نشریه زبان پژوهی
پیاپی 37 (زمستان 1397)

Among the most challenging problems encountered by translators, especially those dealing with literary texts, seems to be the problem of finding adequate and acceptable equivalents for the original text’s culture-specific terms in the TL. Therefore, assessing translation of literary texts, specifically that of culture-specific references, is a crucial issue in translation studies. Componential analysis is one method of translation assessment which focuses on semantic relations of ST and TT lexical items. It should also be noticed that any lexical item can have positive, neutral, or negative connotations. Interestingly, the situational context can play a pivotal role in specifying the particular semantic load of the lexical items. The present study aimed at criticizing equivalents selected by a native and a non-native translator of a contemporary Persian novel based on componential analysis and semantic load of the words. Sadeq Hedayat’s ‘the Blind Owl’ is a masterpiece in the modern Persian literature. The work was first rendered into English by D. P. Costello in 1957. Iraj Bashiri also translated the work into English in 1974 and then revised it in 1984. However, his last revision, being used as part of the research corpus of the current study, came about 2013. Since the source language is Persian, Costello is considered as the non-native and Bashiri, the native translator. On the whole, native translators may be expected to possess a somehow comprehensive acquaintance with their own culture. However, the main question that may arise here is that whether their familiarity would lead to a more precise translation of culture-bound concepts and terms or not? Can it be claimed that a native translator is more skilled than a non-native translator as far as dealing with cultural items is concerned? In order to assess the performance of the two translators, the following seven procedures or occurrences were detected and described by the author: retention, amplification, compensation, expansion, reduction, omission, and transliteration. Mistranslated items were also analyzed separately and, consequently, ‘mistranslation’ was taken into consideration as an occurrence along with the seven aforementioned occurrences. The collection of procedures was employed as the framework of the study. The following steps were taken to conduct the study: studying the Blind Owl for identifying terms and expressions (especially culture-specific ones); categorizing the items into various groups; specifying the equivalents in the two translations; and finally, analyzing the data based on the framework suggested by the author. In order to categorize the culture-specific terms, a combination of classifications presented by Vlahov and Florin (1980), Newmark (1988), Thriveini (2002), and Espindola and Vasconcellos (2006) was employed and the CSIs were classified into the following categories: objects, plants, relationships, proper names, measurements (of weight, money, distance, etc.), religious-bound terms, customs, ideas and rituals, foods and drinks, clothes and special garments, games and specific hobbies, occupations, symbols, gestures, terms related to social life, etc. Concentrating on the two key criteria of componential analysis and semantic load of the words, the researcher has made an attempt to find answers to the following questions: 1) Which categories contained the most challenging culture-specific items? 2) Which translator (the native or the non-native) has been more consistent in observing the componential analysis and semantic load of the CSIs? 3) Which occurrences have had the most or the least frequency? 4) How the occurrences attributed to the native are comparable to the non-native translator? 5) How successful have been the two translators in their equivalent choice? The findings revealed that the fields of religion, occupation and object contained the most challenging terms and concepts. Also, translators’ tendency towards transliteration, in some cases, had deprived the TT readership of the information essentially needed for better understanding the source text. Based on the findings, it was also realized that neither native translator, nor the non-native has been consistent in resorting to specific procedures. Moreover, it was found that while ‘expansion’ and ‘compensation’ had occurred most, the occurrences of ‘amplification’, ‘omission’ and ‘mistranslation’ had the least frequency in the works of the two translators. Overall, based on the results of the study it was concluded that the native translator has been more successful than the non-native in observing the meaning-components and semantic-load of the lexical items embedded in the novel. One reason to justify the event seems to be the deep familiarity of the native translator with the source culture. Therefore, professional native translators interested in modern (and even classic literature) are highly recommended to try their hands at rendering masterpieces of their own nation. They can even have a more active role in retranslating literary works (including poems, short-stories, plays, novels, etc.) already rendered into a foreign language by non-native translators.

Teaching Persian language to non-Persian speakers’ books have many different features and aspects. In the same vein, they must be studied for comprehensive review, evaluation and critique provision. In order to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of teaching Persian language to non-Persian speakers, it is needed to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of textbooks to overcome their shortcomings. One of the aspects of language teaching is teaching grammar. Pedagogical grammar is an important part of teaching Persian to non-Persian speakers; hence, with all its complexities and principles, it always requires special criticism and scrutiny. In this regard, the present study evaluates and criticizes the grammatical content of Modern Teaching of Persian Language books from the perspective of pedagogical grammar approach. Pedagogical grammar is different from other approaches of grammar in method, content and audience and is a process in which the procedure of teaching and learning takes place together, therefore it is non-linear and at the same time it is based on the teacher, learner and educational content. Modern Teaching of Persian Language books by Ehsan Ghabul are published in five volumes. The first and second volumes of the book are dedicated to the beginning level, the third and fourth volumes of the book to the middle level and the fifth volume to the advanced level. To evaluate the grammatical content of Ehsan Ghabul's five-volume set of Modern Teaching of Persian Language books, we selected five important and common features of pedagogical grammar theory from among the various and diffused features of this educational theory as follows: 1) The relationship between grammar and vocabulary instruction with other language courses 2) Contextual grammar teaching 2) Having a pedagogical grammar plan 2) The dominance of word instruction over grammar at the elementary level 2) The absolute grammar instruction in advanced stages Then, according to nonlinear teaching of pedagogical grammar based on the three principles of book, learner and education-based content were adopted to obtain the most important revisions and rating scales for a more fundamental evaluation of this set. In the principle of book “the presentation method”, in the principle of learner “the "audience and practices" and in the principle of education-based content “the content” were indeed evaluated and studied. To this end, at first all five volumes of the book were examined in terms of grammatical content; then the methodology of the pedagogical grammar of the set was analyzed in the above five principles. After the content analysis of the pedagogical grammar of Modern Teaching of Persian Language books, it was found that the grammatical content of the series, apart from the theoretical and methodological discussions, has some deficiencies which is inconsistent with the principles of Persian gramma. Thus, at the end of the article, the grammatical content problems in the four axes of grammatical inaccuracies, grammatical terminology, unusual and impractical sentences, writing mistakes were mentioned and suggestions for modifications were made. Research findings can be examined based on the five axes of pedagogical grammar in content, method, presentation method, and audience and exercises. The grammatical content of this book series lacks a coherent and planned layout, making the initial levels of the set grammatically bulky and difficult. On the other hand, the content of the grammar is absolute and the efficient and communicative features of the pedagogical grammar do not appear in it. This content is also devoid of step-by-step instruction. The author in compiling the grammatical content of this set has not utilized any systematic approach. Even worse, the grammatical errors in grammatical contents of the book made it far from the principles of traditional grammar. The author of Modern Teaching of Persian Language books has taught grammar on the basis of his own individual learning or traditional available grammar. Furthermore, the grammatical content selection and arrangement has no combinational, linear, cyclic or procedural modes in its explanation. The target audience of this educational book series is children based on images, texts and the book design, especially at the introductory levels. On the other hand, the rapid alphabet instruction and separation of the four Persian-specific phonemes and frequent use of Arabic words show the author's special attention to the Arabic language audience and the main problem here is that the author in the preface of all the book volumes emphasizes that this series can teach Persian to anyone who wants to learn Persian. The weakness of communication competency has led to unrealistic and abnormal texts, examples and exercises. Therefore, this gives an impression which is far from the basic and applied principles of the pedagogical grammar.

The present study, using the "descriptive-analytical" method, aims at identifying the methods of communicating the sense of proverbs through linguistic comparisons in order to provide more practical methods in translation of proverbs. Utilizing the Arabic and Persian translations of two Shakespeare’s plays "Hamlet" and "The Taming of the Shrew", the authors of this study seek to know how and in what ways and to what extent, the translators have been able to communicate the sense of English proverbs and when and in what ways they have employed literal, free or other types of translation. The study of Shakespeare's use of proverbs showed that this author used many proverbial similes to illustrate the characters in the play and to have a greater influence on the audience. In case of anti-proverbs, it was found that Shakespeare's conversion of a proverb into an anti-proverb presents a major challenge to translators. Translation of anti-proverb, however, is far more challenging than the proverbial one because of the addition of the humorous dimension to the proverbial features. Regarding the methods and techniques and viewing the translation of the proverbs in a formalist way, it can be seen that translators have chosen one of the three techniques to meet the challenges of translation, including omission, footnote, and cultural (proverbial) equivalence. About omission, only 6 of the 140 proverbs found in the surveyed data were abandoned untranslated by some translators. This inaccuracy, which may have been intentional or inadvertent, was found in the works only 4 of the 12 translations. Next, footnotes are the methods that some translators have used to explain proverbs and the cultural traits in them. Totally, the number of footnotes in Arabic translations exceeds the Persian ones. Most footnotes have deciphered the mystery in the proverbs. As a result, these proverbs have become more explicit than the proverbial ones. On cultural (proverbial) equivalence, it should be noted that this expression refers to a method whereby one proverb from the culture of the target language is found to be used as a proverbial equivalence for the source language. Of all the translations, there are only three cases that have used this technique. Furthermore, translators' approaches to proverbs were found to be divided into four categories: literal translation, defamiliarization, lexical enhancement, and Arabicism. The dominant approach in Arabic and Persian translations of the proverbs in these two works is the literalist approach and the translation unit is the word. In translating the literary devices (similes, metaphors, and kenning or metonymy) in the proverbs, translators have replaced the literal word from the target language with the word from the source language rather than trying to replace the structure or concept from the target language with that of the source language. Although there have been cases where translators have replaced structure or concept, the number is far below the literal replacement. In defamiliarization approach, the translators have relied on the appeal of the audience rather than emphasizing expressiveness of the concept and have considered the audience's knowledge of rhetoric as a must. It is as if in an unwritten contract, an agreement was reached between the translator and the reader in which the translator merely puts the word's identity in the footnote and transfers them to the target language with the same clothing they were wearing in the source language. It is up to the reader to take on the hassle of communicating with them and removing the feeling of strangeness from their faces. About elongation, although in the Arabic language most of the semantic burden rests on the vocabulary (and a word can be a translation of several English words), there is also a great deal of lexical increase in Arabic translations. What is important in this approach is that female translators have used more words in their translations in comparison to the male ones in both languages (viz. Arabic and Persian). On Arabicism (writing Arabic), it can be said that through viewing one of the Persian proverb dictionaries, it is easy to see that, with the exception of Qur'anic and hadith proverbs, the number of Arabic words used in proverbs is very low. But in the present study, the approach of the Persian translators' [except (Adib, 2006)] to translating English proverbs is in contrast to the approach of the makers of Persian proverbs. These translators have used many Arabic vocabularies and its features, such as the nunation (tanwin), and consequently a greater lexical diversity is found in Persian translations.  In conclusion, the comparison of the methods and approaches used in translations of English proverbs by Arabic translators with those of Persian ones showed that first of all due to their cultural affinity, Arabic and Farsi have a relatively similar proverbial competency in translation. Second, in translating proverbs, translators have inevitably an author-oriented translation to preserve the consistency of text and more adequately mirror the Shakespeare's ideas and expression. Third, they have translated the proverbs with the least cultural change, which has resulted in the domination of the culture of the superior (source) language over the inferior (target) language, that is the superior language imposes its features to the inferior language. However, in some cases the literary richness of the target language has also increased through the creation of new images. Next, in translating the proverbs, the translators were more committed to the text than to the spirit of the work. This, in some cases, led to the removal of the spirit of humor from the literal body and an adverse impact on the dynamics of the text. In fact, most translators have translated the external language and have regarded the inner language (humor) of the text untranslatable. Finally, the conceptual flaw in the translations is mostly related to the cases where the author has used one or two words of the proverb as the whole one or made changes to the proverb. Therefore, the translator makes no sense due to the lack of knowledge about the whole proverb and inevitably either erase it, or translate it literally.  This transfers the ambiguity into the target language. Therefore, in translating the proverbs, dictionary information is not enough and the translator needs encyclopedic knowledge to know the whole proverb.

Taboo terms are one of problematic areas in the process of translation. Dictionaries are one of tools translators use to solve this problem. There are some differences between dictionaries in the number of taboo terms and the strategies applied in their translation. Knowing the characteristic of dictionaries in this respect can help translators choosing a suitable dictionary to solve their problem. The present study was an attempt to find the frequency of taboos, the strategies applied in their translation in Hezareh and Arianpur dictionaries and the relation between the frequency of taboo terms and the applied strategy to understand the characteristics and successfulness of these two dictionaries in this respect. Many studies have been done on the topic of taboo terms and their translations in Persian and English language but in case of dictionaries nothing has been done. Different scholars have provided different definitions, categorizations and translation strategies for taboo terms. In the following the categorization of taboo terms and the strategies of translating them are presented. In the following some of the classifications on taboo terms  are presented: A. Anderson and Hirsch (1985, p. 79): 1. sexual organs, sexual relations, 2. religion, church, 3. excrement, 4. death, 5. the physically or mentally disabled, 6. prostitution, 7. narcotics, crime; B. Allan and Burridge (2006, p. 1): 1. bodies and their effluvia (sweat, snot, faeces, menstrual fluid, etc.), 2. the organs and acts of sex, micturition and defecation; 3. diseases, death and killing (including hunting and fishing), 4. religion and church, naming and addressing sacred persons, beings, objects, and places, 5. food gathering, preparation and consumption, 6. prostitution, narcotics, and criminal activity; C. Habibovic (2010, p. 7): 1. sex, 2. religion, 3. bodily functions, 4. ethnic groups, 5. Food, 6. dirt 7. death ; D. Gao (2013, p. 2): 1. bodily excretions, 2. death and disease, 3. Sex, 4. four-letter words, 5. swear words, 6. privacy, 7. discriminatory language; E. Avila Cabrera (2014): 1. animal name, 2. death/killing, 3. drugs/excessive alcohol consumption, 4. ethnic/racial/gender slur, 5. filth, 6. profane/blasphemous, 7. psychological/physical condition, 8. sexual reference/body part, 9. urination/scatology, 10. violence. As taboos are part of the culture of each language, to translate a taboo, the translator must be familiar with both source and target languages in order to know whether the taboo word in the SL, is known as taboo in the TL or not. According to Behzad and Salmani (2013, p. 227) three possibilities may arise in the process of translating taboo terms: a) the taboo term in L1 is not taboo in L2, b) the taboo term in L1 is taboo in L2 too, and c) the term which is not taboo in L1 is considered as taboo in L2. Facing these situations, in part (a), the translator has no problem and can translate the word easily, but in parts (b) and (c), there are some choices to render if not exact but similar and acceptable meaning and feeling of the word into the second language. There are different strategies for translating taboo terms. Each translator can use one of them according to the context. The following are some of these strategies:  A. Allan & Burridge (2006): 1. euphemism, 2. dysphemism, 3. orthophemism; B. Vossoughi & Etemadhosseini (2013, p. 3): 1. Omission, 2. manipulation of segmentation, 3.euphemism; C. Venuti (as cited in Hashemian, Mirzaei, & Hosseini, 2015, p. 25): 1. domestication, 2. foreignization. D. Davoodi (2009): 1. censorship, 2. substitution, 3. taboo for taboo, 4. euphemism, E. Tanriverdi Kaya (2015): 1. substitution, 2. taboo for taboo, 3. omission. 4. euphemism, 5. addition, 6. explication, 7. Dyphemism. In the present study, the strategies proposed by Davoodi were applied. According to Davoodi (2009), there are four possible strategies in translating taboo terms: Censorship: it is the first possible way that a translator can choose when facing a taboo term in translation. As Davoodi asserted: “In this case, the translator ignores the term easily and censors it as an extra term” (2009, p. 1). But that’s not an appropriate choice, “because in some occasions, the taboo term is a key term in the source text and the omission of it will distort the meaning of the text”. (ibid.) Substitution: another way in translating a taboo term is by substituting the word with another one in target language. But Davoodi believed that “it often certainly distorts the meaning” (ibid.). Taboo for taboo: to Davoodi, “On the other hand, although the translator knows the expressions are not acceptable to target people and society, s/he prefers to translate them into taboo” (ibid.). Euphemism: according to Davoodi: “euphemism is the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression to replace one that offends or suggests something unpleasant” (ibid.) To address the questions of the study, taboo terms relating to words drunk, fuck, shit, dead and hell were found in both dictionaries. Then their frequency was also studied.  Next,  the applied strategies based on Davoodi’s strategies were compared. To conduct this comparison two 5 columns tables including no., taboo term in English, taboo term in Persian and the applied strategy for each of dictionaries were prepared. Of the 51 taboos of the corpus, Hezareh has provided translation for 49 taboos and Arianpur for only 9 taboos; thus, Hezareh dictionary has more taboo terms in comparson to Arianpur dictionary. On euphemism and translation of taboo for taboo term, an acceptable translation for the target receivers have been provided, while in the Arianpur dictionary less taboos are presented and the effect of taboos is lessened using censoring strategy. Concerning the frequency, as the preferred strategy in Arianpur is censoring thus the frequency of taboo terms is lesser in Arianpur in comparison to Hezareh dictionary. Therefore, the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the corpus in the present study showed that, Hezareh dictionsry is more suitable than Arianpour dictionary regarding finding equivalents of taboo terms.

The distinction between language and dialect is one of the most challenging issues in sociolinguistics and it has been the subject of numerous studies in the sociolinguistic literature of the past several decades. Most communities around the world are either bilingual or multiannual. As such, determining their states has received considerable critical attention. In spite of the fact that there is only a single standard language (Persian) in Iran, a number of varieties, such as Gilaki, Mazandarani, Tati, Taleshi, Semnani, Lori, Kurdish, etc. are spoken among smaller communities as their means of communication. Whether these varieties are independent languages or dialects of standard Persian (hereafter SP) is a major area of interest within the field of Persian linguistics. Although different proposals have been made with respect to the distinction between language and dialect and much is currently known about this main issue, none of them is entirely unproblematic. Hence, the criteria by which this issue can be settled have not been clearly established. In other words, there is no consensus on any of them in literature. To explore the state of Gilaki from linguistic and non-linguistic perspectives, this paper intends to critically review the best-known criteria such as mutual intelligibility, standardization, autonomy, norms, prestige, size, and writing systems. The data of this qualitative research are collected via the writer’s linguistic intuition and checked with more native speakers and written sources if necessary. It is worth noting that the data presented in this study come from Eshkevarat Gilaki (hereafter EG). First, we showed that the existing criteria suffer from fundamental shortcomings. As such, the state of Gilaki cannot be determined by taking a single criterion into account. Then, we argued that given the dominant linguistic, social, and political conditions as well as the function of Gilaki in Iranian speech community, this variety is regarded as a dialect from a non-linguistic perspective due to the fact that it neither functions as an official language nor has a different origin from Persian as the standard language in Iran.  From a linguistic perspective focusing on this issue, we followed the approach that if there are a number of linguistic (phonetic, morphological, grammatical) differences between two varieties, there will be two possibilities: 1. Their speakers can understand each other. 2. Their speakers cannot understand each other. In the former case, they are regarded as two distinct languages; while in the latter case, they will be taken as the dialects of the same language. We investigated linguistic differences between EG and SP, focusing on pieces of evidence from phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics/ pragmatics. Phonological differences provided in this paper had to do with a number of sounds in EG including /y/, /2/, /@/ which SP lacked. Furthermore, we pointed out that the phonological processes in EG were captured independent of SP. With respect to morphological differences, best attempts were made to shed light on two issues namely past markers and prefixing verbs in this work. Past markers in EG are realized differently from SP. In past verbs of EG, the prefix -b@ attaches to the beginning of the stem and past markers, such as /t/ and /d/, etc follow stems. Interestingly, the prefix -b@ is absent in negative past verbs beginning with the negative prefix -n@. Another morphological difference discussed in this paper had to with the high frequency of prefixing verbs in EG whose equivalents in Persian are either a simple verb or a complex predicate. In the section on the syntactic differences, we focused on adpositions, the order of head and complement in lexical phrases, the order of adjective and standard of comparison, Ezafe construction, split topicalization, and impersonal construction coming up with drastic differences between EG and SP. Finally, in the section of semantic/ pragmatic differences, we provided some words of EG which are used both for males and females which is not the case in SP. It is then concluded that all these differences can certainly have a great impact on the mutual intelligibility of their speakers. To be more exact, Persian speakers cannot easily understand EG. By contrast, most EG speakers have a good command of SP as it is used in various contexts including media, educational system, government business, etc. The findings suggest that Gilaki is a language from a linguistic perspective as there exist a variety of linguistic differences not only between EG and SP but also between different varieties of Gilaki. As such, the findings of exploring the state of a variety from linguistic and non-linguistic perspectives do not necessarily verify each other; rather they can be in conflict. This study offers some insights into the state of Gilaki in Iran. The findings can make a major contribution to encouraging Gilaki native speakers to attempt to maintain their language and keep it alive by getting their children to acquire it as their first language and making use of it in more contexts.

Nowadays, pictures and writing in English books are used in order to transfer educational concepts. As it is claimed that the pictures not only help the students learning but also they increase the interactional relationship between them and their around society (Kress and Van Leeuwen,2006). There is always one problem that an argument on how we can use multimodal- texts in school books especially English books to facilitate transfer concepts and also trigger motivation in educational processes so that English learning and training procedures will be improved.  According to Sojoudi(2003), semiotic perspective rooted in the works of Saussure and Pierce, shows two points of view but with special and similar philosophical implications. Saussure framework is called structural semiotics but Pierce framework is analytical semiotics. Pierce believes semantic-semiotic means theory and study of signs and it is the world science that includes all other sciences. Saussure considers signs as mechanical but Paris School claim that signs perform the role of signifier only in discoursal context.  Greimas, as a founder of   Paris School, believes that we should pass the surface and enter to the deep layers of context as the deep and inner structures have semantic implications. (Abbasi,2009). Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006) believe their work on visual representation is set within the theoretical framework of social semiotics. It is important, therefore, to place it in the context of the way semiotics has developed during, roughly, the past 75 years. The visual, like all semiotic modes, has to serve representational and communicational requirements and they are adopted the theoretical notion of meta-functions from the work of Halliday for this purpose. Visual design has three main roles such as all other semiotic modes(Kress and Van Leeuwen,2006).The three meta-functions which Halliday posits are the ideational, the interpersonal and the textual functions, Wilcox (2014) believes that described meta-functions in Halliday’s systematic- functional grammar are changed by Kress and van Leeuwen to representational, interactional and compositional meaning. This research tried to analyze the relationship between the written and pictorial context based on discoursal semantic-semiotic using description framework of Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006,1996), to develop Halliday’s functional-systematic linguistics. In this essay, we analyzed the relation between pictorial and written texts in English school books(vision). This article is based on discoursal semantic-semiotic approach. The social-semiotic using description framework of Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2006,1996) theories is affected by Halliday’s thoughts(1994) and three main roles of language which is raised by him. The purpose of this research was to investigate the relationship between context and picture in English books(vision), to express how to select pictorial texts accompaniment to written forms in educational English books to increase students meaning comprehension, to present rich and comprehensible concepts, and to investigate discoursal different social and emotional functions. The analysis of the function of the pictures in this discoursal process, the way of their reflection in English books for educational procedures facilitation, and the transfer of educational concepts were the sub goals of this research. The pictures which are used in English books (Vision) were placed in this analysis. English books (Vision) include some common parts as New words and Expressions in which written texts put under the pictorial ones. In the written texts, some words or expressions   are salient so that the writer consider them as educational aim. The written and pictorial texts of three English books were analyzed based on discoursal semantic-semiotic approach considering the salient factors and rhythm creator in visual context, and both of them were investigated upon Kress and Van Leeuwen theory looking at three meta –functions; representational, interactional and compositional functions. This essay by investigation of the pictorial and written texts in English books (Vision) deliberated that English book texts to what extent are in accordance with three meta- functions patterns of visual analysis; meaning, representational, interactional and compositional. And how overlap between the pictorial and written texts speeds up learning and meaning transfer.  In conclusion, we found that there is a contradiction between the written and pictorial salient factors according to discoursal semantic-semiotic. Additionally, there is no accompaniment and overlap between written and pictorial contexts. Thus the viewer (especially the student) confronts with a problem in comprehending meaning. It was observed that common patterns in meta-functions were not considered in these contexts. Consequently, the meaning transfer is conveyed defectively and the learning process slows down. Hence the educational aim was not achieved.

With the replacement of the conceptual blended network model instead of the two-headed model of conceptual metaphor, Fauconnier and Turner (1994) argue that, in addition to explaining the metaphorical aspects of immediate understanding, this model is capable of explaining non- metaphorical aspects. The network pattern, besides the two domains of the input and mapping, also includes the public space and fusing space. The mixed space emanates from the mental mixing of two or more input spaces. Given that the blended space is fantastic, the choice of the theory of fusion approach is appropriate for imaginary characters in fantasy subject. On the other hand, according to Pierce's (1931,1958) classification, the sign is of three kinds: symbolic, iconic, and index. Based on this division, the research is ahead in the categorization of fancy story subjects. In this regard, this research aims to answer four questions about the fantasy stories of the children: what is the difference between the subject of intermingling and coincidence? What is the difference between the definitions in the inter-semiotic and in-semiotic? According to Pierce's semiotic categories, what classes do in-semiotic intercourse subjects ranked? What are the mechanisms of the inputs of mixed space for subject creation, while meaning creation? This research uses semiotics for the first time, to study of mixed spaces as well as to classify fancy story subjects. The frequent use of imaginary characters in the child stories, and the lack of interdisciplinary research in this field, reveals the need for research in order to eliminate gaps. In this study, "Subject" refers to an actor or actionable character that, as the protagonist or one of the main characters, plays a role in advancing the plot. This study classifies mixed subjects from three perspectives, including time sequence, metaphor, and semiotics. In terms of time sequence, it is of two types: In time (chronic) mixed subjects, the central element of intro domains are the time sequence relation to each other, like a subject that has undergone a transformation. In the story of 'Ugly Duckling' (Andersent,1999),   the semantic center of the first intro is an ugly duckling, and the semantic center of the second intro is a graceful swan. The second intro space (the mental space associated with the swan) is formed in the time sequence of the first intro space (the mental space associated with the duckling).In case of Synchronous subject matter, the central element of the two intro domains is that they have no time sequence in relation to each other. In " Chimney-Head Mom " (Mazarei, 2013), the image drawn in the book from the subject of the story, consists of a combination of two intro spaces, one in which the semantic center is "mother", and in the other, the semantic center is "Chimney". These two semantic centers are two completely independent conceptual categories, which have been combined since the beginning of the story, and have no relation of time sequence to each other.  In terms of metaphor, two types were discovered.  One is metaphor-based mixed subject in which two spaces or intro domains can be based on two domains of origin and destination, from a conceptual metaphor. In Chimney Head Mom (Mazarei,2013), the subject is based on the conceptual metaphor of "the highest degree of anger (intro first), the highest degree of fire (intro second)," (Kuchsh,2014, p:197). Because in the mixed space, every time Mom gets angry, Her Chimney head smokes, and the plot is based on this "smoking in anger" feature. The other is metaphor-independent mixed subject. In Lonely Black Line (Honarkar,2015), the subject image of a line is shown, the lower half of which is a set of black lines, and the upper half of which is the body of a boy. That is, the subject is the product of a fusion space, whose intro, in the role of origin and destination, is by no means a conceptual metaphor.  In terms of semiotics, it is of two types, including intrastitial mixed subject and interstitial mixed subject. In the former, two independent signifiers, as two intro spaces, can be combined, and from the combination of these two intros, an independent sign emerges, which is a mixed subject. These two independent signs can belong to one sign system, or to two different sign systems (for example, one belongs to the verbal sign system and the other to the non-verbal system). In interstitial mixed subject, on the other hand, by combining both aspects of the three aspects of "representation, interpretation, subject," as intro spaces, a mixed space is obtained, called the intertextual interconnected space. The main goal of the research is to mark the classification of semiotics of intra-symbolic fusion. This research shows that the intra-symbolic mixed subject is of three types: symbolic, iconic, and indexed. In all three cases, at first, the semantic center of one of the intros is "representation", and the semantic center of the other intro is "interpretation." Second, "representation" and "interpretation" in the subjects of symbolic fusion, " iconic fusion," and indexed fusion are, respectively, aspects of the symbolic, iconic or index sign. The position of the object is determined in becoming iconic or symbolic or indexing the sign not in blending. For example, in iconic blending, the object does not have a direct role, because in any of the data, it does not enter directly but indirectly. This happens as it embodies interpretation; it plays a role through the presence of interpretation within the data of the mixed space intro.

In Persian and most of New Western Iranian languages also known as Iranian dialects, plurality is marked by –ān inherited from Western Middle Iranian plural marker. This marker derives from the genitive plural ending -ānām, or by –ā from Middle Persian -īhā, originally an abstract marker, developed as a plural marker in inanimate words. In some other languages like Talyshi, Semnani, Balochi, and Zazaki which have preserved at least a two-case system, the plural is marked by case ending which is used to distinguish not only cases but also number. There are six groups of Iranian languages that show an innovative form of the plural suffix -gal taken from a collective suffix. The suffix has been formed as a result of grammaticalization of a collective noun gal “group, bound”. The purpose of the present paper is to demonstrate how the –gal or its allomorphs has been formed by grammaticalization of gal “group, band”. Traditionally grammaticalization refers to the increase of the range of a morpheme advancing from a lexical to a grammatical or from a less grammatical to a more grammatical status, for example, from a derivative formant to an inflectional one. But in its broadest sense, it refers to the process by which grammar is created. In other words, it offers an explanatory account of how and why grammatical categories arise and develop. Grammaticalization involves four interrelated mechanisms: 1. semantic reduction which means loss or reduction in content meaning; 2. context generalization, e.g. increase of use in new contexts; 3. decategorialization: loss in morphosyntactic properties characteristic of the source forms, including the loss of independent word status;  4. erosion or phonetic reduction, that is, reduction in phonetic substance. Each of these mechanisms is concerned with a different aspect of language structure or language use, respectively: (1) relates to semantics, (2) to pragmatics, (3) to morphosyntax, and (4) to phonetics. Each of these mechanisms gives rise to a development which can be described in the form of a three-stage model as follows: first stage: there is a linguistic expression that is recruited for grammaticalization; second stage: this expression acquires a second use pattern, but there is ambiguity between the former pattern and the new one; third stage: finally, the former pattern is lost, and is replaced by the new pattern. After an introduction on grammaticalization, and its special use in development of plural markers derived from collective nouns, the morphological and functional features of -gal is examined in six groups of New Western Iranian languages, including Bakhtiari, Boirahmadi, Ashtiani, Azarani, Eastern Balochi, and Southern Kurdish that utilize the suffix –gal as their plural marker. Considering that there is no historical evidence of this suffix use and by comparative analysis of morphological and functional features of the suffix and its allomorphs in the given languages, the stages of historical development in the grammaticalization of the suffix is recovered. Then the semantic, phonetic, pragmatic, and morphosyntactic mechanisms related to the grammaticalization is also examined. The suffix -gal and its allomorphs are found in a number of Iranian languages. In Baxtiari, a variety of Lori, –gal/-yal  is used for animate plural nouns, such as dorgal “daughters”, piyâyal “men”; beside the former plural marker –õw: behīgõw “brides”; while for inanimate nouns in this variety the plural marker is –ā: hīvehâ “firewoods”. In Boirahmadi, another Lori variety, the plural marker has two allomorphs –al and –yal which are the only plural markers used for all nouns, for instance, piyâyal “men”, dâral “trees”. Next, Azarani, a central Iranian language, uses –gal for nouns ending in a vowel: püra-gal “boys”, while the nouns ending in a consonant is marked by –ūn: varg-ūn “wolves”. In Ashtiani, Amora’i and Naya’i –gal is a general marker for plural nouns which may be combined with the plural ending –ân in oblique plural case: jârgal or jârgalân “children”. Still more, in Eastern Balochi gal is not a suffix, but it is a noun used as a morpheme of a collective meaning in combination with the noun; the compound noun is inflected in singular: zah.galā “kids” (OBL.SG). Finally, in Southern Kurdish, we find different varieties of the suffix as –gal, -al and –ayl which are the general plural markers, for example, in Kermanshahi: the word ženayl which means“women”. Since no evidence of historical background for the suffix –gal in Iranian languages is found, to show the historical development of this suffix, we should compare the languages to cover the historical stages of its grammaticalization as much as possible. Comparative analysis of the languages demonstrates that Eastern Balochi shows the first cycle in the process, where gal “a number” is not used as a collective or plural suffix, but as a postnominal noun of a collective meaning in combination with the noun. In Ashtiani –gal is used as a plural marker but the oblique plural ending is also used after –gal. The next stage of grammaticalization is found in Baxtiari and Azarani, where the collective changes to plural, and –gal is used as plural suffix, but with degrees of optionality. The last stage is found in Boirahmadi, Southern Kurdish, Amora’i and Naya’i in which –gal turns into a new grammatical category, where this suffix is obligatory for all plural nouns and has developed to some allomorphs.

The present study employed a qualitative approach to investigate L2 graduate students’ reasons for not incorporating supervisor feedback into their theses/dissertations. Think-aloud protocols were employed to examine 54 L2 master’s degree and doctoral students’ reasons for ignoring their supervisors’ comments on their theses/dissertations. Employing an inductive categorization approach, we categorized students’ reasons thematically into four main classes of specificity of comments, clarity of comments, the compatibility of comments with students’ perceived abilities, and students’ retention of their autonomy. A significant issue in the feedback literature is students’ engagement with comments. Engagement is reported to determine the success of a feedback practice and explain the differential success of students receiving comments in second language writing programs (Ferris, Liu, Sinha, & Senna, 2013; Han, 2017; Han & Hyland, 2015). Han and Hyland (2015), highlighting the significance of students’ engagement with feedback, assert that “learner engagement is a critical link that connects the provision of WCF with learning outcomes” (p. 31). One of the consequences of students’ poor engagement with supervisor feedback is their failure to apply comments (Sinclair & Cleland, 2007). Boud (2015), too, argues that the "feedback loop" is completed when a student has enacted the information and has incorporated the comment into the subsequent versions and tasks. Nonetheless, as Storch & Wigglesworth (2010) state, the investigation of students’ engagement with comments has been an overlooked research area. Bounds, et al. (2013) have found that studies on students’ engagement with feedback has been an underexplored area of research, which requires more studies to cover a blind spot in the field (Burke, 2009). Winstone, Nash, Rowntree, and Parker (2017) assert that the findings of studies on factors affecting students’ engagement can help us improve the quality of supervisor feedback and students’ learning opportunities. Despite the significance of the issue of students’ incorporating supervisor feedback into their revisions as an indicator of students’ engagement with feedback, to the best of our knowledge, it has remained an unexplored area of research. Some researchers have investigated this issue, but all of them have focused merely on students’ perceptions. For instance, some studies (e.g., Caffarella & Barnett, 2000; Can & Walker, 2011) found a significant relationship between students’ perceptions of feedback and their revision process. Carless (2006), in his survey study, found that one of the major reasons that hindered students’ incorporation of comments was their inability to comprehend the comments. Sadler (2010) stated that to apply comments, students need to understand them; he also posited that students’ lack of suitable knowledge to decode the provided comments leads to their inability to benefit from the provided comments. Kumar and Stracke (2007) found that students’ attitude toward critical comments, and supervisors’ respect for students’ voice can affect their revision decisions; they also found that those who had more positive attitudes toward academic writing made more revisions. The present study put a step forward and investigated L2 graduate students’ reasons for ignoring comments by the use of stimulated recall interviews. Storch and Wigglesworth (2010) have argued that the methodological complexity of think-aloud protocols can be regarded as a major hindrance to investigate the details of students’ engagement with feedback. However, the present study benefited from a retrospective data collection procedure in the form of stimulated recall interviews to have a better understanding of the reasons why L2 graduate students do not incorporate some supervisor comments. To be more specific, this research contributes to the body of first and second language writing literature by responding to the following research questions: Research question one: What are L2 advanced students’ main hindrances to incorporation of written feedback into their academic texts? Research question two: Is there any significant difference between L2 master’s degree and doctoral students’ reasons for ignoring their supervisors’ feedback? The present study employed a qualitative approach to investigating L2 graduate students’ reasons for not incorporating supervisor feedback into their theses/dissertations. The participants included 39 master’s degree and 15 doctoral TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) student in four different Iranian universities. The researchers selected TEFL theses/dissertations because of their availability to these texts and their writers. The corpus of the present study included the two versions of 54 theses and dissertations: a version with supervisor feedback and the subsequent (revised) version. These texts were collected; the provided comments and the incorporated and ignored comments were identified for further analysis. In the present study, we defined supervisor feedback as any sort of written alphanumeric information provided by a supervisor that a post-graduate student should engage with to improve the quality of his/her performance and/or add, modify, or omit an item from his/her cognitive set to move toward the designated reference point determined by the community of practice. The comments ranged from a sign (a question mark, highlight, etc.) to comments as long as a page. In order to examine master’s degree and doctoral students’ reasons for ignoring comments into the subsequent version of their texts, stimulated recall interviews were employed. The participants were invited to participate in the interviews to examine the provided prompts (the two versions of their theses/dissertations), and disclose their reasons for not employing the provided comments. These reasons were, subsequently, categorized into different classes thematically. An inductive category formation procedure (Mayring, 2004) was employed to induce the themes from the responses. The interviews were conducted in students’ native language, Persian. Students’ first language was employed to avoid missing or misunderstanding interviewees’ information (Pavlenko, 2007). Each interview took about 20 minutes and, on average, we had 3 double-spaced pages of transcription (Persian) for each interviewee. The findings indicated that students did not apply some comments because of four main reasons: being too general, being unclear, sensing the incompatibility of feedback requirements with their abilities, and defending their autonomy. The results showed that masters’ and doctoral students ignored unclear and general comments with no significant difference in quantity. However, significantly more master’s students ignored the comments they found beyond their abilities, and significantly more doctoral students ignored the comments that did not respect their autonomy. The findings are discussed in the light of various linguistic, psychological, and sociological theories. Several pedagogical implications are also provided based on the findings of this study.

Keenan and Dyer (2007: 329) introduce the two types of passive constructions; basic passives and non-basic passives. In basic passives, no agent phrase is present and the main verb in its non-passive form is transitive. In these types of passives, the main verb expresses an action, having agent subjects and patient objects in its non-passive form (transitive form). Any deviation from the basic passive constructions leads to non-basic passives. Although in the basic passives, the main verb in its non-passive form is transitive, typological studies of passive construction show that some languages permit passives on intransitives. Keenan and Dryer (2007) introduce the term “impersonal passive” with 6 subtitles. They call the intransitive passive constructions as a kind of impersonal passive and classify the passivization of intransitives into two groups. The first one uses the syntactic and morphological pattern of basic passives to derive non-basic passives from intransitive verbs. The second one utilizes the same passive morphology on intransitives and the agent phrases in the same way as in the basic passives. In the Persian language, there is a rich literature on passives. Accordingly, some linguists do not agree on existence of passive construction in Persian. Those who disagree on the existence of passives called this so-called passive construction inchoative. In contrast, many linguists admit this idea and consider different aspects of passive construction in different approaches. Despite this rich literature on passive construction in Persian, no research has been conducted on the passivization of intransitives. This study which is both theory-based and corpus-based addresses the passivization of intransitives in the Persian language. The two corpora, including Persian Syntactic Dependency Treebank (Rasooli et al., 2013) and Hamshahri corpus (AleAhmad et al., 2009) provide the data required (passive verbs) for the research. For this purpose, different conjugations of the passive voice auxiliary verb ‘šodan’ are searched and then, among the different passive verbs, intransitive passives are listed. In the next step, in order to examine how these verbs are presented in the natural language data, the websites have been searched for the passive and active forms of these intransitive verbs. The results emerged from the frequency count and descriptive statistics showed that in Persian the language, some unaccusative and unergative intransitives can be passivized based on common passivization pattern in this language. The passives on unaccusative intransitives accept the subject of active form after being passivized in the subject position, whereas those from unergatvive intransitives maybe accept or do not accept, that is in the second form of intransitive passivization the subject is deleted or demoted in an optional oblique phrase. This corpus-based study therefore classifies passives on intransitive verbs into three groups. These three possibilities are determined by the type of intransitives and the subject's behavior. If the subject of active intransitive is agent, the verb is unergative intransitive. The subject of active unergative intransitive can be demoted by eliminating from the sentence or by demoting to the status of an oblique NP after passivization. Based on the subject's behavior of unergative verb in passivization, these verbs can be divided into two groups; unergative passive type 1 and unergative passive type 2. If the subject of the intransitive verb is the patient, the verb is unaccusative intransitive. After passivization, the subject of passive and active forms of these verbs are identical in the subject position. Some unergative passive type 1 in the Persian language are as follows ‘ɂɑbeɹuɹizi caɹdan’, ‘ɂɑbeɹudɑɹi caɹdan’, ‘casifcɑɹi caɹdan’, ‘xaɹɑbcɑɹi caɹdan’, ‘ɂezdehɑm caɹdan’, ‘ɂetesɑb caɹdan’. Some unergative passive type 2 in Persian language are ‘hamhame caɹdan’, ‘sɑxtosɑz caɹdan’, ‘xɑnesɑzi caɹdan’, ‘ʃahɹacsɑzi caɹdan’, ‘camfoɹuʃi caɹdan’, ‘Gijɑmat caɹdan’, ‘Ganunʃecani caɹdan’, ‘ceʃɑvaɹzi caɹdan’, ‘ɂenGelɑb caɹdan’, ‘tamaddonsɑzi caɹdan’, ‘sijɑhcɑɹi caɹdan’. Some accusative passive in Persian language are as follows ‘palɑsidan’ ‘paʒmoɹdan’ ‘ɹujidan’ ‘ʃecɑftan’ ‘ʃecoftan’ ‘fot caɹdan’ ‘ɂɑbse caɹdan’ ‘ɹosub caɹdan’ ‘taɹɑʃ xoɹdan’. Accordingly, the results of this corpus-based study revealed that the Persian language allows passivization of intransitives like some other languages (Dutch, German, Latin, Classical Greek, North Russian dialects, Shona (Bantu), Turkish, and Taramahua (Uto-Aztecan)). In addition to this central result, according to the findings, we could also explain why the subjects of some intransitive verbs remain in the subject position after passivization but the subjects of the other one demote in oblique position or deleted from the sentence. For this reason, the intransitive verbs can be divided into two groups; unergative and unaccusative intransitives where the subject of the first one is the agent and the subject of the other one is the patient. After passivization, the patient subject of the intransitive active verb remains in the subject position but the agent subject of the intransitive active verb demotes through deleting or appearing in the form of an oblique phrase.

Implied meaning (hereafter, non-literal or indirect implicature) is studied in the field of pragmatics which considers the intended meaning in the context of the situation (Yule, 1996). The implied meaning is not denotatively expressed, but it is only understood through the shared knowledge of the interlocutors. This study explores the MA Persian speakers' lack of mastery on the listening module of TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) since they cannot comprehend the implied (i.e., non-literal) and consequently, they achieve unsatisfactory results in listening section. Sixty-two MA graduate students took the TOEFL listening module and they were divided into two groups of high and low achievers based on their test scores. Data were analyzed through the theoretical framework of Gricean Maxims (1975). K-S test and independent samples t-test showed that the sub-groups of high and low achievers are significantly different in understanding the implied meanings of relevance and quantity maxims. However, both high and low achievers were not significantly different in quality and manner maxims; however, the scores of high achievers were greater than the low achievers. The difference did not meet the significant level (.05). The findings of the study suggest that teachers should focus on relevance and quantity maxims as the problematic maxims in recognizing the implied meaning of the items. The nature of relevance and quantity maxims should be clarified to the MA learners who need to infer the implied meanings of the TOEFL listening module. Linguists always note the study of sentence meaning because an utterance may convey various interpretations. Implied meanings of these interpretations may not attract the attention of people since they are so conventionalized that we consider them as literal. However, they may hinder communication or cause misunderstanding on the part of the listener or reader. This problem can be amended through apologizing or giving background knowledge. Although everyone has various interpretations of the utterances, the context of the situation may limit a set of meanings. In this case, the listeners' meaning can be different from the speakers' intended meaning which is implied and this is the role of the listener or reader who should discover the implied or indirect meaning of the utterances. Thus, the receivers should distinguish the sentence and utterance meanings of the senders' speech. Certainly, linguistic structures convey fixed meanings at the syntactic level (e.g., It is very hot.) to open a small talk on the bus. This is different from the same utterance (e.g., It is very hot.) when the speaker implies a request (i.e., get me a glass of water.). If the addressee does not understand the implied meaning of the latter, he/she may get confused (Verschueren, 2016(.In this study, we analyzed the participants’ responses to pragmatically loaded TOEFL short dialogues to identify the characteristics that made them difficult for MA students. The origin of the difficulty of understanding the nonliteral meaning is the employment of Grice cooperative principles in the tests. The short dialogues, which are characterized by the quantity principle, are the most difficult ones but those that are characterized by the relevance principle are the simplest. These simple dialogues may become difficult if they are culturally loaded or if there is a combination of implicatures. Some items are tricky and do not indicate the complexity of the dialogue or the implicature. Although the words “implied” and “inferred” are interchangeably used, they do not convey the same meaning and are not processed similarly. They may be a source of difficulty even for native speakers. If words such as “imply” “mean”, and “suggest” are used in the item (e.g. what does the man imply?), it is the signal that there is an implicature in one of the utterances in the short talk exchange. This can help the learner to identify the nonliteral meaning. Although the scenarios in the TOEFL exam correspond to the real communication context, there is no one to help and signal the learner that her/his interlocutor may convey a nonliteral or implied meaning. In sum, it is recommended to consider these as well as Grice principles in teaching and learning listening comprehension module.The study of the application of Gricean principles in the TOEFL listening exam revealed the difficulties in inferring the implied meanings of the listening items which contain pragmatic and connotative aspects of language. Thus, the learners even at the graduate level need to learn the inferring strategies. Administrators of the listening comprehension test may encourage the students to focus their attention on the implied meanings. Moreover, this study reveals the effective role of the distracters which may be used as an inappropriate implicature.Further research may deal with the other international exams like IELTS, TOLIMO, GRE to discover the nature of listening items, their correct choices, and distractors as well. Reading, speaking, and writing skills could be the subject of future studies since both receptive and productive language skills need to be evaluated in terms of the quality of their items regarding the reliability and validity of test construction.

The primary purpose of this research is to study cultural cognition and conceptualizations in Persian stories published for children. The problem of research is to determine which cultural conceptualizations are embedded in the texts of Persian children’s stories.  The methodological approach taken in this study is based on cultural linguistics. According to Sharifian (2017) cultural linguistics is based on the premise that many aspects of human languages encode cultural conceptualizations. In other words, cultural conceptualizations are embedded in many features of human languages. Cultural linguistics offers both a theoretical and an analytical framework to investigate the cultural conceptualizations underling the human languages in practice. The theoretical framework of cultural linguistics contains the notion of “cultural cognition”, which affords an integrated understanding of the notions of “cognition” and “culture” and the way these two concepts are related to language. This analytical framework provides some useful tools that allow us to examine features of human languages which encode conceptualizations and to analyze the relationship between language and cultural conceptualizations. They contain the three major notions of “cultural schema”, “cultural category”, and “cultural metaphor”.  By cultural schemas we mean a culturally constructed subclass of “cognitive schemas” that are an invention of the cognitive sciences. Cultural schemas, which may in some cases encompass subschemas, are instantiated in many aspects of language. Sharifian (2014) believes that cultural schemas capture pools of knowledge that provide the basis for a significant portion of encyclopedic and pragmatic meanings in human languages. Additionally, they provide substantial foundation for the “common ground” i.e., the knowledge shared, or assumed to be shared, by the members of a speech community. Cultural schemas (and subschemas) include beliefs, norms, rules, and expectations of behaviour as well as values relating to various aspects and components of experience. Members of a cultural group negotiate and renegotiate these schemas and pass them onto later generations. According to Shore (1996), cultural schemas may be instantiated through the use of language, in painting, rituals, and even in silence. Various levels and units of language such as morphosyntactic features, lexical items, speech acts, idioms, metaphors, discourse markers, etc., may be established in cultural schemas. Aspects of language that mainly draw on cultural schemas may expedite intra-cultural communication, while debilitating intercultural communication. Within a cultural group, the communication, which is based on cultural schemas, involves a much more fluid transfer of messages and yields more homogeneous interpretations than the communication which is based on idiosyncratic, individual-based schemas. This research introduces fundamental cultural schemas in the Persian childrens’ stories within cultural linguistics analytical framework and analyses the determined schemas within metalinguistic discourse method which is developed by Sharifian and Tayebi (2017a, 2017b).  For their analysis of perceptions of (im)politeness in Persian, Sharifian and Tayebi developed an innovative three-tier model consisting metadiscourse analysis level, discourse analysis level, and conceptual analysis level. Metadiscourse analysis focuses on identifying words or expressions frequently used by those participating in interactions describing (im)polite acts. In discourse analysis level, they identified the scenarios that had led to evaluations of (im)politeness. Eventually, in conceptual analysis, they examined the nature of the relationship between the perception and evaluation of (im)politeness and the impliciting cultural conceptualizations, as well as the ethnography of related cultural conceptualizations. Some of these may remain unobserved by the interactants in the course of communication. The statistical sample of this research consisted a corpus of 100 Persian stories published for children of A and B age groups (6-10 years old) during the time span of 1998-2018. Fifty-two interactions have been found in these stories among the characters. Thirty-one cultural schemas showing various cultural themes are identified by putting the interactions of the stories’ characters within analytical framework of cultural linguistics. The findings indicate that three major macro schemas of sympathy, taa’rof (Iranian art of etiquette) and sense of regret have shown some repetitive schematic patterns which are themselves closely related to sub-schemas of cooperation, freedom seeking, hospitality, formality, and embarrassment. Silence plays an indispensible pragmatic role in macro-schema level and a considerable number of verbal interactions of the stories’ characters are closely influenced by this metalinguistic element. Micro schema of solitariness is also embedded within macro schema of sympathy and regret. This consequently has had remarkable effect on verbal and nonverbal interactions of characters. The present study makes several noteworthy contributions to the elicitation of some of cultural schemas in Persian language. These schemas are reflected in common social interactions of children stories. They also enrich the literature relating to children stories. The evidence from this study, mainly the new list of schemas, will serve as a base for further probes in sociological and anthropological studies.

Moving toward more scientific lexicography in Iran requires lexicographers and researchers to pay closer attention to and develop deeper understandings of the interaction between theory and practice in lexicography. If lexicographers ignore theories in their analysis while creating an entry's microstructure, the result will be inconsistency in the microstructures as well as a negligence of some aspects of the words' behaviors (Atkins, 2001, pp. 1-2). In addition, since the microstructure of bilingual dictionaries has directly to do with the quality of translators' finding the right equivalents, such inconsistency and weakness may be problematic for translators. The analysis of bilingual dictionaries is one of the areas of lexicography that seems to require more scholarly work. One way to do so is by evaluating the microstructures of dictionaries. It goes without saying that such studies can result in optimizing the process of lexicography in general and more efficient use of bilingual dictionaries in particular, especially by translators as specialized users of such dictionaries. Therefore, drawing on Fillmore's semantic frames, the present descriptive-analytical research paper, that analyzed corpus data, aimed to compare three bilingual English-Persian dictionaries in order to identify some of their microstructural differences and postulate some ways for the improvement of such dictionaries. The author argues that there is a reciprocal relationship between the development of lexicography and by extension dictionaries on the one hand and the improvement of language and translation on the other hand. One of the approaches to lexicography is the cognitive one in which frame semantics is a prominent theory. This theory can, among others, illuminate the relationships between the senses of lexical entries and lexical units. Moreover, this can cast light on how senses can be best structured within a single entry. Despite its rather long history, frame semantics has recently been used in semantic tagging and in compiling corpus-based dictionaries (Fontenelle, 2009, p. 38). It has also been applied in lemmatization and parsing. This theory is the central part of the FrameNet project started in 1997 in the University of California, Berkeley (Boas, 2009, p. 16; Fontenelle, 2009, p. 38). Frame semantics is different from similar approaches to lexical meaning in that the meanings of words are realized though comparing them with the common bodies of knowledge, i.e. frames. In other words, words are only related to each other through the frames they share (Fillmore & Atkins, 1992, pp. 76-77). In Fillmore's theory, the notion of frame replaces concepts such as scene, scenario, meme, schema, etc. (Fillmore & Baker, 2010; Fillmore, 1982). To explain his theory, as Rojo López (2002) points out, Fillmore has frequently given the example of two English synonymous words, those of coast and shore, which considering the conceptualization situations of words, evoke different semantic fields (water in case of shore and land in case of coast). However, this depends on the viewer's view from the sea/lake etc. or the land.    The corpus of this research consisted of, using their short popular titles, Aryanpour, Moaser-e Hezareh and Moaser-e Pouya English-Persian dictionaries from each of which 17 entries, related to the two frames of MOTION (6 entries) and KINSHIP (11 entries), were selected based on the information available in FrameNet online database. The corpus dictionaries were compared and contrasted with Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (OALD) (2002) as the comparand dictionary. The categories selected for comparison comprised collocations, examples, inflections, parts of speech, synonyms/antonyms, valency, and the number of senses and equivalents. These categories in corresponding entries of the corpus dictionaries were compared with each other and with OALD. The data collected contained both quantitative (as in the number of examples, senses and equivalents) and qualitative (for collocation, valency) information. The findings indicated weak hierarchical structuring and differences in differentiating senses, dissimilarity in the inclusion of different parts of speech in and across entries, a lack of correspondence between some proposed equivalents and the selected frames, and more importantly defects in considering important parameters such as collocations, examples, and valency. Specifically, the entries analyzed in the corpus dictionaries did not include specific parts devoted to collocations, nor did enough examples for each sense, while OALD provides users with a large number of examples that at least indirectly help learners to notice collocations of the given words. This shows that to enrich bilingual English-Persian dictionaries, compilers should be advised to start using Persian corpora. Another defect found was that the corpus dictionaries do not generally seem to care for valency. Due to the important characteristic of Frame Semantics in defining relations, valency can play a substantial role in the microstructures of dictionaries and in helping translators to find the right equivalents. Yet, the dictionary of Moaser-e Hezareh has marked transitive and intransitive verbs, which has to do with the description of valency. What is more, in the entries studied, even though the dictionary of Moaser-e Pouya provides a higher number of senses, this might not guarantee a more efficient use of the dictionary mainly because of examples shortage, valency description, and insufficient number of equivalents.

Discourse puts emphasis on linguistic knowledge above the level of words, phrases, clauses and sentences that is essential for establishing a successful relation. This approach studies linguistic patterns of text and the connection between language and social and cultural contexts that the text is based on. In addition to this, discourse analysis deals with this issue that how the usage of language is affected by the way the participants in the conversation have relation with each other and it also focuses on the impact that language has on social identities and relations. In its third stage of development, discourse analysis reaches the phase of Critical Discourse Analysis. Critical discourse analysis is a new viewpoint towards linguistics and is applied to clarify and explain the social situation. In fact, in critical discourse analysis, it is presumed that language, grammar and context can perfectly show the social and cultural conditions of society. The belief of the analyst is that “no truth is found out of the context” (Jorgensen &Philips,2002, p48), so what counts is “discourse” which is analyzed. Discourse indicates that context is a social matter that forms amid social relations (Paltridge,1947, p14). From the point of Harris (1952), discourse is a relationship that is created inside a specific situation. Parvin E’tesami, a poet whose life has coincided with the monarchy of two Qajar kings and the entrance to Pahlavi’s reign, has been the main focus of this article. In contrast to the importance of changes that exist in Parvin’s life, her poem has been less assessed politically and socially. We can point to Constitutionalism and the start of the First World War as the most significant incident happened in Parvin’s life that led to the change in her life’s stream. The Constitutional Revolution or Movement is described as a series of efforts made to oblige Mozafar al-Din Shah, the King of Qajar to sign the Constitutional Order that continued until Mohammad Ali Shah’s era in order to transform an autocratic government to a constitutional one.(Kasravi,1998,p5) As stated above, the First World War also occurred in this period that brought the change of poets’ attitude and style. Because of kings’ incapability of running the country, in the beginning of the First World War, Iran was approximately a full colony of the western governments and just on paper was assumed as an independent country. After the start of war, although Iran had formally announced its neutrality, in reality it was converted to the battlefield of armed struggles (Salehi,2008,p178). For a better evaluation, Fairclough’s paradigm has been taken into account in this article. Norman Fairclough is one of the most famous theorists of critical discourse analysis that his three-dimensional paradigm consists of description, interpretation and explanation that thanks to its coherence and efficiency, lots of people are in favor of it. Fairclough(1995) has named his attitude “the critical study of language” and has recognized his aim as a help to enhance the conciseness of language, power and specifically the role of language in dominance of some on others. He also tries to prove that how far the language of people is  from the assumptions of common sense and the fact that how these assumptions that are on the basis of common sense are ideologically formed by the power relations. In order to demonstrate cultural and social conditions of Parvin Etemadi’s era clearly, in this research, seven debates of Parvin’s have been examined by the method of Fairclough. In the phase of description, in Fairclough’s point of view, grammar and the existing naming are evaluated. For a better understanding, in this phase, functional grammar of Halliday, with the emphasis on experiential metafunction is used. Halliday’s functional approach is known by the name of “Systemic Functional Grammar”. Halliday(1989) believes in the existence of formal system in language that is dependent on communicative function of language, emphasizes on functional representation, explanation of formal system of language, and in analysis of clauses by experiential metafunction. The main focus of Halliday is on the process of predicators. Processes are the controller of incidents, acts and states. Processes play the main role and the participants of that processes contain the leading elements of the process. In fact, participants of a process revolve around the process. For this reason, the main concern of this research is about the processes of predicators. In addition to this, some of grammatical features that are used for stabilization of ideology and power are assessed. Then, in the phases of interpretation and explanation, the relation between grammatical aspects and context is surveyed. Considering what is reached by analysis of these seven debates, injustice and inequality in Parvin’s community have been totally reflected in discourse of her debates. In other words, in discoursal structure of Parvin’s debates, government is on the higher level and entirely has dominance on citizens. From Parvin’s perspective, the ideology that has led to this unequal dominance is the religious ideologies and it is due to the lack of knowledge, that the participant of citizens are under the control of this dominance. This article is descriptive-analytical and is written on the basis of library resources.

Linguistic, historical, and geographical conditions suggest that homogeneous communities settled in Eurasian and spoke Proto-Indo-European languages that began to expand around 4000 BCE. Mallory and some scholars believe that the Indo-European’s homeland was in the arid steppe of the Pont-Caspian region. Having migrated the Indo-Iranian groups, they probably occupied somewhere in central Asia (a geographical parallel to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) from where some Iranians migrated to the Iran’s plateau, while the Indo-Aryans migrated to the subcontinent (Mallory 1989:262). Grandson is one of the most controversial words in the Indo-European languages. This word is attested in most of Indo-European languages such as Celtic, Germanic, Italic, Baltic, Slavic, Albanian, Greek, and Indo-Iranian. In the Proto-Indo-European languages *h2nep-ōt is used for ‘male descendant’ and h2nep-t-ih1/2 for ‘female descendant’. Buck believes that PIE *nepot probably consists of a compound of negative ‘ne’, and a form of stem, which is seen in Sanskrit pati-, Latin potis ‘able’, etc., and literally means ‘powerless’(Buck.1944: 644). Paul Horn quotes from Leumann about PIE nēpōt which means ‘orphan’ (Horn.1883: 234), and Nourai regards nebh= ‘damp, humidity’ as a root (Nourai.2012: 322), but Helmut Rix does not think of nebh as the root of ‘nava’(Rix.2001: 448) . In the Old Indian, nápāt means ‘grandson, son, descendant’, which changes into nápāt-am in the accusative case and nápāt-ah in the plural subjective case. In the Old Indian, apám nápāt compares with apąm napå in Avesta, which denotes ‘son of waters’. náptr̥ is the strong (vrdhi) stem of nápāt in the Old Indian, which originates from the rainy cloud. Napāt in the Old Avesta, and naptar, nafǝδar, in the Young Avesta means ‘grandson and sisters’ son’. This word seems to be used with the apąm to mean “grandson of waters” and originates from mountain and naptya denotes ‘descendant’. Darius the Great applied napāt to describe his pedigree in Bihstun Inscription. Horn regards nápāt as Old Iranian word for nava in the New Persian, which has evolved into nevi in Kurdish, and nwasia in Baluchi of the Iranian’s dialects. The ‘nava’ or grandson is transcribed ‘nab’ into the Middle Persian, which originates in *napak of the Pahlavi Language (Horn.1883: 234). The noun structure in the Sumerian language, however, is based on nominal chains which include primary nouns such as dumu, ‘son’, ‘child’, and a number of verbal roots employing as a noun like ti ‘lie’, buru ‘hole’. The use of primary nouns was relatively limited, and the Sumerian language, instead, applied a large number of nominal compounds. In the Sumerian language, ‘dumu’ stands for “son”, and ‘dumu-ka’ for “grandson”, which Sumerian kings referred to in their communications. A Sumerian king, Gudae C. 2141- 2122 B.C, ruled over Lagash city and was a patron of the arts and the builder of a new temple at Girsu. Sumerian texts in Gudae era indicate “grandson or dumu-ka”. Furthermore, nouns in the Akkadian language are declined in the three cases of singular: nominative (stem-um), genitive (stem-im), accusative (stem-am), (dual: nom-?n, gen,acc -in; and plural: nom-?, gen, acc, -?) or the three statuses of rectus status, constructus status, and absolutus rectus. In the Old Akkadian languages, the words of dumu-ka, DUMU DUMU, TUR TUR, ablu abli, bin bini, and liblibi use for ‘grandson’ and we describe them in the Akkadian lingual branches which all except for dumu-ka take the reduplicated forms. There are some reduplicated words in the Old and Middle Akkadian language, and some words and prefixes are used for the family members in the Kassite period such as mār= son; marat= daughter; TUR or Mar=son; TUR-SAL or Marat=daughter; TUR-TUR=grandson; KAL =adult; KAL-TUR-TUR=adult grandson. Moreover, among the survived texts of the Assyrian language, nouns have the three numbers of singular, dual and plural , as well as the three declinable case of the nominative, ending in –u; the genitive, ending in –i; and the accusative, ending in –a. We have a few words which applied for ‘grandson’, such as DUMU DUMU, TUR TUR, ablu abli, bin bini, liblibi. Just like the noun structure in the Assyrian language, nouns are declined in the three number of singular, plural and dual; and three cases of nominative, accusative and genitive, and compounds along with reduplicated words coincide with those of the Assyrian language. In the Young Babylonian period, we see the same of structure and reduplicated stem with genitive case such as ban bani ‘grandson’, lib-lib-bi, mār māri and other reduplicated words. However, nouns in the Aramaic language may be divided into two groups: 1-nouns with the Aramaic origin and loanwords adapted to Aramaic morphology 2- loanwords which have not been adapted to Aramaic morphology. The former groups with original Aramaic stock end for the most part in either (–a) or (–ta). The latter groups of loanwords are adapted to Aramaic morphology. They adopted this nominal inflection through the suffixing of the ending (–a) or, in a few cases, (-ta). In the Aramaic language and its sub-branches bar applies for "son, grandson", and bar bar in the same meaning. In addition, ben bane means a "son" which in the widest sense includes "grandson".