Rhetoric is the science which evaluates the eloquence of discourse. Through the rules of this science, any discourse is evaluated as to three aspects of Ma’ani (rhetorical figures), Bayan (utterance) and Badi’ (figures of speech). Ma’ani is one of the main branches of rhetoric which studies different aspects of a sentence such as its secondary meanings and its relevance to the situation. Persian scholars of rhetoric have always paid attention to Arabic rhetorical books. Negligence of grammatical and rhetorical differences between Persian and Arabic has led to some mistakes regarding definitions, divisions and examples. The category ENSHAYE GHEIRE TALABI (declaratives in the form of performative or a performative with declarative interpretation) is one of the issues which has not been defined and delineated clearly in rhetorical books. Analyzing such a category in the field of Ma’ani, this study aims at explaining its position with regard to grammatical and semantic characteristics of various kinds of performatives.

The purpose of this study was to contently analyze the training textbooks used in teacher training centers based on declarative and procedural knowledge. This research was of a content analysis type and quantitative content analysis method was used, here. All training courses used in teacher training centers were chosen as the statistical population. The sample and the population were equal in terms of the number. Data, then, was analyzed by means of descriptive statistics as percentage, frequency, and chi- square. The findings showed that general psychology book has the highest level of declarative knowledge and the least amount of procedural knowledge; whereas, mathematics teaching book has the highest level of procedural knowledge and the least amount of declarative knowledge.

Introduction: Considered as an important factor in communication, prosody is composed of a number of features including intonation, pitch, stress, rhythm and duration, among others. Intonation is the variation of pitch in the course of producing a sentence. In this study, fundamental frequency range was defined as the minimum and maximum amounts of fundamental frequency one can produce when speaking a sentence. The aim of the present study was to evaluate two aspects of prosody, namely, fundamental frequency range and intonation contour in declarative sentences expressed by normal Farsi-speaking adults through laboratory procedures. Materials and Methods: Participants of this cross-sectional descriptive-analytic study were 134 males and females, aging between 18 to 30 years, who natively spoke Farsi. Voice samples obtained by having each subject produce 2 declarative sentences were analyzed by Dr. Speech program (real analysis software). Data were statistically analyzed via unilateral analysis variance and intonation contour was drawn for each of these sentences. Results: The intonation contour was similar among two sex groups. However, fundamental frequency range of males during speaking the sentences significantly differed from that produced by female subjects (P≤0.001). Conclusion: The intonation contour of declarative sentences was characterized by a falling status at the end of the sentence. Females showed much more changes in fundamental frequency in order to transfer declarative state in their expressions than males did.

This study recognizes the spatial and locational characteristics of Iranian performance art in the traditional Persian paintings (miniature) in the pre-modern Islamic era. In the history of Iranian performance art, there are limited documents to recognize the characteristics of space and place. However, Iranian culture has many potentials to preserve performance arts. The most important way to reach these potentials is dramaturgy. In Iranian tradition, the principles and main elements of any cultural fields that are subject to restraint could be preserved in other areas. Accordingly, traditional Persian paintings were selected as the sources which possibly contain some features of the Iranian performance arts. Herein, the efforts of painters to create a composition from the elements of performance art in a picture are dramaturgy. Therefore, Persian paintings contain valuable information to analyze the Iranian performance art. Moreover, these paintings have been traditionally drawn to illustrate the Iranian literary, mystical and scientific books. One of these famous painters is Behzā d, who had a chance to deal with theoretical aspects of various subjects such as theater. Therefore, there is a possibility that the theoretical aspects of performance art have been considered in his paintings. It is in contrast with the opinion that Iranian performance art has been preserved by non-educational persons who did not know the theoretical aspects of theater. These paintings could be also resources of the Iranian urban mindscape to recognize places for setting up a traditional theater. A mindscape is a general picture of a place and mental factors including cultural, historical, and memorial events. Herein, the main objectives are to find the relationship between the paintings' subject matter and types of Iranian dramaturgical subjects as well as the features of stage and space to illustrate these subjects. To this aim, the selected paintings have dramatic themes and suitable locations for performance art. Results have revealed that most subject matters of these paintings contain Iranian dramaturgical subjects such as Siavash Pass on Fire. Besides, some paintings contain more information about the performance art locations and mindscapes than associated books. For example, more details of a real location for dramaturgical events, like Behistun as a traditional mindscape, have been painted. The paintings illustrate various stages like proscenium, round, thrust, makeshift, traverse stages, which have been performed permanently or temporarily in coffeehouses, private houses and historical venues such as ancient caravanserais and cultural landscapes. Moreover, to a better illustration of a site for theater set up or a gathering place for performance art, different compositions of symbols, colors, forms, and figures have been used. Different types of Iranian performance arts in these paintings are Ta'zieh (passion play), traditional puppetry, Ru-Howzi (social theater) Naqqā li (narration) Siah-Bazi (comical acts on politics) Saye-Bazi (Shadow plays), Pardeh-Khaani (screen-based storytelling). Even though these paintings do not illustrate a real performance art, they reflect a performative manner and dramaturgical process in Iranian culture. It should be noted that this research is performed based on historical research methodology and reflection approach in the sociology of art.

How language represents the world? This is a question has long been a major concern of philosophers of language. Many philosophers, such as, Frege, Russell and the early Wittgenstein, thought that understanding the structure of language could illuminate the nature of actual world. They believe that the main business of a declarative sentence, contrary to a performative one, beside expressing an epistemic - semantic entity, which is called "proposition", is to describe, or report, some state of affairs, which it must do either truly or falsely. But in Austin view there is no substantial distinction between declarative and performative utterances. Since in uttering the sentence we are doing some actions, as well, such as, making statements, descriptions, applications and promises, giving orders, offering apologies, and so on. These actions, which are called , speech acts, are of many types. Any utterance has a performative aspect, or illocutionary force, that determines the kind of action which is performed. Moreover, any utterance has some effects on the hearer, which are called perlocutionary acts. According to speech Acts Theory, speech acts, including illocutionary and perloctionary acts, are not only subjected to semantic and epistemic rules governing what is being said by a speaker, but further they are a matter of governing rules and presumptions of speech Acts Theory, such as the speaker and hearer intentions, their attitudes and the mutual contextual beliefs between them. Speech Acts Theory has some important consequences and effects on Semantics and Religious Epistemology, which will be discussed shortly in this article.