No abstract

Brain damaged participants offer an opportunity to evaluate the cognitive and linguistic processes and make assumptions about how the brain works. Cognitive linguists have been investigating the underlying mechanisms of idiom comprehension to unravel the ongoing debate on hemispheric specialization in figurative language comprehension. The aim of this study is to evaluate and compare the comprehension of idiomatic expressions in left brain damaged (LBD) aphasic, right brain damaged (RBD) and healthy control participants. Idiom comprehension in eleven LBD aphasic participants, ten RBD participants and eleven healthy control participants were assessed with three tasks: String to Picture Matching Task, Literal Sentence Comprehension Task and Oral Idiom Definition Task. The results of the tasks showed that in overall idiom comprehension category, the left brain-damaged aphasic participants interpret idioms more literally compared to right brain-damaged participants. What is more, there is a significant difference in opaque idiom comprehension implying that left brain-damaged aphasic participants perform worse compared to right brain-damaged participants. On the other hand, there is no statistically significant difference in scores of transparent idiom comprehension between the left brain-damaged aphasic and right brain-damaged participants. This result also contribute to the idea that while figurative processing system is damaged in LBD aphasics, the literal comprehension mechanism is spared to some extent. The results of this study support the view that idiom comprehension sites are mainly left lateralized. Furthermore, the results of this study are in consistence with the Giora's Graded Salience Hypothesis.

The aim of the current research is to reveal the relationship between pre-service teachers’ attitudes towardscompulsory English courses and their critical thinking skills. The study also investigates the effect of the participants’age, gender and department on their attitudes towards compulsory English courses and their critical thinking skills.California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (CCTDI) and Attitude Scale towards English Classes (ASTEC)were used as data collection instruments. 159 pre-service teachers from different departments of a public university’sfaculty of education. The results showed that there is no significant relationship between the participants’ age, genderand department and their CCTDI and ASTEC scores. According to the correlational analyses, it is found that there isno correlation between CCTDI and ASTEC scores of the participants. The results have been discussed under the lightof relevant literature and implications are presented for further research and pedagogy.

Birçok bilimsel çalışma aşırmacılık konusunu farklı eğitim bağlamlarında araştırmıştır. Ancak, çok az sayıda araştırma yabancı dil olarak İngilizce öğrenen Türk öğrencilerin etik anlayışını cinsiyet ve izlenim yönetimi perspektiflerinden araştırmıştır. Verilerin toplanması için akademik aldatma ölçeği, izlenim yönetimi ölçeği ve kişisel nitelikler anketi kullanılmıştır. Bu araştırma, İngilizceyi yabancı dil olarak öğrenen Türk öğrencilerinin akademik davranışlara, izlenim yönetimine ve psikolojik cinsiyete yönelik tutumlarını araştırmaktadır. Veriler, Türkiye'deki üç devlet üniversitesinden yabancı dil olarak İngilizce bölümlerine devam eden 285 öğrenciden toplanmıştır. Sonuçlar, öğrencelerin orta düzeyde aldatma davranışı sergilediği, farklı düzeylerde aldatmaya yönelik inançlarının olduğunu ve cinsiyete göre anlamlı bir farklılığı olmadığını göstermiştir.

This study was designed with an aim to investigate the relationship between willingness to communicate (WTC) and learner autonomy (LA) in EFL settings at a Turkish university context. The primary purpose of the study was to reveal the possible statistically significant relationship between L2 WTC and learner autonomy of EFL learners in the classroom setting. The study was based on a mixed-methods research design. 211 students majoring at the Department of English Language and Literature of a state university in Turkey participated in the study. The instruments which were used to collect data were a willingness to communicate scale, a learner autonomy scale, and classroom observation. The results revealed that there was a moderate but significant relationship between EFL learners’ WTC and LA. The autonomy levels of the EFL learners had a predictive role in their L2 WTC. The difference between the self-reported L2 WTC and the behavioural L2 WTC of the Turkish EFL students was higher when the autonomy level of the students was lower. Based on the results, implications for enhancing L2 WTC of EFL learners are discussed.