation peculiarities of words has been investigated not only by many linguists but by some psychologists as well.One of those prominent psychological scientists is N.I.Jinkinn. According to him, the integration of speech units is divided into two phases. He also relates “the grammar field” with the second phase of speechunitintegration. Furthermore, he points out that in the first phase of this process, words and word forms are spread out in the “speech field”. In the second phase a speaker selects the necessary words for the primary explanation of the idea,which is followed by the correct grammar form, and then collocates with a suitable word [1,45]. For instance, according to N.I.Jinkinn,a noun, an adjective and an adverb do not usually collocate with other words. They are called as lexics, which are spread in the “vocabulary field” but divided into characteristic groups.

8

Authors: Ivan Milošević

This paper aims to explore the possible application of cognitive semantics in the process of teaching and learningBusiness English idioms. The theoretical assumptions of this study are based on the cognitivist view that idioms are, to a certain extent, semantically motivated by cognitive mechanisms, with the conceptual metaphor being the most dominant one. This study is an attempt to test the hypothesis that metaphoric conceptualisation can contribute to a more successful acquisition of idioms, especially in comparison to pure memorisation of the same linguistic expressions. This small-scale experiment was carried out with 20 Business and Economics students divided into the experimental group and the control group. The students in the experimental group were introduced to the semantic motivation of idiom meaning, whereas the control-group students were taught the same idioms in the traditional way. After being presented with the carefully selected idioms in two different ways, the students in both groups were required to do four different types of exercises with a view to testing the semantic motivation hypothesis. As a result, the research findings and the results obtained in this experimental study suggest that the awareness of cognitive mechanism and semantic motivation behind the meaning of idioms can significantly assist students in the process of a somewhat systematic and consistent acquisition of Business English idioms.

8

Authors: Sanja Josifović-Elezović & Svetlana Mitić

Product writing is considered uncreative and unstimulating, as it trains students to model their output according to rules and patterns. The risk students might particularly be exposed to when taught such writing is their memorising complete phrases, the most common grammatical forms and lexis used, and leaving a false impression of having mastered the register and form of selected writing patterns, and improved their linguistic and writing ability in general. Teaching product writing to students whose native culture has proven hesitant in regard to adopting correspondence as standard in certain situations, e.g. when applying for a job, complaining about a faulty product or substandard service, or writing a report to an authority, may prove additionally difficult and the achievements of a course based on it unintended. Most people’s daily experience shows that the culture of cultivated writing is losing the battle with truncated correspondence via e-mail and other electronic media. In light of this, learning to write and utilize such basic forms as applications, complaints and reports may prove beneficial for students’ writing, as well as their general linguistic competence and their adoption of the target culture. This paper presents the results of a writing course administered to first-year English undergraduates as part of a general English language skills course and analyses them in terms of the students’ adoption of the grammatical forms and the vocabulary/register that are required, or most commonly used, in the selected forms. This shows the extent of their real progress, as well as changes in their attitudes toward such writing as representative of the target culture. It also reveals the role the course has had in developing the students’ awareness of learning as a process and of formative assessment, or rather, specific assessment that focused on a product, while emphasizing the relevance of teaching/learning as a process.

9

Authors: Irena Vassileva

Although nobody would deny that academic criticism is an inherent feature of academic communication, most of the existing studies assume that due to the nature of the development of science, collaborative rhetoric is intrinsic to academic discourse and criticism is the exception rather than the rule. In order to check this hypothesis, the present pilot study investigates a sample corpus of 10 book reviews in the field of English applied linguistics that are definitely negative in character. Scientific book reviews not only belong to the basic academic genres, but also possess a functionally determined highly evaluative character, thus being potential carriers of academic criticism. They have, unfortunately, received relatively little attention as yet. The study aims to uncover the argumentation strategies used by review writers in terms of classical Aristotelian argumentation theory.Within this theory the notion of topic plays a crucial role. There are two basic types of topoi: those based on everyday-logic generic premises and those with conventionalised conclusions, whose subgroups are used as a methodological instrument of the analysis. The analysis leads to conclusions concerning the surface expression of the argumentation strategies used by writers, the degree to which criticism is based on objective logic and on subjective personal evaluation, the preference for certain topoi, as well as some general concerns in relation to confrontation in the academia.

9

Authors: Snježana Babić & Tanja Gradečak-Erdeljić

The aim of this research is to establish the relevance of the results from a survey conducted among university students of English and German at the University of Osijek. The survey was construed in order to establish the degree of awareness among non-native users of English on how anglicisms are treated in the context of Croatian and German language systems and what strategies are used to cope with the pervasive influence of English vocabulary. Preliminary results show that English lexical borrowings from the field of IT technology are used very frequently in their communication via computers and mobile phones and the students are rather slow to acquire the suggested Croatian and German equivalents and neologisms in the IT terminology. Three basic strategies of direct borrowing, phonological and morphological adaptation, and neologisms will be researched by applying a questionnaire with both lexical and visual prompts for the students. The goal is to elicit responses that will be analysed and put in the context of whether Croatian and German function as a "language of identification" or a "language of communication" (House, 2003).

9

Authors: Ana Ostroški Anić

The role of metaphor as a basic cognitive mechanism in the construction and retrieval of specialized knowledge has been well studied within cognitive terminological theories (Faber, 2012; Tercedor Sánchez et al, 2012; Temmerman, 2000). However, the results of these analyses have mainly been applied in designing or improving terminological resources, leaving somewhat aside the impact metaphor has on bridging general and specialized knowledge, especially in the acquisition of new knowledge. This paper discusses the role of metaphor as a cognitive process in the conceptualization of certain key concepts in the domain of aviation. A number of terms and their collocations that reflect metaphorical mappings from the source domains the HUMAN BODY and ANIMALS have been extracted out of a corpus of English aviation textbooks and manuals related to the field of air traffic management. Instances of metaphorical conceptual mapping are identified and analyzed both at the conceptual and terminological level. Ana Ostroški Anić is a research assistant at the Department of General Linguistics of the Institute of Croatian Language and Linguistics in Zagreb, Croatia. Her research interests lie in the areas of terminology, specialized translation, LSP, phraseology, and cognitive semantics. She has been working on several terminological projects within the Croatian Special Field Terminology (Struna) program.

10

Authors: Goran Schmidt

The paper aims to shed light on how subtitlers cope with metaphor translation. The paper presents the results of a case study on a set of English subtitles of one Croatian movie. Metaphor translation procedures were analyzed using Conceptual Metaphor Theory. There are four basic ways to translate metaphors: a. using the same conceptual metaphor, b. using a different conceptual metaphor, c. using a nonmetaphorical paraphrase; and d. deleting the metaphor. In addition, a non-metaphorical expression can be translated by a metaphorical expression. Metaphors are mental, linguistic, but also cultural entities. Since translation in the contemporary age is recognized as both linguistic and cultural transfer, translating metaphors is at the core of the translation task. Many conceptual metaphors are universal and can be found in (almost) all languages, but some are culturally specific, appearing in just one language (group). This case study shows that the universality of metaphor influences the choice of a metaphor translation procedure, in a way that shared metaphors are mostly translated using the same conceptual metaphor, whereas non-shared metaphors are translated by a different metaphor or a non-metaphorical paraphrase. The paper also explores the ways in which the specifics of subtitling as a constrained type of translation influence the choice of a translation procedure. The results are compared to the results of a previous study, which dealt with the translation of metaphors in literature.

10

Authors: NattapornLuangpipat & WatanaPadgate

This study aims to explore the relationship between English learning achievement and students’ perceived self-efficacy, and the possible factors of the students’ perceived self-efficacy. Some 370 first-year students at Naresuan University were randomly selected to fill in the questionnaires while grades representing students’ learning achievement were collected from the instructors.The collected data was analyzed by Pearson’s Correlation and Multiple Linear Regression. The result of the study showed that there was a statistically significant relationship between English learning achievement and students’ perceived selfefficacy. The factor related to students’ perceived selfefficacy was mainly from vicarious experience, which was somewhat contradictory to the findings ofearlier studies (Bandura, 1986; Kiran&Sungur, 2012; Lent, Brown et al., 1996; Luzzoet al., 1999; Pajares, Johnson &Usher, 2007) Hopefully, the result of this studycan be utilized to improve student performance in English learning through a better understanding self-efficacy and its related factors.

10

Authors: Veronika Kareva

There is no dilemma at present times that language learning means learning how to use the language and not learning to know about the language. Exactly for this purpose, in today’s global world characterized by massification and mobility in the field of education, the Council of Europe - Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), as a universal instrument allowing individuals to have a record of the different elements of their language learning achievement, begins its treatment of language use through the context of communication.Language programs at different institutions organize their work in the way that learners use the general competencies they bring with them, but also develop them further. Nonetheless, successful completion of university language courses does not always mean that the student has mastered the language and can use it for communication. This mostly refers to the cases where the language courses are treated as part of the curricula while the other instruction is in the L1. The fact that students at such institutions are not required to take any standardized English proficiency test put the effectiveness of the complete language program under a question mark. In order to provide evidence that its quality language provision resulted in improved communicative competence for students, the Language Center (LC) of the South East European University (SEEU) in Tetovo, Macedonia, introduced final oral examination as a part of the course grading criteria. The aim of this paper is to determine whether the introduction of the oral examination as a part of the final achievement exam has helped raise student’s awareness of the need to improve their communication skills and thus attain better performance. Participants of the study are 114 students from eight sections, two per level, starting from beginner to upper intermediate, whose final scores will be followed in the last three exam sessions. In addition, individual students will be chosen and their progress followed during three academic terms in order to show the development of their communication skills. The results are expected to be used as an indicator for program evaluation by the University management and external evaluation.

11

Authors: Zorica Trajkova

This paper aims to demonstrate how writers and speakers actively engage readers and listeners within the argumentation through the use of engagement markers as a metadiscourse category. More precisely, it sets out to explore the function and use of engagement markers, i.e. personal pronouns, directives and questions, in three different genres, one written (editorials from newspapers) and two spoken (excerpts from talk shows and closing arguments from trials) in two different languages, Macedonian and English. The analysis is carried out on nine editorials from American and nine from Macedonian newspapers, nine excerpts from American and nine from Macedonian talk-shows, as well as five closing arguments from American trials and five from Macedonian. It is essential for writers and speakers to know how to balance the use of these markers in order to avoid being intrusive and appear more persuasive to the readers and listeners. The research shows that there are differences in the use of the markers in the three genres in both languages. They were most frequently used in the English spoken texts (talk shows and closing arguments) and least frequently in the Macedonian closing arguments. As for their use in editorials, they were used moderately in both languages. So, on the whole, the analysis reveals that the choice of markers within the same genre depends on cultural differences, i.e. the format and perception of the type of text by the different societies. Furthermore, it also shows differences in the choice of markers across the three genres in both languages. Finally, although carried out on a relatively small corpus, this research gives insight into the dialogic nature of argumentation and its impact on the persuasive effect of written and spoken texts in different genres and languages.

13

Authors: Jelena Ilić

There have been many researchers (Holmes, Brown and Levinson, Olshtain, Blum-Kulka, House, Kasper) who have devoted themselves to the analysis of one of the basic units of human linguistic communication - the act of apologizing. An apology, as argued by Holmes (1989), is seen as a facesupportive act. As such, it does not impose on thehearer’s face. It has been understood that the act of apologizing serves as a social goal of maintaining harmony between the speakers, and in order to make it convincing and workable it has to be used with appropriate strategies. Olshtain (1989) claimed that apologies do not differ drastically across languages and therefore it could be said that they are mostly universal. Interestingly enough, what Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper (1989: 21) noticed is that apologies are used with different degrees of intensity. Speakers may use intensifiers or upgraders to increase the power of their apology (‘I’m so sorry’, ‘I’m really sorry’), but they may also use other modality markers such as downgraders to avoid the use of apology and minimize their guilt (ex. I didn’t know you’d be eager to go out tonight.). Moreover, an act of apologizing might not accompany the set of realization patterns typical for apologizing and does not have to coincide with thespeaker’s pragmatic intention. ‘Sorry ‘bout that!’ is an example that one may find in contexts in which a speaker is not apologizing for something s/he did, but s/he is sarcastic or just superficially using the pattern to avoid a sincere apology. In other words, meaning does not have to be tightly connected to the pragmatic intention whatsoever. Still, the aim of this paper will be to analyze the structure of an apology using data-collection instruments, such asthediscourse completion test (DCT), rating scalesand role-plays,inorder to elicitapologetic data produced by non-native speakers who are highly proficient in English andwho are responsible for teaching and guiding young generations. The paper will examine teachers’ apologetic competences as a type of knowledge that everyone needs to acquire, process, develop, use and display on a daily basis. The analysis of teachers’ contextual perceptions and choices of apology strategies openly indicates their socio-pragmatic performance through written and oral tasks, and their pragmalinguistic performance as well.

15

Authors: Azra Jakupi, Neda Radosavlevikj & Milica Matoska

Whether you have been teaching for 20 years or have just started your teaching career, there’s always a possibility you will have a student in your classroom with disruptive behavior. This behavior can go beyond the limits of what is considered to be acceptable in a learning environment. An obvious example of disruptive behavior is when the student verbally attacks, is late for class, experiences angry outbursts, social problems, etc. or simply rebels against something that is happening beyond the classroom door. However, very rarely are we, as teachers, aware of the possibility that the student might be having a mental health crisis. We, the Language Centre at South East European University, have encountered various stressful situations, while at the same time we struggle for balance and try to find appropriate responses for students’ complaints about grades, “unfair” treatment, the policy of the faculty, etc. In an effort to resolve this dilemma, we will conduct research within the Language Centre through interviews with the academic and administrative staff as well as the students and their supervisors. In our presentation, we will present several strategies to deal with stressful situations that affect the entire learning environment, including the teachers themselves, such as: defining the problem, the reason behind it, the time of occurrence, its impact, introducing metacommunication and early communication by setting early expectations, ways to stay calm when responding to a crisis event and setting limits. We will also explore basic principles related to classroom management and a variety of strategies for early intervention in order to create a dynamic learning environment that promotes learning safety.

26

Authors: Fatma Aksoy

The present study was designed to investigate if there is a significant difference among SR clustering, SU clustering and TR clustering of vocabulary presented to Turkish EFL learners, and if there is, which way of presentation would be a more useful tool in a Turkish EFL classroom. A total of 46 preparatory school students, studying at Anadolu University School of Foreign Languages, participated in this study. The participants were required to provide Turkish equivalents of the 15 new words presented in semantic, thematic or totally unrelated sets that they were encouraged to learn through word cards. The data gathered from 37 of these participants were analyzed. The results of the delayed tests revealed that semantically related sets (SR) significantly differed from unrelated and thematic sets, and helped the participants learn and recall more words, while the results of the immediate tests did not yield to a statistically significant difference.

6

Authors: Keti Miteva-Markovic

Semantic and cultural analysis of the terms for 'ink' in the Slavic languages This text will analyze the semantic and cultural motivation of the terms for ink in the Slavic languages and their dialects, followed by an etymological analysis of the corresponding terms in other European languages. The VIII Lexical volume of the General Slavic Linguistic Atlas (OLA) will be taken as a foundation; it contains the terms for ink in the Slavic dialects, i.e. approximately 850 settlements on the entire Slavic territory. Namely, various terms are used to refer to ink in the different linguistic areas of the Slavic territory, such as мастило, чернила, tinta, atrament, inkoust etc. This text will analyze their geographic distribution while presenting the semantic motivation of appropriate terms through etymological analysis. Taking the geographic distribution of the various terms for ink into consideration, the compatibility of areas is evident according to both the etymology of appropriate terms and the cultural influence that encompassed the appropriate semantic motivation. By analyzing various terms for ink, my tendency is to illustrate that lexical diversity does not depend only on lexical heritage, but on other factors as well, such as civilization and culture.

8

Authors: Saule Abdramanova

The aim of the research is to investigateconceptual framesofbody parts,as perceived by native Turkish speakers while they learn English idioms that employbody-part components. The study is mainly based on the assumptions of the theory of frames by Minsky (1974), who proposed the frame system forthe cognitive sciences. Vygotsky (1986) introduced conceptual frames in his theory of human development, and Fillmore (2006) operated with the term “frame” in his frame semantics. The abovementioned theories have been applied to make up a network of ‘nodes’ and ‘relations’ that Turkish learners of Englishbuilt up while guessing the meaning of English idioms, with the focus on their body-part components. The experiment was conducted among first-year students with an intermediate level of English from the department of English Language Education at Middle East Technical University, Ankara. Participants were asked to fill in questionnaires and to guess the meaning of 15 English idioms that employbody-part components such as eyes, hands, head, heart, leg/foot, nose, and tongue. To ensure thevalidity and reliability of the experiment, interviews were conducted with five respondents and a think-aloud protocol was conducted with six other respondents. The qualitative data obtained in the experiment were analyzed, and the results showed that Turkish students build different frames related tobodypart meanings based on their universal, cultural and personal world perception.

9

Authors: Ines Skelac & Ružica Stanić

Native speakers of Croatian often have problems with appropriate usage of English tenses that do not exist in Croatian, frequently associating past forms in English with perfective meanings in Croatian and non-past forms with imperfective meanings (because Croatian has verb aspect). They also encounter difficulties with non-temporal uses of English tenses. Apart from the central meaning of tense as temporal reference, there are four non-temporal meanings of English tenses (Tyler, 2000): (1) emotional distance or intimacy; (2) the relative salience or status of the information being conveyed; (3) negative epistemic stance towards a particular scenario; (4) to express requests, commands and invitations. Although some non-temporal meanings are very similar to those in English, there are also significant differences that cause difficulties to native speakers of Croatian in learning English as L2. Some of the differences are caused by metaphorical and metonymical shifts in meaning between the source domain (time distance) and the target domain (distance between wish and reality, simulating of distance in order to avoid direct appeal, distance of the deictic centre, counterfactual possible situation, etc.). In order to examine those assumptions, 102 students – English learners – were tested. Differences mainly occurred in cases when the past tense is used in English to signal (1) a negative epistemic stance towards a particular scenario and (2) tense as an expression of attenuation: invitations, requests and suggestions, because Croatian speakers tended to use the present tense in some cases. We argue that a consistent description of non-temporal uses of tenses in Croatian and English, with analysis of differences, can facilitate the learning of these frequently occurring non-temporal uses of English tenses.

9

Authors: Chanturidze Yulia

Once a person sets a goal of studying the culture of some country or even of teaching it to foreign students in classrooms, he/she cannot manage without taking into account its reflection in the languages. it is the language that fixes all peculiarities of people’s world perception and becomes the storage of knowledge about it. It is in the light of such perception that a human being sees the world. Thus, one can speak about a linguistic world view. The linguistic world view is based on the set of certain concepts. A concept is a great deal broader than the lexical meaning of a word as it also includes an evaluative component. Cultures may share the same concepts or possess their own uniqueness. The latter are often referred to as national-specific concepts. These are the concepts that render the peculiarities of nation's mentality, world view and evaluation of the material world. In order to understand each other people must share the set of concepts and the same background information. This is often referred to as “common knowledge” [1.P.174-175]. At present considerable attention is drawn to discourse, especially its political variety. The analysis of national-specific concepts and the set of linguistic means which express them in political discourse seem to be of special interest in the discussion of typical cultural characteristics as political sphere is one of the constituent parts of any national culture. Thus, political discourse contributes to the understanding of the ways values have been developed. The importance of linguistic analysis of political discourse as part of culture teaching can be illustrated using materials from the African American political discourse, in which such concepts as ‘freedom’, ‘power’, ‘equality’ and ‘African American dream’ come to the fore.

10

Authors: Azamat Akbarov & Saodat Muhamedova

The article deals with the semantic field units with semanteme "thinking" in Uzbek, Bosnian and English languages, defined by their integral seme, on the basis of the criteria specified internal semantic groups. Lexical units refer to the meaning “thinking” and semantic field, integral and distinctive meaning have been investigated, inner groups have been classified in the example of the Uzbek language. The study of linguistic units on the basis of semantic fields is widespread in the world linguistics. They are mainly directed at the study of semantic groups of verbs. Our research will compare the semantic fields of units with semanteme "thinking" in the Uzbek language. The given lexicalsemantic field includes not only the lexeme of the verbs, but the lexemes of nouns, lexemes of adjectives, lexemes of adverbs and also some of the idioms. In the result of the analysis of the factual material revealed the following semantic groups of units with semantepe "thinking" in the Uzbek language.

10

Authors: Monika Černá

The paper discusses the challenges of test design in the context of a research project focusing on the analysis of tertiary students’ spoken production in English. One of the project aims is to create a corpus of learner-spoken English. The participants in the study are Czech first-year students in English language teacher education study programmes at three universities. In order to elicit samples of the students’ oral production, a test of speaking, including a pronunciation subtest,was designed with respect to the research aims and objectives and in accordance with the current trends in the field. The challenges faced by the research team may be divided into three groups – those pertinent to the construction phase of the research instrument, the pilot phase, and the data-collection phase. The paper discusses how the team responded to the perceived challenges.The process of test designing was informed by relevant literature (e.g. Bachman, 1990, Hughes, 2003, Luoma, 2004);the team strove to achieve the highest possible level of ‘test usefulness’, i.e. test qualities including reliability, construct validity, authenticity, interactiveness, impact and practicality, as introduced by Bachman and Palmer (2009). Consequently, the decisions regarding the abilities that the candidates, prospective English teachers, should demonstrate, as well as the decisions about the test format (elicitation techniques, number of tasks, etc.), were made with respect to the proposed ‘test usefulness’. The pilot phase confirmed the usability of the tool to elicit the required data, but also necessitated a few content- and procedure-related modifications. They reflected the results of the analysis of the performances recorded during the trial testing as well as the analysis of feedback questionnaires.Having revised the test, the researchers then implemented it in the data-collection processin three universities in the Czech Republic. The number of studentstested was 176.

11

Authors: Roma Kriaučiūnienė

The contemporary world is complicated and we face many difficult problems that sometimes can turn into conflicts that have to be resolved. As S. L. Dolan (2011) claims, these problems are: environmental pollution, human alienation, unemployment, crimes, drug addiction, disintegration of the family, mistreatment of the elderly, unequal distribution of wealth, food, educational opportunities, and many more. These challenges cause chaos and disturb the established sense of values across cultures. Some Lithuanian researchers (Aramavičiūtė, 2005) also maintain a view that such chaos has a major influence on people’s psychological condition as they lose the sense and meaning of life, which has a negative impact on their intra- and inter-relations.Documents from the EU also highlight the need for educational institutions to promote social cohesion, intercultural dialogue, diversity and equality. The development of personal and social skills and respect for human dignity and shared values are considered to be essential forthe resolution of intercultural problems. The article is based on the research into the cognitive-notional component of value attitudes among students of management and foreign languages. The criteria were the acknowledgement of the importance of values and the depth of understanding of the meaning of values. The conclusion is that students have to be prepared to understand the world, its cultural variety and values, think critically, andmake a stand against injustice.Only then can there be hope for life without prejudice, violence and contempt. Educational institutions have a huge and indispensible responsibility in this respect (Popovici, 2006).

11

Authors: Stanimir Rakić

Following the earlier works of Booij (1985) and Nespor & Vogel (1986) I provide further evidence that English compounds are made up of prosodic words. The length of the first components must be preserved because they are identical to basic lexical forms. In some other languages, as for example in Serbian, the length of the first components may be shortened because the inclusion of linking vowels can contribute to the building of the required ‘derived environment’ (Kiparsky 1985). This invoking of the strict cyclicity condition is however necessary only for those English dialects in which the accented syllables are not necessarily closed. In this paper I discuss the prosodic status and quantity of English compounds.

12

Authors: Ivana Brač & Sanja Drljača Magić

Difficulties in learning a second language (L2) may arise when a first-language (L1) speaker attempts to directly transfer a syntactic pattern from L1 into L2. Since there is a very high overlap in verb valency between Croatian and Russian, the generalization of syntactic patterns often leads to systematic errors. In this paper we analyze verbs that were selected from a list of verbs required for B1-level mastery in Croatian and Russian. The analyzed verbs are divided into semantic groups according to Levin (1993), but the paper focuses on the verbs of social interaction, verbs of communication and psych-verbs. Each verb is associated with its syntactic pattern supported by a corpus attestation. Within each semantic group, verbs are further divided into four groups based on the number of complements and their realization on the syntactic and morphological levels. This paper aims to facilitate the acquisition of basic verb complements in Croatian and Russian, with emphasis on non-matching pairs between the two languages.

14

Authors: Aida Tarabar

The paper offers an insight into the highlights of the ESP teaching practice at the University of Zenica, the university with the longest ESP tradition in the country. This type of language instruction started as part of an optional course at the Faculty of Metallurgy in 1970s. During the following decades – especially in recent times – the teaching has been developed and organized into several obligatory ESP courses that are taught during the final four semesters of undergraduate studies at technical faculties. The training finishes with so called Public Lecture – a series of presentations delivered by the students themselves. The main characteristics of ESP instruction at these faculties are total flexibility and adaptability. This means the ESP teacher not only tends to follow the most recent findings in the realm of the ELT, but also observes the specific educational and social circumstances within which the learning/teaching process takes place. In a country such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the legacy of war includes a brain drain and a complex situation at all three educational levels, it is important to design innovative practices that can compensate for the aforementioned deficiencies. By being responsive to students’ needs, we try to bridge and/or fill in the gaps in their knowledge. In the course of our ESP instruction the students are equipped with the most appropriate and practical tools they can use when they encounter the problem of translating a technical text – a simplified 'translation technology'. Thus, they are encouraged to enter the language arena. Without such a scaffold, they would most probably remain only spectators.

19

Authors: Irena Zovko Dinković & Maja Banić

Nowadays we are witnessing a substantial growth in the number of radio stations, as well as a simultaneous decline in the quality of the hosts’ speech, particularly its fluency. Whereas people may be quite tolerant of various hesitations in everyday conversations, listeners often find dysfluencies in the speech of radio hosts distracting and irritating, expecting the hosts to be skilled in controlling their output.This research paper therefore offers a contrastive analysis of hesitations in the speech production of English and Croatian radio hosts, with the aim of determining whether the frequency of hesitation markers can be related to the formal training of hosts. If so, we can suppose that greater fluency of speech may be achieved through practice.To this purpose we have analyzed eight minutes (480 seconds) of speech of 32 radio hosts, 16 American and 16 Croatian, with an equal number of males and females in each group. Also, half of the hosts work at public radio stations, and the other half at commercial ones. In order to obtain the most objective results possible, the analyzed samples were taken from different episodes of talk shows on various subjects, as well as from different parts of the episodes (beginning, middle and ending). The results indicate that there is no correlation between gender and fluency since there was no relevant difference in the frequency of hesitations produced by male and female hosts, in spite of the generally accepted popular view that women are more fluent and verbal than men. More importantly, the results indicate that fluency is an aspect of speech that can be improved through practice and formal training. A surprisingly similar number of hesitations in the speech of American and Croatian hosts confirms the fact that speech fluency is a cognitiveaspect of language, independent of language specific features.

34

Authors: Melisa Okičić & Merima Osmankadić

Teaching English as a foreign language at university level is quite a different challenge compared to teaching high school or young nonnative learners. This is due to the fact that university students are expected to acquire specific grammar terminology in order to master the grammar system of the target language. At the English Department of the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo, during the first three (undergraduate) years of study the students are introduced to several grammar courses, focusing on the analysis of English grammar through descriptive explanations given in English. The courses serve as a basis that is expected to improve both the grammar and translation competence of the students. This paper examines to what extent the acquired descriptive knowledge of morphosyntactic properties of English is helpful in terms of translation of those Bosnian sentences whose proper translation into English requires the knowledge of contrastive rules. The research has been designed as a combination of action research and a quasi-experimental pre-test (delayed) post-test control-treatment group. As the research findings have revealed, teaching grammar to non-native learners of English without input as to the contrastive differences between the source and the target language results in erroneous translation, which is a consequence of negative transfer from the source into the target language. On the other hand, grammar teaching supported by the presentation of relevant contrastive rules has proved to be an efficient learning technique in terms of reducing errors and improving both grammar and translation competence of non-native learners.

9

Authors: Artur Hadaj

This paper centers on a practical and relevant way to teach English as a second language learners how to avoid logical fallacies. The paper begins with a brief overview of the importance of teaching subtleties of language and a four stage method that can be used to teach not only logical fallacies, but principles of conversational coherence. This method leads students through a series of exercises in which they reimagine and reconstruct contemporary public arguments in ways that produce different and, perhaps, more favorable outcomes. The paper concludes with a case study instructors may use to introduce the concepts of logical fallacies and principles of conversational coherence to students. The case study contains the heated exchange between the editors of the Albanian daily newspaper Shekulli and representatives of the U.S. Embassy. In 2011, Shekulli published a lengthy editorial without a statement saying that views expressed in the article did not represent the stand of the newspaper. Immediately after this editorial, the U.S. Embassy issued a brief statement accusing this newspaper of using an ad hominem argument when they explicitly referred to the ambassador’s Asian looks and his short stature. In their statement, the embassy conveyed information regarding money the U.S. government had donated to the Albanian Media Institute for the qualification of Albania journalists. The implication being that the journalists of this newspaper either did not want to attend the qualification courses organized by the Institute or they could not understand the modern principles of newspaper writing. A few days later, the Dutch Embassy in Tirana severed relations with Shekulli, accusing its editors of engaging in slander. Throughout the case, analysis that focuses on logical fallacies evident in the discourse (e.g., ad hominem arguments, non sequiturs, argumentum ad baculum, and glittering generalities) is provided.

11

Authors: Agnes Pisanski Peterlin & Nataša Hirci

In many traditional types of translator training, there is a strong focus on individual work undertaken by trainee translators, while pair-work and group-work is used less extensively. Such a focus may, to some extent, reflect the contemporary Western perception of translation as a solitary activity, with a single translator working individually, isolated from the rest of the world. This perception, however, is oversimplified since translation often involves some type of collaboration, such as the translator collaborating with an editor, a copyeditor, the client, or a disciplinary expert. In addition, some emerging trends in translation in the digital age are collaborative in their nature (e.g. crowdsourcing). It seems, therefore, that collaboration is an aspect of translation that needs to be addressed more carefully in translator training. The present paper reports on a study focusing on collaboration in a translation course. The goal of the study was to examine the types of collaboration that trainee translators use when they are presented with a collaborative assignment. In the study, trainee translators were asked to complete two collaborative translation assignments using a wiki, which enables monitoring the degree of participation for each wiki participant. The first assignment encouraged free collaboration in an attempt to mirror informal collaboration: trainee translators were asked to collaborate in any way they wished. The second assignment was focused on structured collaboration: trainee translators were given detailed guidelines on the types of collaboration expected of them, and on the extent of the contribution they were expected to make. The findings show that the second assignment resulted in more intensive teamwork and promoted more diverse types of collaboration than the first assignment. This suggests that carefully structured collaboration should be given additional attention within the context of translator training.

11

Authors: Marie J. Myers

With new developments in applied linguistics, especially in countries relying on immigration for population growth, a new approach to intercultural linguistic competence is needed. Newcomers to Canada faced with two official languages and cultures, in addition to their own, require second language teacher preparation programs to cater to these new demands. The proposed second language teaching preparation programs must keep in mind both the different amounts of detail involved in acquiring professional acumen the accurate balance across cultures. A number of suggestions have been made for the processing of information in an intercultural context through a step-by-step mental approach. In today’s global knowledge economy, some parameters take on crucial importance in situational contexts (Barton & Tusting, 2005; Myers, 2012; Olson, 2003). Developing awareness of self and of how people interact in their native language is a crucial aspect of this approach. In order to enhance comprehensibility and for clearer output on language teaching issues, we look at integrating an interactional perspective while simultaneously developing intra-personal intelligence. We investigated future teachers’ endorsement of new implementations in an attempt to shed light on ‘professionalization at work’. Data were collected through observations of group discussions and an analysis of written productions to uncover emergent themes. The findings primarily pointed to the perceived importance of the development of linguistic competence based on new approaches advocated in applied linguistics and a new way to integrate culture knowledge in teaching. We also analyzed Ministry instructional videos intended to demonstrate how to develop intercultural linguistic competence. These findings are discussed in light of the literature and contextual elements. The results were overall positive and indicate that these new implementations required a change in beliefs.

12

Authors: George Shaduri

The teaching method of suggestopaedia, which originated in the 1970s owing to the efforts of Bulgarian psychotherapist Georgi Lozanov, has already been applied in the framework of studies dealing with ELT. In practice the method consists of several stages, the central of which represents intonation reading against appropriate musical background. Unconscious or not fully conscious psychical activity linked to the concept of “concert pseudo-passivity” is critical at that stage. There have been a number of studies conducted in Georgia with the use of this method. This paper is a modest attempt to contribute to this relatively new and exciting field of pedagogy. The author conceived to conduct the experiment, while using 20th century music during the phase of concert pseudo-passivity. It should be mentioned that suggestopaedia generally uses classical music to create the concert pseudo-passivity. The author, however, experimented with two genres of the 20th century: blues and jazz. Thus, the experiment was broken down into two parts. In the first part, the author investigated whether applying blues poetry as means for intonation reading, combined with the blues music as an audio-mirror of the read verse, influences the degree of acquisition of the vocabulary at the advanced level. This yielded positive results allowing further investigation in the area. In the second part of the experiment, the author conducted twelve academic sessions, of which eight (8) went on to use traditional ways of teaching vocabulary, and four (4) were done with the elements of suggestopaedia, with the use of jazz music. The experiment has proven that with the use of suggestopaedia, the academic outcome of the students increased by 20%, which can definitely be qualified as methodological success that should be used as an auxiliary tool in the course of teaching.

15

Authors: Alma Piric

According to the staff of the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Zenica, second year students are not easily motivated to participate in classroom discussions. Most of the time, students are encouraged to participate, but only a selected few do. When asked why that is so, students reported that they feel uncomfortable, mostly because they feel that they have noting important to share or that they are embarrassed to speak in front of their colleagues. The author of this paper tried to encourage students to open up and participate in classroom discussions. For the purpose of this research, the author worked closely with second year students at the Department of English Language and Literature, introducing a new approach to ensure maximum student participation. The Socratic Circle approach was introduced and applied several times throughout the semester, and the students provided feedback each time they participated in the discussions. Two structures were used and the students were given the opportunity to express their opinions about each, as well as to comment about the Socratic Circle Rubric that was introduced for the purpose of grading their participation. This paper describes the steps that were taken over a fourmonth period. The author claims that by using the Socratic Circle approach, it is possible to motivate every student to participate in classroom discussions on a regular basis, and that the students appreciate the use of the Socratic Circle Rubric because they know what is expected of them as well as how their participation will be graded.

16

Authors: Kemal Gönen and Azamat Akbarov

Mobile learning in higher education in Turkey is on the rise. University students use their mobile devices mostly for self-directed informal learning rather than in the formal academic context, creating challenges to acquire an accurate picture of academic use. In this study, we collected data about ownership of mobile devices among students using a diverse sample from various universities in Turkey. We also explored students' language learning practices with mobile technologies and focused on the interactions among technologies, contents, and pedagogies. The results indicate that learners need better access to academicfriendly devices such as tablets and additional support to integrate mobile technologies for language learning purposes. The findings also help shape future directions of faculty development. Instructors must integrate these innovative technologies into the curriculum with sound facilitation and assessment strategies, as well as be able to support the mobile practices of students.

24

Authors: Rebecca Tipton

This article explores the problem of intersubjective understanding in interpreter mediation as an emergent process in order to illuminate the gaps and slippages that occur at the interface where different professions meet in providing service delivery to service users with a limited linguistic capacity for dealing with complex institutional contexts. Building on a small study of interpreter and service provider perceptions of the occupational other (Tipton 2012), the article considers a range of sites where intersubjective understanding can be discursively accomplished (e.g. service encounters and research interviews) and the conceptual and methodological implications of such sites for evaluating reflexive orientations to other at the level of service delivery.