LANGUAGE RELATED RESEARCH (COMPARATIVE LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE RESEARCH)
Year:2020 | Volume:11 | Issue:1 (55)|Papers Count:14

Language learning is not just the learning of vocabulary and grammar. Idioms are the useful structures between language speakers, especially in spoken language. Maybe the mysterious nature of these structures makes the speakers to be interested in using them. It was said mysterious because they do not have combinational meaning. Idioms have their own context of use and it motivates speakers to use them because the proper use of idioms shows the high level of communication skill of a foreign language learner. But due to the special structure of idioms, it is so hard to learn them. Besides, cartoon is a kind of image which is simple, attractive and borderless. It seems that the interaction between idiom and cartoon results in revealing connotational meaning of idiom and in this way, cartoon develops the literal meaning of idiom. There are various studies on the relationship between text and image in book illustration, teaching language and different sciences and they have confirmed the positive impact of image especially in the form of cartoon or caricature in learning but there is no research about the role of cartoon in learning English idioms to Persian native speakers from the semiotic point of view. This paper aims to evaluate the effect of interaction between speech and cartoon and achieve the effective features of cartoons in revealing the covert meaning of idioms, in the process of English idioms teaching to Persian speakers from semiotic point of view. In this paper, the main problem is how the cartoon, in relation to idioms, changes the space of sense-making from an unpredictable semiotic space to a creative one and how this interaction causes a creative semiotic space to develop the concept of idioms. To evaluate this paper`s hypotheses, we used visual semiotics approach and discourse analysis method. The statistical population of this research includes 60 English language learners in intermediate and advanced level including 30 girls and 30 boys from north and south of Tehran. The hypotheses of this study are that: firstly, cartoons can cause the semiotic development via the sign spaces interaction, inducing a new cognition and developing the scope of imagination. Secondly, speech and cartoon can cause creative usage of idioms via making referential space, using the discourse dimensions and developing the linguistic game in intersemiotic space. The results show that, cartoons with the appropriate functions of cognitive, sensory-perceptual, emotional and aesthetic dimensions of discourse in which there are maximal transdiscourse relationship with idioms and make an effective interpretation or metadiscourse, cause a creative process and transcend the denotational meaning of idioms to connotational one. So, they can be considered as prosthesis for idioms. As a result, the hypotheses of this research are confirmed.

Language in esse has already stablished its possession of subjectivity of the bilingual speaker. As soon as contact between language in fieri and subjectivity commences, numerous problematics, such as translation and linguistic production, emerge. To start with, language in fieri is completely affected by language in esse. This paper attempts to address how, the resulting language interferences bring about the use of or impression by signifiers available in language in esse. This process enhances translation and reduces linguistic production in language in fieri. Therefore, we should figure out in which stage of the transformation of language in fieri does the user have a shared semantic representation and in which part does he/she have an independent semantic representation. In which part of this transformation would the translation and production process would take place.

Since the 1970s, some countries have provided the deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) viewers with the accessibility service of subtitling for the d/Deaf and hard of hearing (SDH) to follow the law of equal rights. Screening of films with subtitles for DHH viewers in cinemas has been one of the media accessibility services in Iran. Due to the growing importance of media accessibility, audiovisual translation researchers have examined the effectiveness of conventional SDH procedures in recent years to bring this service closer to the needs and expectations of DHH. Following this approach, this study aims to analyze the textual procedures adopted in intralingual Persian SDH to see if they comply with the standards derived from other SDH studies. To this end, it firstly discusses the language skill of DHH to explain why textual procedures have been recurrent themes in SDH research, and then goes through the textual procedures suggested by SDH scholars as ways of facilitating reading process. Finally, it compares an intralingual Persian SDH with the original dialogue list in order to elicit the used textual procedures. The analysis indicates that the subtitle provider has completely edited and, as a result adapted the dialogue list in order to resolve any reading difficulty for the intended viewers. Reformulation and simplification rather than deletion have been the most recurrent textual procedures applied for editing out the dialogue list. In addition, the analysis reveals that non-metaphorical usage of language, explicitation, deletion of redundant spoken language phrases, definition of difficult words and expressions in parentheses, use of conventional thematic structures, segmentation of long sentences, use of a proper name rather than a personal pronoun, and deletion of cohesive elements could be named as the applied textual procedures. Taking into account the results obtained from the previous SDH studies, this study concludes that the applied textual procedures mostly fail to comply with the fundamental principles of editing intralingual SDH and, as a result are unlikely to meet the preferences of the intended viewers.

A significant part of the Iranian dialectology literature consists of older researches which are still referred to and utilized; such as Oranski (1960), Mackenzie (1966), Blau (1989a & 1989b). Nonetheless, their achievements need to be re-examined through detailed documentations, within modern theoretical frameworks and methodologies as well. The older studies on Hawrami by western linguists should also be placed in this collection. The speculations about the status of Hawrami within the Iranian languages family have always been needed to be scrutinized and accredited. There is adequate evidence that reveals historical relationship between Hawrami and different Iranian Languages, which in turn furnishes us with new speculations on the status of Hawrami within the Iranian languages...

The present study investigates the Graded Salient Hypothesis and its effect on irony in order to investigate what is an important factor in accessing to the meaning of irony. The purpose of this study was to measure RT (reading time) and to identify and explain the relationship between the three variables, context (literal, figurative), familiarity (familiar, less familiar and unfamiliar) and reading speed (slow, simultaneous, and Fast). The questions that this research sought to answer were: 1. Do unfamiliar ironies and two next expressions in the figurative and literal context are read with equal speed? 2. Do less familiar ironies and two next expressions in the figurative and literal context are read with equal speed? 3. Do familiar ironies and two next expressions in the figurative and literal context are read with equal speed? The research material consisted of 46 ironies in the Persian language. Ironies were the result of a conversation between a 30-year-old woman and a 28-year-old man. These samples were the result of an 8-hour recording of nonconsecutive conversations that were given to two experts to confirm the validity of ironies, and the examples in this study are the confirmed ironies. Then, for every irony, there was an affective context in the figurative meaning and an affective context in the literal meaning of that irony. A pre-test (pre-test 1) was conducted to determine the extent to which individuals were familiar with these ironies. The level of familiarity was determined on a seven-level axis, ranging from 1 (lowest familiarity) to 7 (highest familiarity). The subjects in this pre-test were 20 undergraduate students, this test was considered as their classroom work and for which they were given a score. In pre-test 2, to ensure that the literal and figurative contexts made for less familiar, familiar and unfamiliar ironies were equally strong, seven axial axes were drawn for each of the contexts. On one side, there was the literal meaning of the irony and on the other side, the figurative meaning of the same irony was mentioned. The axis was divided into seven sections and participants were asked to indicate which meaning of every irony was closest to it and how close it was. Two booklets were produced so that each booklet represented only one type of context. One booklet contained various examples of less familiar, unfamiliar and familiar ironies in the literal context, and another booklet contained various examples of less familiar, unfamiliar and familiar ironies in the figurative context. The participants in this pre-test were two groups of 23 people (each consisting of 11 men and 12 women, aged 18 to 27 years) and this pre-test was as a classroom task for them to perform and to obtain score. Each booklet was assigned to one group and each group did not have access to the other group's booklet, and every participant only had access to one context type for every irony. Also, those who were selected for the pretests were not included in the main test. A software was used to perform a selfpaced moving window test that was able to measure the reading time of expressions. Participants were confronted with high-speed Windows 7 computers (with three-core CPUs and 2 GB of main memory), and the software was run in front of them. The main test was conducted in two stages, with a time interval of two months. In the first stage, the participants were presented with irony in the figurative context and their reading speed was measured. In the second stage, the same subjects were presented with the same ironies in the literal context and their reading speed was measured. The twomonth interval between the two tests was because reading one phrase in a particular context not to provide the key for that phrase in the other context. On the other hand, the same participant had to participate again in the second stage. Because his reading speed in the figurative context was to be compared with the reading speed of the same person in the literal context so that individual differences in reading speed did not interfere with the results. The results showed that the ironies did not fully support the Graded Salience Hypothesis, and the results were in contrast to this hypothesis, in that the context often outweighed the salient meaning and influenced perception. Therefore, context and salience effects were not parallel to each other. Also, based on the results of the research, it seems that the salient meaning in both the less familiar and familiar ironies was the figurative meaning and the salient meaning in the unfamiliar ironies was both literal and figurative meaning.

Teaching French translation in Iran has been studied from different angles so far and its flaws and the problems encountered by students in this field have been repeatedly evaluated. However, it seems that researchers in Iran have not taken into account the problem of polysemic words and the translation of this ambiguous phenomenon. Hence, we have decided to study this phenomenon in university classes where students are trained to translate texts from French language to Persian. In this regard, considering the characteristics of the polysemic words and the ability of French translation students to recognize and then translate them properly in Persian, with a glance to Holmes/Toury map of translation studies and especially its functional branch, which includes teaching/learning translation and related methodologies and dictionaries as tools in this field among others. Therefore, we emphasize on the importance of training French translation students and the correct use of dictionaries according to Holmes/Toury theory. On the other hand, Katharina Reiss’ (German linguist and translator scholar) theory of translation and text typology (informative, expressive and operative) and their application have been used in this research. Usually, in translation classes at Iranian universities, informative and expressive texts are present and we used these two types of texts in our corpus as well. Also, we have utilized the theory of PACTE group from its translation competence in educational environments, through two tests among 32 undergraduate French translation students divided in two groups, as well as a review of the translation of the book written by French philosopher and writer of eighteenth century, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Le Choix de lettres de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, translated by eight master and Ph. D. students in the field of French translation and French literature to scrutinize this particular problem. In the first case, we had advised to the first group to use only French-Persian dictionaires and to the second group to use not only the latter but also to consult inevitably French-French dictionaires in order to translate correctly the texts. More than two-thirds of the first group of students who used only French-Persian dictionaries failed to properly translate sentences containing this type of vocabulary, while in the second group the results were considerably satisfying. Among the graduate students, this problem still persists. It seems that finding the right equivalent for this kind of vocabulary, especially for French translation students who do not have sufficient knowledge of the language, seems complicated. This is because polysemic words can usually have different meanings in different contexts. French-Persian dictionaires on the market do not always contain all the meanings associated with polysemic words, which will make it even harder for the students to deal with the translation. Also, it seems from the sample translations of undergraduate and graduate students, this problem requires a fundamental solution from the very beginning of their studies. Explaining this problem to the students and informing them about this phenomenon and the gaps in French-Persian dictionaries is one of the first things that should be presented in translation classes. On the other hand, editing these dictionaries by their publishers or publishing new ones with regard to semantic ambiguities in French seems important. It also seems necessary to use monolingual dictionaries to find the appropriate equivalent of a word in the text.

One of the important aspects that can be investigated in Tarikh-i Bayhaqi is its linguistic delicacies and characteristics. As well as being of historical importance, the language of Tarikh-i Bayhaqi is also significant. Having a linguistic approach to Tarikh-i Bayhaqi, we observe highly frequent linguistic characteristics that have greatly contributed to the literariness of the book and created linguistic foregrounding. Foregrounding here refers to deviation from established linguistic conventions which leads to defamiliarization of language, an aspect of literariness of texts. Linguists consider deviation from norms (unexpected irregularity) as well as unexpected regularity to result in foregrounding. Drawing on Geoffrey Leech’ s theory of stylistics, we investigated 7 types of foregrounding in Tarikh-I Bayhaqi, namely lexical, grammatical, stylistic, semantic, historical, phonological and dialectal. The findings show that using neologisms and novel collocations, using archaic words and structures, using imagery, using Quranic verses and Hadith, drawing on Persian and Arabic literature, and using different types of linguistic parallelism have resulted in foregrounding in Tarikh-i Bayhaqi and turned it into a literary text. In his book, Abu'l-Fadl Bayhaqi has significantly utilized potentials of Persian language which enabled him to create a literary text – a text with various characteristics of deviation from norms as well as foregrounding. Masterfully drawing on phonological, lexical and syntactic parallelism, Bayhaqi has increased the musicality of his language, which has in turn increased the literariness of his discourse. While, according to Leech, deviation from norms is the means for creation of poetry, and addition of regularity is the means for creation of prose, it must be noted that in Tarikh-i Bayhaqi we cannot draw a clear distinction between the two. For example, while deviation from syntactic norms through repositioning sentence elements can add secondary meaning to the sentence, it can also contribute to poetic features and creation of musicality, or, as another example, deviation from dialectal and phonological norms does not create poetry. Employing novel and beautiful words and combinations, using imagery, method of collocating words, using archaic words and syntactic structures, using Quranic verses and Hadith as well as Persian and Arabic poems together with various types of parallelism and repetition, including repetition of vowels, words and syntactic structures, are among the features that have resulted in linguistic foregrounding in Tarikh-i Bayhaqi, transforming it into a literary prose. Tarikh-i Bayhaqi is among the few works in which the author has succeeded to significantly draw on the potentials of the Persian language and create a literary text.

The current study investigates the similarities and differences of conceptualization of SADNESS in representative corpuses of ordinary (nonpoetic) and poetic language. Analysing two separate corpuses (Persian Language Data Base and Farsi Language Corpus), the writers managed to identify and extract the relevant conceptual metaphors of SADNESS in both ordinary language and contemporary poetics respectively. Then according to Conceptual Metaphor Theory of Lakoff and Johnson (1989), the most frequent generic and specific mappings of SADNESS in both ordinary and poetic language were determined. The study showed that almost all the generic metaphors of SADNESS occur in both types discourse, though some of them occur significantly in either the one or the other type. An analysis of the two sets of metaphors revealed several important differences between poetic and non-poetic conceptualization of SADNESS, including the higher degree of agentivity, positive conceptualization of SADNESS and unconventionality in poetic language compared to non-poetic genre. The finding that almost all the identified metaphors are found in poetic and non-poetic language supports Lakoff and Turner’ s claim (1989) that there is nothing essentially different about poetic metaphors.

In every era there is a dominant stream of thought that epistemologically all areas of knowledge of a society are more or less in tune with. This dominant stream of thought, represented by terms such as paradigm, epistemic, and so on, as an epistemic pattern, explicitly or implicitly, influences the knowledge organization of a society and the discursive articulation of the texts produced in that space. The placement of subjects in literary texts is the result of a variety of discourse articulation that is shaped by the epistemic patterns that govern each period. To better understand this, we can refer to stories that have been narrated or allegorized over several periods with distinct epistemic worlds; one of these is the story of "fish and ponds", which are independently represented in Kalila and Demna, and Rumi's Masnawi as independent narratives and in the story of the Little Black Fish. In this article, how the paradigms influence the placement of the fictional subjects from the perspective of the hero's who and why are they described in a descriptive-analytic manner. The result is that this anecdote has been represented in the classical world in the form of two inner narratives and as parables in the Kalila and Demna and the Masnawi Rumi. According to the epistemic paradigm of Holism and individualism/escapism in the classical world, the hero/ heroes are both the parables of those who have used their action to serve themselves and to become the victim of or absorbed in being or society. Of course, the holism and individualism/evasion that governs the articulation of the Kalila and Demna allegory in its own Geographical-cultural context, namely the caste of Indian foundations and Iranian political thought, seeks to legitimize and stabilize its class order. Despite the participation in the epistemic paradigm that governs the texts of Kalila and Demna and the Masnawi Rumi, the process is described in another way in the allegory of Mathnawi. In its mystical context, the universalism of the classical world, instead of consolidating social order, seeks to create ontological unity between all manifestations of being, especially between human beings and existence. In contrast to the generalism and antiindividualism/ evasion that dominates the classical world and its texts, the macro-epistemic model of the contemporary world and the modern world focuses on the centrality of human subjectivity and individualism. The discourse articulation of the parable of the little black fish is arranged on the basis of this epistemic paradigm, so the placement of the subjects in it is substantially different from the preceding two parables. From the discursive point of view of the protagonist of this allegory, it is a little black fish that expresses its agency to express and establish individuality in the form of a variety of philosophical-epistemological questions to some form of symbolic body confrontation. However, the paradigm of generalism and individualism/aversion to the classical world has led to the heroic allegories of Kalila and Demna and the Masnawi of those who have used their agency to transcend themselves and maintain class order or unity with being. In contrast to contemporary humanism and individualism, it has assumed a hero who goes beyond self-expression and proving individuality, In order to awaken others and defending them in various ways interfering with social and political order; it has sought to create balance or symmetry a social interactive space.

In this research, based on a descriptive-analytical method, some quasifrequency phonological processes in Russian are investigated and compared with what is happening in Persian. Phonological processes are the effects of neighboring phonemes in words of a language, although these processes can occur in unpolluted phonemes and sometimes between the two words. One of the most important and complex topics studied in phonology is phonological processes. Each of these processes may be more frequent in one language than another, or, depending on the particular phonetic features of a language, it may not be possible a phonological process or particular type of a phonological process. These processes occur in fewer or more frequencies depending on their specific phonetic features in all languages of the world. The questions we are looking for in this article are: What are the phonological processes of Russian and Persian languages? Despite the phonetic differences between the Russian and Persian languages, are there similarities between the phonological processes of these two languages? What are the differences between the phonological processes of these two languages? The research hypothesis is that phonological processes in Russian and Persian languages are not fully compatible. In this article, first, some of the phonological processes are described in Russian, and then the same process is examined in Persian language. The purpose of this analysis is to answer the research question that finds similarities and differences in phonological processes in two languages by studying and comparing the exact phonological processes of the two languages. Many phonological processes, such as the “ assimilation” , the “ metathesis” , “ dissimilation” in the Russian and Persian languages, are similar, but some of them, like “ assimilation of soft consonants” and “ dieresis” in Persian due to its specific phonetic features can’ t be occur. The phonological process of “ vowel and Consonant harmony with manner of articulation” in Persian is examined in the section “ assimilation” and is known as “ consonant assimilation” and “ vowel assimilation” in the Persian language, whereas in Russian since vowels and consonants refer to sounds of different types and to the end, as a rule, they cannot be assimilated to each other and the term “ assimilation” cannot be applied to them. The phonological process of “ regressive assimilation of soft consonants” that occurs in Russian is not possible in Persian because there are fifteen pairs of hard and soft consonants in Russian (thirty consonants in total) and some paired hard consonants become soft in specific situations; but in Persian, there is no paired soft consonant with their hard counterparts.

Writing in a second language is usually considered as the last yet the most challenging skill to be learned. Similarly, learning to write in Arabic seems to have its own complications due to its unique grammar and sentence structures; hence, the present study attempted to investigate the effect of ‘ Pattern Practice’ on developing Arabic students’ writing skill. However, pattern practice was not in the form of traditional mechanical drilling of the Arabic structures; instead, the learners participated in some awareness raising sessions including practicing the already identified and underlined structures of the texts through translating the similar structures from Persian into English. The present study attempted to answer the fundamental question of whether translation pattern practice had the potential to develop writing proficiency and reduce the learners’ errors when writing in Arabic as their L2. Writing errors were classified as grammatical, lexical and spelling. The study, hence, tried to identify the effect of practice on all such errors. The sample including 34 available Persian speaking students from Yazd University majoring in Arabic language and literature were selected and randomly assigned to a control and an experimental group. A proficiency test was given to ensure the groups’ homogeneity before the study started. Then, during the whole semester, both groups received several short Arabic stories. Arabic sentence structures, vocabulary and spelling of the stories were discussed in each class. However, the experimental group had the chance to rehearse sentence patterns through translation pattern practice. The results obtained at the end of the semester revealed a significant difference between the frequencies of the errors in their writing samples. In other words, the participants of the experimental group had significantly fewer structure and lexical errors, but the difference between the frequencies of spelling errors was not significant. The findings suggest that ‘ Pattern Practice’ had the potential to improve the learners’ interlanguage and enhance their writing ability. It can be concluded that in awareness raising sessions of reading and analyzing the texts, learners noticed how the structures worked, and further translation practice followed by corrective feedback led to deeper retention of the structures. Therefore, the target translation practice can be identified as an efficient strategy on reducing the learners’ writing errors especially when writing Arabic sentences. The results had pedagogical implications for Arabic teachers when developing writing skill in universities and language institutes.

The purpose of the present study is to apply the concept of ‘ second order schemas’ within the framework of Construction Morphology (Booij, 2010, 2018) for analyzing some morphological structures in Persian in order to explain how these structures are formed. Second order schemas, which are defined as sets of two or more paradigmatically related constructional schemas, are employed in the present research as an analytical tool for explaining three morphological patterns that predominantly are related to scientific disciplines, branches and technologies. These patterns include: (1) nouns with the structure [N- en s-i] and their corresponding relational adjectives; (2) nouns with the structure [N-neg r-i] and their corresponding relational adjectives; (3) nouns with the structure [N-k v-i] and their corresponding relational adjectives...

The English language textbooks for learners with special educational needs play a crucial role in classifying knowledge in the learners’ minds and framing their axiological-epistemological systems. As a result, developing English language textbooks based on discourses of needs analysis can not only empower language skill abilities among these learners but also contribute to them to become active citizens. However, if the materials developed are silent on the learners’ needs in developing their practices may marginalize the learners as at risk educational groups. Very few studies have critically analyzed prevocational English language textbooks written for learners with special needs to see to what extent the content, conversations and image of these English language textbooks could meet daily affair realizations for learners with special needs. Embedded in Laclau and Moffe’ s Critical Discourse Analysis approach, the current study thus focuses secondary school prevocational English language textbook by ministry of education in grades seven, eight and nine. Findings showed that in the dominant discourse of these textbooks, there exists no symbol of body and life style representation of these learners. They have been selected either in ideal or token manners. Contents and images of these textbooks could not go beyond dichotomizing hegemonic discourses of society (normal-abnormal) and have reproduced power relations belonging to ordinary people. Normal affair is a social construct. Discourse representation and power relations dominant on curriculum patterns frame real worlds and life styles for learners with special needs. Thus, dearth of images and challenges of people with special needs are perceived as their absence in public domains and consequently neglecting multiple life styles of these groups. Hence, this study is of significance as it has some theoretical and practical ramifications for the materials developers and raises their awareness to redesign English language textbooks for these learners based on their needs.

Louis Hjelmslev is a prominent figure in the history of Linguistics. As a linguist, his works and theory (usually referred to under the name of “ Glossematics” ) have largely contributed to the demand for a "theory of language". However, his studies have in fact extremely surpassed the boundaries of ordinary linguistics: by embarking on language, he has proposed an innovated immanent semiotic epistemology that, on the one hand, could lead to a holistic and general formal science, and on the other hand, could provide a gnoseology capable to be introduced as an alternative for other philosophical versions. His doctrine in linguistics did not receive an appropriate acceptance beyond the Circle of Copenhagen and many linguists abandoned his theory, considering it too sophisticated and too mathematical. But beyond linguistics, his ideas have been partially followed in a new scientific discipline called “ semiotics” (especially in France). On the whole, Hjelmslev occupies an ambivalent position in the history of linguistic theories: he is an abandoned founder. How can we explain this situation? What are the sources of Hjelmslev’ s approach? How can we describe its basic characteristics in relation to other linguistic approaches? What are his legacies? To what extent can we contribute to his doctrine today? What are the recent works on Hjelmslev’ s theory? These are some basic questions we seek to answer in our dialogue with Christian Puech, historian of linguistic theories and retired professor at the University of Sorbonne-Nouvelle, and Semir Badir, specialist in the Hjelmslevian theory and professor of semantics, semiotics and epistemology of language at the University of Liege. In this dialogue, we realize that Hjelmslev’ s approach to Saussure, unlike that of the Linguistic School of Prague, was not to dismiss master’ s ideas but to deepen and radicalize them. Hjelmslev’ s theoretical skeleton is relied on two conceptual pairs: form/substance and expression/content. Hjelmslev’ s main question is not metaphysical, but epistemological: "what are the conditions for constructing knowledge about language? " In his theory, he seeks to build a calculus system, and in this respect he has an absolutely formalistic approach. Hjelmslev’ s theory has three special features: its very unique power of abstraction, its reliance on immanent logic, and its simultaneous realism and irrealism. Contrary to popular belief, many structuralist theories, as well as French semiotics, are based on the views of Hjelmslev. In fact, his theory is both the theoretical basis of the semiotic project and the guarantee of its identity. Today, when semiotic theory needs to be revised, it is the re-reading of Hjelmslev that feeds on the newly proposed concepts of semiotics. However, we have very scattered and limited knowledge about this theory. Much work still remains to be done. In recent years, some researchers have seriously examined Hjelmslev's theory of language that we should wait to see how this return will affect our knowledge of language.