THE EFFECTS OF ŽIŽEKIAN READING OF VIOLENCE IN SHAKESPEARE’S HAMLET ON READERS

Literature has a greater impact on the reader's mind than media, as it activates imagination, visualizes characters, and keeps their actions and behaviors in the reader's mind for longer periods. Famous literary works and authors attract more readers, causing greater effects if not adequately explained. The study, based on the constructivist paradigm, used a phenomenological strategy to show the negative effects of (constant) reading of the violence in Shakespeare's Hamlet, an English play that is one of the most famous literary masterpieces in the world. Participants in this study were educated men and women who had the capacity to comprehend violence in literature. The participants included ten educated individuals with various university degrees, from an associate degree to a doctorate, from different fields of study, and between the ages of 20 and 50. Participants' experiences and feedback were analyzed, and the results demonstrated that violent actions in stories can have great effects on the lives of not only the readers themselves but their families and also the whole society

Motivation and Language Proficiency: Instrumental and Integrative Aspects

AbstractThis study investigated the relationship between motivation and language proficiency of Iranian EFL learners studying in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia [UTM]. Two aspects of motivation were considered in this paper i.e. instrumental and integrative. 100 Iranian students studying in UTM and from different faculties served as respondents to reflect a variety of ideas about learning a second language. Participants were those with IELTS band score 6 and above [high achievers] and below 6 [low achievers]. An integrative and instrumental motivation nineteen-item questionnaire adopted from standardized questionnaires such as Attitude Motivation Test Battery (AMTB) [1 & 2] was used as the instrument of the study. The results of correlation study revealed that high achievers’ language proficiency correlated well with integrative motivation [r=.72]. This indicated that high achievers L2 learners were highly integrative motivated

Examining the relationship between L2 motivational self system and L2-learning among TESL students

The present study intends to show the relationship between three motivational variables known as “ideal L2 (second language) self”, “ought-to L2 self”, and “attitudes to learning English” and students’ intended effort to learn English. A questionnaire of 33 items was administered to two groups of TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) students—first-year students (53 samples) and final-year students (55 samples) in Mashhad Azad University, Iran. The results of the correlation coefficient proved a strong relationship between the “ideal L2 self” and the intended effort to learn an L2 for final-year participants. The results, however, were different for first-year students which highlighted the importance of the long-dominant concept, i.e., “integrativeness”. The major pedagogical implication is for teachers so that they can help their students to form an “ideal L2 self” by proposing tasks that provide situations for contacting with native speakers