LANGUAGE RELATED RESEARCH (COMPARATIVE LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE RESEARCH)
Year:2020 | Volume:10 | Issue:5 (53) |Papers Count:12

Conversational implicature, which is a component of speaker meaning that constitutes an aspect of what is meant in a speaker’ s utterance without being part of what is said, is subsumed under interlanguage pragmatics (ILP) which has attracted considerable attention from pragmatics practitioners and theoreticians. Nonetheless, very few studies have explored the correlation between implicature knowledge and the proficiency level; therefore, the present study, conducted at Golestan University among Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) and English Literature students, aimed to find out not only whether there would be any statistically significant relationship between 102 (35 males and 76 females) Iranian EFL learners’ proficiency level (High vs. Low) and their implicature knowledge as well as the subcategories of idiosyncratic and formulaic implicatures, but also whether there would exist any significant relationship between male and female EFL learners’ proficiency level (High vs. low) and their implicature knowledge. Moreover, this study investigated to what extent the (sub)categories of idiosyncratic and formulaic implicatures could be predicted by the proficiency level. The results of Pearson correlation indicated that there was a positive significant relationship between proficiency score and both formulaic implicatures and idiosyncratic implicatures. Moreover, among three sub-constructs of formulaic implicatures, Understand Criticism had the highest positive significant correlation and the Pope Q had the lowest correlation with proficiency. In addition, among four sub-constructs of idiosyncratic implicatures, Relevance Disclosure had the highest positive significant correlation and Relevance General had the lowest correlation with proficiency. However, the results of independent-samples t-test indicated that there is no significant difference in the implicature knowledge between male and female students. Results of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) revealed that both types of implicatures are predicted positively and significantly by proficiency level. Therefore, one of the implications of the present study for materials developers is to include idiosyncratic and formulaic implicatures in the textbooks to enhance the leaners’ implicature comprehension; teachers can also focus on the significance of interpreting the implied meaning rather than just focusing on linguistic features.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the students' learning styles and their influence on performance in various question types of IELTS examination and also in gaining higher band scores. In order to find answers to research questions, the researcher first used Kolb's questionnaire to recognize individual learning styles of candidates which were accordingly categorized into four classes as activists, theorists, pragmatists and reflectors. According to the results of the ANOVA, in listening comprehension section only some of the mean differences between groups were statistically significant in different question types. In note completion, multiple choice, and matching question types researchers faced a statistically significant difference. The results of the comparison between performances of the four groups in the IELTS reading test revealed that the mean score of the theorist group was higher in matching tasks and multiple choice questions and reflectors out-performed the others in task completion questions while activists had better performance in yes, no, not given tasks and pragmatics were better performers of short answer questions. So, researchers were on the safe side to say that variation due to belonging to different learning style groups causes variation of performance in different question types.

According to the four semiotic regimes proposed by Eric Landowski, the social semiotician of post Gremassian tradition, four different space regimes entitled space, "network", "texture", "spinning" and "the abyss", can be distinguished one from the other. In fact, the basis of these spatial regimes goes back to semiotic and interactive systems. The semiotic system of "programmation" or operation in the world, whose basis is "order" is the basis of the texture-spatial system. The semiotic manipulation system based on intentionality is the basis of the network spatial regime. The rotating or spiral-spatial system is defined by the semiotic regime called "abyss" based on the perceptual-sensory state and, finally, the spatial regime which relies on the semiotic regime of accident based on luck. The main purpose of this article is to introduce each of these spatial regimes and to discuss the formation of each of them. The current research tries to investigate the basics and infrastructure of each of these spatial regimes proposed by Eric Landowski's semiotic and interactive regimes.

The significant role played by women struggling during the Pahlavi era-in shaping and accelerating the movements let to the 1979 revolution-has given them a special historical status. Awareness of this prominent position has undoubtedly been effective in getting some of them to record their life experiences in the form of autobiographies. By accepting autobiography as a way to represent self-identity and self-narration-which is based on gender – the research seeks to examine-using interpretive hermeneutic approach within the conceptual framework of Paul Ricoeur's narrative identity-on one hand the place of language and time at the level of narrative and, on the other hand, how to reflect feminine identity in narrative formats redefined in the aforesaid theory, relying on the memories of Pahlavi-era women in political arena. By recognizing the instability of identity, the study has assumed it a linguistic and temporal matter constructed by the narrators that has represented in the form of narrative, and we have made use of the most relevant theory to understand how this identity constructs. In other words, based on the conceptual framework of Paul Ricoeur's narrative identity to interpret the text of political women's memoirs, we seek to answer the following questions: 1. What place do language and time occupy at the narrative level? 2. How has feminine identity been redefined in narrative formats? The presence of 9 women in the Left discourse and 3 women in a subgroup of Islamic ideology and the reflection of gender identity and concerns in the context of organizational identity, appropriately illustrates the dominance of the campaign discourse and organizational ideology over the female gender identity of these autobiographers, that should be considered as the data and obvious hypotheses of the study. Of course, we are seeing that leftist militants are more explicit to represent their gender identity than Muslim militants. Narrative coherence, nonlinearity of the narrative, and the existence of a "synchronous" and "simultaneous" relationship between the time of life and the time of narration are other research results that should be noted. The continuity of story chains and the detailed description, including details of the characters involved in shaping the narrator's identity, are among other things related to the analysis of the aforementioned works. Also, the language used in the narrative is influenced by the time of the narration of the work, as in the narratives in the context of the event we see the use of slogan, emotional, and idealistic vocabulary, while in the narratives made with a temporal distance from the event, there is no place for these sentiments.

Among the most controversial issues in language teaching is teaching grammar. Some educational approaches pay significant attention to linguistic forms and believe that language teaching is equal to teaching grammar (Nassaji & Fotos, 2011). Nowadays, a more rational approach is taken regarding teaching grammar. Learning grammar is argued to be necessary for uttering correct sentences and paying simultaneous attention to form and function is a must in language teaching. Robins (as cited in Safavi, 2011, p. 25) is of the view that “ language should be considered as a system with mutually-related dependent factors. These factors are either lexical, syntactical, or morphological. ” Therefore, syntax can be considered as the organizing element for these factors. Based on prioritizing syntax in language teaching, various methods have been taken into consideration, among which traditional ones, such as Grammar-Translation Method (GTM), put a great emphasis on teaching grammar deductively. On the other hand, methods, such as Audiolingualism, suggest inductive teaching because they believe verbal communication is as essential as grammatical forms. Meaning-based approaches pay attention to meaning, and in their extreme extensions, such as natural approach, grammar is completely put aside. Communicative approaches, as the name suggests, highlight the communicative aspects of language, and grammar, along with other components of language, is utilized to improve communicative competence. By introducing the cognitive approach, whose idea revolves around the fact that the structure of language reflects our thoughts, the role of senses and cognition in teaching linguistic components, including grammar, became important. By means of such approaches, learners can objectify abstract concepts through their senses and use critical thinking, futures thinking, and creative thinking to learn the language more thoroughly. Here, grammar is not merely a set of memorized rules, but it is a tool by which learners can think better. The present study, therefore, intends to introduce an educational approach that include various levels of senses, because we are of the view that grammar should be thought more dynamically to improve the learners’ reflection. This, we believe, can be achieved by a new categorization based on thick-slice and thin-slice sensory teaching, which is beyond theoretical teaching, and includes practical teaching and thinking skills teaching. The presented approach, applicative teaching, whose name is a mixture of application and reflection, teaches students how to think critically, creatively, and futuristically. Based on this approach, grammar teaching starts with theoretical, form-based aspects and moves to practical, function-based aspects, and tries to fixate the rules by making students think about what has been taught. Results show that by involving senses and cognition, learners’ awareness, creativity, and communicative competence are improved, which can consequently help them learn the grammatical rules better. In this vein, teachers can employ those tasks that boost students’ creative thinking and critical thinking to teach grammar applicatively.

Language and expression are part of the miracle of creation and one of the precious skills that emerges from the complex and mysterious world of man. Whatever the communicative function of language, other functions such as emotional, referential, intellectual and artistic functions explain the need to produce different ways of using language to achieve different objectives. The question also leads to the creation of secondary meanings, which has long been one of the themes of the science of meaning in the field of rhetoric. In the new vision of meaning, in other words-semiotics, cognition becomes more active by giving importance to other functions of language. In addition to persuading the public to search for hidden semantic layers of text, the questioning schema allows the production of different meanings in different contexts. As an apparent sign, the question mark "? " plays an important role in producing different meanings. The main purpose of this study is to analyze the semantics of these indices in the poetic universe of shafi'ei Kadkani that contain questions, including the results that the poems provide a more contextual and audiovisual connection with the audience and provide a context for the speech with the audience. The presentification of absence and the absentification of presence enables discursive interaction and the realization of the "transcendental I". By selecting poems containing "questions" this article did a qualitative analysis of the content.

Translation is, in many ways, the communicative act of transferring a message between two languages. This activity requires a certain degree of communicative competence in two languages. In all of the models from translation studies previously reviewed, competence in two languages is an undisputed aspect of translation competence. Clear grammatical competence plays a vital role in the act of translation. This sub component is defined as control of vocabulary (the words of a language), morphology (the way that smaller parts combine to form words), syntax (the way that words combine to form phrases and sentences), and graphemic (writing system) knowledge. Each of these aspects contribute both to the interpretation of the source text and the production of the target text. A breakdown in any one of these areas can affect the act of translation. Insufficient knowledge of vocabulary can lead to miscomprehension of the source text or failure to successfully communicate meaning in the target text. This competence can be aided through proper and skillful use of dictionaries and other professional resources, but only to a degree. A translator’ s knowledge of morphology and syntax helps both interpretation and production in the act of translation. A failure to understand the effects that syntax and morphology have on meaning can also lead to incomplete or mistaken understanding of the source text and the production of a difficult or misleading rendition in the target text. Graphemic knowledge, likewise, plays a part in both the interpretation and production aspects of translation. Failure to understand differences in meaning carries by punctuation and diacritical marking can lead to misapprehension of the source text. Lack of knowledge of writing mechanics or misapplication of graphemic knowledge can lead to interference with communication of meaning and difficulty in the comprehension of a target text. Therefore, each of the aspects of grammatical competences is vital to the act of translation and is being assessed either directly or indirectly in any authentic translation task. This research was done with the aim to study the possibility of adapting the Error Tree Analysis (ETA) Method to the area of translation from Arabic to Persian (Persian), and vice versa. To do this, after gathering information regarding the mentioned method, in each case a relevant sample error in both languages of Arabic and Persian has been given and the possibility of adjusting ETA to translation between the two languages and for Persian-speaking Language learners has been proven relying on a descriptive-analytical method. The results of the studies indicate that, however, in the section of linguistic competence, some options the ETA method offers are related to phonology and they cannot be used in the area of written translation, but if we consider the area of translation as a vaster area including both written and oral interpretation, all the mentioned error cases could be seen that happen when using ETA in translation between Arabic and Persian. In errors related to words phonetics in Arabic, pronouncing alphabets and letters from various parts of the vocal tract, long or shortness of the vowels, impact of vowels on meaning of the words and their differences, main or secondary role of the consisting letters of article “ ال” and the role of “-ّ” (the sign of germination/doubling of a consonant) in the meaning of a word all have impacts on occurring an error. In lexical interlingual errors, sharing alphabets in both Arabic and Persian Languages, numerous Arabic words borrowed and used in Persian – some in the same meaning some in other, some in the same meaning but with different application – play a key role in the occurrence of such errors. In intralingual lexical errors, the incomplete familiarity of the Persian-speaking language learner with the Arabic Language, its grammar, expressions, and proverbs is the main factor for an error to occur. In the area of intralingual-developmental errors, lack of familiarity and command of the Arabic language and its conjugation and other grammatical rules leads to occurrence of an error. Among the Persian-speaking learners of Arabic, the omission error while using subject and object pronouns, articles and “ navasekh” (auxiliary verbs), addition errors while using prepositions with transitive verbs in nature, substitution error in incorrect application of prepositions in transitive verbs with a letter and words diacritic, and the change/convert error in incorrect connection of a declarative sentence starting with a noun to a declarative sentence starting with a verb. This method could be used in understanding the frequency of Arabic students’ errors in universities and solving such errors in order to increase the efficiency quotient of teaching this language.

Consonant clusters that are composed of / R / and other consonants are among the phonetic properties of the French language. Although in the L1 of Persian language learners the syllabic structure of CC is at the end of a Word (but not at the beginning), the correct pronunciation of consonant clusters has always been a difficult task for beginner level learners and even sometimes for higher level learners. Using acoustic phonetics, this study investigated the physical structure of the two consonant clusters of [pR] and [tR] in the French language. A hypothesis could be made that Iranian FFL learners, especially at elementary levels, have a problem in reproducing consonant clusters at the beginning of the target French Words rather than at the end of these Words. To evaluate this hypothesis, phonetic productions of six first-year students at the University of Isfahan majoring in French language and literature were examined in terms of the first, second and third formants, as well as the energy level. Results demonstrated that the error rate of the learners in the re-production of consonant clusters [pR] and [tR] at the beginning and at the end of a Word has a significant relationship with the level of the marked consonant. Besides, the marked consonant clusters at the beginning and the end of target Words cause a phonetic error.

Gorani is one of the Northwestern Iranian languages spoken in Kermanshah and Kurdistan provinces of Iran, as well as a part of Iraqi Kurdistan. This language is highly endangered due to the heavy influence of its neighboring commonly spoken languages such as Persian, Arabic, and Kurdish. Gorani has maintained some very interesting grammatical features of the Middle Iranian languages, including gender, to which scholars like Mackenzie (1966) and Sajjadi (2014) have briefly made references. With respect to the notably effective role of gender in Gorani morphology and syntax, this essay sets out to address its uses and different forms by the field data of Hawrā mī Lahun and Hawrā mā n Takht dialects. Considering the Corbett’ s framework of gender (1991), methods for identifying the gender of loanwords and compound words are suggested. The results indicate significant differences in the grammatical gender of borrowed words from other languages, in the use of masculine and feminine case markers, and in the use of personal endings. Moreover, the findings show how the gender of nouns can influence some modifiers, such as the nominal dependent, in the above mentioned dialects

Semantic broadening is one of the important processes of semantic change that has long been studied by experts and especially by historical-philological semanticists. In this process, which occurs over time, the meaning of a word broadens from time period A to time period B and thus, in addition to its previous meaning, the word includes a new concept. Semantic broadening over time leads to a multitude of meanings. A word is used to refer to a new unit of language in terms of its similarity to a new concept, and based on the Prototype theory. As such, in addition to its original meaning, it is also applied in a new sense. This "similarity" has, in many cases, led to confusion between semantic broadening and metaphor, and a group of words that has undergone semantic broadening is considered as metaphors. The present research, in addition to explaining semantic broadening, examines the difference of this process with metaphor, and, in particular, by emphasizing Persian verbs, tries to show that many of the constructs considered as metaphor, are, in fact, instances of semantic broadening that, as a result of this process, have gained multiple meanings. Relying on examples, in particular, examples of Persian verbs, this paper attempted to emphasize the distinction between semantic broadening and metaphor, and to show that, by tradition, in our metaphor, one tends to separate the tenor from the simile and apply it on other contexts. However, in the case of semantic broadening, the tenor is by no means used in different contexts. Words are semantically broadened over time and their semantic scope expands, which is a process quite different from metaphor. As such, the results of this study indicate the subtle distinction that exists between semantic broadening and the process of metaphor, which is often neglected. In metaphor, the "tenor" is derived from the simile, and is used in other sentences instead of the "vehicle"; in a way that the "tenor" adopts the semantic behavior of the “ vehicle” . However, in semantic broadening, an independent process occurs, and what emerges as the process of semantic broadening is the semantic expansion of other units of the simile.

Introduction The dependents of verb are among the most debated subjects on which a considerable body of research has been done. Yet, researchers have constantly had diverse opinions about their real identities. Complement, as one of the dependents of verb, is in the same boat. Some scholars have differentiated obligatory complements from optional ones, while others consider complements as obligatory elements and do not recognize an optional category. This article, based on Langacker’ s (1987, 2013) Cognitive Grammar and through a corpus-based method, seeks to find out whether the Persian corpus verifies the existence of optional complements and if not, in what category can we place what is normally called optional complement. In other words, this research is to seek the answers to the following questions: Are there any optional complements besides obligatory ones based on Persian corpus-based data as well as Langacker’ s Cognitive Grammar? If complements are merely obligatory, how can one categorize those elements called optional complements? Methodology To answer the above-mentioned questions, four dependents (subject, object, source and goal) of four salient motion verbs (raftan 'go', ā madan 'come', ā vardan 'bring' and bordan 'take') in Persian were chosen to be studied. To this end, 300 tokens of each salient motion verb along with their dependents and the related linguistic context were randomly selected from the corpus of Hamshahri 2 to observe their corporal behavior. Discussion Langacker (1987, 2013) distinguishes 3 dependents for heads including verbs, which are “ complements” , “ modifiers” and “ adjuncts” . He defines complements as “ a component structure that elaborates a salient substructure of the head. The head is thus dependent, and the complement is autonomous” (Langacker, 2013: 203). Conversely a modifier is “ a component structure that contains a salient substructure elaborated by the head. In this case the head is autonomous, and the modifier is dependent” (Langacker, 2013: 203). And finally “ a component structure which fails to either elaborate the head or be elaborated by it is called an adjunct” (Langacker, 2013: 205). Regarding the four dependents of the salient motion verbs under study, subjects and objects are complements since they elaborate the salient substructures of the verbs. Subjects elaborate the schematic trajectors of the verbs and objects elaborate the schematic landmarks of them. So the verb is, to a great extent, dependent on the subject and the object to complete its meaning. Such high conceptual dependence of the verb brings about its syntactic dependence too and as a result complements are obligatory and must constantly accompany the verb. The corporal behavior of the complements (subjects and objects) verifies this fact; from 300 tokens of each verb in Persian, there was not even a single sample in which the subject or the object was absent. Goals and sources, which tend to be considered as optional complements in the canonical viewpoints in Persian grammar, are, taking Langacker’ s Cognitive Grammar into consideration, modifiers since the motion verb elaborates their schematic trajectors which is a schematic process denoting a motional action. As a result, they are conceptually dependent on the motion verbs, hence being modifiers. 3. Conclusion The corporal behavior of subjects, objects, goals and sources as the dependents of the four salient motion verbs under study produces the following conclusions: 1. Complements are solely obligatory elements since they elaborate the schematic trajectors or landmarks of motion verbs; thus, motion verbs are so conceptually dependent on the complements that they can never appear without them and as a result they become syntactically dependent on the complements as well. Sources and goals, on the other hand, are modifiers that are dependent on motion verbs to elaborate their schematic trajectors. Therefore, the relation that exists between the complement and the verb does exist between the modifier and the verb too but in a reverse direction. 2. Although sources and goals are both modifiers considering Langacker’ s Cognitive Grammar, the result of the study shows that there is a goal over source preference. The frequency of the goals is much higher than that of the sources and the result of the Chi-square test indicates that there is a significant difference between the presence of these two elements with salient motion verbs (P<0. 05). This result aligns with Stefanowitsch and Rohde (2004), Kabata (2013) and Verkerk (2014). 3. Although there is an asymmetrical distribution between sources and goals, neither of them are optional elements. Their behavior in the text corpus shows that the presence of these modifiers are determined by the context, i. e. if the context needs them, they have to appear and if not, they are not employed by it. For that reason, sources and goals are contextually obligatory and can be called “ contextual supplements” . Studying adjuncts in the corpus shows that they are not optional either. These elements, too, have to be present if the context necessitates their being but if they are not summoned by the context, they are absent. So, adjuncts on the par with the modifiers are contextually obligatory and termed “ contextual supplements” in this study. Based on the results of the analysis of the Persian text corpus, it seems that Langacker’ s triple division of the dependents (i. e. complements, modifiers and adjuncts) does not meet the corporal behavior of these dependents.

The current research investigates the role of Action in “ Ahle Gharq”-the novel by Moniro Ravanipour. In this respect the authors tries to show how the cognitive process engages in producing value and meaning which is influential in manipulating the reader’ s mind. The results of the research suggest that an innovative discourse, due to the influence of the parameters of magical realism, could lead the reader to expect a central discourse; belief in the conditions governing the creation of the object of value compels the subject to act and induces a central discourse. Throughout the process of conjunction and disjunction from the object of value and in order to remedy the loss of meaning that is happiness and the fulfillment of happiness what changes the negative status of actantial regime of discourse into affirmative one and vice versa. Sometimes the disjunction of the object of value and the temporal transformation changes the value of the components of the changing conditions from disorganized to organize during the action-oriented discourse, and changes the prescriptive regime of action that was at the beginning of history to the virtual regime of action. The psychoanalyst has created the contractual process of action between the actors and the actant to reach the object of value and identify the actor of his position and detach himself from the object of value in an induction operation to provide the main action of the discourse and to provide a semiotic analysis of the so-called novel narrative.