Following Nation' (2009) proposal of 40-50 empty spaces as an optimum length of a cloze test, this study examined whether this length would work according to proficiency level. Three cloze tests, adjusted for each proficiency level, were developed by the researcher for the use at beginning, intermediate and advanced levels. The cloze tests measured participants' reading comprehension and included 40, 45 and 50 empty spaces for the beginning, intermediate and advanced levels respectively. Problematic items of each cloze test were identified over several pilot studies. Then they were administered to three groups of L1 Persian EFL learners at the beginning (56), intermediate (43), and advanced (41) levels. Results of the study suggest that an optimum length of a cloze test could vary according to the proficiency level. While the test could be long (including 50 empty spaces) and reliable at the advanced level, a shorter length of the test including 20-25 empty spaces could be more reliable at the beginning and intermediate levels.Keywords: cloze test, reading comprehension, proficiency, reliability, EFL learners Brown (1998) argues that at least three factors influence the reliability of cloze tests. These factors include variations in students' proficiency levels, differences in readability of the cloze tests, and length of the test (changes in number of items). Research suggests that if the first two factors are held constant, longer cloze tests yield more reliable estimates than shorter ones (e.g., Bachman, 1990;Brown, 1996Brown, , 1998. However, these researchers have not clearly determined the optimum length of a cloze test. Rand (1978) examined the effect of test length on the reliability of cloze tests. He suggested that a cloze test should include 20-25 empty spaces irrespective of the method used to score that. However, he had drawn on a single cloze test and single population in his study. Then variations in his participants' language proficiency and potential differences in readability of cloze tests were simply ignored in his study. Nation (2009) believes that one of the factors that make a cloze test reach a good level of reliability is that the cloze has a high number of points of measurement. He proposes that a cloze test with 40-50 empty spaces would be more reliable. However, it has not been argued whether the proposed length would work across different proficiency levels. Brown (1998) believes that there is a threshold at which increasing length of the test can have opposite effect. He has proposed a procedure through which one can determine the appropriate length of a cloze test. However, it would be very time-consuming for EFL/ESL teachers to determine the optimum length of a cloze test for each group of their participants. This is because the participants may differ in terms of language proficiency. To tackle this problem, it appears that a framework for an optimum length of a cloze test at each proficiency level is required. To meet this requirement, this study was designed to examine ...

This study investigated the differences and similarities between form and function of if-clauses as one type of conditional clauses within the applied linguistics and chemistry published academic Articles. These articles were examined and after determining the frequency of if-clauses, they were analyzed based on the model proposed by Sweetser (1990). According to the findings, if-clauses were more frequent in applied linguistics than chemistry articles. Results of function analysis indicated that, content is the major function in both applied and chemistry articles and comparing two genres, it is more frequent in applied linguistics articles. Next function in the line is epistemic, and it is again more frequent in applied linguistics articles and speech act was the last function that was more frequent in applied linguistics articles too. In addition, the verb forms of if-clauses were analyzed. Findings indicated that present + present pattern was the most predominant pattern across these two disciplines and it was more frequent in applied linguistics articles, therefore, there can be a relationship between verb pattern and function

Due to the lack of span test for the use in language-specific and cross-language studies, this study provides L1 and L2 researchers with a reliable language-independent span test (math span test) for the measurement of working memory capacity. It also describes the development, validation, and scoring method of this test. This test included 70 simple math problems, and was developed based on Salthouse and Babcock's (1991) and Robert and Gibson's (2002) math span tests. The shortcomings of the test were identified and removed over five pilot studies on 48 participants. The final test was used in an experimental study with a group of L1 Persian EFL learners. Results of an item analysis, as indicated by Cronbach's Alpha, indicated an internal reliability of .850 and .863 for the math span test processing and recall respectively. This suggests that the newly developed test is reliable enough and could be used to measure working memory capacity in L1 and L2 studies. This study also provides a clear procedure for the development and scoring of a math span test for the use in L1 and L2 studies.

Habitus is one of the key concepts of the Bourdieusian sociology which Translation Studies has benefited. Based on the Bourdieusian sociological model, this study investigated the translatorial habitus of the Iranian translators of English romance novels as far as the translation strategies of culture-specific items (CSIs) are concerned before and after the Cultural Revolution of 1980 in Iran. The research data include 4282 sentences containing CSIs extracted from Rebecca, Sense and Sensibility, and The Great Gatsby, and their two Persian translations. The extracted data were analyzed, adopting a consolidated typology of translation procedures for CSIs. The strategies employed for translating CSIs are presented with frequencies and percentages using descriptive statistics. Moreover, the results were corroborated with a qualitative analysis of some archived interviews printed in Motarjem [the translator] journal. The investigation revealed three essential findings: a marked source-oriented tendency among Iranian translators of the English romance novels when translating CSIs in the Pre-Cultural Revolution era, maintaining the same tendency in the Post-Cultural Revolution era, and finally a growing tendency in moving from Pre- to Post-Cultural Revolution era. The results of the Chi-square test highlighted a significant difference between various strategies used in two eras.