نشریه پژوهش ادبیات معاصر جهان
پیاپی 54 (پاییز 1388)

This research was conducted to reveal the differences between the intonation systems of Persian and Japanese languages and to be applied to the contrastive linguistics and language teaching fields. First,a description of the intonation system in the Autosegmental-Metrical Phonology framework was chosen as reference for each language. Based on these two descriptions, the intonations of the two languages were studied and compared, and finally one difference between the two systems was pointed out in a hypothesis. Data representing all tonal structures and intonational patterns of Persian and Japanese were then collected. Five Japanese students of Persian language and five Iranian students of Japanese language were asked to read the data in the lab environment. Analysis of pitch contours of the recorded utterances proved the established hypothesis that Persian language uses the nuclear pitch-accent while there is not such a phenomenon in Japanese.

Alexander Sergeyevich Griboyedov was a Russian diplomat, playwright, and composer. He is recognized in Russian literature as a dramatist and writer of a book, whose fame rests on the brilliant verse comedy Woe from Wit (The Woes of Wit), a satire on Russian aristocratic society which continus to be one of the most often staged plays in Russia. However, in Iran he is known as the great Russian Ambassador of the Qajar Dynasty called “Vazir Mukhtar”, unfortunately though obscure as a literary figure. Undoubtedly one may consider him as a composer rather than a diplomat, because in the past many Russian authors, who were not satisfied with their social and political situation, were sent to live in another country. Griboyedov, who accompanied the revolutionaries (Decembrists), was exiled to Iran. Griboyedov’s appearance in Iran has great value both in the political field, as well as literary field. Although diplomatically his presence in Iran had some advantages for the Russian government, his death however was the beginning of Iranian acquaintance with European modern dramatical art, which is a turning point for Iranian art and literature.

The controversial theories of modern physics created a remarkable revolution in twentieth-century literature. The progressive novelists of the century, inspired by the concepts in quantum mechanics, expressed the concerns of living in the modern world in the form of non-linear, heterogeneous writing based on doubt. In his autobiographical work, entitled W or the Childhood Memory, George Perec presents a good example of representing the quantum theories. In search of his identity, the writer explores his childhood memories and elucidates the chaotic, disordered quality of those memories. In order to indicate the devastating effect of war on his identity, he blends the narrative of his childhood memories with a fictional story and in this way creates paradoxical complements. Moreover, through doubting his memories and utilizing old documents and sayings of people, he makes uncertainty and probability control his autobiography, and renders genuine report of events impossible. This procedure defines the author’s attitude to literature and his perspective of the autobiographical genre.

This paper is a comparative study between Francis Bacon's The New Atlantis and William Blake's The Book of Urizen. The researchers will examine the two writer's views about science and its impact over two different epochs. In this respect, methods and forms of acquiring knowledge will be scrutinized to reveal how different these authors are in their definitions of scientific thought. The researchers will also show how the notion of progress helps shape method and form in each work. The aim is to illustrate the two dominant attitudes towards science in the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries and the way these outlooks influenced literature in each era.

In this research a number of important and active phonological processes in standard German, spoken in Berlin, have been studied. In this regard, four dictionaries: Duden Universal W?rterbuch (1998), Langenscheidt (2002), Brock Haus (1996), and Panbeh-Chi (1379) have been used for gathering the data. Furthermore, two German informants had a four-hour interview to complete the data. In addition, books in the field of Phonology, whose names have been mentioned in the bibliography, have been used to determine the phonological rules. The most important phonetic-phonological processes in German are: aspiration of initial voiceless stops, devoicing of final voiced obstruents, assimilation of coronal nasals with the next oral consonant in the place of articulation and umlaut (change of the feature +back to –back in the case of back vowels). Among the mentioned processes, ‘aspiration of initial voiceless stops’ and ‘devoicing of final voiced obstruents’ have been shown to be more active than the others. Another important point about syllable structure in the German language is that the Sonority Sequency Principle (SSP) dominates the syllable structure in this language.

Shahnameh, composed in the 10th century by Ferdowsi, is one of the most significant classics of the world. It is about heroic tales of ancient Persia. The contents and the poet's style in describing events takes the reader back to ancient times and makes him/her feel the events. Ferdowsi worked for thirty years to complete this Crown Jewel of Persian literature. Publius Vergilius Maro known as Virgil (October 15, 70 Bc – September 21, 19 Bc) is a classical Roman poet, popularly known for his Aeneid. This research tries to examine people and heroes in both Shahnameh of Ferdowsi and Aeneid of Virgil to assess their similarities and differences. Comparing mythological principles of the great works of the world enables us to understand them more profoundly. Thus we can appreciate better the greatness of the Shahnameh and also its complicated layers. This analysis attempts to compare both the main characters of two works and also those mythological similarities or differences we usually find in these masterpieces. In this article attempt has not been to compare one characters of the two works by one the since it is not possible to compare precisely the main characteristics of mythological characters of one nation with another. However, in this article the significant differences and similarities between two masterpieces have rather focused on those components on which the identities are made.

This study aimed to design a questionnaire including characteristics of successful Iranian EFL teachers and substantiate its construct validity. Based on the guidelines laid down by EFL professors (N=5), teachers (N=11), learners (N=46), and Suwandee's (1995) questionnaire about the characteristics of effective language teachers, a questionnaire (Likert scale) consisting of 47 items, was designed. To measure construct validity of the questionnaire, 250 EFL learners were asked to fill in the questionnaire and then, factor analysis (Principal Axis Factoring) was conducted to determine the underlying factors. The results revealed that the questionnaire measures twelve constructs. To estimate internal consistency reliability of the questionnaire, Cronbach's Alpha was applied. In the end, the implications of the results in teaching and learning processes were discussed.

The aim of this study is to examine the role of gender in translation and the accuracy of translation, and thereby determine whether there is any difference between translations carried out by female and male translators in terms of translation accuracy. Two English novels and two translations for each, one by a female and the other by a male translator, were selected. Each translation was compared with its source text, sentence by sentence. Based on certain categories, their inappropriate renderings affecting the understanding of the ST, and its affect on translation accuracy, were extracted. The total numbers of the observed inappropriate renderings of each group of the female and male translators were counted. Having analyzed the data and having applied some statistical analyses, the researchers discovered that the answer to the research question was negative and the null hypothesis of the research was supported.