Articles
Publication Date: 2025
Journal of Pragmatics (03782166)236pp. 40-59
This paper examines Persian directives through the lens of interactive grammar, aiming to categorize and explore their various types. While the existing model provides valuable analytical tools, it falls short in explaining the plethora of directive data examined in this study. As an initial stride towards broadening the cross-linguistic applicability of interactive grammar, particularly in the realm of directive categorization, this study proposes a more elaborate classification. The Persian directives are categorized into two main groups: primary and secondary, with the latter further subdivided into imperative-derived, adverb-derived, vocative-derived, and nominal directives. Additionally, a fresh perspective is cast on the Persian double-verb imperative, transcending the traditional view of serial verb constructions and elucidating its unique features and functions. The taxonomy of Persian directives posited in this study not only enhances the granularity of the overarching model but also paves the way for its expanded cross-linguistic utility. This detailed classification opens avenues for corpus-based studies to glean deeper insights and aids in the development of more explicit annotation schemes, empowering researchers with some clear-cut categories of directives. © 2024 Elsevier B.V.
Publication Date: 2025
Language and Communication (02715309)104pp. 29-49
This study examines the phono-pragmatic properties of bebin (‘look’) in Persian within the framework of Interactive Grammar (IG), focusing on its prosodic characteristics and various pragmatic functions in interaction. Specifically, it explores how variations in prosodic features (duration, f0, and intensity) correlate with the four primary functions of bebin: directive, attention signal, discourse marker, and interjection. The findings highlight the dynamic interplay between prosody and pragmatics, demonstrating how prosodic cues facilitate pragmatic interpretation and how pragmatic functions influence prosodic realization. Moreover, the study provides evidence of a systematic relationship between phonetic reduction and grammaticalization, with increased phonetic reduction observed in more grammaticalized uses of bebin. This contributes to broader discussions on the role of prosody in linguistic change. The study also addresses challenges related to functional overlap and polysemy, offering insights into the complexities of interactive discourse. Finally, the quantifiable nature of the analysis makes it highly applicable to computational linguistics, particularly in training language models for corpus annotation and enhancing pragmatic understanding in natural language processing. © 2025 Elsevier Ltd
Publication Date: 2024
Journal of Pragmatics (03782166)225pp. 87-104
By examining the employment of personal deictic terms in Persian interactions, this study focuses on the dynamic and emerging uses of them in order to shed some light on how to interpret the construction of interpersonal relations of Persian speakers. More importantly, it aims to account for the alternation mechanism between paradigmatic pronouns of lowering and elevating one's status within a single interaction. A cognitive-dialogic analysis of approximately 20 h of everyday conversations and videotaped broadcasts reveals that interlocutors' use of personal deictic terms is a fluid, emergent, and contingent practice, governed by at least six possible interactional factors: i) the speaker's emotions, ii) the speaker's situational intentions, iii) the prior speaker's turn, iv) the shift of discourse topic, v) bystander(s), and vi) the message content. Interlocutors' emergent shift from lowering into elevating terms and vice versa brings about a fluctuation of interpersonal relationships in the course of interaction. By taking these factors into account, this study shows that each usage of lowering and elevating terms conveys multiple, but distinct referential and indexical meanings about the interactants and the context in which it occurs. It also reveals that Persian speakers are aware of the potential indexical meanings of these terms, and that they use them (un)consciously and strategically to define, negotiate, or reshape their social relationships. Above all, this study argues that interlocutors' (inter)subjectivity essentially regulates the alternation of using lowering- and elevating-deictic forms. © 2024 Elsevier B.V.
