ZABANPAZHUHI (Iranian Journal of Language Research)
Year:2018 | Volume:10 | Issue:28 |Papers Count:12

Symbol is one of the terms that has been translated into different words in the humanities field. Nö th (1990) divides the topics related to the symbol into two groups. In the first group, symbol is used in the general sense, and there is essentially no distinction between symbol and sign. But in the second group, symbol is used in its specific sense and consists of three different views (see Nö th, 1990; 115). It is interesting to note that, despite the fact that there are independent studies that have examined symbol from the perspective of different approaches; however, symbol has not been examined from the phenomenological perspective. Accordingly, the present study is designed to analyze the phenomenological foundations of the symbol. For this reason, we examine the phenomenological foundations of the symbol from the perspective of Alfred Schutz. In this research, it is determined whether it is possible to state that there is no clear distinction between the sign and the symbol in the phenomenological view of phenomenologists like Jaspers. In response to this question, the primary hypothesis of this study is that Schutz's phenomenological study of symbol is of particular importance and deserves to be examined independently, and that Shutz's analysis does not support this claim. From the perspective of phenomenology, symbol is considered in its general sense, and in fact phenomenology has its own specific theoretical assumptions and consequences regarding the concept of symbol. Before scrutinizing symbol, it is important to remember that phenomenology has a particular view in respect of intersubjective relationship, and its significance in establishing human understanding. Indeed, man’ s presence in the universe and also his social status is considered to be a definite and pre-fabricated position in phenomenology. Therefore, one may wonder whether a human being is completely passive in confronting the world or not? In response to this question, Schutz emphasizes that a person as a social human being faces the other through two different existential levels. In fact, “ the other is from the outset given to me as both a material object with its position in space and a subject with its psychological life” (Schutz, 1962; 314). Obviously, when one's consciousness focuses on a material object, the explanation of the understanding or the interpretation of the object is not a difficult issue. But how does this object along with its mental life enter into one’ s consciousness? Answering this question, Schutz resorted to Husserl's discussion of representation. Husserl believes that representation is the "fundamental consciousness process" through which a man shapes his understanding of the world (Herder, 2014; 245). Schutz (year? ) tries to find on what level the knowledge experience is in general represented. Therefore, focusing on the formation of sign in its subjective level and also its intersubjective nature, Schutz (year? ) in his semiotic contemplations generally talks about four different types of signs: signal, marker, sign and symbol. Schutz's phenomenological viewpoint about symbol indicates that symbol is not at all a general term that is equivalent to sign, but essentially differs from it. In fact, based on the analysis given by Schutz (1962), symbol is one of the forms of representation that has its own particular characteristics. In this way, Schutz (1962) defines symbol as: 1-The symbol is basically formed when the represented item is of a superior position in comparison with common objects. 2-A phenomenon which, according to Schutz, goes beyond usual experience, eventually finds material indication through incarnation and objectification. 3-From the point of view of Schutz, the embodiment of a phenomenon in the form of a symbol shows that there is no other way to represent that phenomenon except for representation through a symbol. 4-The semiotic principles governing sign are all applied to the symbol, and therefore the interpretation of symbol entails change, difficulty and ambiguity. Thus, according to the arguments discussed in this study, it is indicated that the proposed hypothesis of the study is finally confirmed, and Schutz has a special theoretical framework in this regard. It is concluded that Schutz’ s theory entails that symbol should be fundamentally distinctive from sign.

According to the important role of linguistic factors in reproducing social power and controlling the mind of the subjects by redistribution of ideologies, discovering the underlying levels of surface aspects related to the structural organization of the discourse can lead to the appearance of a new insight in this field. Knowing language through its discourse is an appropriate instrument for a realistic analysis of a group’ s minds and ideologies. To succeed in all his discourses and to conquer the opposite, Man not only tries to hide his ideologies behind the words and linguistic elements, but also he makes his words ideological to satisfy the audiences. According to vandijk theory "Discourse-knowledge-Society" (2006), each human being, in order to reach the goal of persuasion of the audience, tries to magnify and emphasize on his own positive actions and minimize the opposing party's good attributes. And parallel to this efforts, he tries to mitigate negative qualities of himself and the other party's positive features. Strategies used to this end can be strategies such as actor description, categorization, comparison, euphemism, disclaimers, evidenltiality, example/illustration, generalization, number game, hyperbole, irony, populism, norm expression, national self-glorification, negative other representation, metaphor, implication, presupposition, lexicalization, victimization, vagueness, positive self-presentation, polarization/ us – them categorization, burden, and authority. To achieve these four goals (magnifying his own positive actions and opposing party's negative attributes. mitigating negative qualities of himself and the positive features of the other party) which mentioned in ideological square vandijk (2006). Every human uses several linguistic strategies. Whit these linguistic strategies they enforce their message in order to convey the audience. Strategies that are used to reach above mentioned four goals can be strategies as: Actor description, Categorization, Comparison, Euphemism, Disclaimers, Evidenltiality, Example/Illustration, Generalization, Number game, Hyperbole, Irony, Populism, Norm expression, National self-glorification, Negative other representation, Metaphor, Implication, presupposition, Lexicalization, Victimization, Vagueness, Positive self-presentation, Polarization/ Us – them categorization, Burden and Authority. This research aims to analyze divorce demanding woman’ s discourse in family court rooms based on vandijk’ s discourse-knowledge-society theory (2006). To do this, we attended 20 meetings of the General Court and family counseling centers of Zahedan-Iran and recorded the divorce demanding women’ s statements. With regards to the prohibition of the use of audio and video equipment or any kind of electronic devices in the court, only a written record of women's statements has been collected. This research studies the ways women employ to speak ideologically and to satisfy the judge to reach their goals. For this study, divorce demanding women's discourse were studied at the level of the word, local semantics, general semantics, syntax, and ultimately the level of rhetoric. In the study of the level of syntax, the following sections have been considered, negative constructs and emphasized structures. The results show that in order to convince the judge in the court, women like other human beings try to use all linguistic strategies such as syntactic¸ semantic¸ rhetoric and lexical to magnify their own accepted attributes and to mitigate their husbands and their relatives’ bad attributes. In this way their highest effort is to magnify their husbands’ bad and negative actions. They rarely speak about their own negative and bad behaviors¸ as well as their husbands’ positive actions. This is the way that women have chosen to express themselves and to convince the audience, so that the judge will vote in favor of this persuasion.

Poems as texts consist of words, morphemes, and sounds, and all of them are eloquent and meaningful. The effect of the sounds on the meanings in texts, especially in literature, is not a new idea and it has long been considered to be important by poets, linguists and literary scholars. The semiotic system of language includes a set of symbols that can be generally divided into two groups of symbols and icons due to the degree of relationship between the signified and the signifier. Icons are words or forms with a type of imitation and similarity between the signifier and the signified. Iconicity and symbolism which are the result of relationship between the signifier and the signified are typical aesthetic features of literature and have attracted many researchers' attention. Hinton et al. (1994) provide a method for analyzing the relationship between form and meaning. In this analysis, any kind of motivated relationship in a word is called "sound symbolism", which refers to a kind of transparency that describes the phonetic-semantic relationship within a context. Motivated signs are divided into four types according to the degree of the relationship between form and meaning: Corporeal sound symbolism: In this category of signs, the relationship between the signifier and the signified in a word is direct, concrete and transparent. It includes signs in which the phonetic features indicates the physical characteristics or emotional state. Natural symptoms (such as coughing, sneezing, nodding), physical markers, as well as words like "wow" and "oh" referring to the emotional state of the speaker are corporeal sound symbolism. Imitative sound symbolism: It covers the signs whose phonetic features (the signified) is the imitation of the referent in the real world (the signifier). Onomatopoeias that reflect the sounds of the environment are placed in this category. Synthetic sound symbolism: Motivation in synthetic signs are more complicated and less transparent than the above categories. This type of motivation is found in seemingly unmotivated forms in which there is a correspondence between the presence of vowels or consonants and some properties like size, shape or taste. The correspondence between the vowel /i/ and the concepts of diminution show this type of relation. Conventional sound symbolism: The least degree of motivation between the signifier and the signified is found in conventional signs. So, the signs of this type are the most distant from the iconic signs due to their opacity. This kind of form-meaning relationship is also referred to as phonesthemes or phonetic intensive. The purpose of this research was to study types and frequency of sound symbolism in Hafiz’ s Ghazals. The following questions were to be answered: a) What are different types of sound symbolism in the poems? Can we put them in a motivation continuum? b) What types of sound symbolism are more frequent? Is there any reason for that? The huge number of motivated signs in Hafez's poems is significant, indicating the importance of the signifier and the signified relation of signs. The frequency of the use of these types of signs at the level of the poetry indicates the importance of this relationship in understanding the meaning and also shows that in addition to the transfer of meaning through the concept of the word, the poet also applied the relation between the word form and its phonetic features. The body of the study consisted of 988 motivated signs, which were found in 936 lines / hemistiches from Hafez’ s Ghazals. In response to the first question of this research, motivated signs in Hafez's poetry can be classified into four corporeal, imitative, synesthetic, and conventional classes. In this category, which has a continuum, and on which signs are categorized based on the degree of motivated signs or the relationship between the signifier (form, sound attributes) and the signified (level of meaning) from the highest degree of transparency to the lowest level. The quantitative analysis of the types of motivated signs in the poems confirmed that there is a direct relation between the degree of motivation and the frequency of the signs, which is the answer to the second question. That is, the more we move towards transparency, the more the frequency of signs occur. Therefore, the most frequent is the corporeal and the least frequent is the conventional. The relative assumption of the relationship between the signifier and signified in the semantic language system makes it possible to put all the signs, both contractual and motivated, on a single continuum in a way that the existence of motivation does not contradict the arbitrariness. Therefore, the above two principles are not contradictory, but they are complementary to each other. And finally, transparency or motivation is one of the tools of creativity and also the means of aesthetics in language. It is undoubtedly one of the charming and survival mysteries of poetry signs in the minds and souls of readers.

Relative Clause (RC) as a complex syntactic structure in most languages has attracted the attention of many researchers. According to Lehman (1986), there are three reasons for this including Greenberg’ s Universals (1963), Keenan & Comrie NP relativized hierarchy (1977) and the role of RC in studying the phases in Generative Grammar. Several linguists have studied RC and classified it into various types. In other words, there are some typological parameters for the classification of RC universally. RC at the same time has a vital role in the typological studies of word order. In the current study, we intend to examine Persian Relative Clause (PRC) based on these universal features, and afterwards to investigate the role of PRC in predicting Persian word order according to some famous typological hypotheses. In spite of several studies which analyzed syntactic or pragmatic structures of PRC, there is no comprehensive study about PRC in this respect. Therefore, this study is divided into three main parts. The first part devotes to the studyof universal features of RC in pragmatic and syntactic aspects. Second part of this study is about the behavior of PRC according to the universal features. The role of PRC in the typological studies of Persian word order is the subject of the third part. As mentioned above, the first part of this article is about universal pragmatic and syntactic features of RC. Based on the pragmatic aspect, RCs are universally divided into two main types of restrictive and non-restrictive. Based on the syntactic features, RCs are studied from five different aspects. First, RCs are divided into the headed and the headless. The frequency and importance of the headed RC is more than the headless one. The second and third syntactic aspects of RC are restricted to the headed RC. In other words, there are two general parameters for the headed relative clause; the first one concerns the place of the head in the structure (whether internally-headed or externally-headed) and the second one concerns the position of the modifying clause (whether joined or embedded). There are five universal kinds of the headed relative clause based on the second and third syntactic aspects of RC including proposed, circumnominal, postposed, prenominal and postnominal. Using the fourth aspects, different methods of producing RCs in all languages are studied. There are four universal methods including gap method, resumptive pronoun method, pronoun retention method and full noun phrase method. Typological studies of RC in this aspect show that the fourth method, full noun phrase, has three different approaches including correlative clause approach, internally headed relative clause approach, and paratactic relative clause approach. At last, the fifth syntactic aspect of RCs focuses on the grammatical function of the head. The best known study in this area is done by Keenan and Comeri (1977) entitled as NP relativized hierarchy. They introduced this hierarchy by studying the behavior of RC in 30 different languages. According to their findings there are a tendency in these languages for relativization of nouns by the following grammatical function: «genitive< obliqueThe second part of this article investigates the behavior of PRC concerning the above universal parameters. For this reason, syntactic and pragmatic structures and features of PRC were studied separately. Before that, a list of related studies of PRC from different perspectives is presented as a comprehensive review of literature. From pragmatic perspective, there are both restrictive and non-restrictive RC in Persian. The results of pragmatic study of PRC show that Persian distinguishes between restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses too. Three criteria-adding a suffix ‘-i-‘ to the head of restrictive relative clause, obligatory pause between head and modifying clause in non-restrictive clause, and optional usage of non-restrictive clause-in addition to different examples are presented for showing this distinction. After that, all syntactic aspects of PRC are studied too. Findings of the first syntactic aspect of PRC show that there are both headed and headless relative clauses in Persian, although – as most other languages-headed relative clauses are more frequent in Persian. By considering the second syntactic aspect, Persian has externally headed RCs because the results of this part show that head of this constituent in Persian is always out of modifying clause. Some examples are presented to show that Persian modifying clauses are embedded within main clause (not joined). Furthermore, since modifying clauses in Persian always follow the head, Persian has a post nominal Relative structure. The results of the forth universal syntactic aspect of PRC indicate that Persian uses the first and the second method of relativization among the four universal methods including gap, resumptive pronoun, pronoun retention and full noun phrase. Of course, using gap method is prohibited when the head has a genitive function and using resumptive pronoun is prohibited when the head has a subject function in Persian. For the last syntactic aspect, all NPs in Keenan & Comrie (1977) can undergo relativization in Persian. Focus of the third part of this study is on the role of PRC on word order. For this sake, firstly, the results of some famous studies about Persian word order are presented. After that, the role of RC in the word order investigations of Greenberg (1963), Vennemann (1973), Lehmann (1974), Dryer (2005) and Hawkins (2014) are presented and discussed. In the last part, the behavior of PRC for predicting Persian word order is presented. Investigations of PRC’ s characteristics show that Persian must be a SVO language according to Greenberg (1963), Vennemann (1973) and Lehmann (1974), but it could be SOV or SVO language according to Dryer (2005). In other words, although Persian, like the East-Asian languages, is a head-final language with SOV word order, it has post-nominal RC. Therefore, Persian is potentially an interesting language in this respect, because typologically it falls in between the European and East-Asian languages. The findings of this part confirm the results of some famous Iranian linguists such as Dabirmoghadam (1392) who believes Persian is changing from a OV language into a VO one.

In this paper we first briefly investigated some Persian scholars’ classifications of non-epistemic (or root) senses of central Persian modal auxiliaries tavanestan, shodan, and bayestan, which roughly correspond to English can/may/might, can/may/might, and must/should, respectively. The findings showed that most of them, which mainly follow Palmer’ s semantic-syntactic framework, have not proposed any explicit and operationalizable criteria for analysis and classification of various senses of these polyfunctional modals and have mainly identified and described their various senses through researcher-made examples (e. g. Akhlaghi, 2006; Taleghani, 2008). Their approach was found to be mainly semantic-syntactic like that of Palmer and his followers. Even, the studies which are done beyond Palmer’ s framework and have integrated pragmatics into their approach have not offered any explicit criteria for the classification of Persian modals (Rahimian, 2008; Rahimian and Amouzadeh, 2012; Amouzadeh and Rezaee, 2009), although their works have shed considerable light on the various senses that these modals can convey. Being aware of the limitations of the previous works, we introduced Depraetere’ s (2014) semantic-pragmatic model which is composed of three distinct layers (two semantic and one pragmatic) and classified the non-epistemic senses of Persian modals accordingly. Her two obligatory semantic layers are context-dependent and context-independent layers, while pragmatic layer is optional and mainly appears in the conventionalized uses of the modal auxiliary verbs in colloquial language. The context-independent meaning is either possibility or necessity. The context-dependent meaning, on the other hand, is determined by three parameters (i. e., scope of modality, source of modality, and potential barrier). It is through these parameters that one can explicitly determine the context-dependent meaning of a modal auxiliary. Depraetere tries to reconcile semantics and pragmatics in an integrated framework to account for various senses of modals. She offers explicit criteria and puts an end to the different opinions regarding non-epistemic senses of modal auxiliaries. Upon application, Depraetere’ s model proved to be very efficient for a more systematic and intersubjective classification of non-epistemic senses of Persian modals. In our analysis of some examples taken from Persian websites, we found that bayestan can express narrow-scope internal necessity, wide-scope internal necessity and wide-scope external necessity, like English must. Like English auxiliaries can, may and might, the auxiliary tavanestan can express five senses in Persian, that is, ability (narrow-scope, internal, and [-potential barrier] possibility), permission (narrow-scope external, and [+ potential barrier] possibility), opportunity (narrow scope, external, and [-potential barrier] possibility), situation permissibility(wide-scope, external and [+ potential barrier] possibility) and situation possibility (wide-scope, external, and [-potential barrier] possibility). Shodan which is typically employed in colloquial Persian can only express permission, and situation permissibility and does not have the capacity to express ability and opportunity senses. Due to the unclear status of khah, like English will, its investigation needs an individual investigation.

The present article studies the structure of synthetic compounding to discover the process or processes creating this productive category. Compounding has played crucial and leading roles in creating words along with progress in various fields and it has the ability to meet the needs to produce words for new phenomena in most languages, particularly Persian. In other words, compounding is a very productive and important word formation process. Compound words are of two root and synthetic types. Root compounds are made of two or more morphemes which have meanings in isolation. Moreover, syntactic head of root compounds are not derived from verb (Xabbaz, 2006). Synthetic compounding is formed by the incorporation of argument, adjunct, adjective or syntactic phrases into a verb stem, and the syntactic head of this structure is derived from the verb. The non-head element may be an argument, an adjunct, an adjective or a syntactic phrase. Verb-stem constituent as head, non-head constituent and derived affixes are three essential elements of synthetic compound structures. A derived affix is of two overt and covert types. Previous studies on the interactions between compounding on the one hand, and morphology and syntax on the other hand have discussed three approaches. Some linguists maintain that compounding is a lexical process and a compound is comprised of two or more simple words. This view is related to a period of generative grammar in which morphology and syntax were completely detached from each other. Other linguists claim that compounding is a syntactic category made of applying transformational rules to deep structure. The approach that was in contrast with the above paradigms was introduced by linguists such as Xabbaz (2006), Giegerich (2009) and Lieber (1992 & 2010). They believe that compounding is placed in the interaction of two morphology and syntax modules. That is, this category possesses both syntactic and morphological properties. So far, no research has been carried out on synthetic Persian compounds and their relation with morphology and syntax. Therefore, regarding Persian corpus, it is essential to examine these three approaches to clarify whether compounding is a syntactic or morphological process. In order to know whether synthetic compounding is syntactic or morphological, this category is examined in terms of 16 properties; 8 properties are syntactic and 8 are morphological. Synthetic compounds behaved syntactically in 8 cases, morphologically in 5 cases and both syntactically and morphologically in 4 cases. Regarding the nature of synthetic compound's behavior, it mostly holds syntactic properties, although it possesses morphological characteristics as well. In other words, this productive category is arranged on a continuum which is composed of two syntactic and morphological extremes and synthetic compounding inclines to the syntax extreme. As synthetic compounds share more common properties with syntax, their behavior is mostly similar to syntactic phrases, and this is the main reason that they cannot be easily distinguished from phrases. Comparing 8481 synthetic compounds of this article with 3974 root compounds of Khabbaz (2006), both being extracted from Soxan dictionary of Anvari (2002), shows that this category is two times more productive than root compounding. The investigation of syntactic and morphological properties of synthetic compounding indicates that it cannot be merely a syntactic or morphological process. Studying synthetic compound words according to the morphological and syntactic criteria (non-pronominal reference, word formation process, irregularity, recursiveness, constituent structure, constituents’ relations, coordination and gaping, wh-word, productivity, aspect, morphological and syntactic integration, constituent expandability and non-expandability, semantic opacity and transparency) demonstrates that synthetic compounding is a morpho-syntactic process in Persian which possesses more syntactic characteristics. Moreover, transparent, opaque, expandable and nonexpendable compounds and attaching inflectional morphemes to both the whole and the first constituents of compounds prove that this category has both morphological and syntactic structures simultaneously. Regarding these features, synthetic compounding in Persian holds the following properties: 1-Synthetic compounding is non-pronominal reference. That is, pronoun can't be replaced by compounding constituents. 2-No constituents of synthetic compounds can be fronted. 3-The output of compounding process is word formation. 4-Compounding is recursive. 5-The relationship between compounds' constituents is similar to the relation which exists between clauses' constituents. 6-Compounds' constituents can be coordinated. The constituents can be related to each other with conjunctive words. 7-Synthetic compounds possess aspect such as clauses. 8-Not all synthetic compounds have morphological and syntactic integration. 9-Synthetic compounds are both semantically opaque and transparent. 10-Synthetic compounds are extendable and non-extendable entities.

Critical discourse analysis is a new branch of discourse analysis that discusses the whyness of events and deals with information representation. In recent years critical discourse analysis influences some other majors such as philosophy, sociology and so forth. One of the majors which is affected by critical discourse analysis is news articles. Discourse analysis, in fact, views language as a form of social practice. The present study was undertaken within the realm of critical discourse analysis and based on its framework. Socio-semantic discursive features, according to critical discourse analysis, are those features which their usage or lack of their usage change the meaning of a sentence. To this aim it is said that speech is like action. Discursive features create explicitness or implicitness in speech or writing. For example, one might consider the three following sentences, “ Ali killed Mehdi and I got sad” , “ Mehdi was killed by Ali and I got sad” , and “ killing Mehdi made me sad” have different mystification rates. The first sentence is explicit while it will be more mystifying in the second and third sentences. Therefore, the present study intended to shed light on the use of discursive features and its effect on news articles. In other words, the study intended to compare Persian and English news articles (based on their application of socio-semantic discursive features) so as to determine the rate of mystification in them. To undertake the study, Van Leeuwen’ s (1996) model adopted by Yarmohammadi (2012) was used. This model explicitly consists of 6 subparts while implicitly consists of 5 subparts. Based on this model not all subparts are available in all genres. The data of the study comprised of a corpus of 6 Persian and 5 English news articles – all related to the US presidential election in 2016 – extracted using purposive sampling from Nasim Online (http: //www. nasimonline. ir/) and The Guardian(https: //www. theguardian. com/)newspapers. The gathered data from the two mentioned newspapers were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. In quantitative analysis the sentences consisting of discursive features were extracted, analyzed, and grouped together. In quantitative analysis the mystification formula was used. Also ean, standard deviation and hi-square were calculated. Chi-square was used to find if there was any significant difference between the two newspapers regarding explicitness or implicitness of the texts. The frequency of the use of each discursive feature was also found one by one both Persian and English newspapers. The results of the Chi-square tests revealed that the two newspapers were significantly different in the use of explicit and implicit discursive features. In other words, explicitness was more prominent in The Guardian newspaper whereas the rate of mystification was higher in Nasim Online. The general conclusion drawn from the study was that Persian news articles were less explicit than the English ones. Based on the findings, the mystification rate for the Persian newspaper was 49/18 while it was 21/05 for the English one. This means that The Guardian newspaper stated the content more clearly. The results can be justified based on different reasons. The first reason can be due to the style of writing in the two newspapers. As their different they write differently. Another reason can be due to the cultural differences. Yarmohammadi (1395) stated that Iranian culture uses more mystifications than foreign cultures and this can also be seen through the architecture of the two cultures. For example in Iran previously kitchens were built separately and apart from the other parts of the house while it was not the case in European countries. The results were also supported and were in line with the findings reported by Kaplan (1972). Kaplan also proposed some graphs for different languages such as Arabic, Russian and English. Based on these graphs, Persian speakers tend to be more implicit in their speech while English speakers are more direct and straight forward. Although it was shown that the two newspapers were significantly different in their use of the explicit and implicit discursive features, the results cannot be generalized. It is suggested that other researchers use different corpus and more data with the same procedure to compare and contrast the results. Finally it can be said that no written or spoken text is without its influence on the reader or hearer, though the writer or speaker tries or intends to be fair.

Comprehension is the process of getting information from reading and listening. It plays a fundamental role in language learning. Several factors are involved in comprehension such as vocabulary knowledge and prior/ background knowledge. This research investigates the effect of lexical knowledge and prior knowledge on the understanding of non-Iranian Persian texts. The participants of this study are multilingual learners. For this purpose, out of about 100 advanced language learners of the Persian language teaching center of Imam Khomeini International University in Iran, 65 (of both genders) were selected. After homogenizing the participants by a word level test, they were reduced to 46 (sample population). Subsequently, this number was divided into two groups of 23 learners, vocabulary training and activating the previous knowledge. A pre-test was held including two reading comprehension passages focusing on culture and history of Iran. The reliability of the test was analyzed based on Kooder-Richardson and the result was 0. 71. Both groups were taught the unfamiliar words of the test and finally the same test was conducted as a post-test. The pre-test and post-test results of the two groups were analyzed using ANOVA, paired sample t-test and Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests. The results of the data analysis in relation to the research hypotheses is summarized as follows: The first hypothesis of the research focused on the influence of lexical knowledge on the comprehension of reading passages of non-Iranian Persian speakers. The results of the data analysis confirm the first hypothesis with a high level of significance. This result is in line with the results of the Anjomshoa and Zamanian(2014), Zhang and Annual (2008), Rashidi and Khosravi (2010), Shiotsu and Weir (2007), Golkar & Yamini (2007) and Mehrpur et al. (2011). The second hypothesis focused on the effect of prior knowledge on the comprehension of the reading passages of non-Iranian Persian learners. The results of the data analysis indicated that the activation of previous knowledge does not have a positive effect on the comprehension of the passages. The results of the previous studies in this area, unlike the effect of lexical knowledge on reading comprehension, are not homogeneous, and different results have been obtained. The results of this study also indicate that the activation of prior knowledge on reading comprehension sometimes does not have any positive effects. Moreover, it can sometimes be influenced by factors such as the complexity of reading text and the lack of familiar vocabulary. Finally the findings of the research suggests that the lexical knowledge of non-Iranian Persian speakers has a greater impact on reading comprehension than their previous knowledge. This study has the following implications. First, language teachers should pay more attention to the choice of reading passages. The reading passages should not only be look at as a practice, but these passages should be for the acquisition and improvement of knowledge. By choosing textbooks and reading resources appropriately, learners will be able to effectively enhance their lexical knowledge and general information. Second, teachers should find ways to increase lexical knowledge. For example, encourage learners to read texts beyond textbooks. And in the end, the findings of this study indicate that vocabulary plays a very important role in reading comprehension. Therefore, teacher should spend more time on activating learners’ lexical knowledge in the form of sentence building, expressing the synonyms and opposites of the words, and explaining unfamiliar words.

Blended learning refers to the use of a combination of diverse educational materials (media and educational technology), and aims to appropriately blend new technologies with educational materials of the traditional classes. Blended instruction is an appropriate integration of face-to-face and online instruction (Osguthorpe & Graham, 2003). Not only could this type of instruction cover the weak points of both face-to-face and online instruction, but also it could help reduce costs and save learning time (Bonk & Graham, 2004; Lily, Arthur & Stephen, 2014). The present research aimed to explore whether the type of instruction, i. e. traditional or blended, could significantly affect creativity, motivation and learning of non-Iranian learners of Persian. The definitions of the key terms of this study are as below. Creativity: Until the last century, many believed that creativity was an intrinsic trait and some people were born with this ability. It has now been documented that within an appropriate environment, creativity can be fostered by applying certain principles and techniques to create new ways of thinking (Jalili, 2004). High achievement motivation, curiosity, care for order and arrangement, self-assertiveness, self-sufficiency, perseverance, discipline in work, independence, critical thinking, and intuitive thinking are among the characteristics which have been mentioned for creative people (Seif, 2009). Motivation: Motivation is a very important and often the most important prerequisite for learning. It has a more defining role in learning than general intelligence (Rankin and Stuling, 2000). Factors affecting motivation include learner characteristics, quantitative and qualitative aspects of curriculum, teacher characteristics, the conditions and characteristics of the learning environment, learning activities and tasks, and other environmental factors (Kaveh, 2010). Language learners’ self-conscious and unconscious motivations stem from their needs. The relevance and significance of learning programs and tasks for the learners depends on the appropriateness and relevance of those programs and tasks to the learner needs, especially the prioritized needs (Irannejad Parizi, 2015). Learning: In the realm of education, attention has been redirected from teaching toward learning. For optimal learning, a variety of tools and resources are available which are multiplying by the advancement of technology. It should be kept in mind that the success of a society is built on the abilities of individuals who are involved in lifelong learning (Yai & Tang, 2003; Schneberg & Johnson, 2004). Blended instruction: One of the revolutions in the field of education relates to the modern information and communications technology that added remote communication and exchange of information to face-to-face instruction system. Blended instruction is a deliberate combination of face-to-face and virtual instruction. The basic principle of this approach is to properly integrate face-to-face verbal interactions with virtual written communications in a way that an exploratory learning experience is realized, in line with the instructional objectives (Soma & Reynold, 2014). Blended instruction involves adopting new modes of thinking in course designs which aims to adapt traditional values and activities to technological affordances and expectations. Blended approach to learning brings together a combination of face-to-face and online components and involves blending of instructional methods, media, experiences, informational and educational components, synchronous and asynchronous learning, and self-paced and self-directed learning (Baglien, 2009). In 2011, Acelajado reported that, in comparison to traditional face-to-face instruction, blended instruction led to better improvements in all the topics involved. A survey of the participants’ views showed that using diverse instructional methods improved the participants’ learning, attitude, confidence, and motivation. Fletcher, Lynn, Fouches, and Barnes (2007) found that in teaching vocabulary, blending text with visual images and audio led to more realistic and precise definitions of the word meanings by participants; improved their short-term and visual memory; enhanced the learning, memorization, and recall of words in people with learning disabilities; and improved visual imagination of the participants. In a study entitled ‘ Designing and implementing a blended learning system for students of rehabilitation majors’ , Seyedi and Yaghoubi (2012) found that in comparison to face-to-face and electronic methods, blended learning methods which integrated student-centered learning to face-to-face instruction and employed potent resources such as standard instructional materials could improve the quality of instruction more substantially. In general, the current researcher could not locate any studies which explored the effect of blended instruction on the acquisition of Persian language by non-Iranian learners, and this study aimed to fill this gap. This study was an applied research which adopted quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design with a control and an experimental group. The study sample consisted of 40 non-Iranian learners of Persian language who studied at the International Dehkhoda Farsi teaching center in Tehran University in the academic year 2013-2014. The participants were randomly assigned to two groups. The control and experimental groups received traditional and blended instruction respectively. For data collection, three questionnaires were used which included Torrance Creativity Questionnaire, Hermann's Achievement Motivation Questionnaire, and a Learning Questionnaire. The results of the study showed that in comparison to traditional instruction, blended instruction exerted a more significant effect on the creativity of non-Iranian learners of Persian language. It can be argued that blended instruction could affect the reproduction of thoughts, promote learners’ intellectual growth, and lead to dynamism in the instruction of Persian language. In developing blended Persian language instruction programs, due consideration should be given to the characteristics of Persian-language learners. Blended instruction does not involve adopting multiple approaches to learning. It aims at rebuilding classroom transactions, improving class participation, and ensuring broad access to web-based learning opportunities. In turn, abundant learning opportunities promote a goal-directed participatory and exploratory learning culture. Finally, instructors could prevent useless resources which are used in online-only language classes and are less efficient for some skills such as spoken skills, and instead use those resources for learning activities which directly help learners to achieve learning objectives.

The evolution of linguistic knowledge and the formation of its various approaches in modern times have led to the provision of new possibilities for the study of literary and artistic works. Today, many literary scholars believe that in order to study and analyze the structure of these kinds of works, it is necessary to apply new language tools and instruments. The play is one of the literary works that, after the 1970s and 1980s. The creation of narrative characters and dramatic actions has benefited from linguistic strategies and techniques. Now the significance of the element of language in the play is so far that a thread called "linguistic playwrights" has been formed to examine the role and capabilities of this element in dramatic texts. "Paul Castango", as one of the theorists of this trend, bases his work on analyzing new plays, language and various tools. According to Castango, the combination and coherence of the various tongues of the text leads to the emergence of a beating or speech tune up. The originality of the dialogic beats, which is one of the most important achievements of the Castango’ s theory, is one of the most fundamental components of a piece of linguistic tongue that occurs at shortest moments, in the same way, and the formation of many elements of the plot, such as conflict, the theme, the personality can be relied upon. There are several ways of dialogic beats, including the following: repeating and re-wording words and sentences; deleting: reducing one or more voices in a word or phrase; interrupting; moving the word's flow in the play by the behavior and speech of individuals; pause: mentioning Events are occurring quite slowly in such a way that the impression is brought to the audience that the narrative of the story has stopped. Mahmoud Timur is one of contemporary Egyptian playwrights. Among his most important works, he can be referred to as "Shelter No. 13". This work is used to establish relationships between individuals and promote narrative events and the creation of various technical and structural elements of modern linguistic arrangements in such a way that the various effects of dialogic beats can be seen in its literary and rhetorical structure. The screenplay has three shades and its internal contents are "fear of death and passion for immortality. " Timur depicts a shelter in which various social classes, such as aristocrats, poor, religious, superstitious, and the like, are represented. In fact, the author addresses the behavioral contradictions of characters who are on the brink of death, and for their survival, they take any actions, such as praying to God, forgiving the poor and even confronting one another. Research on dialogic beats and its various functions is therefore important in enabling the audience to penetrate the depth of the discourse in terms of the reading of the literary text from the structural level of the language and to translate it into a meaningful or well-understood text. In this way, the reader can discover new concepts and interpretations and familiarize himself with the various abilities of this linguistic spell and its role in the advancement of dramatic action. The application of the Castango’ s theory, in addition to discovering spoken functions, facilitates, enriches and evolves other research works in the field of play, and can be considered in the broader field of cultural and artistic studies. Given that so far, in-house research on the play and the linguistic components used in it, including the pace of an exploratory dialogue, have made it indispensable to get acquainted with this play. Therefore, the authors have come to understand this important article. Accordingly, in the present study, we try to use the principle of dialogue and different types of pulses, using a descriptive-analytical method to study the role of language elements and its various capabilities in the formation of dramatic maneuvers in the play Shelter No. 13 Let's take a look at two questions. One is that, “ Which type of dialogic beats did Mahmoud Timur use in the playback of Shelter No. 13 to convey the meaning to be desired? ” And the other, "What are the pace of dialogue in this play? " The findings of this study indicate that Mahmoud Timur used linguistic techniques in broad areas to create fundamental changes in Arabic scriptwriting. By revealing the traditional heroic and monolithic framework, he has presented the narrative and multicultural concepts in this work. There are also various forms of talking beats. The most commonly used talk rates in this show include preference, deletion, pause, and termination. Meanwhile, the beat of the conversation, in addition to being a technical component for the advancement of the pianist structure, is in line with the rhetorical structure and has many linguistic and phrasal functions. Preaching is the most used talk in the play, and emotional and attentional personification as well as spatialization are among its functions. After that, the eliminator has a high abundance in both structural and functional types. In this context, the removal of the structure for knotting and the functional removal for emotional characterization has been used. The amount of pause in a post-removal location has two functions of spatial and conflict. The discontinuity has been more limited in this play and has been used as a tool of struggle.