Scientific language has always been both a source of difficulty for the students of science and, in the recent decades in particular, a theme for speculation for the scholars seeking to describe and analyse language as it is used and conceived. The language of science has always been presumed to be more difficult than the language used in other fields. Scientific concepts and their sophistication are one source of its difficulty. The writing style and dynamics preferred by writers in the fields of science is commonly considered another source of such difficulty. Nominalisation, the use of derivative nouns of verbs and adjectives, which is more prevalent in the language of science compared with the language used elsewhere, is another feature attested to by many scholars. The present study aimed at comparative investigation of the phenomenon of deverbal nominalisations (nominalisations with verb origin) across written and spoken scientific language. The spoken samples were chosen from BBC’s programs in the genre of science and the written samples from science textbooks and credited science magazines (different issues). The samples in each modality included 400,000 words (for each modality) amounting to 800,000 words as the total size of the corpora considered. The findings showed a higher frequency of verbs in spoken modality and of nominalisations in written. Another interesting point was the highest frequency of material process type in both verbs and deverbal nominalisations. (The typology of processes from the Hallidayean systemic functional grammar framework was the basis for classification of verbs and their respective nominalised editions.) Relational process type which claimed the second highest frequency among verbs showed a much lower frequency among nominalisations. The consideration of the slots accommodating the nominalisations in the sentences also revealed insightful points about possible differences between spoken and written language (of science) in terms of the concentration of semantic and lexical density

Research has recently highlighted the potential of audiovisual input for incidental vocabulary learning. However, few studies have examined the role that different factors play in incidental vocabulary learning and retention from viewing. This study aims to examine incidental vocabulary learning and retention through viewing a full-length captioned episode of an English TV program and investigate whether this learning and retention are affected by the learnerrelated variable of prior vocabulary knowledge and the item-related variables of frequency of occurrence, contextual clues, lexicalization, word relevance, and visual imagery. A pretest posttest-between-participant design was adopted. Data were collected from 84 Iranian EFL students who were assigned to three pairs of experimental and control groups, receiving one of the following conditions: (a) immediate, (b) 1-week delayed, or (c) 3-month delayed posttests. The experimental groups were exposed to the audiovisual input while the control groups were not. The results demonstrated that incidental vocabulary learning and retention occurred at the level of form recognition and meaning recall. Moreover, it was revealed that learning and retention were affected by frequency of occurrence, contextual clues, lexicalization, visual imagery, and prior vocabulary knowledge, with the effects of the latter three possibly persisting after 3 months.

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Abstract-As completing blanks in a cloze passage requires use to be made of three main knowledge sources involved in reading comprehension, that is, linguistic, textual, and background knowledge, it was hypothesized that regular practice with cloze passages could lead to the enhancement of the reading ability. To test this hypothesis, two groups of adult Iranian students studying general English were selected. The students in the experimental group (30 students) were given regular practice with fixed-ratio deletion cloze passages for 13 sessions (30 minutes per session). The same passages were given to the students in the control group (30 students). However, the passages in the control group were in full but followed by carefully written comprehension questions. The practice sessions for the control group were also 13 and the time taken to work on each passage was 30 minutes per session. At the end of the treatment phase, the comparison made between the two groups' scores on a standardized reading test in the pretest and posttest stage revealed that those in the experimental group had improved more significantly in reading comprehension than those in the control group, a finding that not only underscores the pedagogical value of the cloze procedure but also points to the significance of a process-oriented approach to the teaching of the reading skill.