Iranian Journal of Applied Linguistics

The Role of Mentoring and Reflection in Shaping Preservice EFL Teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge

Parviz Ahmadi

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.

Analysis of Lexical Normalization in the Covid19- related Neologisms: The Case of English to Persian Equivalents

Hossein Talebzadeh

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.

Teachers’ Perspectives on the Representation of Emotion Vocabulary in English Language Teaching Series”

Mohammad Amin Mozaheb

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.

Humor and Cultural Reference Loss in Subtitling: A Comparative Study of AI versus Human Translation

Hossein Bahri

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.

Evaluation of Translation Strategies of “Culture-specific Items” in Persian to English Translation of “Missing Soluch”

Elahe Sadeghi-Barzani

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.