Pragmatics and Society (18789714)
This study investigates the challenges of translating English demonstratives into Persian, with a focus on deictic shifts and their discourse-pragmatic implications. It aims to outline the recontextualization that deictic terms undergo during translation and the role of discourse-pragmatic factors in this process. Utilizing a parallel database of literary and academic texts in English and Persian, all instances of English demonstratives and their Persian counterparts have been identified and compared based on type, form, and quantity. An analysis of 1,849 instances of demonstrative discrepancies reveals two primary types of deictic shifts: (1) genuine shifts, which involve a change in the deictic center due to the translator’s (inter)subjectivity, leading to the re-contextualization of discourse, and (2) non-genuine shifts, where there is no change in the origo. The findings indicate a tendency for genuine shifts to alternate between distal-to-proximal and proximal-to-distal, with a marked preference for distal-to-proximal shifts, attributed to the unmarked nature of proximal deixis in Persian. Furthermore, translators frequently replace pure deictics with impure forms or add deictic terms for clarity, reflecting broader translation strategies aimed at ensuring the definiteness and explicitness of referents. © John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Medical Teacher (0142159X)45(12)pp. 1419-1424
Purpose: To explore and describe the highly cited articles’ themes of research in medical education and to provide an insight into and reflection on which the elites of medical education society invested their energies from 2009 to 2018. Methods: An in-depth content analysis as a research technique for the objective, systematic, and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication was used to quantitatively assess subject interests, methods, and other characteristics associated with citation of published studies in medical education research. Meaning units were compacted and coded with labels and categories in two phases. Results: Among a variety of topics, methods, and strategies, 764 codes, 24 descriptive themes, and seven categories were extracted from the content analysis as the most prominent. Categories of medical education research were: modern technologies updating in medical education; learner performance improvement; sociological aspects of medical education; clinical reasoning; research methodology concerns of medical education; instructional design educational models; and professional aspects of medical education. Conclusions: Commitment to continuous revision of educational emphasis and concerns on technological, sociological, and methodological concerns were the most repeated components of the highly cited articles that were ascertained through increased structure course designs and instructional strategies of the flipped classrooms to realize clinical reasoning and performance improvement. Practice points It becomes increasingly urgent to understand how various educational processes and technology-enhanced innovations affect each other and do or could influence learning outcomes, clinical reasoning, and performance improvement. Modern technologies as techniques to administer the changing educational and social environment, can supply and support the infrastructure and basis for operating many of the challenges in preparing the medical education community for the future. Research in the medical education context in the future should be focused on the inter-relationships of prominent and marginalized educational themes and categories. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Pragmatics (10182101)33(4)pp. 505-531
We shall concentrate on how the construction and modality system of alternative futures in political discourses are influenced by the construal of past-to-present threats and preemptive politics. Using Dunmire’s (2005) proposed framework and further explorations by Cap (2020) on the subject, we approach twenty of Trump’s speeches on Iran, from 2017–2020. Our analyses indicated that the construction of alternative futures is modified by the evaluations of Iran’s past-to-present status and the politics of preemption. This relationship modifies the speaker’s epistemic judgment on the certainty of the privileged future, the cause-effect relation, and the sceptic views on the successful implementation of preemptive measures, resulting in the articulation of the privileged future through probabilistic and dynamic modalities. Moreover, the privileged future is conceptualised as necessary through deontic modality. By contrast, the realisation of the oppositional future is articulated through unmediated modality pinpointing the status that will materialise in light of inaction and negligence. © International Pragmatics Association.
Language Related Research (23223081)13(2)pp. 587-621
Three types of meaning i.e., propositional, textual and interpersonal were acknowledged for language in the tradition of functional studies. In light of such appraoch, this study aims: 1) to describe different types of meanings of in (this) and ân (that) in Persian and, 2) to show that how basics of grammaticalization can be applied to provide a synchronic survey of the semantic variety of the aforementioned dectic expressions as discourse markers in Persian. On the basis of grammaticalization in terms of Traugott & Dasher (2002), this paper examines the different uses of these linguistic elements by looking at their propositional, textual and interpersonal meanings. The analysis indicates that in & ân are used exophorically, anaphorically and textually in their referential meaning and also used in the bridging contexts. Moreover, the investigation shows unlike ân, the semantic changes of in extends beyond the bridging contexts. So in (this) as a discourse marker, functions textually, subjectively and inter-ubjectively. Grammaticalization of the deictic expressions supports Traugott & Dasher's clines. However, indexicalizing speaker's spatial aspects, in & ân have impersonal subjective meaning. Therefore, Traugott & Dasher's semantic cline, should be modified in way of impersonal subjective > personal subjective > inter-subjective to describe the behavior of these linguistic elements in this respect. © 2022, Tarbiat Modares University. All rights reserved.
Pragmatics (10182101)32(4)pp. 588-619
This study investigates the functions of væ ('and') as a discourse marker in Persian. More specifically, this study accounts for certain aspects of væ co-occurrences and their linearization order. Fraser's model (forthcoming) was mainly employed to classify the multiple functions conveyed by væ. A corpus-based approach was taken to provide an overview of væ co-occurrences with other discourse markers. The data were collected from both written and spoken corpora. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted to examine the frequency and the functional differences in the use of væ in the data - namely, elaboration, inferential, contrast, and alternation. The results of the study indicate the mobile nature of væ in its co-occurrences with other DMs. The findings also show that some modifications to Fraser's (forthcoming) DM co-occurrence principles are required to handle certain cases of language-specific behavior of væ in Persian. The configuration suggested for væ uses and its multi-functionality will also shed some lights on cross-linguistic studies of its counterparts in other languages. © International Pragmatics Association.
Lodz Papers in Pragmatics (18956106)18(1)pp. 131-150
This paper examines a number of proverbs in English and Persian to shed light on certain pragmatic issues involved in translation. By analyzing three sets of data within the pragmatic framework, we found that the translatability of proverbs should be characterized as a continuum, rather a clear-cut dichotomy. Depending on the universality or culture-specificity of background cultural information associated with proverbs, three main categories, namely translatables, semi-translatables, and untranslatables are proposed. These categories fall along different points on a postulated continuum of translatability. Our study also shows that implicatures and presuppositions, when applicable to translatability, influence it in an incontrovertible manner. On top of this, the indubitable role of metaphor in the conceptualization of proverbs, and as a result, on the translatability of them is acknowledged. © 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston.
Language Sciences (03880001)92
This study examines the use of proximal and distal deictic terms in Persian interactions to determine the cause of their paradoxical behavior in certain contexts of situations. It adopts an integrative (i.e., cognitive-interactive) approach to investigate both interactional and (inter)subjective aspects of deictic practice. The analysis of 184 different Persian interactions reveals that although the relative congruity and egocentricity can account for many canonical uses of proximal and distal terms, such an egocentric approach cannot handle the paradoxical uses of such deictic terms. We then propose that based on the ongoing interaction, any deictic act is governed by three main interactional factors, namely the focus of interaction, the information status of the object of reference (e.g. the speaker's mind, the addressee's consciousness, and the unfolding discourse), and the speaker's attitude towards the referent. In addition, it is argued that interactional factors themselves are regulated by the speaker's (inter)subjective thought/belief state. This indicates that interaction and (inter)subjectivity – as key concepts – satisfactorily explain paradoxical uses of proximal and distal terms in Persian. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd
Studia Linguistica (00393193)75(3)pp. 623-658
This paper examines the different functions of bale (‘yes’) in Persian by identifying its positions in the syntagmatic chain. As such, it reveals a significant correlation exists between the function types, various positions, and the frequency of bale, which appears on the left periphery (LP), on the right periphery (RP), and in the medial, detached or free-standing mode at a rate of 20.5%, 9.5, 2.1%, and 67.9%, respectively. On LP, it can function for all the three types (e.g. propositional, textual, and interpersonal) involved in it. Besides, on LP it is generally associated with textual and subjective usages, but its position on RP can be explained in terms of intersubjectivity. The function of bale as a detached thetical is argued to be predominant in an intersubjective phenomenon motivated by paying attention to/from the addressee. Furthermore, a diachronic survey of the bale development suggests that it has started as a connective, a confirmative, or an emphatic response markers on LP; then, it has moved to RP to fulfill more intersubjective usages. © 2021 The Editorial Board of Studia Linguistica
Review of Cognitive Linguistics (18779751)18(2)pp. 397-427
This paper investigates the synaesthetic constructions in Persian with the aim of finding out what motivates them despite their incongruous syntactic-semantic assignments. It is argued that these paradoxical elements require a metaphoric/metonymic frame to assign appropriate lexical units (LUs) to their corresponding syntactic categories (NP+ra+VPand NP+AP). The discrepancy derives from the semantic aspects for which frame semantics provides two types of explanations: internal and external frame factors. Internal factors deal with the metaphoric/metonymic compatibility or similarity between frames, while external factors underline the use of lexical items from one subframe to fill the vocabulary gap of a different subframe. The argument is that this gap owes much to the indirect contact between the Phenomenon (e.g., an odorous substance) and the Body-part (e.g., nose) that perceives it. In short, the analysis of our data reveals that synaesthesia is not only an economical strategy for modifying the senses, but also a natural mental strategy for interpreting vague experiences. A configuration of the incongruent construction of 'smell' and 'hearing' will be proposed to generalize such an analysis. © 2020 John Benjamins Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
International Review of Pragmatics (18773095)12(1)pp. 135-163
This paper sets out to investigate the ways in which some of the Discourse Markers (DM s) in Persian are used by looking at a corpus of 475 million words. By adopting Fraser's notion of DM (2009), it will analyse all possible combinations of thirty DMs categorized into three groups: contrastive, elaborative, and inferential. This categorization will be based on the types of semantic relationship they signal between the propositions of the discourse segments preceding and following them. Their deployment in the attested data demonstrates that the ordering of these DM s is by no means arbitrary. The result of our investigation also reveals that Persian contrastive DM s show a strong tendency to combine with the members of their own category, while elaborative DM s tend to combine with inferential DM s. Inferential DM s, too, have a tendency for intra-category combinations; however, such combinations are much less frequent than those of contrastive DM s. Contrastive DM s have the lowest predisposition for combining with inferential DM s. In short, by exploring the frequency of all sequences of DM s under investigation, a hierarchy of DM combinations in Persian will be proposed, which can be argued to predict certain possible configurations of DM sequences in Persian, and such empirical findings will build up some basis for future typological research as well as for the theorization of DM sequences in general. © 2020 Brill Academic Publishers. All rights reserved.
Pragmatics and Society (18789714)10(4)pp. 512-537
The present study sets out to investigate an important aspect of gendered performance, namely, the presence of interactional metadiscourse in conference presentations delivered in Persian. The study pursues two primary objectives: firstly, to compare the quantity and quality of interactional metadiscourse markers as expressed by male and female academics; secondly, to investigate some other factors influencing the phenomenon under investigation. The data include twenty-four conference presentations by twelve males and twelve females. The quantitative analysis showed a statistically significant difference in the use of interactional metadiscourse by male and female presenters. However, the qualitative analysis helped the authors to identify more similarities than differences. In point of fact, such factors as academic status and nativeness had caused the speakers to use different metadiscourse strategies. © John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Language Related Research (23223081)8(4)pp. 239-262
This paper sets out to investigate the feasibility of replacement of restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses at discourse level in Persian. Givon (2001) believes that proper names, pronouns and unique definite nouns cannot be modified by restrictive relatives. On the other hand, it is usually stated that the modification of indefinite nouns by non-restrictive relatives would result in ungrammatical sentences. This study, however, provides examples from the Persian language arguing against such propositions. Furthermore, there are also evidences in Persian showing that the emotive and expositive information, which are usually expressed by non-restrictive relatives, may also be expressed by restrictive relative clauses. The main inquiry will, then, be how such discourse possibilities would be accounted. To this end, the current paper aims to study and analyze the above-mentioned discourse situations within Discourse Grammar (DG) framework, as introduced by Heine and et al (2013). For the analysis, the empirical data are gathered from the different spoken and written sources in Persian as well as some other instances based on the authors’ own observations and their intuitions. In short, on the basis of Discourse Grammar, this paper argues that the discourse situations allowing such possibilities can be explained in terms of Cooptation mechanism, an important notion in Discourse Grammar which explain the interaction between sentence grammar and thetical grammar. Furthermore, unlike Heine and et al (2013), it is shown that Cooptation may be a bidirectional operation. In a sense, the paper provides some examples and explanation for the non-unidirectionality of cooptation mechanism such as appositive phrases and Ezafe constructions in Persian. © 2017, Tarbiat Modares University. All rights reserved.
Language Related Research (23223081)8(8TOME37)pp. 149-170
The process of compound predicates (CPr) formation in Persian has got little attention on behalf of linguists. This paper aims to situate the components of Persian light verb constructions in contexts that can be justifiably invoked as a motivation for CPr formation. The authors believe that CPrs can be considered as direct or indirect products of incorporation process. We hold here a broad concept of incorporation, namely X incorporation (XI), in which X indicates categories including nominals, adjectives and prepositional phrases. This process, explicated by means of some concepts from Cognitive Grammar, involves CPrs originating from complete clauses, and then passing through a compositional path where a nonverbal and a verbal element are selected out of a clause and end up in a complex predicate. In such a hypothetical path, a verb argument is occasionally omitted and the verb complement or adjunct, having a higher cognitive salience, is incorporated to it. The investigation will continue with focusing on the LVCs constructed with LV kardan ‘do, make’, as the most frequently used light verb in Persian. The paper will also explore how different paths could be associated with different ‘heavy’ meanings of kardan. Moreover, each CPr may further provide speakers with constructional schemas upon which other LVCs formed with a given LV can be sanctioned. Considering different kinds of LVCs explained in this paper, we can say that the semantic contribution of LVs falls into one of the two following possibilities depending on how the LVC in question is formed: i. Compositional path is directly conceivable. When this is the case, the semantics of LV is equivalent to, or derived from, a main or extended sense of its non-light counterpart, as in emtehân dâdan ‘to take an exam’ (lit. to exam-give), xâb raftan ‘to fall asleep’ (lit. to sleepN-go), and lâne kardan ‘to nest’ (lit. to nestN-do). ii. Compositional path is indirectly accessible through a constructional schema. In this case, the LV’s semantic contribution can be thought of as dissolved in the constructional meaning of the relevant schema, as in imeyl zadan ‘to email’ (lit. to emailN-hit) whose LV has nothing to do with ‘hit’, but imports a sense of ‘communication’ immanent in the constructional schema X + zadan which is in turn inherited from telegrâf zadan ‘to telegraph’ (lit. to telegraphN-hit). iii. The compound verb is a denominal verb in which the light verb serves to verbalize a non-verbal element. In this case the semantic contribution of the light verb is to add processual meaning to the predicate. © 2017, Tarbiat Modares University. All rights reserved.
Language Related Research (23223081)5(4)pp. 149-170
This paper aims to investigate the ways in which socio-linguistic parameters such as gender contribute into the turn organization of defense sessions. Interruption plays an important role in the organization of turn taking in the interactions of defense sessions. The current paper is then primarily focused on the description and analysis of interruptions in the interactions of dissertation defense sessions of Persian speakers using the “community of practice” approach. A number of discourse and pragmatic functions (e.g. defense, directiveness, cooperation, competition, etc.) have been identified for interruptions in relation to the power relations of interlocutors in the interactions. Apart from qualitative analysis, some quantitative findings have been provided for further clarification. The analysis of data shows that it is mainly the social status of a speaker that influences the types and frequency of interruption rather than his/her gender. In other words, the social variable does not play an important role in the interruption for turn organization in the defense sessions of Persian speakers. © 2015, Tarbiat Modares University. All rights reserved.
Language Related Research (23223081)3(4)pp. 169-191
Some studies of complex predicates suggest that light verbs are bleached semantically and are unable to bear the role of an autonomous predicate (Jespersen, 1965; Cattell, 1984; Grimshaw & Mester, 1988). Although it is accepted that the semantic content of light verbs is deficient, we address the issue that such a claim ignores the semantic relation between light verbs and the corresponding main verbs. The claim in this paper is that light verbs preserve the force-dynamic schemata of the corresponding main verbs totally systematically but the concept area is transferred from physical to abstractpsychological domain. Indeed, it is claimed that, although light verbs do not have totally predictable meaning, their contribution to the meaning of the predicate is completely systematic and to some extent clear. The present study focuses on two light verbs “ KARDAN” (to do) and “ DASHTAN” (to have) to indicate somewhat this systematization. © 2013, Tarbiat Modares University. All rights reserved.
Asian EFL Journal (17381460)13(3)pp. 153-183
The current study sets out 1) to investigate the strategic needs of participants in reading literary and non-literary texts; and 2) to shed light on the differences of reading literary and non-literary texts. To achieve this aim, thirty participants read three literary and two non-literary texts and wrote down the questions for which they could not find any answer.Next, these questions were categorized in five groups: Scripturally implicit, textually implicit, textually explicit, linguistic and miscomprehension. The findings suggest that the dominant problem of participants lies in textually implicit aspects of the text. Finally, a Kruskal-Wallis test was applied in order to compare the frequency of question types across literary and non-literary texts. The difference of all question types proved to be statistically significant across both literary and non-literary texts.
Languages in Contrast (15699897)10(1)pp. 54-75
This paper investigates how English influences the Persian scientific language. By analyzing parallel corpora of English and Persian texts from the areas of education and psychology, the paper seeks to reveal that translation as a language contact phenomenon influences not only the grammatical and semantic categories of the target language, it also leaves some traces of the impact of the source language on the discourse-pragmatics of the target language. This in turn leads to a kind of stylistic variation triggered by the source language. One of the main arguments adduced is that such a replication is based on the cultural filters operating in the replica language. In other words, the borrowed elements show a kind of innovative adaptation to the new environment to resolve their clashes with the target language. Thus the paper primarily focuses on the influence on Persian, through translation, of the English passive construction, as well as its deictic terms of first personal pronouns. © John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Language Sciences (03880001)31(6)pp. 853-873
The present paper sets out to focus on an aspect of the modal system of Persian which, despite its crucial role in interactive discourse, has not received the treatment it deserves. More precisely, the paper seeks to investigate how the simple past is deployed to express subjective epistemic and deontic modality within a future-oriented framework. This apparent clash between tense and time can be explained in terms of a set of recognition criteria: tense-distinction, interrogation, conditionality and modal harmony. The clash is also explicable pragmatically in that it is heavily context-dependent. In both cases, the underlying assumption is that the modality under consideration is invariably construed as indicating certainty, disbelief, challenge, nonchalance or obligation with respect to a particular state of affairs. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Journal of Language and Politics (15692159)7(1)pp. 53-70
This paper aims to investigate the language used by newspapers in post-revolutionary Iran. More precisely, the paper sets out to analyze how such a language is deployed to represent relevant hegemonic ideologies. The approach adopted for this purpose draws inspiration mainly from critical linguistics, where it is hypothesized that, as far as the pertinent metadiscourse goes, media genres serve to activate and perpetuate social power relations. In keeping with this theoretical stance, the paper argues that socially constructed texts can be said to perform two complementary functions; on the one hand, they shed light on the realities experienced in social life; on the other, they reveal such aspects of those realities as are constructed through the use of language. It is thus in this context that the media language used in the post-revolutionary Iran lends itself to analytical investigation, where the available data reveal the co-existence of three competing discourse processes of 'Islamization', 'Iranian Nationalism' and 'Western liberalism', relating to the third stage development of post-revolutionary Iran. © John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Studia Linguistica (14679582)60(1)pp. 97-120
The aim of this paper is to investigate the ways in which the Persian past tense form is projected into the future to designate events, states, and processes. While it must be admitted that the phenomenon under consideration is by no means confined to Persian, its examination in this language will reveal certain characteristics which are likely to contribute to a better understanding of how temporal deixis, together with aspectual and modal meanings, interact with contextual factors to yield socio-culturally relevant utterances. Of special theoretical interest in this respect are the semantic-pragmatic constraints levied, in varying degrees, on the projected tense in terms of negation, pronominal choice, speech act assignment, aspectual character, modal status, and pitch contour. Fundamental to the present study are three assumptions. First, the deictic projection at issue has pragmatic motivations, and, in addition, stems largely from the ontological asymmetry between pastness and futurity. Second, it has an indisputable edge over the other future-indicating devices available to Persian speakers in that it denotes factivity with respect to the occurrence of a situation. And third, it is stylistically marked as it digresses from the normal function of the past tense. © The Editorial Board of Studia Linguistica 2006.
International Journal of Cultural Studies (13678779)7(2)pp. 147-174
This article focuses primarily on pictorial metaphors used by advertising firms in pre-and post-revolutionary Iran. By comparing the two sets of data, it argues that one of the main functions of pictorial metaphor in the post-revolutionary period is to reconcile two types of competing and conflicting ideologies: one based on advertising and the other inspired by Islamic values. Advertisers are not allowed, in post-revolutionary times, to manipulate the picture of women for their intended publicity of commercial products. However, they do employ some pictorial metaphors to redress the balance. The article also addresses other issues related to cultural and social aspects of contemporary Iran as reflected in Persian commercial advertisements. © 2004, Sage Publications. All rights reserved.
Studies in Pragmatics (1750368X)10pp. 247-266
This paper will investigate a number of issues related to the contact situations between Mazandarani and the standard Persian in Iran. It aims to explore the ways in which Mazandarani, a variety spoken in northern Iran, has been, over the last few decades, converging towards modern standard Persian. The changes induced in the recipient dialect as a result of this convergence involve the phonological, lexical, and grammatical levels. Nonetheless, the current paper will mainly describe and analyze the lexical borrowings, noun phrase, and ablative post-position of Mazandarani. © 2013 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.
