Pragmatics
azam estaji; elham ziyayi; Atiyeh Kamyabi Gol
Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript, Available Online from 03 February 2024
Abstract
Mathematical concepts including counting, comparing and the spatial value of numbers is one of the most fundamental fields that has many effects on individuals’ life. In the process of counting, the child must retrieve the phonetic representations of numerical words. This is possible through phonological ...
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Mathematical concepts including counting, comparing and the spatial value of numbers is one of the most fundamental fields that has many effects on individuals’ life. In the process of counting, the child must retrieve the phonetic representations of numerical words. This is possible through phonological working memory. In this research, the authors are trying to study the effect of phonemic awareness training on the performance of female students in the second grade of elementary school in the area of mathematical concepts.So the present study was done on 140 second grade female students of Quchan elementary school in the academic year of 1401-1402. 70 students were selected as the control group and 70 students were selected as the experimental group. The experimental group was exposed to phonological awareness training during 10 sessions of 30-35 minutes. A pre-test and a post-test were conducted from both groups both in the phonological awareness and mathematical concepts. The results showed that teaching phonological awareness skills in mathematical concepts has a significant effect on female students in the second grade of elementary school. Thus the results of the present study are in line with the results of other studies conducted in this field. But the different aspect of this research was the dividing of phonemic awareness skill based on age and just considering the field of mathematical concepts specifically. In this research, only the field of concepts has been discussed.
Omid Darbar; Hamidreza Mirzajani; Azam Estaji; Abas Sheikholeslami
Volume 14, Issue 2 , July 2022, , Pages 1-29
Abstract
Since suicide notes are the only reliable documents in suspicious deaths named as suicide in special branches, determining whether they are real or fake may play undeniable role in recognition of murder and subsequent judicial decisions in initial stages. The question is that “what approaches except ...
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Since suicide notes are the only reliable documents in suspicious deaths named as suicide in special branches, determining whether they are real or fake may play undeniable role in recognition of murder and subsequent judicial decisions in initial stages. The question is that “what approaches except common ones such as fake, handwriting as well as signature expertise can be used to recognize fake or real notes in our country with experimental history than scientific”? Since content notes are filled with words and phrases called “linguistic inputs”, legal linguistics can be considered internationally alongside with other sciences as forensic medicine and forensic psychiatry and its findings in legal fields indicates a new and scientific approach in determining fake or real notes.In this paper, we are going to identify more repeatable contents in notes by analyzing 30 real notes using Brown& Clark thematic analysis and test the findings by Binomial test to introduce more repeatable and generalizable contents as distinctive features of real notes.
Discourse analysis
azam estaji
Volume 12, Issue 2 , December 2020, , Pages 177-202
Abstract
A suicide note is any kind of text that is left behind before a person commits suicide or intends to commit suicide. These texts have been analyzed by linguists and psychologists among others to get a better understanding of the suicide act. The present paper first reviews how these notes have been analyzed ...
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A suicide note is any kind of text that is left behind before a person commits suicide or intends to commit suicide. These texts have been analyzed by linguists and psychologists among others to get a better understanding of the suicide act. The present paper first reviews how these notes have been analyzed . In the second part of the paper, four Farsi suicide notes are presented and based on Prokofyeva (2013) are analyzed. According to her, a clear statement of reasoning should be present in genuine suicide notes either with a direct statement or an implied one. The ‘clear statement’ of why the suicide takes place is an integral part of almost every genuine suicide note Prokofyeva (2013) examined, as it is an aim of its author to explain why such a decision has been made. As for the structure of suicide notes, each note consists of the following components: a- Form of address (more often someone specific) b - Introduction) c- Culmination/body ( d - Conclusion/closing words (farewell; signature; post-scriptum; ). The analysis of Farsi notes which vary between 5 to18 words, shows that all of them state clearly the reason for committing suicide and express their last feelings (the first note expresses anger and puts the blame on someone, the second note expresses relief and forgiveness while the last one expresses hatred.) Considering the four components of a note, the first note which is very short, only has the introduction component. Other notes which are longer, have three components: introduction, body, conclusion or form of address. The ‘clear statement’ of why the suicide takes place is common to all the short notes analyzed. This paper emphasizes on the need to build a corpus of Farsi suicide notes for future studies in this interdisciplinary area.
Fakhteh Nakhavali; Azam Estaji; Atiye Kamyabi Gol
Volume 11, Issue 1 , May 2019, , Pages 85-110
Abstract
Extended Abstract
Introduction
Man achieves a multitude of purposes through social interaction. Social interactions dictate how we behave in society and sometimes in order to elude from various responsibilities, man resorts to lying. “Lie” can be defined in many different ways and based on ...
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Extended Abstract
Introduction
Man achieves a multitude of purposes through social interaction. Social interactions dictate how we behave in society and sometimes in order to elude from various responsibilities, man resorts to lying. “Lie” can be defined in many different ways and based on the fields of study and schools of thought, where the definition comes from, it can have an array of various subcategories. A “lie” can be defined as denying the truth or providing intentionally false statements. Lie has been defined based on sociological, psychological, philosophical, educational, and psycholinguist factors; however, it is primarily a speech act and should therefore be studied based on linguistic factors (Meibauer, 2011). The present research aimed at analyzing the relation between different variables such as age, gender, field of study, religious orientation, and geographical region (city or place in which the related participants have grown up in), and speech act of lie, and also studying the speech act of lie in Persian to determine its semantic features and to analyze this speech act in Persian as compared to English.
Review of Literature
Various Iranian researchers have studied the concept of lying in Iran (Seilanian Tousi, 2000; Sharif Asgari, 2011; Atrak & Mollabashi, 2012; Shafagh, 2014; Rezazadeh, 1988; Atrak, 2009) and they all conclude that lying is a strategy used by Iranians to deny the truth and to falsify information. Based on Coleman and Kay’s theory, the definition of lie prototype includes three features: 1) P is false. 2) S believes P to be false. 3) In uttering P, S intends to deceive. Results show that the lie prototype in Persian includes the three basic features of giving the asserted part of information, giving false information and belief, and communicating form of deception. So, Persian and English are similar in defining the speech act of lie based on Coleman and Kay’s theory (1981).
Method
The present research is a descriptive, analytical, and field study. This research aims to analyze the relation between different variables such as age, gender, field of study, religious orientation, geographical region (city or place in which the related participants have grown up in) and speech act of lie, and also to study the speech act of lie in Persian to determine its semantic features and to analyze this speech act in Persian as compared with English. In this research, Allport’s religious approaches’ questionnaire and also Coleman and Kay’s questionnaire were used. These questionnaires were given to 280 postgraduate students studying in 8 different fields at the faculty of Literature and Humanities, at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. Choosing the participants was based on a voluntary basis and the number of participants was based on Morgan’s table of generalizability. For analyzing the data, SPSS software (Version 22) was utilized.
Results and Discussion
In order to show the possible interconnection between variables under study (age, gender, field of study, geographical region, and religious perspective) and lie as a speech act, correlation was used. The results from Allport’s religious approaches show there is only a meaningful correlation between the variable of geographical region and speech act of lie since the level of significance of the test for these two variables was .093 that 0.05>.093. The level of significance for the rest of the related variables including gender, age, field of study, and religious perspective was more than 0.05 which shows there is no relation between these variables and the speech act of lie.
Conclusion
Based on the obtained results, all characteristics highlighted by Coleman and Kay's prototype can be seen in Persian. These characteristics include: a) It contains a finite list of properties; b) The individual properties on the list are each treated as dichotomous, c) Membership in the lie category is a gradient phenomenon; d) Satisfaction of each property on the list contributes to the over-all degree of membership of an utterance in the category lie; e) Each property on the list does not necessarily contribute equally to the degree of membership of an utterance in the category; that is, properties may be of differential importance in constituting the prototype; and, f) In this gradient framework, the bivalent concepts of the 'necessity' and 'sufficiency' of properties do not apply (Coleman & Kay, 1981).
Theses obtained results are in line with Cole (1996) who compared English and Arabic, and Hardin (2010) who compared Spanish and English. All the above studies highlight the importance of cultural factors which underlie an individual’s perspective regarding the definition of lie. Based on the correlations used in the present research, only the geographical region variable correlated with “lie” as a speech act, which could show that if one grew up in the suburbs as compared to metropolitan areas, their definition and perspective towards “lie” could be different.
Ali Abdollahi Nezhad; Ali Izanloo; Azam Estaji
Volume 9, Issue 17 , July 2018, , Pages 153-174
Abstract
Extended abstract
1- Introduction
When a word resembles the meaning of another word, both words are in the same ideal cognitive domain and follow a certain conceptual cognitive pattern. Such associations suggest important relations between these concepts that can be because of so many reasons like ...
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Extended abstract
1- Introduction
When a word resembles the meaning of another word, both words are in the same ideal cognitive domain and follow a certain conceptual cognitive pattern. Such associations suggest important relations between these concepts that can be because of so many reasons like cultural priorities. Making a new association and eventually a new concept out of a new word, depends on the importance and the state of the association. Linguists' emphasis on the existence of focal and prominent meaningful entity for every single one of the concepts has been the fountain of many investigations for determining various meanings of a concept and its focal meaning in the form of semantic network.
2- Theoretical Framework
Some similar researches involve: (Achresh & Jahromi, 2015), (Afrashi et al., 2012), (Afrashi et al., 2015), (Afshari & Samet, 2014), (Ghavam Esperghem, 2015), (Golshaieb et al., 2014), (Graf, 2011), (Hesabi, 2016), (Ibañez-Moreno, 2005), (Mousavi et al., 2015). (Nasib & Izanloo, 2016), (Rasekh Mahand & Ranjbar Zarabi, 2013), (Rezaee & Rafiee, 2016), (Seargeant, 2009), (Sorahi, 2012), (Zahedi & Mohammadi Ziyarat, 2011).The common point that can be found among these researches and similar ones is that they try to determine different meanings of a word and draw its semantic network. The point that has usually been ignored is the grounds or inspirations that these meanings originated from. In the current research, based on the assumption that meanings are inspired by concrete or abstract features (social, psychological, cultural, etc.), the motivations of the meanings of bread in Farsi are going to be investigated.
3- Methodology
For collecting different meanings of bread, 18 Persian dictionaries and a corpus containing more than 2,600,000 words were covered. Meanings were elicited by referring to dictionaries' explanation for that special entry, then the prominent feature of bread that played the most salient role in making the meaning, was gained. For instance, the idiom "naan-e sefid-e falak" that could literally be translated as "white bread of sky" means (is record ed in the dictionaries as) "moon". When it is asked what feature of bread has inspired this meaning, it leads to "appearance": Similarity between a white round bread and the moon. Therefore, the shape and appearance of bread has been the ground and motivation for this idiom.
4- Results
In this research, the role of experience in creating various secondary meanings is studied. According to Fillmore (1982), meaningful elements in a language are created based on recurring experiences. Concepts are frames containing a collection of experiences that in contact with new phenomenon, one of their aspects can be triggered. On the other hand, for using the idiom "yek loghmeh naan"/"a bite of bread" meaning "a little amount of food or money", the concept of amount has been triggered, or in another idiom "nan-daani"/"bread's place" meaning "stomach", the place of bread has been triggered. Therefore, it can be said that tracing the semantic triggers of concepts leads to valuable information about different aspects of life and culture of societies.
5- Conclusion
According to Lakoff and Johnson (2003), our conceptual system is the result of our interaction with our culture and physical environment. It is interesting that in some idioms the meaning of bread refers to high value and in some to low value. The low value of bread can be traced through history in periods that Farsi speakers were suffering from drought and famine and vice versa, the high value of bread can be traced in periods that this foodstuff has been abundant. This research showed that meanings are not arbitrary and there are not any meanings out of the circle of features and interaction concerning them. It approved results of Buccino, Colagè, Gobbi & Bonaccorso, (2016) that by neuro-physiological investigation and analyzing the linguistic meaning reached to the conclusion that neurological structure of brain of human is responsible for perceiving sensual, dynamic and emotional meaning of words that proves embodied meaning in linguistics. The most important role of embodiment is generating commonalities from experiences of various people in a language society. These experiences build the infrastructure of common linguistic meanings.
Abolfazl Shahali; Azam Estaji; Ali Alizadeh
Volume 9, Issue 16 , November 2017, , Pages 15-43
Abstract
Extended Abstract
1- Introduction
Discourse analysis is primarily concerned with not only investigating the formal features of discourse like syntax and phonology, but also considering the social functions of the discourse produced by language users in various social and cultural contexts (Van Dijk, ...
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Extended Abstract
1- Introduction
Discourse analysis is primarily concerned with not only investigating the formal features of discourse like syntax and phonology, but also considering the social functions of the discourse produced by language users in various social and cultural contexts (Van Dijk, 1997). A long history of literature in the field has examined various discourses including educational, scientific, literary, and political. However, comparative analysis of the literature reveals three ignored points: first, the study of the historical characteristics; second, the study of the discourse of those political leaders who have gained power based on an approach other than democracy; and third, the importance of analyzing the authorities’ discourse in addressing people. Political leaders have always been concerned with gaining legitimacy since all governments are set to build their legitimacy on an intellectual principle (Fukuyama, 2015). Therefore, the current study employs Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2014) systemic functional grammar and aims to represent the concepts of power (authority), legitimacy, and social inequalities introduced by Max Weber (1968) in Rezashah’s discourse in addressing the people.
2- Methodology
This research is founded on Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2014) systemic functional grammar. Since few speeches and messages have been left from Rezashah (Fardust, 1990), all Rezashah’s speeches and messages (7 cases) delivered to people were collected using the library method and then analyzed based on the proposed framework. Consequently, the concepts of power, legitimacy, and social inequalities were represented in Rezasha’s discourse.
3- Discussion
The results of the study indicate that 56 and 51 clauses of Rezashah’s discourse are structured by relational and material processes, respectively. As such, the relational process is used to describe features and compare the situation of the Iranian society in different issues before and after Pahlavi dynasty. The material process also aids audience experience various events like “providing people with happiness and welfare”, “prescribing misery”, “avoiding traitors”, etc. Moreover, employing terms like “[people] have to know….”, “[people] have to consider” and “[people] have to understand” all indicate Rezashah’s attempt to let his audience be aware of the world in his mind. Examining the verbal process also reveals that Rezashah has used verbs like “announcing”, “commanding” and “notifying” to express his wishes, desires and demands. In addition, the pronoun “I” with 35 cases, either overt or covert, is the most frequent subject of Rezashah’s discourse, followed by the pronoun “you” and other noun phrases referring to his audience. It is interesting to note that “Ghoshoon”-army force- has a particular status in Rezashah’s discourse as a subject, which seems to have its root in his military concerns. Mozar-e-Eltezami is the most frequent tense in his discourse. The analyses reveal that negative polarity is used to remind the women’s problems and the disadvantaged status of the society in the past dynasty. Rezashah has never used the elements of suspicion in his discourse, yet has used Mozar-e-Eltezami and various terms like “never”, “without exception”, “undoubtedly”, “always”, “must”, “mustn’t” and “it is necessary….” to show a high degree of certainty and the importance of his messages and speeches. Conjunction together with conjunctive adjunct, which improves the coherence of texts, constitutes 28.88% of the thematic structure of his discourse. Passivization is another important factor that has enhanced the coherence of Rezashah’s discourse. Conjunction with 18.27% (85 cases) has the major role in the cohesion of his discourse. Collocations (68 cases), ellipsis (13.97%), repetition (60 cases), and reference (9.46%) are the other cohesive devices that increase the cohesion of Rezashah’s discourse.
4- Conclusion
Based on the findings of the study, Rezashah always talks about “must” and “mustn’t” and tries to remind his demands and desires to “you”-his audience. He portrays himself as the nation’s savior from misery they had experienced in the past and threatens them not to support the traitors, otherwise they are doomed to death. In fact, Rezashah’s ideology which has been depicted in the form of three major processes and 62 cases of Mozar-e-Eltezami has transformed his discourse into a saber-rattling field against “you”. Accordingly, Rezashah’s discourse involves idiosyncratic characteristics such as “punishment procedure”, “obligation”, “violence”, “with us or against us”, “impatience”, and “exclusiveness”. Regarding the concept of legitimacy, since Rezashah’s power was not inherited, he himself was not a charismatic leader and he ascended to throne without a democratic election, his government was not consistent with any types of legitimated government described by Weber (1968). In fact, according to Van Dijk’s (2001) idea, his leadership enjoys a negative legitimacy. Finally, the most salient instances of social inequalities in his discourse are concluded as follows:
• Kashf-e-Hijab (unveiling) in a Shia’a society like Iran
• Compelling people to accept his son as his successor without any democratic election
• Forcing people to follow and support his dynasty and threatening the aggressors and traitors
azam estaji
Volume 7, Issue 13 , September 2015, , Pages 1-19
Abstract
All languages have different terms for expressing kinship relations and it seems that beyond these differences one can find similarities in the different systems of kinship terms. Morgan (1871) is the first anthropologist who studied kinship systems in different languages and came to this conclusion ...
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All languages have different terms for expressing kinship relations and it seems that beyond these differences one can find similarities in the different systems of kinship terms. Morgan (1871) is the first anthropologist who studied kinship systems in different languages and came to this conclusion that kinship systems reflect social systems. Mordoch (1949) another anthropologist, distinguished 6 different patterns in kinship systems. Most anthropologists put their emphasis on studying members of a canonical family including father and mother, sister and brother, son and daughter, wife and husband.
On the other hand, Kroeber (1909) believed that kinship systems are linguistic systems, so they must be studied using linguistic methods. His concern was finding semantic categories that were expressed by kinship terms. He distinguished 8 semantic categories and believed that by using them one can describe kinship terms and their meanings. This was a preface to componential analysis.
Greenberg (1966) used the concept of markedness to study the cognitive-linguistic system of kinship terms. By studying kinship terms in more than 120 languages, he suggested kin terms markedness hierarchies, namely the following: “an ascending kin term is unmarked ] against a descending kin term of equal genealogical distance from the anchor ; a kin term descending lineal kinship is unmarked against the one denoting collateral kinship; and a kin term denoting a kin type of a generation more remote from the anchor is marked against a kin term denoting a kin type of a generation less remote from the anchor.”
According to Hage (1999) the importance of Greenberg’s work lies in these: a. He paid attention to the effect of social and cognitive factors in forming kinship systems, b. He provided a method for diachronic study of kinship terms, and c. By studying the prototype effects on forming kinship systems, he created a link between anthropology and cognitive sciences.
In the second part of this paper I am going to describe and explain the historical development of kinship terms in Persian and show the effects of the loss of gender inflection on these terms.
In Old Iranian period, all members of a canonical family including father, mother, sister, brother, daughter, son, wife, and husband have distinct terms:
napāt (grandson) , pitar (father) , pussa (son) , (puθra Avs.), brātar (brother), mātar (mother), hamātar (having one mother) hamapitar (having one father) (Kent, 1950).
Since in Old Iranian period there is a patrilineal descent system (a system in which an individual is considered to belong to the same descent group as his or her father), father’s sisters and brothers have also distinct terms, their difference is marked by gender inflection: tūirya (father’s brother), (father's sister) tūiryā. There are no such terms in the texts for the maternal side.
Middle Iranian period is characterized by the reduced inflection of the noun and verb, so the gender distinction in kin terms must have been marked in a different way. There are no records of terms related to father’s and mother’s sisters and brothers in middle Iranian period. There are only records of the canonical family kin terms:
xvāhar (sister), pitar (father), mātar (mother) , pus (son) , duxt (daughter) , duxtar (daughter), brātar (brother), zan (wife), (Frahvashi,1378)
In new Persian period again we have canonical family kin terms. Besides,, distinct terms for father’s and mother’s sisters and brothers (i.e. xâle, dâyi, amme, amu) are borrowed from Turkish and Arabic. These terms mark gender and generation distinctions.
As for the non-canonical kin terms, we have paternal kin terms in Old Persian on the one hand and the paternal and maternal kin terms in New Persian borrowed from Arabic and Turkish on the other hand. There is a gap in the development of these kin terms in Middle period. It seems that investigating Iranian dialects and having a closer look at Middle Iranian texts may help us recover these terms.
This state of affairs shows that for Persian speakers gender distinction in kin terms is crucial. After the language has lost its inflectional gender system, Persian speakers have compensated this loss by borrowing from a language which already had this gender distinction, but the borrowed words show the gender distinction lexically.
In the end, it must be added that from a typological point of view, kinship terms in Persian correspond to markedness hierarchies suggested by Greenberg.
Key words: kinship terms; typology; historical linguistics.
References (in Persian)
Behnam, J. (1971). Family and kinship structures in Iran. Tehran: Kharazmi Publications.
Farahvashi, B. (1973). Persian culture in Pahlavi Dynasty. Tehran: Society for National Heritage Publications.
Farahvashi, B. (1999). ArdeshirBābakān’s record. Tehran: University of Tehran Press.
KoushkJalali, A. (1997). Kinship terminology in Persian language, ambiguity in the meaning and use of words. The Letter of Academy,3(3), 113-130.
Mazaheri, A. K. (1994). Iranian family in pre-Islamic period (A. Tavakol, Trans.). Tehran: Ghatreh Publications. (Original work published 1938).
Neil MacKenzie, D. (2004). A concise Pahlavi dictionary (M. Mirfakhraei, Trans.). Tehran: Institute for humanities and cultural studies. (Original work published 1994).
References (in English)
Hage, P. (1999). Marking universals and the structure and evolution of kinship terminologies: Evidence from Salish. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 5(3), 423-441.
Heath, J. G. (2006). Kinship expressions and terms. In K. Brown (Ed.), Encyclopedia of language and Linguistics (pp. 214-217). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Jonsson, N. (2001). Kin terms in grammar. In M.Haspelmath, E. König, W. Oesterreicher, & W. Raible (Eds.), Language typology and universals (pp. 1203-1214). Berlin & New York: De Gruyter Mouton.
Kent, R. G. (1953). Old Persian: Grammar, texts, lexicon. New Haven: American Oriental Society.
Fatemeh Kazemi Motlagh; Mahmoud Elyasi; Azam Estaji
Volume 7, Issue 12 , July 2015, , Pages 49-78
Abstract
The paper aims at describing verbal tense system in the dialect of Adkan, a village in Khorasan-e Shomali Province in the northeast of Iran. It seems that this dialect is one of the Tati Dialects in the area. Since the main objective was to collect the oldest dialect, the data was gathered by interviewing ...
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The paper aims at describing verbal tense system in the dialect of Adkan, a village in Khorasan-e Shomali Province in the northeast of Iran. It seems that this dialect is one of the Tati Dialects in the area. Since the main objective was to collect the oldest dialect, the data was gathered by interviewing some educated and uneducated old and middle-aged speakers. This study which is the first systematic study on Adkan Dialect shows that it has a verbal tense system different from that of Standard Persian. This dialect lacks some of the tenses used in Standard Persian; besides, there are some verbal endings which are not common in Standard Persian.
Amir Mohammadian; Azam Estaji; Shahla Sharifi; Mohammadreza Pahlevannezhad
Volume 6, Issue 10 , July 2014, , Pages 145-166
Abstract
Pain is a phenomenon experienced more or less by all people during their lives. Since sufferers usually use language as the most important human communication tool to inform others about their pains, sentences describing pain and studying them linguistically may reveal some points. In this paper, after ...
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Pain is a phenomenon experienced more or less by all people during their lives. Since sufferers usually use language as the most important human communication tool to inform others about their pains, sentences describing pain and studying them linguistically may reveal some points. In this paper, after a short introduction to the subject and reviewing the literature, we take one of the systematic methods for analyzing the language of pain presented by M. K. Halliday as the basis of our analysis. In this approach, pain is expressedthrough a process, a noun phrase or an adjective phrase. Then, the data comprised of conversations between a doctor and 80 patients in Mashhad will be analyzed according to Halliday’s method. The analysis shows that some of the introduced processes have not been used by the Persian speaking patients to describe their pains; moreover, an additional form for pain description is observed in the data, namely pain description using an adverb phrase.
Azam Estaji; Soheila Noorbakhsh Beidokhti
Volume 4, Issue 7 , September 2013
Abstract
Feature geometry, which is a basic assumption in current phonology, is concerned with the notion that the features are not an unstructured set, but are arranged hierarchically into a constituent structure tree. According to evidences in different languages, various models have been set forth on feature ...
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Feature geometry, which is a basic assumption in current phonology, is concerned with the notion that the features are not an unstructured set, but are arranged hierarchically into a constituent structure tree. According to evidences in different languages, various models have been set forth on feature geometry framework. Exploring Persian phonological data and digging up evidences accordingly, this article tries to ascertain the model of feature geometry which would best characterize Persian phonological system.
Seddigheh Sadat Meghdari; Reza Zomorrodian; Azam Estaji; Mahdi Meshkat-o Dini
Volume 3, Issue 5 , January 2012
Abstract
The ideological discourse analysis and critical studies in social and human sciences have been of much interest recently. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) aims at discovering the negative influences of language use on the production and reproduction of power and domination relationships in society. ...
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The ideological discourse analysis and critical studies in social and human sciences have been of much interest recently. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) aims at discovering the negative influences of language use on the production and reproduction of power and domination relationships in society. Thus, social inequalities such as race, age, religious, gender and class discrimination have been substantially dealt with in this theory. As a case study, the present paper reflects the gender discrimination in child literature and its effect on the formation of child identity. To do so, ten stories about Iran-Iraq War including seven short stories and three longer ones were chosen. The stories are male-dominant in their number of characters, their activity type or participation and relevance to the war. In these stories, the women are neglected, detached, inactive and sometimes deleted. Considering the power, domination and hegemony and studying the clichéd presupposition and euphemistic and derogatory terms and so on, it is shown that inactive and neglected representation of females and the active, noticeable representation of males even the teenage and old ones during the war can help to the reproduction of the unequal power scale with the men at the powerful side and females at the powerless side.
azam Estaji
Volume 2, Issue 3 , October 2010
Abstract
In Modern Persian the interrogative pronoun, the relative pronoun and the complementizer ke are homophonous and formally identical. The present paper based on the historical data from Persian, attempts to find the cause of this identity. Do they come from the same source or is this just an accident? ...
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In Modern Persian the interrogative pronoun, the relative pronoun and the complementizer ke are homophonous and formally identical. The present paper based on the historical data from Persian, attempts to find the cause of this identity. Do they come from the same source or is this just an accident?
Harris and Campbell (1995: 282-313) on discussing the development of complex constructions make the point that “certain devices that mark subordination do indeed originate in questions and are then extended to subordination” (ibid: 308).
Examining the formal devices used for marking subordination, complementation and forming questions in Old Persian, Middle Persian and Modern New Persian shows that:
a. In Old Persian the interrogative pronoun is quite distinct from the relative pronoun and the complementizer.
b. In Middle Persian the interrogative pronoun is homophonous with the relative pronoun but the complementizer is still distinct.
c. In Early New Persian, in some cases the complementizer overlaps with the other two forms.
d. In Modern New Persian the three forms have become the homophonous Ke, formally resembling the interrogative pronoun in Old Persian.
So it seems that the Persian data give support to Harris and Campbell's point.
