INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES (THE JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES)
Year:2019 | Volume:26 | Issue:SUPLIMENT4|Papers Count:6

According to the extended projection principle (EPP), it is claimed that all sentences require subjects. In line with such assumption, it is believed that some languages, including Persian, are categorized as pro-drop languages and their subject is encoded by the verbal inflection. In fact, the subject position is an empty category designated by pro (small pro). Therefore, AGR (verbal inflection) has a purely syntactic function. However, in cognitive grammar, AGR is treated as a symbolic assembly profiling a process whose only independent contribution to the meaning of the verb with which it combines, is the person and number specification of the processual AGR. Considering AGR as a meaningful category, its trajector can correspond with the trajector of the processual component (verb) which is left unexpressed. In contrast to the assumption that AGR is redundant, it shown that the subject (the trajector of the processual component) is not dropped; it does exist but is highly schematic. It is elaborated (becomes specific) by trajector of AGR through correspondence. In other words, Persian speakers conceptualize the subject by only one source of information; that is the trajector of AGR.

This paper investigates the conflation of “ Path” conceptual semantic in Motion events in the Central-Kurdish (Sorani) Language, Ardelani Dialect, in light of Talmy notions in this regard. According to Talmy, in each Motion event, four main elements i. e. “ Figure” , “ Ground” , “ Path” and “ Motion” are involved. These conceptual meanings can be lexicalized either on “ Verb Root” or on “ Satellite” . By considering a conceptual meaning like “ Path” and investigating the surface element that shows it, we can define the typology of languages as “ Verb-Framed” or “ Satellite-Framed” . In this paper, after analyzing sample sentences containing “ Path” concept, in addition to showing the way this concept is lexicalized in Kurdish, we would define typology of Ardelani dialect among Indo-European languages. Data used in this paper is a selection of 23 sentences extracted from a corpus of 890 sentences containing Motion event that have lexicalized Path concept. These sentences have been produced by 18 different native Ardelani speakers in three different groups.

Schematization is one of the general cognitive processes, which refers to the ability to construe and conceptualize a given situation at a coarse level of granularity. In Persian, the cognitive mechanism of schematization plays a very fundamental role in the structuring of a pleasant semantic content. The purpose of this paper is to explain how euphemistic meaning is constructed via schematization in Persian. Within the cognitive linguistic framework, this study shows that the conceptualizer/the language user, using the cognitive ability of schematization, conceptualizes and describes an unpleasant situation at a high level of schematicity and at a coarse granularity. This process directs the patterns of attentional distribution over a referent scene in such a way that lesser attentional strength is assigned to the detail of the unpleasant scene and consequently the particularities move out of the focus of attention. Decreasing the strength of attention over the detail will decrease the resolution of the semantic representation of an unpleasant situation. Therefore, by the general construal and conceptualization of an unpleasant situation, euphemistic meaning will be constructed. Also, this research illustrates that schematization is realized and expressed in Persian by the selection of open-and closedclass forms.

One of the typological variations between languages is differences in word order, which is the position of elements at the clause or phrase level. There are some correlations between word order criteria in languages; for example, the type of adposition correlates with the order of verbs and direct objects in a clause, in languages. The present study aims at introducing the said typological correlations in Sivandi language, which is considered as an endangered language by UNESCO and is spoken by residents of Sivand village, an area in Fars province. In this research, the data are gathered by interviewing the native speakers and the research’ s main linguistic corpus consists of three Sivandi stories, a questionnaire, which has been compiled for this purpose based on Max Planck institute’ s questionnaires and other reliable sources, and some proverbs, which all collected from native speakers. Sivandi is considered a verb-final language. By examining the typological correlations in this language, it was concluded that, in some cases, the correlations between word order criteria and the order of verb and direct object in the clauses, are consistent with language universals but in some others, this consistency cannot be observed.

his article aims at studying ecofeminism in Vladimir Nabokov’ s Laughter in the Dark. Ecofeminism which is a widely-accepted branch of ecological studies deals with the similarities between women and nature in a work of literature. It emphasizes that women and nature are similar in many ways, especially in being manipulated, both physically and spiritually, by men. In the article below one certain identical feature of women and nature is analyzed in a novel by Nabokov: being nurturing and destructive simultaneously. The novel presents two main female characters and this paper shows how each one is attributed to one side of the environment. One of them stands for nurturing motherhood of nature, while the other one represents the destructive side of nature. The logical conclusion of such study is the claim that Nabokov whose Lepidoptera is widely known could not stand indifferent to the chaotic condition of the environment.

As a new shift in the ELT field, critical pedagogy (CP) originated from the Freirean philosophy. It aims at raising both teachers and learners’ awareness towards the instrumental view of ELT and its superficial neutrality. Despite the recent growth of CP in Iran, it is unknown whether or not CP is supported and practiced in the teacher development process of Iranian universities. Moreover, to the best of the researchers’ knowledge, an appropriate questionnaire dealing with such a concept has not been developed yet. The present study, therefore, aims at developing and validating a CPoriented scale to be used in the ELT education system in Iran. To validate this instrument, 150 EFL teachers and students from three universities of Iran were selected through convenience sampling. The researchers employed exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The results indicated an acceptable level of internal consistency and satisfactory construct validity. This measure can be helpful for those who support practicalizing CP tenets in the field of ELT, in general and in the teacher development process, in particular.