دکتر عباسعلی آهنگر

Generative grammarians have been paying attention to the presence of classifier and quantifier projections in DP or partitive construction since the 1980s after the assignment of clausal features to DP. However, it is still controversial to consider them as projection or not in many languages, including Persian. In this regard, the current study examines the classifier and quantifier projections in Persian, while focusing on partitive construction based on Borer's (2005) exoskeletal approach. The fundamental issue of this approach is Borer's (2005) belief in the absence of any syntactic information such as grammatical categories in lexicon. The results of the exoskeletal analysis of Persian Classifier Phrase showed that the data of the present research support the existence of this projection in Persian and also, the range assigner of the open value of this phrase (DIV) in Persian are the abstract head feature and classifiers. On the other hand, the findings of this study verified the existence of the quantifier projection and determined the assigning range of its open value in Persian DP and partitive construction by cardinals, quantifiers, and some demonstratives.

Autism is one of the most common neuro-developmental disorders that can influence an individual’s cognitive and linguistic abilities. Since it is necessary to make use of both cognitive and language abilities in narrative discourse, autistic individuals face a challenge in narrative production and comprehension. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the space domain, as one of the inseparable components of each narrative, and in a broader context, narrative discourse in children with high-functioning autism and normal Persian-speaking children. To this end, the representation of some components of space such as predicates (including static, active, active-accomplishment, and semelfactive) and spatial grounds (including nouns and pronouns) in the narrative discourse of children with high-functioning autism and normal children was studied based on Hickman (2004) and Roberts, Barjastefc Delforooz and Jahani's classification (2009).

The tremendous advances in information technology (IT) have brought about extensive changes in various social and cultural fields, including language education. One of the most important changes observed in the field of language education is electronic education. Although using information technology in language teaching has many advantages, it also faces several challenges. The purpose of this research is to examine the strengths and weaknesses of electronic education and propose combined strategies to improve the situation of E-teaching and E-learning of English language in high school students in Iran.In this regard, using the descriptive-analytical method based on the SWOT matrix, the strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats of electronic education in teaching and learning English in high school students of Tehran city have been identified and combined strategies have been proposed to improve the current situation of E-teaching an E-learning of English language in high school students in Iran. The analysis of the research findings showed that the most significant strengths of electronic education are having access to education in variable and flexible time and place, attention to individual differences, reduction of distractions, the progression of all learners and the rapid and effective improvement of the level of English language learning in learners, and the most important weaknesses are the need for skill in using technology and high initial costs. In addition, the external factors affecting the electronic teaching and learning of English language are expressed under the title of opportunities and threats.

Human life is entwined with metaphors, and language reflects how we understand the world through metaphors. One of the most important and recent theories in the field of metaphor constructing is the theory of conceptual blending, presented by Fauconnier and Turner (1998, 2002) based on which the role of language in the creative construction of meaning, especially new metaphors, received special attention. In this theory, the conceptual domains of source and target of metaphor are presented in the form of mental spaces that are considered as input spaces and, in turn, are created from separate cognitive domains. Nevertheless, these spaces are interconnected through a relative agreement or mapping of similarities in the generic space, and the “blended space” results from the creative combination of the common constructions between the inputs. The aim of the present study is to analyze the metaphors of the poetry collection "Let's believe in the beginning of the cold season" by Forough Farrokhzad based on the conceptual blending theory. In fact, in this research, the authors seek to find the frequently repeated metaphors of this collection and find the semantic connection between them. In this regard, the types of metaphors in this collection have been identified, described and analyzed from this perspective based on the content analysis method. The investigation and analysis of the poems show that all the metaphors of this collection have emerged around the four conceptual domains of object, human, living things and place, and the domains of source and goal are divided into two categories: "abstract-objective" and "objective-objective" in terms of abstractness or objectivity. In fact, in this collection, Forough, with her mature language and the use of metaphors, most of which belong to the "metaphor of time", implicitly emphasizes on the confusion and destruction of contemporary man in the course of time.

In Persian, there is little research on the analysis of deverbal compound nouns (DCNs) with a syntactic approach. The present study aims to provide an exoskeletal analysis of the structure of Persian DCNs based on Borer’s (2013) exoskeleton model. In this approach, words do not have any specific lexical category and their exact category is determined by the syntactic context they occur. Borer regards DCNs to lack any argument structure. Also, according to her, all DCNs are of the result type and head final. This research was conducted using a descriptive-analytical method and its data was collected from standard Persian written sources. Research results show that Persian, in addition to head final result DCNs, being in line with Borer’s (2013) assumptions, has head initial result DCNs and DCNs with argument structure as well. Subsequently, as to Persian data, a new syntactic structure is suggested by authors based on the main concepts of exoskeletal model In this classification, Persian DCNs have two different structures, namely [N-V]v CN[v]]N and [Ndev-N]. Similarly, Persian DCNs with argument structure are divided into active and passive DCNs.

Van Leeuwen’s (2008) critical discourse analysis approach is one of the analytical approaches of text. It has two main components including exclusion and inclusion, each one having different sub-components. The purpose of this research is to study and analyze the way the components of exclusion including suppression and backgrounding and some components of inclusion comprising impersonalization, categorization, personalization, passivation, generalization, and their subcomponents are manifested in representing social actors in “Bijan and Manijeh” story from Ferdowsi's Shahnameh. In this regard, different types of sentences in this work were identified and counted. Then the usage frequency, percentage, and significance level of each component and the relevant sub-components were assessed via statistical analysis and Chi-square test. The research results show that the poet has used all sub-components of exclusion and the given components of inclusion under investigation in this story. Besides, Chi-square test results designate there is a comparatively significant relationship between the application frequencies of major intended components compared with each other and also their sub-components. The analysis of exclusion results reveals the poet does not have a tendency to secretly represent the social actors. Also, the results of the inclusion components under study demonstrate the poet has used positive appraisement and subjection sub-components and has tried to characterize the social actors more effectively with a positive value. Moreover, in most sentences, the social actors are represented by giving reference to their utterances, physical features, and using similes and metaphors.

Statement of the problem:

 The relationship between language and the mind and the fact that language reflects the mind is one of the important subjects of cognitive linguistics studies. The conceptual metaphor which itself is one of the results of cognitive linguistics deals with this issue. In conceptual metaphor, the conceptual domain of the destination, which is abstract, is explained objectively with the help of everyday experiences and influenced by the culture in the source domain. The directional metaphor, which is one of the types of conceptual metaphors, has spatial directions (up, down, inside, out, front, back, surface, depth, etc.), and makes some abstract concepts localized and more comprehensible. Mystical experiences are often abstract issues, and the mystic makes them more understandable to his audience with the help of language.

In this research, the conceptual metaphors of Masnavi Manavi are investigated and analyzed by relying on directional metaphors, focusing on the first book of Masnavi Manavi.

In the first book of the Masnavi, Rumi conceptualized some abstract concepts objectively by taking help from spatial directions; for example, the spiritual position is in a high position and the influence of music, parents' words, and the impressionability of these words causes growth and upward movement (transcendence). In addition, happiness and freedom have an upward movement; therefore, positive and ideal issues have an upward direction, pride, and intoxication, which are negative issues with an upward direction. On the other hand, ingratitude, contempt, and humiliation, which are negative issues, tend downward. Humility, which is a positive moral characteristic, goes downwards, unlike the characteristics of conceptual metaphors. Inside, outside, after, before, depth, and surface are also spatial directions that are used as conceptual metaphors in the first book of Masnavi, which have been studied, categorized, and analyzed in this study.

The adressee’s social dominance as well as the age of the subjects are among the factors influencing the use of type and number of request strategies by the speakers of any language. The purpose of the present research is to study the effect of the adressee’s social dominance on the type and number of request strategies employed by adolescent and young female Balochi Sarhaddi speakers based on the components of Blum-Kalka, House and Kasper's (1989) Cross Cultural Speech Act Realization Project model. Research data were collected from 60 female subjects through discourse completion test and role play. In this regard, all request strategies employed were identified, coded, described and then analyzed by Chi-square test. The results showed there was not a significant relationship in the use of type and number of strategies in DCT and role play between the addressee´s social dominance and the age of the subjects (except when the interlocutors have equal status). Moreover, the most commonly used types of strategies were pronouns, hedged performatives, grounders, and politeness markers. Also, increasing the addressee's social dominance towards the speaker resulted in using more complicated strategies by the subjects. Furthermore, new strategies such as saying "Mashaalla", "swearing" and "complimenting" were used by the subjects. Therefore, the research findings contribute to the explanation of universal and specific cross cultural-linguistic strategies based on the research model.

Narrative is a collection of interconnected utterances that create a discourse. According to Levinsohn (2015) one of the essential components of narrative discourse analysis is participant reference. Participants in a narrative may be human and non-human major participants, also human and non-human minor participants such as animals. Languages use different reference devices such as: zero anaphora, noun pronouns and phrases which refer to participants in narrative discourse. This research attempts to describe and examine different ways of participant reference, methods of introducing major and minor participants in some stories of Kelileh and Demneh based on Levinsohn (2015) model. The data examined in this study consists of eight chapters which include twenty stories. In each story, this reference devices were examined in subject and non-subject context and analyzed with SPSS software and Chi-squer test. The results indicated that the examined stories of Kelile and Demne used different reference devices such as: zero anaphora, pronouns and noun phrases which refer to major and minor participants in narrative discourse. Furthermore, the results showed that the reference devices and types of participants had a meaningful relationship. Also, among participant reference devices; zero anaphora had the highest use, noun phrases and pronouns were at the next range. 

As far as the approach of narrative discourse analysis is concerned, Levinsohn (2015) is among the linguists who has presented narrative discourse components in narrative studies. On Levinsohn’s opinion, discourse is a connected series of utterances and narrative is a series of connected events in the form of either spoken or written. Sometimes, the sequence of the occurrence of events is important because it indicates the temporal and spatial distance of each event which, in turn, is a signal of cohesion in a text. Consequently, he deals with the explanation of essential components of the narrative discourse analysis that may exist in a text.  According to Levinsohn’s (2015) model, the narrative discourse components comprise the number of speakers in a text, text genre, text style and text register, being oral or written text, cohesion, coherence, participant reference, thematic grouping, discontinuities, text charting, the main concept of reference, reference strategies, the methodology for analyzing reference patterns and types of speech reporting. So, one of the narrative discourse components is participant reference which refers to types of the participant (major, VIP (very important), minor, human, and animal) and the ways of giving reference to each participant. As Levinsohn (2015) states, languages typically have a fairly extensive range of forms of giving reference to participants in a story which extend from complete ellipsis (in the form of zero anaphora) to an implicit reference conveyed only by the inflection of the verb, to two or more sets of independent pronouns, to a full noun phrase. In addition, he maintains that, in many cultures, the easiest narratives to obtain are traditional folktales such as animal stories; they can be very valuable for text analysis. As he believes, animals are symbolic of humans in folktales stories. They behave and talk like humans. In this regard, the translation of Kelileh and Demneh is one of the examples of animal’s stories in Persian literature in which allegorical stories are narrated from the language of animals appearing in a social link. Therefore, recognizing narrative discourse characteristics of this book will be very effective in its analyzing and understanding. Thus, this research is going to identify, study and describe types of participants and the use of different discourse devices employed to refer to the participants in eight chapters of Kelileh and Demneh stories based on levinsohn’s (2015) model as well as to answer the following questions:The major research question:Can we study and describe types of participant reference components in some stories of Kelileh and Demneh based on Levinsohn’s (2015) model?
The minor research questions:1-1- How are types of participant reference components proposed in Levinsohn’s (2015) model represented in some stories of Kelileh and Demneh?
1-2- What kind of relationship is there between the usage frequency of types of participants in some stories of Kelileh and Demneh?
1-3- What kind of relationship is there between the usage frequency of types of giving reference ways to participants in some stories of Kelileh and Demneh?
1.1. Detailed Research

The method of doing this research has been library research. In this regard, first, the related theses, articles and books were studied to describe the theoretical concepts of the research, as well as all the previous research having commonalities whit the present research either in the use of Levinsohn’s (2015) model or in the analysis of Kelileh and Demneh text were reviewed. In this research, eight out of total number of fifteen chapters of Kelileh and Demneh including “Borzoye-y-e Tabib”, “Shir va Gav”,” Bazjoste kar Demneh”, “Kabootar-e motavvagheh” Boom va Gharab”,” Moosh va Gorbeh”, “Shir va Ebne Avi” and “Ebne Malek va Ashab” were selected. Then different types of participant reference used in these chapters were identified and examined. The data analysis method is descriptive-qualitative because the purpose is to describe and compare the usage frequency of types of participants and the ways of referring to each participant. The results were analyzed by using SPSS software which is a statistical package for social sciences. In this analysis, Chi-Square test was used.

As above-mentioned, according to Levinsohn (2015), participant reference is one of the discourse components in the structure of a narrative which includes types of the participant and the ways of giving reference to the participants. As to the latter, in each language, there is a range of referential forms of participants in a story. These reference giving devices maybe noun phrases, pronouns or zero anaphora. Based on the data gathered, it was recognized that types of the participant were realized in the form of major, minor, human, and animal participants. In addition, it was specified that zero anaphora had the highest frequency in relation to the way of giving reference to participants where a personal ending refers to a participant that is the agent of the verb in narrative structure. In other words, the participant is syntactically and semantically present but without a phonetic representation. The use of zero anaphora or null subject pronouns in Persian language is one of its grammatical features which causes it to be regarded as a pro-drop language. Also, the use of pronouns and noun phrases were in the next ranges. That is to say, pronouns such as “man (I)”, “to (you)”, “u (she or he)” or noun phrases such as “Demneh” and “Shanzabe” were used to refer to participants in the story.
As a result, this study indicated that the types of participant reference components represented in the stories of Kelileh and Demneh under investigation were in agreement with those presented in Levinsohn’s (2015) model. So, the answer to the question (1-1) is positive. In addition, the analysis and description of different types of participants and also different types of giving reference ways in a number of Kelileh and Demneh stories showed that there was a significant relationship between the usage frequency of types of participants. Moreover, there was a significant relationship between the usage frequency of types of giving reference ways to participants. Therefore, due to the frequency, percentage and mean of the usage of different types of participant reference components in the stories under study, the answer to the main question is positive as well.  This, in turn, means that we can study and describe types of participant reference components in some stories of Kelileh and Demneh based on Levinsohn’s (2015) model.
Therefore, due to the theoretical importance of this research and exploring different types of participants and also the ways of giving reference to each of the participants in a number of Kelileh and Demneh stories following Levinsohn’s (2015) model, the present study can be not only a model to the scientific studies of other Kelileh and Demneh stories, but also an outline for exploration and study of narrative discourse of other related literary works. In addition, the findings of this research show that the reference system of Kelileh and Demneh discloses the three functions or tasks suggested by Dooly and Levinsohn (2001): the semantic, discourse- pragmatic and processing functions, by employing different reference devices. In other words, the use of each participant reference devises or components aims at fulfilling the functions of the language reference system. Studying and recognizing these tasks and the reference devises can lead to a better understanding of the narrative discourse structure of the stories of Kelileh and Demneh.

In this research, the participant reference components were examined in the form of types of the participants and the ways of giving reference to the participants in subject and non-subject contexts in eight chapters of Kelileh and Demneh. The data surveyed in this study designated that different types of the participants were identified in Kelileh and Demneh stories, being major and minor participants including humans and animals. Likewise, in order to refer to each of the participants various reference devices such as noun phrases, zero anaphora and pronouns were used to introduce and refer to different types of the participants involved, among which zero anaphora had the highest usage frequency, the pronouns and noun phrases were in the next ranks of the usage.

One of the topics that many linguists have considered in recent years is discourse analysis. Different researchers have presented and developed various points of view about critical discourse analysis such as Hodge and Kress (1976), Foucault (1980), Fairclough (1996 and 2002), Penny Cook (2001), Wodak and Meyer (2001), Mouffe (2001), Van Dijk (2004) and Van Leeuwen (1996, 2008) among others. In this regard, Van Leeuwen's (2008) critical discourse analysis model is a socio-semantic model, which rests on interactions, actions, and reactions between individuals. In fact, the present study has exclusively been carried out based on this model in order to understand how social actors are represented and also to see whether the application frequency of various discourse components related to inclusion in the story of "Bijan and Manijeh" from Ferdowsi's Shahnameh is significant or not.    The components of inclusion under discussion having been analyzed in accordance with this model are as follows: 1) Association, the way to represent the social actors in a group and bring them together in an action. 2) Activation, the component that is used when social actors are active and are dynamically represented. 3) Differentiation, which refers to a situation in which social actors are differentiated from other actors because of their identities. 4) Nomination, which is divided into types of sub-components of formal nomination, informal nomination, semi formal nomination, and titulation. In formal nomination, social actors are introduced by referring to their last names and in informal nomination they are represented only by their first names. In semi-formal nomination, social actors are represented by their first and last names and in titulation they are referred to by titles. 5) Specification, which is divided into three sub-components: Individualism, Aggregation, and Collectivization. Individualism is a device to represent social actors by referring to a specific and unique name, collectivization means representing social actors by referring to general classes and groups, and aggregation denotes representing actors by referring to numerical sets (Van Leeuwen, 2008).   The text under study in this research is the story of "Bijan and Manijeh" taken from Ferdowsi's Shahnameh. This poem comprises a total of 1312 verses out of the entire Shahnameh book. This story is made of a series of events that are perfectly connected. In the first verses of the story, the poet speaks about a female storyteller who has narrated the whole story to him, and the poet tells this story to readers again. By considering the importance of the Shahnameh book and using the discourse-oriented components related to inclusion as developed in Van Leeuwen's (2008) model, we can deal with how social actors are represented in the text of this story and then the way it is possible to describe, compare and analyze the application frequency of each component and the relevant sub-components. Correspondingly, the questions of the present study are as follow:How are the types of discourse components of inclusion in Van Leeuwen's (2008) model under investigation represented in the "Bijan and Manijeh" story?What kind of relationship exists between the application frequency of the various inclusion components analyzed following Van Leeuwen's (2008) model in "Bijan and Manijeh" story?According to these questions, the hypotheses of this study are as the following:Different types of discourse components of inclusion under investigation are represented in accordance with the discourse components of Van Leeuwen's (2008) model in "Bijan and Manijeh" story.There is a significant relationship between the application frequency of different inclusion components analyzed following Van Leeuwen's (2008) model in "Bijan and Manijeh" story.

According to cognitive linguists, with the help of conceptual metaphors which are very common in people's everyday language, mental concepts become objective and tangible. In this type of metaphor, the conceptual domain of the target, which is single and abstract, is expressed objectively and comprehensibly with the help of everyday experiences influenced by the culture of the source domain. There are three types of conceptual metaphors: ontological, structural, and directional. The ontological metaphor also has three parts: the metaphor of ‘entity’, the metaphor of ‘container’, and the metaphor of ‘personification’. By examining Moulavi's Masnavi from an ontological perspective, it was found that Moulavi has demonstrated the abstract and fundamental concepts of heart, love, reason, poverty, existence, non-existence, etc. sometimes in the form of matter and object, sometimes in the form of container and place, and sometimes through personification to make these concepts both objective and comprehensible. Keywords: Cognitive Linguistics; Conceptual Metaphor; Ontological Metaphor; Molana; Masnavi Manavi.IntroductionAs the realm of mystical literature is the nature of human beings and is to do with internal feelings and perceptions, the internality of these perceptions on the one hand, and their personal nature on the other hand, lead to ambiguity and thus make language and its usual facilities look insufficient in dealing with the transmission these inner states. Therefore, in order to make up for this insufficiency and to provide and develop the necessary language facilities, this type of literature leans towards the metaphorical pole of language which has a wider potential to reflect these inner states and experiences (Fotouhi & Alinejad, 2009, p. 13). In their study, Lakoff and Johnson (2017) challenged the early conceptualizations and stated that metaphor is not only in language but also prevalent in our daily thoughts and actions. The characteristic of this type of metaphor is to make abstract concepts objective and comprehensible. The mental concepts of the target domain become objective and comprehensible with the help of experiences in the source domain. In this study, the two research questions are: 1) How do mental concepts which are abstract and unstructured become tangible and objective? 2) What is a conceptual metaphor? To answer the mentioned questions, one should be familiar with the structure of conceptual metaphors. Materials and MethodsThe present descriptive-analytical study has been conducted through a library research methodology. First, the works of the theorists of conceptual metaphor, Lakoff and Johnson (1980), and other followers of this theory such as Zoltán Kövecses (1990) were analyzed and studied. Then, the works of Iranian researchers in the field of linguistics such as Golfam (2002), Rasakh Mohand (2013), Afrashi (2015), and Safavi (2003) and several other related articles were investigated and the important concepts relating to the theoretical framework of the study were identified. Research Findings Based on this, ontological metaphors, as one form of conceptual metaphor, were identified and analyzed in the first book of Masnavi. Each of these types of ontological metaphors helps to make vast parts of mental experiences and concepts objective and understandable (Likaf & Johnson, 2017). In this section, the verses of the first book of the Masnavi that can be matched with each of these three types of ontological metaphors are examined. In the following, first the poems that contain material and object metaphors are discussed, then the container metaphors, and finally the characterizing metaphors of Masnavi’s poems have been examined. For example, the Ontological metaphor of Jan/soul is found in Masnavi and analyzed in this article as follows:“Jan (soul) is a noun that expresses a subjective and intangible concept, and it is "the human soul and an allusion to the merciful soul and the manifestation of truth” (Sajadi, 2008). Molana shows this as a subjective and non-objective concept in the form of a physical phenomenon that can be grasped. The king gathered the sages from the left and the right and said: The lives of both are in your hands (1/43). Discussion of Results and ConclusionsThe most important feature of the conceptual metaphor is to make the abstract concepts objective and comprehensible. The ontological metaphor is one of the types of conceptual metaphors that has three types: entity, container, and personification. In this study, the first book of Masnavi was examined from the point of view of ontological metaphors and it was found that sometimes concepts such as life, heart, poverty, science, and existence are assumed to be objects. Sometimes some of these abstract concepts and other concepts such as religion, love, solitude, thought, etc., are perceived as a container or a place where something is placed, or a good state as a substance penetrates, or a field where a plant or tree grows in or divine light originates from, etc. Sometimes abstract concepts are given characters with animism. A large part of these concepts in the first book of Masnavi is sometimes conceived of as a body, a container, or a place that has both inside and outside aspects.

This study deals with fortition processes in Sistani dialect as spoken in Sistan region located in the north of Sistan and Baluchestan province based on Autosegmental phonology by Goldsmith (1976). This is a descriptive-analytic study. So, 20 females and males more than 50 years old, low educated and Sistani dialect speakers have been selected by random. The data has been gathered by interviewing and recording their free speech for twenty minutes per person . The relevant data has been extracted from the recorded sentences and then transcribed by IPA alphabet. Eventually, the phonological rules of the data have been described and analyzed based on the concepts and principles of Autosegmental phonology.  The research results showed that the fortition process in Sistani dialect, is represented as glottal [ʔ] insertion in initial position of word, front high glide [j] insertion and nasal consonant [n] insertion between two vowels at the end of the word in the coda position, the conversion of voiced obstruent /ʁ/ to voiceless obstruent [χ], the conversion of obstruent labio-dental /f/ and /v/ to labial [p] and [b], gemination between two morphemes and at the end of some words and also, aspiration process in the voiceless obstruent consonants in the onset position of the first syllable, the stressed syllables in the middle of words as well as the coda position of the last syllable.

Based on linguistic typology approach and after analyzing the case-marking and agreement systems in (North and South) Bashāgardi according to Comrie (1978) and precise evaluation of findings according to the new theory of Zwart and Lindenbergh (2021), the present study aims to achieve a deeper explanation for those two systems’ function as well as the general alignment pattern of this dialect. In this regard, the research data has been gathered by interviewing ten native speakers, and then has been analyzed. According to the first findings, (North and South) Bashāgardi case-marking and agreement in non-past tense belong identically to the dominant and major pattern of (complete) accusative pattern, and in the past obey the dominant and shifting pattern of split-ergative or (complete) ergative pattern. Explanation of findings reveals that (North and South) Bashāgardi’s general alignment system uses the reverse and identical patterns in non-past and past tenses, respectively. Moreover, conditioned by the two categories of transitivity and tense, as the mirrors of inter-domain interrelations, these two language varieties exploit identical recessive and shifting alignment patterns in those two tenses as well, for which the appropriate explanations has been presented.

Historical changes and geographical dispersion make languages have different dialects and accents, and their linguistic study is one of the needs of today's human knowledge. Makorani Balochi, which is spoken in south of Sistan and Baluchistan and east of Hormozgan provinces in the south-east of Iran, belongs to the Western Iranian Languages. This research investigates the sound inventory of Makorani Balochi of Sarbazi in the Generative Phonology based on Burquest’s (2006) model of extracting phonemes. Language corpus was obtained from 40 illiterate participants with average of 30 to 80 years old, from three villages of Sarbaz County namely: Garag, Machhan and Bandigan. The data was recorded with WAV format. Having analyzed the intended speech sound by the use of sound analyzing programs of Praat and Excel, the data were transcribed in IPA alphabet 2020. The Source/Filter model was also used for some scientific explanations. Findings of this research indicate that: 1- There are 21 consonants, 6 simple vowels and 2 diphthongs in the sound inventory of this dialect. 2-There are two retroflexes among the plosives. 3- The length of vowels, dissimilar to the other Balochi dialects is not phonemic and has allophonic role. 4- Unlike from cardinal vowels, the vowels quality figure of this dialect shows the tendency of [u] towards fronting process as well as highly probable neutralization of [i] /[e] and [u] /[o] in the future. The findings report course of vowel changes and moving towards having a more economical phonemic system for this variant.

One of the most fundamental and vague human experiences that forms part of the complexity and richness of language is the "time". Time alone cannot be understood and experienced. Therefore, it is understood and experienced in the context of the "space". When thinking or talking about time, this is often done through two perspectives:  Moving Ego Metaphor and Moving Time Metaphor. From the Moving Ego perspective, time is constant and the observer moves towards time. But in Moving Time perspective, time is understood as moving, and the observer is constant. The people's perspective of time is determined by vague questions. Various researches have shown that some differences between individuals may influence the choice of a person's time perspective. The purpose of this research is to investigate the role of some individual differences in the metaphorical comprehension of time in Persian. These differences include lifestyle differences (students versus university staff), procrastination, conscientiousness and extroversion. In this regard, the present study seeks to answer the following questions:1- Is there any significant difference between Persian-speaking staff and university students in the metaphorical comprehension of the time statement of the next Wednesday's meeting?2- Does the procrastination and conscientiousness of people affect the metaphorical comprehension of the time statement of the next Wednesday's meeting in Persian language?3- Does the extroversion of people affect the metaphorical comprehension of the time statement of the next Wednesday's meeting in Persian language?

The nature of verb movement in different languages has been studied and analyzed by different linguists from a syntactic and morphological point of view based on a generative approach. From the syntactic viewpoint, agreement of tense feature and little verb inflection in strength and object shift can be cited as syntactic evidence. Moreover, as to a morphological standpoint, strong inflection due to subject verb agreement in first and second person singular and plural in one of past, present and future tenses and also the existence of split inflection are pieces of evidence indicating verb movement. The aim of this study is to explain the nature of verb movement in Sarhaddi Balochi dialect based on the combination of syntactic and morphological evidence following the generative approach. Therefore, research data were collected through recording free speech and interviewing with 15 illiterate Sarhaddi Balochi-speaking men living in Poshtkuh and Granchin areas of Khash city. Based on the syntactic evidence, the results showed the inflection (tense) feature of the verb in Sarhaddi Balochi dialect is strong and gives rise to verb movement. The presence of the split inflectional phrase is another factor in confirming the movement of the verb. Besides, the study of morphological evidence displayed that the strength of verb inflection due to the agreement of the verb with the first and second person singular and plural in past and non-past tenses, as well as the simultaneous presence of tense and agreement morphemes in the verb confirm the verb movement in this dialect.

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder, affecting the individual’s cognitive and language skills. Since human social life is highly dependent on cognitive and linguistic abilities, these abilities are essential factors in human growth and development. The production and perception of narrative discourse at a language level require the utilization of cognitive and linguistic abilities. Considering the fact that the timeline and the way it is expressed is one of the main components of narrative formation, the topic of time can be challenging in the narrative discourse for children with autism. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate and assess the representation of some features of time, such as perfective and imperfective aspects and grounding, including foreground and background in the narrative discourse of children with high-functioning autism.

In the current research, the representation of grounding in narrative discourse aspects of Persian-speaking children with high-functioning autism disorder (HFAD) and normal children were studied, compliant with classifications by Hickman et al. To this end, 20 male children with high-functioning autism disorder (chronological age: 7-11) and 20 normal male children (chronological age: 7-11) participated in this study. Narratives were elicited based on “Horse” and “Cat” picture stories provided by Hickman. Pursuant to studying and describing the collected data, they were thereafter analyzed via the Mann-Whitney U Test.

The findings pointed out that there was a significant difference between HFAD and normal children in the representation of perfective aspect and grounding (P=0.05). Children with HFAD had a weaker representation compared to normal children. Similarly, the children with HFAD had a more anemic performance in representing perfective aspect and foreground as the core data in producing narrative, whereas children with HFAD produced more marginal data and background compared to normal children. Conclusion Consistent with the findings, it appears that poor performance by children with HFAD in comparison with normal children in the representation of certain features of time, such as aspect and grounding in narrative discourse can be related to their cognitive and linguistic weaknesses.

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of the addressee’s power and gender on the choice of the type and number of encouragement strategies employed by Persian male and female university students based on Brown and Levinson’s (1987) theory. A number of 60 M.A. students (30 males and 30 females) from the University of Sistan and Baluchestan participated in this study. Discourse completion test and role play technique were utilized as two data gathering instruments. The data were analyzed using the Chi-square and Independent-T test (p<.05). The results indicated there was a significant relationship between the addressee’s power and the type as well as the number of encouragement strategies employed by male and female university students. The most frequent strategy type was the “negative politeness” giving deference for the addressee with higher power (the professor). As to the number of strategies, the most and less frequent ones were the combination of two and nine strategies, respectively. The addressee’s gender had an effect on the type of the strategies used by male students in three situations; while it didn’t have any effect on the number of strategies used by male students and also on the type and number of strategies employed by female students. The most frequent strategy type used by female students was the “positive politeness” and the combination of three strategies for male and female addressees; by male students: “positive politeness” for male addressees and “negative politeness” and the combination of two strategies for female addressees.

Cinema represents political, social and cultural realities. Critical discourse analysis also signifies linguistic text realities based on features such as ideology, society, culture and policy. The purpose of the present research is to provide a study of sociol discourses of the movie Cow based on Laclau and Mouffe’s (2001) theory. To this end, the full text of the conversations of the movie Cow was examined. Then, th data were described and analyzed for the discourse features proposed in Laclau and Mouffe’s (2001) theory. The results of the study indicate that the discourse of the movie is articulated around the central signifier Cow’s death" and the floating signifiers such as "poverty", "being religious", "unemployment", "closed society", "lying", "dependency on Cow", "unity", "unawareness" and "metamorphosis". In addition, the dominant discourses of the movie are "religion, tradition and collectivism". Through the examination of the highlights and background  features of role of the actors and actresses in the movie Cow, it was found that the signifiers "lying", "metamorphosis" and "poverty" are highlighted in this movie whereas the floating signifier "being religious" is backgrounded.

Food as a sign system signifies the identity and culture of a nation as well as such items like religious beliefs and values, gender, climate, geographic location, generation status, age, job order, race, social norms, aesthetics and the amount of income. This research is an attempt to investigate the semiotics of Baloch people’s food living in Iranian Baluchestan based on Barthes’(1957,1987) levels of signification and show that Balochi food has semantic and semiotic readings according to religion. To this end, in gathering the research data, the techniques of interviewing, questionnaire and direct observation of Balochi food samples were used. The food questionnaire has been written based on religion variable and related categories and then distributed among 62 Baloch participants (32 females and 30 males) from Khash, Iranshahr, Sarawan, Sarbaz, Nikshahr, and Chabahar cities. The analysis of the data has been carried out by SPSS and EXCEL softwares. The research results show that Iranian Balochi food not only serve as a sign system which has a close relationship with religion in accordance with the categories under study including: Halal and Haram, Islam’s emphasis on correct and healthy nutrition, food in religious Eves and the Holy month of Ramadan, food and hospitality and Islam’s emphasis on honor of guest, eating habits, respect for food and blame for food waste in Islam but enjoys religious semantic and semiotic readings as well.

Sarawani Balochi is one of the dialects of the Balochi language. The aim of this paper is to study and describe some of the historical phonological changes from Old Iranian in this dialect and comparing them with Persian. Moreover, the syllable structure in Sarawani Balochi will be compared with Old, Middle and New Persian. To achieve this goal, phonemes were gathered from the speech of Sarawani Balochi speakers and some phonological changes were compared diachronically. Findings show that, for example that the Old Iranian diphthongs have remained in Sarawani Balochi. Also, the preservation of the phoneme /t/ at the end of words is another feature of this dialect. The comparison of syllable structure in Sarawani with Old, Middle and New Persian shows that the (c)cv(c)(c) structure is more similar to Middle Persian than New Persian.

The aim of the present study study is to describe and analyze the conceptual domains used in metaphors of Saadi’s Boostan based on conceptual blending theory as presented by Fauconnier and Turner (1998, 2002). This theory uses mental spaces to describe and analyze metaphors that are two input spaces: a generic space and a blended space. In this research the mental spaces of each metaphor in Saadi’s Boostan are described to determine which conceptual domains are involved in the construction of mental spaces in each metaphor. Then, the significance or non-significance of using these conceptual domains are measured using X2 test in SPSS. The results show that the conceptual domains used in the metaphors of Saadi’s Boostan can be grouped into 13 groups: (1) personification, (2) journey for the life concept, (3) using orientation for positive and negative entities, (4) natural phenomena, (5) animals, (6) tastes, (7) agriculture (8) body organs, (9) being containment by non-containers, (10) things, (11) actions, (12) human characters, and (13) locations. When constructing metaphors, these conceptual domains are embedded in an input space and together with the other input space intended by the poet, are projected into a blended space and make a metaphor. The results show that all the metaphors of Saadi’s Boostan can be described and analyzed based on conceptual domains in constructing the mental spaces suggested in conceptual blending theory.