مجله جستار های زبانی
پیاپی 2 (تابستان 1389)

This paper, flashing back to the late 40s (H.S.), tries to study the prevalent methods of Arabic language teaching of the time in scientific, educational and academic centers. It Further Attempts to identify the position of the pioneers of the new methods of Arabic language teaching in general, and to consider the methodology of Hossein Khorasani specifically, which was an unprecedented method in that era. Khorasani compiled a three- volume book titled the “Direct Method” of Teaching Arabic Language and Literature. In this way, he could introduce a new and comprehensive plan for teaching Arabic language to the Farsi speaking individuals; so that every Iranian Language learner would be able to acquire the four basic Arabic Language skills, according to the direct method principles. Unfortunately, this book and its position have remained unknown in Iran. Here, we are going to introduce all aspects of this methodology and criticize it in detail.

In a general, the phonetic correction contains activities that would be briefly presented in each method. But, nowadays, in a more profound and more serious study of phonetic correction, which is considered as a scientific branch in the methodology of language and teaching, we observe that a profound survey on the purposes, principles and the way and techniques of each method needs a scientific research. In this research, the major objective is to find a scientific way to describe and analyze separately, the current methods, thus, all the positive and critical points in each method. Following this principle, the aim of the authors was to find out which method would be adapted among the existing methods in phonetic correction. Among the five current methods in an international area, the following conclusion was resulted: Even if the application of laboratory method and articulatory method is easy to be realized (which is considered as principal reason in their development), we observed that the verbo-tonal method would be more efficient. In the end, an educational perspective is presented following the chosen method.

Beyhaqi’s history is one of the rare texts that has changed into either a documentary history or a creative text by the use of literary devices. One of these devices is the usage of the fictional atmosphere and especially its particular characterization. Although they are historical characters but they are created again in Beyhaqi’s history. This creation is formed by the dramatic way. In addition that it expresses directly the external characteristics like their talking and manners it even shows their feelings or temperament for the readers by logical relationships. In this work. it is presented the believable and imaginable persons. The author tries to make an atmosphere that characters present themselves by their actions or in relation with other people and reflect against their soundings. around world. Therefore, Beyhaqi has created the dramatic characters.

This work examines different types of ‘silence’ as meaningful absence, which leaves a trace in its empty place. This trace as a marker of silence is introduced in various forms. The study of meaningful silence in the literature as discourse shows that this marked silence is present in any text by some discursive indicators. A text expresses part of its message by using words and part of it by making use of silence. As a matter of fact, silence has an interactive role and it is also employed as a narrative technique the in literature to produce a plot. This study explored the functions of written silence in fiction. The question addressed in this study was ‘In which themes and for what discursive functions is the the written silence represented in narrative?’ In fact, the study views written representations of silence as those that cannot be mentioned or are not said intentionally, indeed what is absent in a text for some reasons that leads to a number of different styles of story writing through using silence. The study delineates and analyzes this kind of silence in five Iranian short fictions in terms of three themes: structural, semantic and pragmatic. Consequently, these themes will be deliberated in three syntagmatic, paradigmatic and comitative axes due to constructing Complication, Denouement, Suspense, Atmosphere and Setting by using silence. Structural silence is divided into ellipse and cataphora. Semantic silence consists of metaphor and metonymy. Pragmatic silence, on the other hand, consists of presupposition and implication. Each of these has its specific function in fiction.

The Semantic Script Theory of Humor is the first complete linguistic theory on humor. This theory, that was in fact a radical departure from the traditionally taxonomic approach of puns and humor, was first introduced by Victor Raskin. He was the first linguist that analyzed the structures of humor from the semantic view point, and could identify the structure of joke. In Raskin’s view, a semantic theory must include two abstract concepts: a set of the whole scripts available to the speakers and a set of compositional rules. The purpose of this article is to introduce this theory and to answer this question that which objections on the basis of Persian data may be made to this theory. For this purpose, we studied a number of Persian jokes published in Iranian Humor Press, and by the analysis of these texts, we could show some weaknesses of the theory. The results of this study showed that the way of analysis in Raskin’s Semantic Scripts theory, which is based on listing all of the scripts involved in the words used in the humorous text, has some weaknesses in analyzing Persian Jokes; such as not being compatible with the linguistic processing realities and for having time-consuming redundant complexities, it is not applicable on long Persian jokes.

One of the most common speech acts used in daily social encounters and speeches in all languages including Persian Language is to wish and bless tidings for interlocutor. Wishes are expressed in Persian language using specific grammatical structures such as verb sentences with subjunctive verbs, noun sentences, minor sentences and other expressions; which have diverse and special pragmatic functions. They can be used at the end of a conversation to express gratitude for the interlocutors and/or as a reaction to their expressions. There are also other types of expressions of wish, which address their interlocutors indirectly or as a group of subjects (plural), and are of high cultural significance. This article addresses the classification of expressions of wish in terms of semantics and pragmatic function, alongside their grammatical structure. The pragmatic function of aspiration terms and expressions in Persian language is studied by demonstrating diverse examples.

This study investigates the theoretical principles of the learner centered foreign language teaching methods. It also attempts to find an answer to the question of how the science of foreign languages teaching have shifted from teacher centered classes toward student centered ones. The emphasis on learner centered classes is an issue, which is highly recommended but it has been overlooked in practice. Teaching methods of foreign languages in the 20th century have been mainly influenced by psychology, pedagogy and andragogy. Behavioristic psychology and structural linguistics formed the theoretical foundations of audio-lingualism. According to this approach, learners were to imitate the patterns of teachers in an immediate and automatic manner. In audio-visual teaching of unified structures, giving autonomy to the learner approximates the learner to produce new sentences during a learner-centered learning. The Chomskyan generative grammar and his notions of competence and performance have influenced (though indirectly) the teaching methods of foreign languages. In communicative approach, the learner is actively engaged in producing various speech acts and, in the process of instruction, he/she collaborates actively with the teacher. In community language learning, much attention has been paid to the principles of andragogy, in which the teacher is considered to be an adult consultant. In the course of the evolution of the roles that learners (adults as well as children) have played during the last century, attempts are made to focus on the psychological changes from behaviorism to cognitive psychology. This study further focuses on the changes of attitudes from traditional pedagogy to modern pedagogy and also to the emergence of andragogy.

In the process of grammaticalization, a lexical item changes into a grammatical one, or an already grammatical item acquires more grammatical properties. Efforts have been made to isolate the mechanisms and principles underlying or accompanying grammaticalization. In this article, such mechanisms and principles are thoroughly examined. It is worth noting that a concept subsumed under mechanisms by one scholar may be considered as a principle in another framework. To avoid this kind of confusion, here only the common principles and mechanisms accepted by most linguists are touched upon. Therefore, the principles presented in this article are based on the classic article of Hopper (1991) and the related mechanisms are those described by Wischer (2006). Examples, mostly from Persian language, are also provided for each principle or mechanism. A thorough understanding of these principles and mechanisms can help us to identify the instances of grammaticalization in language. This in turn gives us useful insights as to the nature of changes in language. The availability of texts belonging to different periods is of great help in identification of instances of grammaticalization. However, here we show that by a good understanding of (especially) the principles of grammaticalization, one can rather easily identify the instances of grammaticalization even in those languages without a written tradition.