Seyed Mohammad Hosseini; Aliyeh Kord Zafaranlou Kambouzia
Volume 13, Issue 2 , February 2022, , Pages 23-48
Abstract
Taking a generative phonology approach, this paper analyzes vowel harmony in verbal prefixes in the speech of middle-aged non-immigrant Mashhadi people. Over 120 simple verbs were conjugated and phonological alternations in the vowels of imperfective, and sunjunctive aspect markers as well as the negative ...
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Taking a generative phonology approach, this paper analyzes vowel harmony in verbal prefixes in the speech of middle-aged non-immigrant Mashhadi people. Over 120 simple verbs were conjugated and phonological alternations in the vowels of imperfective, and sunjunctive aspect markers as well as the negative prefix were extracted and their phonological features were studied. The results indicate that verbal prefix vowels in Mashhadi dialect harmonize with the stem vowel in backness, highness or both and that coronals block vowel harmony if the stem vowel is a low back vowel.
Zeinab Mohammad Ebrahimi Jahromi; Zahra Karimibavaryani; Aliye Kordzaferanlo; Yadollah Mansouri
Volume 13, Issue 1 , December 2021, , Pages 27-54
Abstract
This study is concerned with the factors affecting the direction of assimilation in Iranian south western languages based on Sibawayh approach. To do this, five different assimilation processes were studied in these languages. According to Dabirmoghadam (2013), the Iranian south western group of languages ...
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This study is concerned with the factors affecting the direction of assimilation in Iranian south western languages based on Sibawayh approach. To do this, five different assimilation processes were studied in these languages. According to Dabirmoghadam (2013), the Iranian south western group of languages is divided into 7 languages which are Farsi, Davani, Lori, Delvari, Larestani, Laraki and Bakhtiari. The data were gathered using several fieldwork and printed sources. Among the achievements is, the dominance of inherent features in assimilation which inherited to some consonants related to their place and manner of articulation as “inherent strength”, such as [+strident] and [+nasal]. The other dominant factor is the “positional strength” of “onset” rather than “coda” which determines the direction in assimilation. While these two factors, compete in a context, no assimilation occurs and “neutralization” will take place. Another achievement is that in these studied languages, the assimilation processes mainly occur progressively than regressively.
Mohammad Doosty; Aliyeh Kord zafaranloo; Arsalan Golfam; Abbasali Ahangar
Volume 12, Issue 1 , January 2021, , Pages 189-216
Abstract
The purpose of this research is to study phonotactics in Sistani Balo:chi dialect based on Generative Phonology. A data corpus was collected from a number of Sistani Balo:ch speakers. The results show that there are consonant clusters both in onset and coda. These consonant clusters include constraints ...
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The purpose of this research is to study phonotactics in Sistani Balo:chi dialect based on Generative Phonology. A data corpus was collected from a number of Sistani Balo:ch speakers. The results show that there are consonant clusters both in onset and coda. These consonant clusters include constraints in onset and coda. Therefore, consonants which have [-sonorant] feature cannot occur as the second member of the onset in simple and compound words. Also, two consonants with the same place of articulation cannot make cluster in onset. [r] and [w] as the second member of onset and [n] and [r] as the first member of coda are the most frequent consonants respectively. The low and front vowel [a] is the most frequent as the nucleus of syllables which have cluster in onset and coda. Obstruents, nasals and liquids are the most frequent as the second member in coda. Sonority Sequencing Principle is verified in consonant clusters of the onset and the codas which have long vowels of [i, e:, u, o:, ɑ] as the nucleus but SSP may be rejected in consonant clusters of the codas which have short vowels of [a, ɩ, ʊ] as the nucleus.
Aliyeh Kord-e Zafaranlu Kambuziya; Farzaneh Tajabadi; Ailin Firouzian Pouresfahani
Volume 11, Issue 1 , May 2019, , Pages 1-38
Abstract
Extended Abstract Introduction Weakening is the process by which a sound is turned into a sound of lesser degree of stricture or duration. Among different forms of weakening, deletion is the most complete form. Deletion is a phonological process that often occurs in continuous speech. In the sense ...
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Extended Abstract Introduction Weakening is the process by which a sound is turned into a sound of lesser degree of stricture or duration. Among different forms of weakening, deletion is the most complete form. Deletion is a phonological process that often occurs in continuous speech. In the sense that whenever the combination of phonemes result in creating an ill-form linguistic unit which is not in agreement with the phonological system of the language, a phonetic unit of the speech chain is deleted to resolve this problem. This process changes the structure of the syllable and creates an acceptable syllabic or lexical pattern coincided with the phonotactics rules and restrictions of a language. The current study aimed to shed light on the process of deletion in Standard Persian language in view of the optimality theory. The following questions were addressed in this research: 1. In what phonetic environment does the deletion process arrive in standard Persian language? 2. Among consonants and vowels, which of them is exposed to the deletion process? 3. What is the category and kind of words in which the deletion process appeared? Review of Literature On the phonological process of deletion, valuable studies have been carried out that can be broadly divided into two categories: standard Persian language researches and studies on different dialects of Persian. In the case of different dialects of Persian, the following studies can be mentioned: Kalbasi, (1991), Shokri, (1995), Borughani, (2004), Alamdari (2005), Korde Zafaranlu Kambuzia and Sha'bani (2007), Kambuziya and Nemati (2007), Sharifi, (2008), Khodabakhshi (2008), Jabarooti (2010), Razmdide (2011), Kazemaini (2011), Miri (2011), Fadaei (2011), Soleimani (2012), Kambuziya, Tajabadi, Esmailimatin, and Khordbin, S.(2016) etc. Furthermore, Lazard (1992), Meshkatodini, (1995), Bijankhan (2006), Kord-e Zafaranlu Kambuziya (2007), Sadeghi (2007), Jam (2009) etc. have studied Standard Persian. A review of the research literature indicates that all studies have focused on only one aspect of this process and so far no comprehensive study has been conducted, especially on the Standard Farsi, which clearly demonstrates the need for the present study. Method This descriptive-analytical study describes and explains the phonological process of deletion in the Standard Persian language. For this purpose, in addition to the authors’ intuition and linguistic knowledge, written sources such as books, theses in dialectology and dialect dictionaries have been used to collect the research data. In order to extract the data, in addition to the Standard Farsi, a total of 25 other language varieties were randomly selected. Data extracted from these linguistic varieties were examined only as an evidence to validate the results of this study. Totally, 881 samples from Standard Farsi and 200 samples from different dialects were extracted. Then these data were examined in terms of the type of linguistic unit removed, the context and also the structure and lexical category of the word in which the deletion process occurs. Furthermore, the percentage of units affected by the process was calculated. Finally, these data were analyzed within the framework of standard optimality theory (Prince & Smolensky, 1993). Results and Discussion In this section, we examine the different types of deletion in the Standard Persian language in terms of the deleted unite, the position and context in which the deletion take place. A close look at the data shows that the deleted unit can be consonant, vowel, consonant-vowel sequence, or vowel-consonant sequence. Depending on the number of deletions in each datum, it can be categorized into single deleted item group or multiple deleted items group. In items of the second group, two consonants or one consonant with a consonant-vowel sequence or vowel-consonant sequence, are deleted. It is worth noting that the deletion of only one consonant is the most frequent ones; however the deletion of two consonants is more varied than other types of deletion. Among all kind of consonants, stops make a greater contribution to the deletion process and fricatives rank second. In addition, among stop consonants, the share of coronal consonant and among fricatives, the contribution of glottals is greater than others. In multiple deleted items group, deletion of stop-stop consonants accounts for the most. On the other hand, examination of data in which only vowel deletion has occurred (51 cases) indicates that out of the six Persian vowels, only three short vowels (a, e, o) are deleted in a single word. Of the 47 cases of vowel-consonant deletion, 83% of deleted vowels were short ones. In addition, out of the 38 consonant-vowel deletions, only 18% of the deleted vowels were long vowels. Regarding the relationship between deletion and number of word syllables, it can be said that among the one-to-five syllable words, the three syllable words have the highest and the two syllable words have the least tendency toward the deletion process. With regard to the relation of deletion to lexical type and category, it seems that words with the lexical category of noun and derivative structure have the highest share. In terms of the position in which deletion occurs (initial, middle, final position of syllable or word, syllables boundary, the boundary of two morphemes), it can be said that in Standard Persian there is only a middle and ending deletion, and the final deletion is much more than the middle deletion. Analysis of the results demonstrated that consonants underwent the deletion process more than vowels. Meanwhile stop consonants and short vowels (a, e, o) were ranked first in deletion process as compared with others. The findings also indicated that derivations, nouns, and two or three syllable words were more likely to be deleted. Furthermore, last syllable of the words tends to be the best place for applying the deletion process. Conclusion It can be said that when some of the universal principles like Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP) and Syllable Contact Law (SCL) are violated, a series of phonological processes, including the deletion process, are used to modify the existing structure. In addition, the presence of heavy syllables or an abundance of light syllables creates a kind of asymmetry in words. This type of sequence is both productively and audibly problematic. In these cases, phonological processes, such as deletion, operate to bring the desired structure as close as possible to the optimal syllable of the language studied.
Ailin Firoozian Pooresfahani; Ferdows Aghagolzadeh; Arsalan Golfam; Aliyeh Kord-e Zafaranlu Kambuziya
Volume 10, Issue 19 , January 2019, , Pages 1-21
Abstract
Extended Abstract Introduction Although it is believed that language is the sheer truth (Cook, 2003), this fact should not be ignored that language specifically the socio-political discourse is sometimes used to conceal the truth and conveys the purport the way that affects people and persuade them ...
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Extended Abstract Introduction Although it is believed that language is the sheer truth (Cook, 2003), this fact should not be ignored that language specifically the socio-political discourse is sometimes used to conceal the truth and conveys the purport the way that affects people and persuade them to accept the untruth. The translator who is responsible for transferring the content that in turn, includes meta-language elements such as culture, history, politics, authority, and different ideologies from the source language (SL) to the target language (TL) and by manipulating and altering the linguistic forms of source language, he affects the readers' schools of thoughts and feelings and finally lead them to a certain ideology (Mason, 2010; Penycook, 2004). therefore, it can be said that in a translation process, the translator can convey the source of language's content to the target language the way he likes by applying diverse strategies and techniques, consciously or unconsciously (Schäffner, 2007, 2009). As far as the way a socio-political translator’s choice of any of the linguistic forms considerably influences the reader’s mind, the research aims to augment the precision of translations done by students of English translation from different social classes, to improve people's critical thinking, to find and analyze manipulative syntactic structures of socio-political texts, and to express translators’ ideology or the dominant ideology of their society. Theoretical Framework The framework of this paper is based on critical discourse analysis and socio-cognitive Van Dijk’s approach (2004). His analytical method, suggest two levels of analysis: macro level and micro level. Macro-level is related to the analysis of meta-linguistic elements such as ideology. For investigating this level in this study, “ideological square” defined by Van Dijk (2004) will be used. The concept of this square based on polarization, designate the following dimensions: Emphasizing our positive actions or properties Mitigating their positive properties and actions Emphasizing their negative properties and actions Mitigating our negative properties and actions Microstructure as another level is related to the analysis of the text in terms of linguistic forms. This research focuses on all syntactic strategies which might be applied by translators’ in order to represent their ideologies. Methodology Among approximately 600 texts collected from different written English socio-political content that were translated to Persian language and were limited to national, international or regional issues related to subjects about Iran, 250 utterances were selected for analyzing. These excerpts had the most obvious syntactic manipulation done by Persian translators. They were taken from written news, interviews, resolutions and the like from different sources such as websites, press, and magazines. Searching all syntactic strategies and manipulations, the Persian translators’ ideology were then challenged within CDA framework and Van Dijk’s theoretical pattern (2004). After that, Van Dijk’s ideological square was used to analyze how Our and Their actions and properties were polarized and how they were reflected in translation were examined. In the end, the frequency of the applied syntactic strategies was calculated. Results and Discussion In this part of the research according to Van Dijk’s theoretical pattern (2004), the frequency and percentage of each syntactic manipulations including eight strategies (word order, passivization, topicalization, nominalization, addition, deletion, modality and tense shift) which were used to manipulate the syntactic structures of English (ST) in order to convey Persian translator’s dominant or intended ideology, are excluded and analyzed. Conclusion and Suggestions The conclusions show that the syntactic strategies and manipulations do have a salient role in representing Persian translators’ ideologies in English written translated socio-political texts through the polarization of us and them. In other words, the effectiveness of syntax, manipulations, and changes made on syntactic structures and the Van Dijk’s theoretical pattern (2004) syntactic strategies could considerably echo the Persian translators’ ideologies in translated socio-political English discourses. Hence, studying these analyses clearly demonstrates that the major strategies or strategies used for emphasizing and mitigating actions in the content that Van Dijk explained in his ideological square has been significantly effective in justifying syntactic changes and the manipulations done by Persian translators. Also, comparing syntactic frequencies showed that the findings of the mostly applied strategies such as deletion and addition represent that among all such strategies, Persian translators pick the clearest and most direct way to express intended ideologies and hitherto, they have been trying to affect the meaning and the ideology of the target language indirectly. As far as the current research chose to study syntax among different discourse terms, studying other terms can show a more comprehensible picture of changes that represent the efforts translators have made to demonstrate beliefs, principles, personal and social culture through words, structures, and ideological meanings.
Seyed Mohammad Hosseini; Ferdows Aghagolzadeh; Aliyeh Kord Zaferanlou Kambouzia; Arsalan Golfam
Volume 9, Issue 17 , July 2018, , Pages 121-152
Abstract
Extended abstract
1- Introduction
Recent research on im/politeness in interpersonal pragmatics has witnessed a move away from Brown and Levinson’s (1987) much criticized face-saving theory (e.g., Eelen, 2001; Watts, 2003) towards more relational and interactional models that approach face and politeness ...
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Extended abstract
1- Introduction
Recent research on im/politeness in interpersonal pragmatics has witnessed a move away from Brown and Levinson’s (1987) much criticized face-saving theory (e.g., Eelen, 2001; Watts, 2003) towards more relational and interactional models that approach face and politeness as distinct concepts (Arundale, 1999, 2006, 2009, 2010; Terkourafi, 2007; O’Driscoll, 2007). One consequence of this is the call to investigate the emic concept of face, as it is understood by ordinary people, before any theoretical notion of face can be designated (Arundale, 1999, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2013; Bargiela-Chiappini, 2003; Haugh, 2009, 2013b; Haugh & Bargiela-Chiappini, 2010). This research is a response to this call and tries to analyze emic understandings of the concept of āberu (lit. water-of-face) as the closest equivalent of face in the Iranian culture.
2- Literature Review
Despite numerous researches on im/politeness in Persian, very few people have directly addressed the concept of face in the Iranian culture. Koutlaki (2002, 2009) argues that ehterām and shakhsiat are two aspects of face in the Iranian culture. Sharifian (2007) and Izadi (2017) offer āberu as the Persian equivalent of face in this culture. However, none of them does an ethnographic study of āberu idioms and collocations.
3- Methodology
An ethnographic approach is adopted. Ethnography is a method used to describe everyday human behavior, relying heavily on participant observation in natural settings (Leeds-Hurwitz, 2005). To gather the data, ethnographic field notes were taken of the actual uses of āberu and its idiomatic expressions and collocations in everyday conversations, TV serials, websites and weblogs, paying special attention to all possibly relevant contextual clues. The instances were then semantically analyzed in their contexts of use and a classification of the results was made.
4- Results and Discussion
An analysis of āberu idiomatic expressions and collocations shows that the domain of interpersonal relations is understood in terms of the domain of economic activity and the conceptual metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) of “ĀBERU IS A COMMODITY” can be applied to it. The exact nature of this commodity is ‘water’, which has always been a rare and hard-to-find resource in the dry and arid climate of Iran. Āberu is the most valuable commodity a person, or group, can ‘possess’ that can be ‘spilled’, ‘bought’, ‘sold’, ‘pawned’, ‘exchanged with money’, or even ‘auctioned’. The “ĀBERU IS A COMMODITY” metaphor gives the impression that āberu is ‘possessed’ by the individual (or group), but the data shows that this āberu exists only in the presence, or perception of the presence, of an ‘other’ and within an interaction. Therefore, it is not a possession of the individual but, as argued by Arundale (2006, 2009, 2013), is a property of the interaction (cf. Goffman, 1967).
The results also show four main uses of the word āberu in the Iranian culture. First, a person’s āberu is connected to the āberu (i.e., good name or reputation) of the group(s), one is associated with at the moment of interaction (Sharifian, 2007; Izadi, 2015, 2017). The group can be as small as the nuclear family or as big as a guild, the whole nation or even all humanity. The most important group is the family, which is then used as a metaphor to invoke protection of the āberu of larger social units such as a company, an organization or even the government.
Second, āberu is linked to people’s sense of competence (cf. Lim & Bowers, 1991), including possessions (i.e., competence in earning a decent living). Any perception of incompetence in the eyes of mardom, ‘the people’ or ‘significant others’ may lead to the feeling of āberurizi (lit. ‘Spillage of water-of-face’) or face loss.
Third, āberu is linked to the distinction, in Iranian life, between the two domains of zāher/birun (outside) and bāten/andarun (inside) referred to by Beeman (1986). If something that belongs to the realm of inside is revealed in the domain of outside, one may feel a loss of āberu. Things that must not be revealed in the outside cover a large list, including secrets, antisocial behavior or thoughts, any infringement of moral values and norms, misconduct, etc.
Finally, a person’s āberu is linked to their perceived sha’n or social status, which is defined according to age, education, rank in an organization or institutional power, occupation and gender.
Loss of āberu may lead to the feeling of sharm, i.e., shame, which then places the Iranian culture closer to the shame end of the shame/guilt (Benedict, 1946; Ho, 1976) continuum.
Āberu in the Iranian culture covers a larger extent of meanings than adab (politeness), which is considered as formal behavior appropriate to the context. Although āberu is part of the moral order (Garfinkel, 1967) against which im/politeness judgments are based (Haugh, 2013a; Kádár & Haugh, 2013), it is not accurate to equate politeness with face-saving strategies.
5- Conclusion
In the Iranian culture, my āberu in my eyes is the image I think others have of me and my āberu in others’ eyes is the image they have of me based on my social status and my verbal and nonverbal behavior. The results also indicate that while most of the descriptions of face in Goffman (1967) apply to āberu, group face, especially a family’s face, may impose a second layer of constraints on individual conduct. It is argued that āberu in Persian is both relational and interactional as claimed in Face Constituting Theory (Arundale, 1999, 2006, 2009, 2013). A person’s perceived social status influences the way people initially treat him in an interaction but this status has to be maintained and renegotiated within current interaction.
Aliyeh Kord Zafaranlu Kambuziya; Ferdows Aghagolzade; Sakineh Navidi Baghi
Volume 6, Issue 10 , July 2014, , Pages 25-49
Abstract
This research aims to explore the observance of Syllable Contact Law (SCL) in Persian simple words. To achieve this aim, 4661 contacts were extracted from 9553 simple polysyllabic words. Results show that in 45% of the syllable boundaries the sonority drops from the coda of the first syllable to the ...
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This research aims to explore the observance of Syllable Contact Law (SCL) in Persian simple words. To achieve this aim, 4661 contacts were extracted from 9553 simple polysyllabic words. Results show that in 45% of the syllable boundaries the sonority drops from the coda of the first syllable to the onset of the next one. Also in 68% of the consonant contacts in pure Persian words SCL is observed. Therefore, we conclude that although the SCL is not observed in Persian polysyllabic simple words, it is observed in most consonant contacts of pure Persian data.
Ferdows Aqa Gol Zadeh; Aliyeh Kord-e Zafaranlu Kambuziya; Eftekhar Sadat Tehrani
Volume 2, Issue 3 , October 2010
Abstract
In this paper, the writers try to define and describe the formulaic speech in Farsi. Formulaic speech is a term used in theoretical and descriptive studies of grammar to refer to utterances which lack normal syntactic or morphological characteristics. The method of the research is based on documentary ...
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In this paper, the writers try to define and describe the formulaic speech in Farsi. Formulaic speech is a term used in theoretical and descriptive studies of grammar to refer to utterances which lack normal syntactic or morphological characteristics. The method of the research is based on documentary and field work. One hundred Farsi formulaic speeches which are most popular among Farsi native speakers were chosen and two questionnaire, each one including 50 formulaic speeches and some questions, were prepared and answered by 200 Farsi speakers. Formulaic speeches are represented in Farsi as proverbs, expression/idioms and phatics. Analyzing the answers given to the questionnaires indicates that age, gender and level of education can be considered as the effective factors for using some of Formulaic speeches while for other formalic speeches no remarkable differences were observed.
