Elahe Taheri Ghaleno; Mohammad Dabirmoghaddam
Volume 11, Issue 1 , May 2019, , Pages 141-172
Abstract
Extended Abstract
Introduction
Psychologists often consider gender differences as inherent characteristics of a person, not as a social or contexual subject. Many consider gender differences as a part of the genetic structure of mankind. Others also believe that social forces influence the behavior ...
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Extended Abstract
Introduction
Psychologists often consider gender differences as inherent characteristics of a person, not as a social or contexual subject. Many consider gender differences as a part of the genetic structure of mankind. Others also believe that social forces influence the behavior of people in order to reveal gender-specific behavior (Escalera, 2009). Limited research has been done on the child gender differences in the use of language. Only two studies, Kyratzis and Ervin-Tripp (1999), and Escalera (2009), explicitly examined gender differences in useing discourse markers. Scholars suggests that there has been no research in the field of gender differences in the use of discourse markers in Persian so far.
The study of discourse markers has always been of interest to the researchers. Norrick (2001) believes that discourse markers do not create meaning, but direct the listener in a certain direction. Therefore, discourse markers can be deleted with no change in the meaning, although by deleting them, the power or the force of utterance will be less clear. According to him, discourse markers in narrative discourse have also another role. For example, discourse marker “well” is used as a sign of rejection of presupposition which is raised by another speaker, and it is clear that this is far from its adverbial meaning.
Theoretical Framework
Hansen (1998) describes discourse markers by using five concepts: grammaticalization, instructional semantics, polysemy, relevance theory, and conversation analysis. In this paper, by using Hansen's approach, we describe some of the discourse markers in the narrative context used by the subjects of this research, and we will study some of the functional roles of these discourse markers by referring to examples from corpus obtained from the subjects of this research. Then, following scholars such as Schourup (1985) and others, we will consider the core meaning of each discourse markers.
Methodology
The present research is a quantitative and descriptive study which is done on the 11207-word narrative corpus from children's storytelling. This research was conducted in Day and Bahman 1395 and Farvardin 1396 on 39 monolingual Persian-speaking Tehrani children (mean age of the all subjects was 11.57). 20 stories in creating test and 20 stories in retelling test were told by the boys. Also, 19 stories in the retelling test and 16 stories in the creating test were told by the girls participated in this research.
In the oral creating test, the children told the story of the loss of my little sister in the park for the examiner. Since the number of discourse markers, especially complex discourse markers such as (causal, contradictional, etc.) was low based on the data from the experimental group, the retelling test was also designed. In the retelling story test, the story entitled The fox that didn’t understand was selected, which has a number of complex discourse markers (e.g., such as, well, but, so). The fox that didn’t undrestand is published by Porteqal Publishing and is written by Farhad Hasanzadeh. The examiner read the story in a group and showed them pictures of the book while reading. After a short period of time, the examiner asked each subject to retell the story that the examiner had defined for them individually. The stories which were told by the subjects in both tests were recorded by a voice recorder for later analysis, then written on papers, and typed on Word software environment; finally, the discourse markers were extracted and tagged based on the standards raised in Hansen approach (1998).
Results and Discussion
Different kinds of simple discourse markers as well as the total number of narrative discourse markers used by eleven-year-old Persian-speaking girls and boys were calculated and descriptive statistics (including frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation) of the used discourse markers in narrative corpus of eleven-year-old Tehrani girls and boys in both retelling and creating story test were presented. The difference between the performance of girls and boys in this study in using discourse markers between the two groups was significant only in using discourse marker “well”.
Conclusion and Suggestions
Data analysis revealed that, in total, boys by using 349 discourse markers performed better than girls that used 314 discourse markers. But, this difference was significant only in using discourse marker "well" and there was no significant difference in using other discourse markers. The data of this research also revealed that girls used more diverse types of discourse markers with a total of 25 types in comparison with boys with a total of 20 types of discourse markers. Perhaps this is because of the girls' interest in narrating the story as well as conversation with their peers at break time at school or other contexts. The boys were playing in the school yard rather than talking.
The data analysis also showed that discourse markers representing simple function like “bQ/d, bQ/deS and vQ” with frequencies of 369> 90> 74 had the highest frequency of usage by the subjects of this study. This can be explained by the iconicity principle which, according to Debir-Moghaddam (1389), is a universal phenomenon in the language, not a specific language feature. Haiman (1980) introduced the iconicity principle. According to this principle, the sequence of the elements of the sentence is consistent with the sequence of events in real world. Hence, the use of the three above-mentioned discourse markers which indicates the sequence of events in the story, was more than that of the other discourse markers used by the children of this study. It seems that the children of this study had almost the same level of storytelling skill in both sexes. Goodwin (2001) believes that context is not important in gender differences, but that the skill of children is important to predict which group performs better. Therefore, in the future research, by teaching storytelling skill to children and having control group, we can investigate the effect of education, reading story books, and communication with peers and adults on the growth of types and numbers of discourse markers in narrative and other contexts.
Mohammad Dabirmoghaddam; sima maleki
Volume 8, Issue 14 , November 2016, , Pages 1-23
Abstract
Extended Abstract
1. Introduction
Repetition is a lingual phenomenon which in various languages and in different frames, has been studied. The whole or part of the base is repeated in this process. Hence, in Farsi language, repetition is classified by two parts, total and partial. When the base is ...
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Extended Abstract
1. Introduction
Repetition is a lingual phenomenon which in various languages and in different frames, has been studied. The whole or part of the base is repeated in this process. Hence, in Farsi language, repetition is classified by two parts, total and partial. When the base is repeated perfectly, it is called total reduplication and if some part of the base will be repeated, it is called partial reduplication (Shaghaghi, 2000: 525). Merely, in this research we consider the total reduplication.
2. Methodology
Total reduplication is a process which is made by repetition of one base or adding one functional morpheme structure. This process is divided by two kinds of proper total reduplication and added perfect repetition (middle and final). Proper total reduplication, is just made by the base. Whereas, in the total reduplication, in addition two repetitive base and functional morpheme consider in structure which in two base or after the second base are placed,( Shaghaghi, 2012:99). Moravcsik (1978) applies this repetition as increase, decrease, plural and so on. Two main approaches are obvious in the Repetitive factor: To copy of phonemic and to repeat semantic and inflectional specifications. The first approach has been introduced by Marantz (1982) which is a basically phonemic approach, but the second approach has been considered by Inkelas and Zoll (2005) which is inflectional. By view of this suggestion, it is important and it is like semantics. The pattern by Inkelas and Zoll in Morphological Doubling consist of ‟the set of semantic specifications and some added meaning” (Inkelas & Zoll: 6-7) .In order to have semantic concordance, Inklas and Zoll (2005) anticipate the existence of allomorphs from one root which are identical by semantic (Inkelas & Zoll: 9-10).
Riger (1998) believes that in various languages, repetition mostly reflects such concepts like decrease, disorder, disdain, plural, intensity, childhood, affection, perfection and continuation and he presents these concepts by function of two factors of iconicity and semantic spreading.
3. Data Analysis
The total reduplication process is called a group of compound words which is made by adding functional morpheme or base repetition and it is divided to proper total reduplication and added perfect repetition (Shaghaghi, 2012:99). The proper total reduplication only is made by base repetition. It belongs to the different topics like noun, adjective, adverb, sound, sound noun, group and sentence and concepts such as, intensity, stress, increase, abundance, continuation, count lessness or gender. They are adding to the base and sometimes alter the meaning and topic. Some repetitive pattern will not express the new meaning, rather they must be adjusted each other in order to show the new meaning. Sometimes it is gathered in figurative meaning and sometimes they are in contrast. In onomatopoeias both part do not have meaning. But almost express the repetition concepts. In Onomatopoeias solely both part have no meaning, but almost one conveys the repetition concepts. In the total reduplication, in addition two based repetition functional morpheme has a role in structure where is seen between two bases or after the second base attention to functional morpheme place, this process could be divided by the middle and the end. But if the functional morpheme will be lied between two bases, we call it the middle perfect repetition which makes novel words by proposition and middle morpheme and based repetition. In this process, some of the repetitive words from the first to the end has figurative meaning. These repetitive words not only could have alteration in output of semantic change, rather functional morpheme, but also could find the different meaning in composition of consequence.
But, at the end, added perfect repetition, frequently element lies after the base and output leads to the derivational morpheme. This process is made by adding the suffix to the second base which completes the particular meaning to the repetitive word. Some of these words are special to the colloquial and maternal style.
4. Conclusion
At the recent research, the apparent analysis and repetitive semantic process were accomplished in Persian language. Whatever is gained from the recent research data shows that in this process, Persian language has great varieties. It means that, in this process, Persian language has excessive varieties because of several meanings and structures, and possessing various kinds. Generally, at the proper total reduplication, the category of repetitive words somehow is different from the base topic and some repetitive words could not convey the novel meaning. And also, in some words, the figurative meaning is inferred. Inkelas and Zoll maintain the morpheme which leads to the root and they are identical which could be seen in Persian, too. They are different from the phoneme, but in semantic, they have concordance, like, washout, building, at the proper total reduplication according to the base, meaning of continuation, excess, intensity, plurality, gradation, distribution, condition, disorder and worriment is remarked. In Onomatopoeias, both parts have no meaning, but suggest the repetition concepts in closeness.
By virtue of proposition and middle morpheme in perfect end repetition and repetition base, the new words are made, this pattern influences the multitude of nouns, adjectives and adverbs. The result meaning by the pattern could convey sequence, encounter, continuation, increase, interference, variety, rareness, connection, disorder, intensity, stress, condition, gradation, diminution, weakening, causing to love. The study of this process as a structure and semantic, reveals that the manner of combination in patterns causes some alteration in the process of meaning and surface.
