نشریه علم زبان
پیاپی 4 (بهار و تابستان 1394)

Velati (Velayati) is a dialect used to be spoken all over Varnosfaderan, a region located in Khomeini Shahr, Isfahan Province in Iran. Unfortunately, like many other dialects, affected by miscellaneous factors, this dialect has been considerably wiped out and its usage is currently restricted to Bavalgan, one of the five regions of Varnosfaderan. In a research by Esmaeili (1379), the internal classification of the central Iranian dialects and common grouping of Velati and Isfahan Jewish dialects were mentioned. As no documented evidence regarding the linguistic comparison of the two dialects was available, the present study aimed at examining the structure of the past tense verbs in the two dialects in order to shed light on their similarities and differences. The results of the study indicated striking resemblances between Velati and Isfahan Jewish dialects at the phonetic, phonologic and morphologic levels. Moreover, it was found that transitive and intransitive past tense verbs involve distinct structures in both dialects which may point to the existence of the ergative structure. In sum, the similarities of the past-tense verb structures in the two dialects were so remarkable that they confirmed the hypothesis that they are of a common historical origin.

The present study was an investigation of glottal stop phonetic variants in different positions of the words in Tehrani verbal variety of Persian. Acoustic evidences indicate that the articulation of different variants of the consonant including glottal closure, creaky voice and vowel compensatory lengthening followed by its deletion or weakening, in their occurrence contexts in initial, middle and final position of the words, is in accordance with the laryngeal phonation continuum. Vocal folds in larynx get different states while pulmonic airstream passes through them. This, in turn, results in changes in glottis openness. With gradual changes in the degree of glottis openness, from a completely close to a mid-open and then to a totally open state, the phonetic manifestations of complete closure (voicelessness state), creaky voice, modal voice and possibly, breathy voice are appeared. The present study revealed that every one of the above-mentioned glottis figures corresponds to one of the allophones of glottal stop consonant.

The dialect of Ardakan is one of the Persian dialects in Yazd province in Iran, which attracts every linguist’s attention as a result of its abundance of compound verbs. The present study is aimed at analyzing different kinds of compound verbs in this dialect in terms of structure. The study sought to answer the following questions: Can the compound verbs be analyzed in the dialect according to Dabir-Moghaddam’s (1374) categorization? What kinds of compounds are more prevalent in the dialect? Is there any other classification in the structure which can be added to those proposed by Dabir-Moghaddam? It was found that Dabir-Moghddam’s classification of compound verbs can be applied to the data gathered in the present study. Also, it was observed that there were some other classifications in the dialect which can be added to those proposed by Dabir-Moghaddam.

Critical discourse analysis is the modern approach to discourse analysis which has been used in a wide range of disciplines in recent decades, including literature and psychology. Although critical discourse analysis approach prioritizes the relationship among language, power, ideology and discourse in political-social issues, it is possible to analyze and interpret the literature of nations in the context of critical discourse analysis and linguistic criticism. Tarikh-e Beyhaqi is among those literary works which can be studied in the framework of this approach. It enables the analyst to reveal the relationship among power, ideology and discourse. Linguistically examining the episode ‘The Death of Bunasr-e Moshkan’, the present study sought to explore the deep and hidden layers of the text, i.e. the status of the relationship between power and ideology in Ghaznavi period. It also aimed at achieving critical defamiliarization through discovering and interpreting different ideologies in the text. In so doing, the writers used Norman Fairclough’s approach in critical discourse analysis and analyzed the text in descriptive, interpretive and expressive layers. In descriptive layer, word selection, characters and metaphorical aspects are emphasized, so that the ideological approach of Beihaghi is expressed. The noticeable features of this part included the cold and lifeless space dominating the episode, the serious state of society at that time, and the sense of freedom-seeking and desperation of the protagonist. All of tÉese features were masterfully indicated in words and expressions of the episode. In interpretive layer, the emotional and mental crisis of that time and the discourse of different groups of people are interpreted through intertextuality. In expressive layer, the contrasts of mental comfort and discomfort, responsibility and irresponsibility, loyalty and betrayal, and friendship and enmity, adds a contrastive excitement to the episode.

One of the main themes of discourse analysis is information structure. The impact on the syntactic, phonological and morphological form of the sentence of information structure is observable. Regarding its impact on the morphological form, there exists an area of research called ‘discourse anaphora’. The present study analyzed discourse anaphora in the novel ‘School’s Principal’ and the book ‘Language and Thought’ based on Gundel, Hedberg and Zacharski's (1993) Givenness Hierarchy. The model consists of six cognitive statuses. It is believed that the choice of the form of referring expressions depends on the cognitive status of the referent in the mind of hearer (reader). In the present study, twelve referring forms were chosen, and different cognitive statuses were identified and presented in a separate table for each form based on the collected examples. Finally, based on the numbers and statistics taken from the tables, the degree of compatibility of the predictions of the Givenness Hierarchy with Persian data was observed.

The present study scrutinized news stories of Persian-language newspapers within Mental Spaces theory. The concept of ‘Mental spaces’ was initially introduced by Fauconnier (1985). It was consequently developed by Fauconnier and Turner (2002) into a model entitled ‘Conceptual Integration Theory’. Mental Spaces theory assumes that meaning is not simply pre-existing stored knowledge encoded by language; rather, it is a consequence of its usage in the context; as a result, it is possible to trace mental spaces created by authors based on linguistic features and relations among particles. In the present descriptive-analytical study, six news stories excerpted from two Persian daily newspapers, which reflected the same theme and event from different perspectives, were analyzed. The findings showed that news editors utilize different mental spaces to impose their opinions and beliefs on their audiences and to lead the news flow to a direction on which the base space, namely newspaper headline, has been based. The findings of this study can be applied to newspaper discourse analyses.

The present study dealt with the content of teaching Persian in the early stages (1st and 2nd years) as well as during the implementation of the five-year education program in the Russian Federation. The article also overviewed Persian textbooks used in the higher education institutes in Russia. In so doing, the study aimed at showing main criteria for writing standard educational materials. Nowadays, updating educational materials in accordance with the basic principles of teaching and learning languages as well as applied linguistics is a must. To achieve these goals, it is necessary to take learners’ practical needs and future perspectives into account. To do so, the study sought to determine the main themes and subjects to be used in the process of teaching Persian as a foreign language. These subjects might include politics, economy, law, culture, technology and science, banking, international organizations, etc.

The present study evaluated and analyzed the review of Ābān Yašt (The Centre for Great Islamic Encyclopaedia¡ Tehran 2013) which was written and published by E. Changizi in the Journal of Language Science (vol. 2/3¡ autumn 2015). The reviewer divided his subject matter into ten entries and dealt with them in detail. The entries were: 1- Phoneme or grapheme; 2- the root *āhi-; 3- statement of the problem and significance of the study; 4- enclitic; 5- the copula verb «is»; 6- the relative pronoun ya-; 7- translations; 8- syntactic issues; 9- combination or compound; 10- the tone of writing. The present article discussed and evaluated all these entries in order to show that the reviewer’s reasoning and his deductions and conclusions were incorrect.