مجله جستار های زبانی
سال دوازدهم شماره 1 (پیاپی 61، فروردین و اردیبهشت 1400)

Given the importance of cultural issues in different societies, scholars have introduced the ethnography of communication to examine the differences in light of language and context. Related to this theory is Hymes’ SPEAKING model (1967), in which setting and scene, participants, ends, acts sequence, key, instrumentalities, norms, and genre are taken into account to analyze speech events. Since the words and expressions we use in everyday speech have emotional loads, adding an emotional aspect to this model (E-SPEAKING) seems to provide a more comprehensive picture regarding cultural and linguistic interpretations. The present study; therefore, first, introduces the concept of emoling by analyzing [Naaz Kardan]-related vocabularies, and then, by considering closing and opening discourse, tries to relate the concepts of ethnography of communication and emotional ethnography. Such cultural emolings can reduce the existing gap between social and psychological studies and lead to a more holistic view on language and culture, which consequently prevent separating emotions from cultures.

The present study investigated the differential influence of direct focused and unfocused written corrective feedback on the intermediate learners’ accuracy of simple past tense. To this end, 60 Iranian EFL learners were divided randomly into two experimental groups (focused and unfocused) and a control group. All groups were required to perform a story-writing task and deliver it to the teacher for four sessions. The focused group received feedback on regular and irregular simple past tense errors. The unfocused group received feedback on all types of errors. The control group received no feedback on their writing. Results revealed that the performance of the focused group was better than the unfocused and control groups on the immediate posttest. Results of the attitude questionnaire showed that learners preferred the focused feedback more than the unfocused one.

Storytelling is one of the important strategies in the Holy Qurchr('39')an to express its teachings. In this literary-artistic style, the Qurchr('39')an tries to stimulate religious feeling and human consciousness. One of the most important and fascinating stories of the Qurchr('39')an, which is illustrated for the educational purposes and the propagation of values, is the story of the Prophet Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. In the present study, the story is interpreted with a semiotic approach with the aim of explaining the Qurchr('39')anic concepts and applying them, as well as understanding the methodology of the Qurchr('39')an in producing discourse. With such an objective, it answers the question of how the process of meaning creation occurs. The narrative structure in the text is such that the performance function controls the process of creating meaning. The findings showed that the performance function governing this story shapes the performance discourse system. The nature of this system is shaped by the elimination of the crisis of meaning (polytheism). In this system, the strategy of acquiring a valuable object has both an operational and a programmatic aspect. Solomon and his activists achieved the object through a process of competence-performance and step-by-step operation, moving the Sabaeans from the first meaning (polytheism and lack of faith) to the second meaning (monotheism and godliness). In this way, with Solomonchr('39')s soft power, the polytheistic political system in the land of Sheba is transformed into a monotheistic political system.

This article aims to study the modal elements equal to bɑjæd in Persian, meaning ‘must, should, and have to’ in some West Iranian languages, including Balochi, Gerashi, Gilaki, Hawrami, Kahangi, Kurdish, Lori, Persian, Semnani, Tati and Vafsi. It also presents the semantic map of these expressions beside a categorization of these languages based on a modal element. The investigations have indicated that some of these languages (Balochi, Bamposht dialect and Hawrami, Hawraman Takht dialect) use adverbial modals to express these notions, while as least in one case (i.e. Kahangi), there are two distinctive auxiliaries which signify ‘must, have to, and should’. Moreover, classification of these languages, according to a semantic feature, ends in a continuum on which languages are laid next to each other, where some of them are closer to some languages and further from the others; this is against the traditional categorizations which are mostly based on morpho-syntactic features, in which a language is whether a member of a group or not. Moreover, all the targeted elements, (expect one of the modals in Kahangi, i.e. ɢɑde) besides deontic (necessity and possibility) and epistemic modality (possibility type), express participant-inherent need, participant-imposed necessity and situational necessity, as types of dynamic modality.

The theory of possible worlds presents a model for narrative semantics. This essay focuses on the use of possible worlds’ theory in narrative semantics with interdisciplinary approach. Conception of narration based on possible worlds’ perspective is the main purpose of this paper. Based on this perspective, plot is not only textual actual worlds which some events occur in it, but also include possible worlds which without regarding them, narrative semantics will remain incomplete. Such perspective is derived of semantics of modal logic; therefore, for explanation of this perspective attention to modal logic is necessary. Contemporarysemantic theories have three main branches: philosophical, formal and linguistic semantics. Linguistic semantics uses formal semantics as a semantic logic in order to make clear how the study of meaning is. In this essay it will be illustrated that logical semantics can be applied in narrative semantics. Consequently, if the readers include private worlds of characters or fictional minds’ worlds and various possible worlds in their reading, they will get more complete and more profound conception in reading narrative text, because a fiction is considered as a complete modal system and the mental representations of characters is equal with the PWs of a modal system. Some of accomplishments got, through foreshadowing to meaning of narrative text on the basis of this model, are the redefinition of plot and conflict notion. In order to apply this model in a narrative text, the binary Wandering Island and Wandering Cameleer novels by Simin Daneshvar has been chos

One of the most innovative tools for researchers in order to improve the quality of education and assessment is the application of Cognitive Diagnostic Approaches (CDA) which is the result of the unification of cognitive psychology and educational measurement; unfortunately, they are scarcely utilized by (grammar) language education and assessment researchers (in Iran). Among the most important decisions to be made in the process of cognitive diagnostic assessment are determining the (sub-)skills required to respond correctly to each question as well as choosing an optimal cognitive diagnostic model. The present qualitative and quantitative study aims to develop a Q-matrix in order to identify such cognitive (sub-)skills, to determine the optimal cognitive-diagnostic model (CDM) for the grammar section of MA entrance examination for English majors, and to pinpoint mastery and non mastery states of the examinees who were 5000 MA entrance participants. The findings from the literature review, informants’ and experts’ evaluations,  and think-aloud protocols in the Q-matrix development phase revealed that each MA examination grammar item taps into between two to four of the six attributes of verb tense, correct verb usage, idiomatic expressions, modifiers, agreement, and preposition.  Evaluation of three alternative models [i.e. the Deterministic-Input, Noisy-And (DINA), Deterministic Input, Noisy-Or-gate (DINO), and Generalized DINA (GDINA)] from among the existing cognitive diagnostic models indicated that G-DINA was the best fit for the Grammar data. Considering the performance of master and non-master participants, the study concludes with suggestions, implications, and applications of the findings for high-stakes language education and testing.

One of the major issues that can be raised in the processing, understanding, producing, applying and training the idiomatic expressions is to describe the internal features and determine the relationship and correlation between these features in idiomatic expressions. The present study is aimed to investigate the characteristics of the internal features of 50 Persian idiomatic expressions and describes them and determines the correlation between them. The intuition of the speakers on variables of familiarity, ambiguity, semantic transparency, figurativeness, arousal, concreteness, emotional valence, and confidence of each phrase was evaluated. Their descriptions were also assessed for the figurative meaning of each phrase. The results showed that the studied Persian idiomatic expressions have the characteristics mentioned and can be categorized using a continuum whose pole is one of the internal features of the idiomatic expressions and the other is opposite of the same internal feature. Furthermore, descriptive statistics showed that the expressions of the Persian language are assessed more as ambiguous, arousal, transparent, figurative, and concrete with negative emotional valence. Moreover, the results showed that there is a negative correlation between the familiarity and semantic transparency. There is a positive correlation between meaningfulness and semantic transparency. There is also a negative correlation between knowledge with semantic transparency and confidence..             One of the most important issues in the processing, perception, production, use, and teaching of idiomatic expressions is describing their internal features and determining the correlation between these features. The present study aimed at describing the following internal features of Persian idiomatic expressions: familiarity, knowledge, ambiguity, semantic transparency, figurativeness, emotional arousal, concreteness, emotional valence, and confidence.  Furthermore, an attempt was made to investigate the correlation between these features and answer the following questions: A) Which of these features can be found in Persian idiomatic expressions? B) What is the relationship between the internal features of Persian idiomatic expressions? C) How Persian idiomatic expressions can be categorized based on these internal features? It is hypothesized that idiomatic expressions possess various and diverse internal features and both a negative and a positive correlation can be found between some of them. Furthermore, these idiomatic expressions can be categorized on a continuum with one of the internal features at one end and the opposite feature at the other end. To achieve the aims of the present research, at first, based on the intuitive and encyclopedic knowledge of the researchers, 50 Persian idiomatic expressions were chosen from “Dictionary of Metonymy” by “Mansour Servat (1379)” and “Sokhanchr('39')s dictionary of metonymy” by “Hassan Anvari (1390). The intuitive knowledge of Persian native speakers for each idiomatic expression was evaluated in terms of familiarity, knowledge, ambiguity, semantic transparency, figurativeness, emotional arousal, concreteness, emotional valence, and confidence. Hence, for the experimental phase of the study, 270 high-school female students were selected using random sampling. Questionnaires were administered to collect the data of the study and for each variable, a questionnaire was developed. The questionnaires were filled in without the researcher’s intervention. Descriptive and inferential statistics were performed using SPSS. The importance of this research lies in filling the gap in the field of the internal features of Persian idiomatic expressions and determining their correlation. The results of the study revealed that Persian idiomatic expressions have these internal features and they can be categorized based on these features on a continuum with one feature at one end and the opposite feature at the other end. Furthermore, descriptive statistics revealed that the idiomatic expressions investigated in this study were more ambiguous, emotionally arousing, figurative, concrete and emotionally negative. Furthermore, a negative correlation was identified between the internal features of familiarity and semantic transparency. However, a positive correlation was observed between concreteness and semantic transparency. Finally, a negative correlation was observed among knowledge, sematic transparency, and confidence

Language is the house of thought. Feelings, emotions, and thoughts, and all that include in the unconscious mind would manifest through language and by means of linguistic signs. But, what differentiates poetry from ordinary language is the accuracy and elegancy in the selection and composition of discourse elements and syntactic structure which express feelings and emotions in the best way possible. The current research attempts to indicate the most important morphological and syntactic functions of anxiety represented in the poetic language of ForoughFarrokhzad. This research is based on the theoretical framework of chomskyan Generative linguistics with regard to the expression of meaning in syntax and according to psycholinguistic approach. This research has been conducted on fifty poems of Forough among all her poetic works. The results show that the syntax of Forough poetry reflects anxiety due to the selection and composition components of Noun and Verb Phrases, the agreement between components and phrases, the recurrences, and the movements in most cases. Moreover, the lexical categories like Adverbs, Adjectives and Phrases reinforce the resulted Anxiety by the syntactic compositions severely.

Discourse markers determine how the addresseechr('39')s perceptions are different from or similar to each other. Considering the importance of discourse markers in increasing of childrenchr('39')s verbal and linguistic skills and increasing the coherence level of their discourse (Gerhardt, 1990), the purpose of this study is to use the Hansen model (1998) to study the production process of discourse markers in the narrative of 7 and 10-year-old Persian speaking children and adults. The present research is descriptive and analytic. 37 of children were 7 years old and 40 were 10 years old. Children were selected purposefully from elementary schools of Tehran. Also, 18 adults were selected in  order to compare childrenchr('39')s performance with them. The retelling experiment was performed according to the method of Choi (2007) and Kyratizis and Ervin Tripp (1999). The results showed that the subjects were able to use different types of discourse markers in their narrative discourse. Total use of discourse markers in children was more than that of adults. It seems that sometimes coherence compensates cohesion, and sometimes logical and semantic relationships based on prior knowledge play role instead of discourse markers.

The present paper on the reverse flow of Grammatical metaphor has surveyed the usage of grammatical metaphor in two varieties of Scientific articles- medical academic articles and medical popularized articles- with the same topics.This subject was chosen to be studied aiming to discover the differences between language structures that scientific journalists and academic authors use to transfer scientific ideas and issues in their articles. Grammatical metaphor is the concept that Halliday uses in Systemic functional grammar and it means changing one grammatical category to another; in this process verbs and adjectives change to noun and clauses to nominal groups as well. This process leads to increase of lexical density and also complexity and abstraction of the text. Findings of this study show that authors of popularized scientific articles to publish their writings in mass media, usually simplify the grammatical structures in addition to lexicon. To reach this aim and also to justify simplified texts with the normal and congruent process of transferring meanings via language, avoid using grammatical metaphor in their texts.

Iran is a multicultural and multilingual country. Bilingualism has always been a matter of interest to the scholars in different fields like linguistics, psychology, and sociolinguistics. Studying the linguistic and cognitive features and the development of the two languages in bilingual children are of great importance in many regards like education, language development, and language planning. This study aims at analyzing Farsi and Mazandarani narratives of bilingual Mazandarani-Farsi children aged 4-6 in order to study the language development in these children according to age and to compare their development in each of these two languages. The narratives are analyzed at the micro and macro structure levels in four age groups: (A: 4-4.5; B: 4.5-5; C: 5-5.5; D: 5.5-6). The results show that the narratives get more complicated as the children grow and "age" has a significant effect on these categories at macro and microstructure levels: action, consequence, coordinating conjunction, and mental and verbal processes. Comparison of MLU and the total number of words in Farsi and Mazandarani narratives indicates that there is no significant difference between narratives according to age and the language.

The causation has a special and important role in the philosophy, especially traditional philosophy. Main question in this study is whether the description of causal relations in Islamic philosophy can be justified and explained in the framework of the theory of conceptual metaphor. The study is focused on theology section of Healing written by Ibn Sina. The book of Healing is one of the most important works of Ibn Sina. The theology section of this book should be considered as the most important philosophical work of Ibn Sina. To answer the question, conceptual metaphors of causation in this book are identified. Ibn Sina uses many different words to describe the causal relations. By extracting and categorization of those words, several conceptual metaphors about causation are found.  In this study, the role and importance of every one of these conceptual metaphors is determined by statistical method. The statistical data is extracted by counting words related to source domain of conceptual metaphors.  Conceptual metaphors related to causation in the book can be divided into two major sections: metaphors based on the primary metaphor of “Cause Is Physical Force" and metaphors based on natural causation. By extracting the abundance of each of the above metaphors, it becomes clear that the metaphors based on natural causation have a greater frequency in Ibn Sinachr('39')s theology of Healing.

Correct positioning and order of adjectives is one of the important factors affecting the correct translation of a word or a phrase. Not paying attention to the adjective order can completely change the meaning of a sentence or a phrase. In this study, based on 320 examples collected from Russian-Persian dictionaries and the Russian National Corpus, we attempt to consider and compare the order of adjectives in Russian and Persian languages. In the present study, we are trying to answer this question that what the rule for adjective order in Russian language is and whether there is a certain and constant model for their translation from Russian to Persian. The results of this study can be impressive for the improvement of the translation process as well as the training of translation from Russian to Persian and vice versa. The analysis of the collected examples indicates that only in half of the cases the order of adjectives in Russian and Persian languages is fully compatible, and in the other cases their translation from Russian to Persian does not follow a constant model.

Persian language learners have to attain an acceptable proficiency in Persian language at Iranian universities in a short period of time. The teacher-centered teaching environment has thus been modified to become a learner-centered learning environment, so that Persian learners are able to achieve autonomy and control their own learning process. In this regard, the current study investigates Non-Iranian Persian learners’ readiness for autonomy. To collect data, 155 advanced level Persian learners participated in this research. Tamer’s questionnaire (2013) comprised of four sections including responsibilities, abilities, motivations and activities done inside and outside the classroom, was applied. The answers of Persian learners suggested a discrepancy between responsibilities section and the other three sections including: abilities, motivation, and activities performed inside and outside the classroom. They assigned most of the learning responsibilities to teachers. Thus they considered themselves able, and motivated to learn Persian autonomously. Furthermore, Persian learners viewed themselves active in performing inside and outside the classroom. This could be ascribed to Persian learners’ lack of confidence. Furthermore, statistical investigations showed an inverted and significant relationship between Persian learners’ perception of responsibilities and activities performed inside the classroom. On the other hand, a direct and significant relationship was found between Persian learners’ abilities, motivation, and activities performed inside and outside the classroom. Moreover, a direct and significant relationship was found between motivation and performance inside and outside the classroom. Another finding of the current study was the existence of direct and significant relationship between activities performed inside and outside the classroom.
 
Applicants who intend to study in Iranian universities must learn Persian language over a short time span and master the language considerably. For this reason, while learning from their teachers, they must take responsibility for their own learning. In general, in recent years second language teaching has observed a change from teacher-centered pedagogy to learner-centered pedagogy in order to encourage learners to assume responsibility for their own learning and achieve autonomy.
Before discussing how Persian language learners could achieve autonomy, one needs to know their level of readiness to become autonomous, as well as their needs and shortcomings in this matter. Thus, the present study examined non-Iranian Persian language learnerschr('39') readiness to become autonomous and sought to answer these questions: 1. What understanding do Persian learners have of their own responsibilities, abilities, motivations, and out-of-class and in-class activities? 2. What is the relationship between Persian learnerschr('39') abilities and their motivation, out-of-class activities, and in-class activities? 3. What is the relationship between Persian studentschr('39') motivation and their out-of-class and in-class activities?
The subjects included 155 non-Iranian Persian language learners whose proficiency level was advanced. To collect data, Tamer Questionnaire (2013) was used which had four sections of responsibilities, abilities, motivation, and out-of-class and in-class activities. Responsibilities section examined Persian learnerschr('39') perspectives on the responsibility of learning Persian. The purpose of the abilities section was to examine the learnerschr('39') ability to learn Persian independently and without the help of a teacher. The motivation section examined Persian learnerschr('39') level of motivation to learn Persian language. The activities section covered out-of-class and in-class activities that Persian learners had voluntarily done since the beginning of the school year. Participants answered the questions on a Likert scale. At the end of the questionnaire, an open response section was added so that the learners could offer their suggestions for the betterment of Persian language teaching at the universities.</span>
Findings of the questionnaire in the responsibilities section indicated that, in the first place, Persian language learners consider language learning as the joint responsibility of themselves and their teachers. In the second place, they considered only teachers as responsible, and in the third place, they considered themselves responsible for learning. In the case of in-class activities, they considered teachers to be responsible, but in the case of out-of-class activities they considered themselves responsible. In the abilities section, Persian learners assessed their ability to learn without the help of a teacher as "good" in the first place and "average" in the second place. In the motivation section, Persian students considered themselves to have the necessary motivation to learn Persian. In the activities section, Persian students declared themselves somewhat active inside and outside the classroom. In the final section, Persian learners made suggestions for the improvement of Persian language teaching. In general, Persian studentschr('39') answers indicated a kind of contradiction between the responsibilities section and the abilities, motivation, and out-of-class and in-class activities. Findings showed that Persian learners considered themselves to have the necessary abilities and motivation to learn Persian autonomously and considered themselves active in out-of-class and in-class activities, yet they placed most of the responsibility for learning on the teachers. This issue could be explained in terms of Persian studentschr('39') educational dependence on teachers. This dependence may be due to the educational environment in Iran or in the countries from which Persian learners come. Further analyses showed that Persian learners do not have enough self-confidence.
In summary, authors of this study conclude that, along with teaching language, teaching autonomous learning to Persian language learners could help increase their self-confidence. The authors of this study also consider the response of Persian learners to the activities section as positive and as an expression of their desire to learn autonomously. In addition, statistical analyses confirmed this assertion and showed that there was a significant inverse relationship between studentschr('39') perceptions of responsibilities and their in-class activities. On the other hand, there was a direct and significant relationship between Persian studentschr('39') abilities and their motivation and out-of-class and in-class activities, as well as between their motivation and their out-of-class and in-class activities.

Despite growing interest in the studies on ZPD, its operation in the forms of individualized and group-wide has been controversial. To cast some empirical light on the issue, this study was designed to quantitatively and comparatively study the applicability of the two scenarios of ZPD-based instructions to the writing accuracy of Iranian EFL learners in terms of learners' types (low vs. high scorers). To this end, 118 EFL learners identified as homogeneous based on TOEFL ITP test were randomly assigned into two equal experimental groups (individualized and group-wide ZPD-based) which respectively received compatible instructions utilizing individual and whole-class scaffolding techniques. The treatments were allocated to the groups in a random manner within homogeneous blocks. Prior to and after the treatments, three tests (two writing tests and one ZPD test) were administered to measure both groups’ writing accuracy and their ZPD levels. A ZPD test was also administered in the mid of treatments. Results revealed that I-ZPD-based instruction is constructive to the low scorers, and GW-ZPD-based instruction is not constructive to both low and high scorers. The findings pointed to the use of ZPD-based instructions in TEFL writing in meaningful contexts and thereby showing impacts made on the writing accuracy of learners. The study, indeed, yield support to the feasibility of GW-ZPD measurement along with I-ZPD approach.

The current research has been conducted to analyze the status of the literary and linguistic skills among the high school graduates. Based on research questions, the four skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking of the graduates, the impact of gender and major have been investigated in 7 provinces including East Azarbijan, Kurdistan, Kohguiluye-Boyer Ahmad, Mazandaran, Fars, Yazd and Markazi through directed sampling, for a sample size of 327 females and 282 males in three disciplines of humanities, sciences and mathematics, in 1396-1397. The findings indicated that the graduates have not reached the mastery in any one of the linguistic skills. However, they achieved the minimum score in at least three skills of writing, listening and speaking and could overcome the level of insufficiency. Females got higher score in all four skills. Regarding their majors, in the humanities, the highest score went to speaking and writing, while in mathematics and natural sciences, writing held the highest score. Meanwhile, the most focus of educational construction is on reading. The results show that the lowest score belongs to reading in all majors. The analysis of the present evaluation stated that achieving the minimum mastery level in literary and linguistic skills was not successful enough and the policy of teaching Persian language and literature have been failed as well.

Investigations show that in Persian no significant research has been done on lexical relationships of size adjectives. In this paper, near-synonymy relationship of ‘‘ziyâd and farâvân’’ size adjectives and their inflectional forms has been studied based on Behavioral Profile Analysis approach of Divjack and Gries (2006) and the data of Hamshahri 2 corpus (Alahmad and et.al, 2009). Accordingly in this study, first, by using AntConc software (2011) the data related to ‘‘ziyâd, ziyâdi, ziyâdtar, ziyâdtarin, ziyâdtari, farâvân, farâvâni, farâvântar, farâvântarin, farâvântari’’ size adjectives were extracted from the corpus and then were annotated on the basis of the morphological, syntactic and semantic features. The result of behavioral profile approach which is acquired according to hierarchical cluster analysis indicated that the highest level of near-synonymy belongs to ‘‘ziyâdi, farâvâni’’, ‘‘ziyâdtari, farâvântari’’, ‘‘ziyâdtar, farâvântar’’, ‘‘ziyâd, farâvân’’ and ‘‘ziyâdtarin, farâvântarin’’ groups and the lowest level of near-synonymy is between ‘‘ziyâdi, farâvâni, ziyâdtari, farâvântari’’ and ‘‘ziyâd, farâvân, ziyâdtarin, farâvântarin, ziyâdtar, farâvântar’’ groups. Finally, annotation analysis based on Z-scores has specified all meaningful and meaningless ID-tags of size adjectives.