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Recent second/foreign language (L2) research has witnessed the application of sociocultural tenets to L2 classrooms. This study aimed to probe whether Iranian L2 learners' engagement in ZPD-activated collaborative dialogue, or 'languaging', mediates their learning process and, specifically, their appropriate use of metadiscourse to address content, organisation and audience issues in writing. English-as-a-foreign-language-writing classes at two universities were assigned to four different instructional conditions, namely, ZPD-activated collaborative, ZPD-free collaborative, fine-tuned L2-input provision and prevalent teacherfronted approaches. The data comprised metadiscourse-oriented writing test scores, weekly writings and audio-recorded in-class collaborative dialogues of the ZPD groups. The results demonstrated the ZPD-activated collaborative writing approach significantly facilitated the learners' appropriate use of metadiscourse. Complementary interpretative analysis of the ZPD participants' metadiscourse-related episodes showed that the initially-other-regulated (undistributed) writing tasks became progressively reciprocal with less-skilled peers displaying microgenetic use of L2 metadiscourse resources and dynamically assuming more participatory roles in regulating the writing tasks. The findings suggest engagement in ZPD-activated 'languaging' is crucial to shaping opportunities for L2 learners' microgenetic learning and to their longer term cognitive development. In sum, the application of sociocultural tenets and notions has shown to be highly fruitful in explaining the social genesis of L2 development as a higher order psychological functioning.

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Abstract. Trying to acquire and maintain power, politicians make use of certain rhetorical and linguistic devices to persuade voters in favor of their particular views constructed in the political discourse. The current study was an attempt to investigate Iranian president Hassan Rouhani's use of persuasive rhetorical-discursive devices during his campaign for presidency in 2013. Specific attention was paid to the levels of language that constituted his political discourse through: 1) scrutinizing the level of sound, 2) investigating his selection of lexical elements, and 3) looking into syntactic structures employed to convey political nuances. Additionally, a critical discourse analysis (CDA) approach, drawing upon Fairclough's three-dimensional analytical framework (2010), was adopted to probe the discourse-power relationship in his discourse, on the one hand, and the socio-cultural, religious, and political values underlying the rhetorical devices, on the other. The results revealed that Rouhani's political discourse was embroidered with different rhetorical-discursive devices such as tripartite constructions, repetition in parallel lines, alliteration, and metaphor to influence the public opinion. Moreover, perhaps, using a concise and succinct message, visual symbols, and dynamic metaphors helped him reach out to the audience with an air of emotion and mobilize significant numbers of the electorate for himself.