نشریه مطالعات زبانی و بلاغی
پیاپی 27 (بهار 1401)

Rhetorical repetition is a topic in the realm of figurative speech that helps the foregrounding of meaning and music in speech. This article comparatively investigates  the classification of rhetorical repetition and its variants in  Persian and English rhetoric.  As an archival research methodologically following the American School of Comparative Literature, the main aim  is to classify the types of "rhetorical repetition” in the rhetoric of Persian and English languages. The findings of the study suggests that, in the realm of both languages, repetition as a device is similar in definition and some of its types can be considered as equal.  Furthermore, some instances of repetition give rise to poetic forms in both perspectives. However, there are their distinctive aspects to be taken into consideration. The subject has received careful and systematic attention in Persian rhetoric, whereas English rhetoric is more chaotic and disorderly. While the Persian rhetoric is influenced by the Arabic rhetoric, the traces of Aristotelian or Greek rhetoric and the existence of varieties such as the repetition of al-Sadrah in the English rhetoric can be discerned.

Signs operate within a framework of sign systems; In other words, they become meaningful by being next to each other. Considering the possibility of examining the language systems in humor, it is possible to analyze the discourse of the work by grasping the semiotic meaning of humorous/satiric symbols in a work. In humorous/satiric texts, not only is the study of the semantic level and the codes effective in understanding the meaning, but also the attention to the main sources, i.e. the sociology behind the humorous language of the work as a preface, is essential in recognizing the rhetorical and linguistic layers and their implications. Socio-political humor/satire is one of the most important tools for retelling the facts of a society in symbolic and coded language. Ahmed Matar and  Abolghaesem Halat are two renowned poets among contemporary Arabic and Persian humorists/satirists who deal with the problems of the society of their time in a symbolic language. Considering the multiplicity of coded levels in the words of Matar and different rhetorical layers of Halat, the present study has focused on the examination of language and rhetoric in the humoristic/satirical poems of these two poets from a descriptive-analytical approach. Therefore, we have first analyzed Matar's poems based on the linguistic pattern of Roland Barthes's five codes and have then focused on rhetorical analysis of Halat's poems. The scope of this research is the divan of "Al-A'mal al-Shari'ah al-Kamala" by Matar and the divan of "Khoros Lari" by Halat. The results of this study show that Matar uses different types of hermeneutic, semantic, performative, symbolic and cultural codes, and Halat employs different rhetorical, phonetic, lexical, syntactic and ideological layers in the structure of his poems.

Epithet is an adjective or adjective substitute that is often used in epic poetry to highlight the characteristics and special abilities of heroes by depicting their feelings and states in different scenes. Details such as origin, appearance, skill, lineage, position and ability of the characters in the story are provided through epithet. These details help us to deepen the meaning and significance of the events and the formation of the characters' identities. In the present study, with a more precise definition of this term and through Khanghani’s odes, we have reached this conclusion that epithet can be used in other fictional texts (lyrical, mystical, etc.) and non-fiction. Contrary to some observations, an epithet should have an "artistic" function, and its role should be prominent in poetic creations and introducing the characteristics of the hero of fiction and non-fiction texts. In Khaghani's poems, Epithet has been used to create metaphor, simile, repetition, irony, allusion, ambiguity, exaggeration, harmony, paradox, personification, syllogism and pun. The most frequent of these literary techniques is in "metaphor". In most of Khaghani's mixed metaphors, the epithet is used and it is most frequently employed in the form of descriptive compounds than "adjective substitute". Undoubtedly, one sign of diversity and genius in Khaghani lies in his use of epithets.

Binary opposition is a rhetorical device employed for meaning-making and word arrangement in languages and their versification. In structuralism, binary oppositions contribute significantly to systematic language composition as they entails cognitive deep structures. Considering their role in conveying meaning and literariness of speech, the present study is an investigation of binary oppositions in lasting Persian couplets. Indeed, a major aspect of couplets that contributes to their lasting impression is the emphasis they lay on human virtues, guidance, and enhancement of knowledge. The study primarily undertakes to show that certain lexicons play a key role in constructing couplets and help dig into underlying layers of the verse and the speaker’s thought. Therefore, key questions are how binary oppositions function in composing lasting couplets and to what extent they convey the poet's perspective. Results of our analytic and descriptive interpretations reveal that poets are deeply concerned with asymmetric elements that make up the overall message of the literary work. In other words, these word elements facilitate collocations in the axis of combination and contribute to the brevity and condensation of language. They, in fact, help retain brevity without disruption of the meaning. Binary oppositions may carry an elevated sense of meaning that encourages reflection and meditation. They also arouse a sense of awe in the reader through imagery, which turns couplets into a more viable medium with high exemplary functioning in folk literature.

Title is one of the main pillars in a literary work, a base which, if chosen correctly and thoughtfully, will have a significant impact on attracting the audience. This is certainly more prominent in fiction; the proper choice of title from an aesthetic and literary point of view, can highlight the coherent structure of a work of fiction. However, such studies have not been conducted comprehensively on the titles of Persian stories. In this article, based on library sources, the aesthetic function of the titles of 60 Persian novels written between the years 1953 to 1978 are examined and analyzed concerning grammatical superstructure, sounds, words, music and imagery. The research results show that, since the combination and collocation of words has a more effective role in the association of emotions and the meaning; most of the titles have been selected in combination which are either additional or joined with the preposition and. In the titles, phonemic combinations of the letters produce musical rhythms that seem to have been created by the authors to induce specific meanings. Alliteration and repetition, among figures of speech,  and   synecdoche and allusion, among figures of thought, have been used more often. Furthermore, the use of metonymy and metaphor is more prominent than other devices.

The essence of Shahname is epical, and epic is based on heroic acts and speech, both of which often take place in relation with battle scenes; as the adversaries enter the battlefield, they must open the conversation before taking any action. So, the first step is verbal communication. One of these conversational styles is war cry and boasting which is conveyed between adversaries orally, written or by means of sending a message for different goals. Theses war cries can be studied from different point of views:Revealing the champion’s sources of relianceArousing the hero to fight and protesting against procrastinationProhibiting war and enticing into procrastinationSuitable approaches to learn about the strength of powerReflecting on moralities and using decent languageThe tone and rhythm of speechThe manner of making war cryStrengthening the sense of national pride patriotism.The manner of using rhetorical techniquesBy pointing to the more significant evidences, this essay briefly examines and analyses the aforementioned statements with an emphasis on manners and insights of Shahnameh characters.

Shams al-Din Muhammad b. Abdullah Kâtebi of Neyshâbur/Torshiz is a poet and calligrapher of the Timurid era who has been praised by literary historians and biographers for his poetry and creating new meanings. The year of his birth is not mentioned in biographies; we only know that he was born in the second half of the eighth century in the village of Tarq (Rawesh) in Torshiz, Neyshabur. It is known from the references in his divan that in the second half of the eighth and early ninth centuries, when Timur was alive, Kâtebi was a fully-fledged poet. In Neyshabur, he learned literature and calligraphy from the Simi of Neyshabur, who was a master of literature and arts. Katebi became calligrapher, hence the pen name Katebi. The totality of his works consists of ten thousands lines of verse, including odes, tarkibband, tarjiband, mosamat, quatrains, riddles, and Khamseh (five Masnawies). So far Ghazals, from his Divân, and only Majma’-ul-Bahrayn and recently Mohebb-va-Mahbub (or Si-nâmeh), of his Masnawies, have been published. Ketabi has succeeded in contributing to the richness of the Persian language by usinf various forms and sublime themes as well as special attention to figures of speech and the coinage of new words and expressions. In his odes, he imitates Khaghani, and in Masnawi, he is inspired by Nezami. All in all, he is an esoteric and eloquent poet. In an age when good imitation was considered one of the foremost poetic features, his poetry is characterized by close attention to less familiar words and phrases to discover and introduce new and difficult meanings as well as the use of different tropes such as puns, repetitions, alliteration, metonymy, metaphors and conceits, along with imitating and responding to earlier poetry. His works are a repository of ancient and important words, interpretations and word combinations of the Persian language. In this article, after brief sketch of the poet and his works, some of the lexical uses of his poems are introduced based on evidence and verses from his Divân and other texts. These lexical uses fall into two groups: first, those which have not been included in dictionaries, or if included, they are with no evidence or only with evidences from Kâtebi’s poems; second, those which have been explained, discussed and clarified through evidences from Kâtebi’s verse.

Language is an intertwined network of layers, links, and visual signs. Sheykh Sharzīn’s Scroll is one of the magnificent works of contemporary artistic prose, which has been compiled in the form of a screenplay with linguistic images and literary style. The creator of this work is Bahrām Beyzāī, an Iranian author with well-thought-out ideas, who has beautifully and artistically represented his thought in a multi-layered language of rhythmic Beyhaqī-like prose and  verbal and visual images in this screenplay. This article examines the use of verbal images at lexical and syntactic levels. Factors such as profuse diction, proportion, blend of old and new languages, old syntactic structure and irregular syntactic arrangement have given a special prominence to Beyzāī’s text. The use of lexical, temporal, and stylistic meta-norms and beautiful dramatic staging have played an important role in spiritual fulfillment, inducement of cultural, social and historical themes and the formation of the literary style of the screenplay. The aim of this article is to show how the use of lexical and syntactic images have been effective in creating the poetic prose, artistic descriptions and dramatic effects of this screenplay. The research method is descriptive-analytical, text-based and with regard to literary stylistics. Research findings indicate the effect of the use of verbal and dramatic images in the prominence of the screenplay of Sheykh Sharzīn’s Scroll in the fields of culture, language, literature and dramatic literature.

Halliday’s systemic functional grammar is one of the most important theories in text analysis and language cognition. Although all literary genres use language, the function of language in dramatic texts is different from the other genres. As drama and dramatic text are indispensable to literature, a more accurate understanding of dramatic language can be achieved by studying the language of dramatic texts within the framework of Halliday’s systemic functional grammar (SFG). The distinguishing features of dramatic language from non-dramatic one can be found by employing Halliday’s quantitative method, notably through interpersonal meta-function. In this study, the authors analyze the mood and tense in five famous contemporary Persian plays within the framework of SFG. We consider the frequency and percentage of the occurrence of mood types and finite forms in each play as a parameter for recognizing dramatic language and comparing it with non-dramatic language. According to the findings of this article, the use of interrogative mood in dramatic texts is more than non-dramatic texts, and the dominant tense in dramatic texts is present tense with a frequency much higher than narrative texts.

In the present study, the underlying delicacy of Hafez’s poetry in skillfully expressing predicative sentences is taken into consideration by examining his masterful change of word order, compared to sentence word order as put forth in grammar books. To achieve this goal, by presenting theoretical ideas of experts in the field of Persian grammar and explaining their different opinions, this study has examined the skillful use and quality of predicative sentences in Hafez’s poems. The results of this research show that: 1) In Hafez's poems, a word can be both “predicate” and “subject” simultaneously; 2) “To be verbs” and their derivatives can be used ambiguously and simultaneously both as main and linking verb; 3) Predicative sentences are usually accompanied by equivocalness, and such subtle equivocalness is not usually noticeable; 4) The substitution of predicate and subject in most Hafez's poems is accompanied by a change of meaning

Some Quranic words such as doubt, assumption, guess, incertitude, misgiving, etc., despite semantic similarities, have different connotative dimensions and sometimes translators make errors in the act of translation. One of the appropriate ways to reach the exact meaning of the words of the Qur'an is to use the method of semantics, through which understanding the true meaning of words leads to a proper translation. One of Toshihiko Izutsu's methods in semantics is to study the semantic field. Using a descriptive-analytical method, based on Izutsu’s theory, this article tries to explore the semantic field of the word assumption. First, the poetry of Jahiliyyah (Age of ignorance) has been examined based on the semantic evolution of Izutsu's theory. Then, by determining the focal, key and sub-words, the semantic relations of this field and the distribution of the repetition of the word "Za'm" and its derivatives in the Meccan and Medinan Surahs have been examined. The findings of this study show that after the revelation of the Qur'an, the connotative dimension of invalidity and falsehood in the semantic units of the word Za'm has become more prominent; its correct meaning equals false assumption, and mentioning the word "false" has a great effect on the translated text. This semantic dimension can be justified by considering the repetition of most derivatives of "Za'm" in Meccan Surahs Makki due to the connection of the content with the principles of religion, in comparison with Medinan Surahs, the content of which often relates to rulings, social affairs, etc.

This study deals with comparing the metaphors in Persian news texts related to Covid-19 disease within the two periods of the initial outbreak and its peak in October 2020 based on the Frame Semantics Theory. This research is a descriptive-analytic research. To this end, by using the news texts in Keyhan and Shargh newspaper, 20:30 news and online news agnecies, ISNA and IRNA, the metaphors related to COVID-19 were selected. 600 metaphors in these texts were extracted through “Metaphor Identification Procedure” pattern suggested by Pragglejaz. Then, the metaphors placed in the “disease” semantic frame, and their frame elements were identified. Finally, the frequency of the most used metaphors including "Corona is war", "Corona is a natural phenomenon", "Corona is a travel" and "Corona is another living thing" in the two periods between the initial outbreak  and the third peak in October 2020 were determined. The SPSS software was used for data analysis, and data were compared with each other. The findings demonstrated that in the beginning of the disease outbreak, the "Corona is war" metaphor is the most used metaphor in news texts with 44% frequency. But, during its peak in October 2020 coinciding the beginning of the cold season, the "Corona is war" metaphor has the highest rate of use among metaphors with 83% frequency. The results showed that there is a significant difference between the use of "corona is war" metaphor in the beginning of the disease outbreak and the peak time of the disease in October 2020.

To fulfill aesthetic goals, two approaches have been employed in Persian prose works; the first approach is to dress up the exterior of language, while in the second approach, the innermost of the language is embellished by semantics. Stylistic studies of Morsal prose texts revealed that the aesthetic aspects of such works rely on the content of language, within which syntactic elements act as a rhetorical device and give the works aesthetic value. The function of devices in Morsal prose varies because the aesthetic function of  semantics have been altered by time as an influential variable.The objective of this article is to measure the extent of such aesthetic metamorphosis in the field of the semantic in Morsal prose. To achieve this, first, four works: the introduction to Abu Mansouri’s Shahnameh, Tarikh-i Bal'ami or Tārīkhnāma, Tarikh-i Sistan (History of Sistan) and Nowruznameh (Epistle of Nowruz) have been studied through a descriptive-analytical method based on structural stylistics. Then, to show the trajectory of Persian prose evolution, the syntactic rhetorical components of the four works have been compared. The findings of this study indicate that early Persian prose is characterized by semantic components such as sentence structure diversity, brevity, and concision. With the passage of time, however, the exterior of the language has been ornamented by literary elements in a way that Persian prose has significantly changed and a more technical form of prose has emerged.Inspection of the aesthetic evolution of Morsal prose in the field of semantics, illustrates that the “syntactic capabilities” have affected the innermost of language and have fulfilled the literal aspect of the texts by a pleasant blend of novel expression and semantics. The linguistic emancipation resulting from social, political and cultural conditions has also strengthened the syntactic structure. This study displays that the writers of Morsal prose have made the most of the initial and final position of the sentence to create a diverse syntactic structure and secondary meanings; however, this syntactic capability has diminished over time which caused the sentences structure to become monotonous. Another rhetorical component which its transformation has caused great linguistic alterations, is the “length of the sentence”. Over time the increasing length of the sentences in Farsi prose has fetched the elegance of prose to the exterior of the language. The third component is brevity. In the Morsal prose, brevity has helped to create beauty in two ways. The fourth component is the syntactic function of verbs. A variety of prefixed verbs, simple verbs and compound verbs have been used in Morsal's prose, but over time, the frequency of prefixed and suffixed verbs has decreased and the language has become tense and sedentary.Another rhetorically convenient, syntactic component regarding Morsal prose are the various types of "Vav". In Morsal's prose, the usage of the initial and linking "Vav" leads to: brevity, secondary implications, prose rhythm and elegance. In such prose initial "Vav" and linking "Vav" (between sentences), were of more salience, but over time their frequency has decreased meanwhile the number of linking "Vav" (between words) has added on. This kind of syntactic changes, gradually remodel Morsal's prose towards technical prose, and the elements of beauty have shifted from the innermost to the exterior of the language.