LANGUAGE RELATED RESEARCH (COMPARATIVE LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE RESEARCH)
Year:2013 | Volume:4 | Issue:3 (15)|Papers Count:13

One of the important issues in the study of grammar is the study of the structure and the functions of different sentences of a language, as well as describing the similarities and differences between them. This article aims to study the exclamative sentences of Persian according to a corpus and within a typological framework based on the study done by Zanuttini and Portner (2003). The article seeks answers to these questions: “What is the structure of exclamative sentences in Persian”?, “What are the semantic and pragmatic functions of such sentences”? “How these sentences can be differentiated from declarative and interrogative sentences”? and “What is the position of the negative markers in such sentences”? The results of this descriptive-analytic study showed that Persian Language has two types of exclamative sentences; declarative exclamatives and wh-exclamatives, which are different in terms of their semantic, pragmatic, syntactic and acoustic features.

Ellipsis is a frequent event, which occurs in different linguistic levels. Even though it does not usually affect communication, there are times when ellipsis leads to ambiguity and misunderstanding. In TV football reports, because of the context and previous familiarity with such a match, the reporter continuously omits linguistic units. This study deals with the nature and amount of ellipsis in TV football reports. The corpus includes the last 15 minutes of 12 TV football reports of four famous reporters. Data analysis includes studying the nature and amount of ellipsis in these reports based on Safavi (1390). On the other hand, ellipsis of linguistic categories is studied based on the model proposed by Halliday and Hasan (1976, 1987). In this study, ellipsis is categorized in 4 types: ellipsis leading to ambiguity, ellipsis with no effect on communication, which Safavi (1390) calls semantic reduction, ellipsis that distinguishes speech from writing, and ellipsis of optional linguistic units. The study shows that over half of the instances of ellipsis do not lead to any misunderstanding, and because of the nature of football reports, they result in some sort of semantic reduction. On the other hand, studying the types of ellipsis on the syntactic level shows considerable difference from Halliday and Hasan (1976, 1987) who categorize ellipsis in three types of verb phrase, noun phrase and clause ellipsis. Finally, the study shows that classic view towards ellipsis, which categorizes it in two types of text-based and context-based ellipsis, cannot explain instances of ellipsis in TV football reports. The present research categorizes the ellipsis types in TV football reports, and shows failure of the classic view in explaining these instances of ellipsis.

The linguistic study of “Humor” has a rich and long history, and the systematic research on linguistic mechanisms of humor goes back to Raskin’s semantic theory of humor (1985). Besides the elements such as incongruity, ambiguity and exaggeration, flouting of Grice maxims (1975) of Cooperative Principle (CP) is one of the most reviewed techniques of producing humor, which has been the subject of various linguistics studies. In this research, we study the role of maxim flouting in producing so-called “pa-na-pa” (“so what” conversational style) jokes, which have been recently spread initially on the Internet and then in the society. We also depict the process in a three-part algorithm. This new generation of Iranian jokes is considerable not only because of their linguistic but also because of its sociolinguistics characteristics in which there is no trace of insulting language toward social and ethnic minorities that itself shows a paradigm shift in Iranian jokes.

Compounding is one of the subjects, which have been always under research in the history of linguistic studies from different aspects. In the area of semantics of compounds, due to the principle of semantic compositionality that unites the meaning of components of a compound to reach out a compositional meaning, we find endocentric compounds with a semantic head. On the other hand, there are plentiful of compounds in a language, which have no semantic head and, consequently, no compositionality. Therefore, we find the referent of the compound out of it, which should be listed in lexicon and to be memorized. Exocentric compounds with no clear semantic head and no compositionality have opaque meaning. Based on the claims of Carin’s theory, which has a cognitive approach, we could explain that the reason that a compound is transparent or opaque in meaning is due to the existence or lack of a semantic relation. The very semantic relation that Carin’s theory recognizes as the key entity for interpretation is at the same time responsible for a compound being transparent or opaque. In endocentric compound, the relation existing between head and modifier creates the focal concept in the compound. In fact, by this semantic relation, we come to interpret noun compound even if we face with it for the first time. Having or not having a semantic relation for a compound is the key explanation behind the semantic transparency and opacity.

Roland Barthes identifies two types of relationships between text and image: anchorage and relay. Anchorage helps identify one meaning in the image while it can be potentially the site of multi-farious meanings. The complementary relationship of text and image is called Relay. Furthermore, Kress and Leeuwen have suggested another relationship, called “one image-many words”, in which image is free to construct meaning. However, there are some other types of relations between image and words in a text, which have not been examined by Barthes or even Kress and Leeuwen or other individuals. That is, when an image leads to a metaphoric change in the interpretation of the text, simply the conceptual blending theory (Fauconnier and Turner) could be a proper method to explain how the human’s mind could understand and interpret a new meaning through the interaction of image and words (they said interaction of two different concepts).In the present paper, the way in which visual texts could be created and interpreted in the human’s mind as well as the different types of relations between text and image are studied based on four spaces, which are basic for meaning construction and four different types of blending pattern. Finally, a new relationship, which is not so common in any other texts other than literary one, will be introduced.This paper explores the tools, which are used in literary text to free the meaning from the control of words. It also studies the role of the reader in the interpretation of a text in visual poetry. Furthermore, it is going to argue how the interpretation of a text could be changed by the image, not the text.In conclusion, the image space (input space 1) could map its presupposed common features onto the feature of the words space (input space 2) and then project them into the blending space to create new meaning. So the given meaning could be developed from close meaning to far or metaphoric one through the active role of the reader in the interpretation of the floating signified.

As an integral componet of discourse competence and professional expertise, generic competence is intervowen with the concept of multi-litracies, which in turn highlights the role of technology and multimodality. Conference PowerPoint presentations are among the research-process genres, which rely substantially on the textual and visual generic competences of discourse community members. In spite of their significant role for the membership in a community of practice, they are underexplored even in the “English for Specific/ Academic Purposes” tradition of genre analysis, where static versus dynamic nature of genres has been a controversial issue. The present genereic study utilized a typology of visuals along with a framework for description and explanation of their characteristics and features to analyze more than 400 conference slides by two groups of non-native applied linguists (a representative of soft scientists) in light of the definition of genre, its functions, and the influence of Microsoft software on its features. Apart from highlighting the importance of visuals and the dominance of scriptuals in soft sciences, the reported similarities and differences between the two groups and the obtained patterns revealed that PowerPoint presentation can be considered a genre, which would manifest a variety of identity expressions. Moreover, in the absence of disoursal and metadiscoursal elements, many slide characteristics and features can fulfill their fuctions. Sheding some light on the undeniable role of the software and its implications for methods of reasoning and argumentation, genre integrity, and definition of metadiscourse and genre along with some applied suggestions are among the main aims of the study.

Zakaria Tamer, a Syrian writer, has been a leading writer of short stories. He has written his stories in an organized structure and a coherent way. All of his stories’ elements and components bring about movement and effort in order to send a specific message. “Wajh al-Qamar” is one of his stories in which he puts all elements together in a linear way to convey the message of defending Orient women who have been humiliated previously. To better understand the main message of the story, its analysis based on syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes makes a significant contribution to the transfer of message. Paradigmatic relation enables the writer to select among the words collection, those words which fit the structure, and the selected words will be put together in a vertical linear direction to create a new written composition. Its paradigmatic value is understood by the fact that Samiha means merciful (dedicator) and all Orinet women have dedicated their whole bodies to men. In syntagmatic axis, the relationship between phrases and their composition is investigated along a horizontal line, when they are put together, the story’s direction moves forward. The characteristics, which have been put together, have a clear meaning separately, but they will convey a symbolic meaning when used together like the syntagmatic of lemon tree with a mad man’s sigh, which refers to the creation of a distance between Samiha’s childhood and thereafter.

Farhang–e Bozorg-e Sokhan (Sokhan’s Grand Dictionary, 8 vol., under the supervision of Hasan Anvari, Sokhan, Tehran, 2002) is relatively a new research in the field of Persian Lexicography. This dictionary as using of the achievements of previous dictionaries has many outstanding innovations various aspects of Lexicography. For example, beside of using of body language, in the process of choosing of words, it has given attention to different aspects of transcription, combinations of words, examples and relevant evidences.Etymology of Persian words is one of the characteristics of this dictionary, especially for the first time, it mentions the Russian origins of 90 Persian words. However, despite of this innovation, we can see some defects and mistakes in the etymology and semantics of Russian loanwords in Persian language; the subject that we will study in this paper.In other words, here we try to answer this main question: “In the Farhang-e Bozorg-e Sokhan, to what extent the Russian loanwords in Persian language has been mentioned correctly and what is their difference with their origins in Russian from the viewpoints of etymology and semantics.

Since the old times, Persian literature has had a wide scope and a deep content; therefore, there are more rooms for ample investigations. One of the literary forms of old Persian texts is the structure of minimal and long story. Here, Attar’s two works (Mosibatname & Manteghotteire) are studied based on the Lobav Valtsky’s and Grimas‘s patterns.The authors start the investigation based on the hypothesis that structure of Mosibatname’s stories, because of their similarities of plot and ethical points to tales and narrations, are conformed with the Lobav Valtsky’s pattern; but the overall structure of Manteghotteire’s story, because of its similarities to long story, is corresponded with the Grimas’s criteria.There are many short narrations in Manteghotteir based on the Lobav’s pattern; however, here we investigate the overall structure of the book as a long story.This paper using descriptive-analytic method and library resources, investigates the structure of minimal story in Mosibatname and its conformity with the Lobav’s pattern, and then investigates the structure of long story in Manteghotteire and its conformity with the Grimas’s pattern.Finally, it concludes that conformity of the two aforesaid patterns on one writer’s works does not make linguistic and structural differences in these works, rather it shows the structural differences of these two patterns.

Propositional characteristics can be expressed by infinitives in Russian language. So the sentence is one-word. Infinitives can express potential acts; so that they can express virtual or indirect meanings. In a one-word sentence or a single-capacity structure, infinitive can have meanings like: mandatory agreement of speaker with audience and inevitability of an act with sыть infinitive, disagreeability, a state or act done directly by a physical or mental perception, logical subject evaluating an action or a state, indispensability, etc. This article explains the mentioned meanings in the structure of infinitive one-word sentences and discusses the methods of expressing them in Persian language.

This study aims to investigate and compare some frequent phonological processes in Isfahani accent with that of standard Persian in the framework of optimality theory. The methodological approach of the study is descriptive-analytical and the data collection was done through field study method. To do this, the conversation of Isfahani-native speakers, aged between 30 and 50, has been recorded for ten hours and then the data have been transcribed and classified. Through the analysis of the data in the framework of optimality theory, the top-ranked constraints in the hierarchy of constraints responsible for optimal candidates in Isfahani accent have been determined. Among the most significant phonological processes in this accent are devocalization, vowel harmony, and consonant and vowel dissimilation. The data analysis showed that the optimal candidates in Isfahani accent differ from that of standard Persian and in most cases, markedness constraints are responsible for optimal candidates in Isfahani. While in standard Persian, faithfulness constrains are top-ranked in the hierarchy of constraints.

For the first time Sohrawadi employed the term “No-where” (Nakoja Abad) in his works to describe the “realm world”, which is the world out of the general perception humans. This paper investigates the two treatises of Sohrawardi, “The Song of Gabriel’s Wing “(Avaze pare Jebraīl) and “In the Fact of Love” (Fi-Al- Haqiqat- o- al Eshq). The author, based on the analysis of the “No-where” metaphorical mappings, has shown that the central metaphor of No-where is place while No-where is placeless. This indicates that the macro-support of No-where is an ideal realm. In other words, Sohrawardi, based on his mentality towards the example world, has applied various semantic generalizations at the level of micro-metaphors to describe and visualize No-where.In the current research, the aim of the author was to illustrate some of the most extensive metaphorical patterns of “No-where” in the two mentioned works and explain how Sohrawardi, within an aesthetic and yet philosophical and mystical framework, has expressed his own view about this place.