Newspaper editorials constitute a part of media discourse, which is an extremely important field of research in intercultural rhetoric analysis and EFL (English as a foreign language)/ESL (English as a second language) studies. Specifically, certain features of editorial headlines and also their important role in monitoring and directing readers' attention have made the interface between the linguistic analysis of newspaper editorial headlines and teaching of EFL as a relevant issue in language teaching. Through conducting a contrastive textual analysis of selected headlines, culled from the editorials of the English newspaper, The New York Times, and those of Persian newspaper, Tehran Times, the present study aimed at exploring the kind of textual and rhetorical strategies the two newspapers used for propagating their preferred ideologies. The results of the study indicated that headlines in the two papers presented a subjective attitude of the writers (newspapers) toward the topic. However, based on the analysis of the data, it became clear that there were certain differences between the two sets of headlines in terms of Presupposition, and certain Rhetorical devices.

This study uses the genre analysis methodology used in the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) school, relying mostly on Bhatia’s (1993, 2004) and Swales (1990) models of genre analysis. Two hundred letters of appeal written by postgraduate students whose native language was other than English in a public university in Malaysia were included in the study. The sample included letters written by a variety of students from different language backgrounds. The criterion for selecting the corpus was the communicative purpose (Askehave and Swales, 2001) of the letters: stating a request. The study analyzed the genre of the letters of appeal to identify the structural or rhetorical moves that existed in the genre.

Qzone weblog is one of the most popular weblogs in China. This study explores Qzone weblog for critical peer feedback to facilitate Business English writing among the Chinese undergraduates. A qualitative case study is conducted by NVivo 8 to analyze the three research data of semistructured interviews, Business English writing assignments, and critical peer feedback artifacts. Three research questions are focused on the case participants’ perception of this study, the strength and weakness of Qzone for critical peer feedback, and online features of Qzone affecting critical peer feedback in Business English writing. The findings indicate that Qzone weblog is a convenient information communication technology platform for online critical peer feedback among the Chinese undergraduates. The six aspects of strength and five online features are coded by NVivo 8, which are models by NVivo 8 with figures. The weakness of Qzone is the character number limitation for blogging and feedback. The conclusion of this study will be applied for the use of Qzone weblog and other kinds of weblog for online peer feedback in English writing.

This study explored critical peer feedback with critical thinking to improve Business English writing. Higher-order thinking skills in peer feedback is conducted to facilitate higher-level writing. This study focuses on the participants' mechanism of critical peer feedback, Qzone blog for critical peer feedback, and issues in critical peer feedback. A qualitative case study is conducted with six Chinese undergraduates. Three kinds of data including semi-structured interviews, Business English writing assignments and artifacts of critical peer feedback, are analyzed by QSR Nvivo 8. The findings reveal that critical peer feedback is a strategy of higher-order peer feedback to improve the higher-level writing. The Revised Bloom's Taxonomy is accepted for critical peer feedback. Critical peer feedback improves the quality of peer feedback and the quality of Business English writing. Qzone blog is a convenient ICT platform for critical peer feedback with many strengths. However, six issues are also perceived in the practice of critical peer feedback. The finding is significant to the process of critical peer feedback in second language writing.

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