درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The present study aimed to shed light on the relationship among students' socioeconomic status, self-reported English proficiency level, the length of attending private institutes, and L2 motivational factors namely: ideal L2 self, ought-to L2 self, L2 learning experience, integrative motivation, and intended effort. Participants were 320 Iranian students studying English at high schools in Tehran, the capital city of Iran. Data collection included EFL motivational factors adopted from Taguchi, Magid, and Papi (2009), socioeconomic status, and demographic information. The results of the Spearman Rho test revealed a weak or no meaningful relationship between the student's socioeconomic status and their L2 motivation suggesting that socioeconomic status is not an indicator of the school students’ EFL motivational factors regarding tripartite variables of Dörnyei's L2 Motivational Self System as well as integrative motivation and intended effort. However, the length of attending private language courses and the English proficiency of the students indicated moderate correlations with their L2 motivation and socioeconomic status. Current findings bear a clear message to the Iranian education policymakers that despite adopting a communicative approach in the latest official EFL coursebooks of schools, non-official private language institutes still perform more effectively than the Iranian formal education system in maintaining and enhancing the EFL motivation of learners.

Cross comparison of works of art and literature has stabilized itself as an outstaning field which has attracted many researchers. Intellectuals and their works have contributed to the revelation of current themes of the communities of their times. This paper has tried to detect the thematic commonalities of Franz Kafka’s the Metamorphosis and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World regarding modern man’s obsessions. Based on the theoretical views and content analysis of the two works, the research reveals the illustration of the serial and linear world trend from bureaucracy as the initial offshoot of modernism to totalitarianism as a global movement which is detected in dystopian literary works as the commonality of the two writers. The two writers have deployed similar fiction elements, namely characterization and theme, to achieve these goals. On the line of their artistic endeavour, their reflection of such trends in the two selected works shed light of the clarification, manifestation, prognostication, and the possible eradication of these modern man’s obsessions.