Sociolinguistics
Arezoo Najafian; Masoomeh Haghi; Fatemeh Yousefi Rad; Rezamorad Sahraei
Abstract
With the spread of the corona virus, teaching Persian to non-Persian speakers, like other disciplines, turned to virtual and online education, and teachers faced new challenges in teaching Persian different aspects. One of these aspects was the prepositions teaching as polysemous categories. In language ...
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With the spread of the corona virus, teaching Persian to non-Persian speakers, like other disciplines, turned to virtual and online education, and teachers faced new challenges in teaching Persian different aspects. One of these aspects was the prepositions teaching as polysemous categories. In language books, meanings of prepositions are usually presented in a list, and this problem makes learning them difficult. On the other hand, the cognitive grammar confirms the semantic network of prepositions around the prototype meaning. In this research, at first, using the semantic network of simple prepositions "از، با، به، تا، در", curriculum content was designed. Then, based on the cognitive theory of multimedia learning, a combined verbal-visual multimedia tool (animation) was used and the content was tested with 52 samples. The results of statistical analysis showed that the progress of language learners was significant. It can be concluded that the teaching of prepositions with research tools has been effective. In addition to the language level variable, social intervening variables of age, gender, nationality, field of study and status were also measured. The findings indicate that gender, nationality, field of study and age has had a significant effect. But other variables didn’t have a significant effect.
Sociolinguistics
Behzad Rahbar; Arsam Babaei
Abstract
Despite differences in social factors such as age, education, ethnicity, and social status, a kind of linguistic convergence is formed among football spectators. The linguistic manifestation of this convergence is the production and repetition of slogans. Many of these slogans are considered taboo in ...
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Despite differences in social factors such as age, education, ethnicity, and social status, a kind of linguistic convergence is formed among football spectators. The linguistic manifestation of this convergence is the production and repetition of slogans. Many of these slogans are considered taboo in Iranian culture. The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors affecting the verbal convergence between spectators and the formation of taboos in the stadium and also the effect of age and education on the convergence and use of taboos. The research data were collected through questionnaires and interviews with 52 spectators in 4 matches in Azadi Stadium. The participants were of different ages and had different levels of education. The results show that there is a significant relationship between age and linguistic convergence and taboo production. Education has a significant relationship with linguistic convergence, but it does not show a significant relationship with the use of taboos. Finally, the research classifies the 76 slogans expressed in the stadium, based on their structure and function in 7 different groups. The results of this study can help linguists, sociologists, senior managers, and researchers to better identify culture and language in Iran and in weak social networks.
Sociolinguistics
Hassan Bashirnezhad; Narjes Saeednia
Abstract
Communication strategies refer to the strategies that people use to communicate more effectively and efficiently. In this study, we have examined the communication strategies used in Iranian television interviews between a TV presenter as the host of a program and an expert as the guest on the program. ...
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Communication strategies refer to the strategies that people use to communicate more effectively and efficiently. In this study, we have examined the communication strategies used in Iranian television interviews between a TV presenter as the host of a program and an expert as the guest on the program. Guests and hosts were selected from both sex groups to determine the effect of gender on the use of these strategies. A total of six strategies (three aggressive strategies and three supportive strategies) were determined and 26 television interviews from Iranian television networks were recorded and transcribed. Then, the extent of usage of these strategies were examined and analyzed. The findings showed that guest women used more hedges, back channels, intensifiers and delays than guest men. Host men used more intensifiers and silences than host women. Moreover, guest women used more hedges and intensifiers than host men, while guest men used the silence strategy more often than host women. Considering these findings, it can be argued that there is a significant difference between communication strategies used by men and women, but gender is not the only determining variable and the position of individuals has played a role in the use of communication strategies by men and women.
Sociolinguistics
Abbas Ali Ahangar; Setareh Mojahedi Rezaeian; Fariba Esfandiarpoor
Abstract
This study investigates the effect of the addressee’s power on the type and number of giving advice strategies, such as “on record”, “negative politeness”, “two” and “three” combination, employed by Persian male and female university students based ...
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This study investigates the effect of the addressee’s power on the type and number of giving advice strategies, such as “on record”, “negative politeness”, “two” and “three” combination, employed by Persian male and female university students based on Brown and Levinson’s (1987) theory. A number of 60 M.A students (30 males and 30 females) from the University of Sistan and Baluchestan participated in this study. Discourse completion tests and role play techniques were utilized as two data gathering methods. The data were analyzed using the Chi-square test. The results of the two data collection methods show that the addressee’s power affects the type and the number of giving advice strategies and there is a significant relationship between the addressee’s power and the type as well as the number of giving advice strategies employed by male and female university students. The most frequent strategy type is the “negative politeness” strategies while the least frequent type are “don’t do face threatening act” strategies. As to the number of the strategies, the most frequent and less frequent ones are the combination of three and nine strategies respectively.
Language & Media
sharareh mozaffari; Yahya Modarresi; Azita Afrashi; Mostafa Assi
Abstract
Speakers’ linguistic behavior regarding the usage of lectal variations (regional, Shirazi and Standard varieties), creates mixed responses which are influenced by social variables, the age, gender, education and place of residence. The favorable and unfavorable reactions toward the regional lectals ...
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Speakers’ linguistic behavior regarding the usage of lectal variations (regional, Shirazi and Standard varieties), creates mixed responses which are influenced by social variables, the age, gender, education and place of residence. The favorable and unfavorable reactions toward the regional lectals have led to the formation of social categorizations from a cognitive point of view. This field study describes the correlation between social layers and linguistic forms in Fars Province. Data collection was carried out through a survey method by 490 speakers from Shiraz, Marvdasht, Kazeroun, Fasa, Jahrom and several cities around Shiraz. The founding indicates that, the age group of 15 to 30 year-old more than the other age group, women more than men and, speakers with higher education, prefer to use the Standard Variety rather than their local varieties in social domains (family, education, work, street, media, and in elites’ discourse). Although the Standard Variety is dominant everywhere, local varieties are used by the native speakers to express their identity in informal social settings and live with these varieties alongside their family and acquaintances.
Language & Media
Masumeh Poloie; Mohamad Ahmadkhani; Seyed Mehdi Samaei
Abstract
The present study investigates the use of Argot language vocabulary in two gender groups. The Argot language is a collection of words and phrases that certain groups use to keep secrets inside their group against others. This sociolinguistics study describes the functional differences of the vocabulary ...
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The present study investigates the use of Argot language vocabulary in two gender groups. The Argot language is a collection of words and phrases that certain groups use to keep secrets inside their group against others. This sociolinguistics study describes the functional differences of the vocabulary of this language in two groups of males and females. Data were randomly collected through 60 face-to-face interviews. This research applied a descriptive and a case study method. The purpose of this research is to answer the question whether there is a significant difference between the lexical frequency and the expected occurence. To test the hypothesis, males respondents have used the most secret words in the interviewees, using Chi-square non-parametric tedst. The dependent variable in this study is the frequency of Argot vocabulary and independent gender variable is gender. It seems that gender plays an important role in the frequency of certain words; nevertheless, the results showed that there is no significant difference between the two gender variables and the use of the Argot vocabulary; however, the tendency of females to use argot vocabulary is less than men.
Language & Media
Mala Vasegh; MEHDI PURMOHAMMAD
Abstract
Children’s and adolescent literature plays an important role in socializing the audience and reflects the conditions of society, beliefs, traditions and opinions that shape readers' mentality and perception of the various phenomena on which they are based. One of the most important aspects of socializing ...
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Children’s and adolescent literature plays an important role in socializing the audience and reflects the conditions of society, beliefs, traditions and opinions that shape readers' mentality and perception of the various phenomena on which they are based. One of the most important aspects of socializing is the formation of concept of gender identity in the children's mentality, which stabilizes in adolescence. The fictional literature as the most socially used genre can be the best source to present the image that Iranian children and adolence literature have about the concept of gender. Children get acquainted to the new world through the book and gain new and different experiences. The present study investigates the status and role of women, men and gender stereotypes in child literature. A total number of 200 Persian fiction books were analyzed. The results show that a gender-based discrimination was found in the books awarded as the top best-selling books by Iran Center for the Intellectual Development of Children and Younh Adult for a decade from 1385 to 1395. In these books, the number of male characters and names was almost twice as much as female characters. The main female characters of the text were seen more often. This article investigates the stereotypes of children's picture books which play a role in shaping gender identity.
Language & Media
Mahnaz Talebi Dastenaee; Mandana Nourbakhsh; Hamideh Poshtvan
Abstract
In recent years, numerous studies have been done on the impact of different speech styles on the changes of prosodic elements. Sociophonetics examines the combination of techniques, elements, and theoretical frameworks in phonology and sociology. The present study, within the framework of sociophonetics ...
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In recent years, numerous studies have been done on the impact of different speech styles on the changes of prosodic elements. Sociophonetics examines the combination of techniques, elements, and theoretical frameworks in phonology and sociology. The present study, within the framework of sociophonetics studies, examines the effect of context on the fundamental frequency, intensity and duration of identical word pairs and paragraphs in two different religious and nonreligious contexts using PRAAT software version 5.4.17. For this purpose, ten female participants with an average age of 29 years were asked to read 8 paragraphs (4 paragraphs with religious context and 4 paragraphs with non-religious context).Each paragraph contains one of the target research names (Fatemeh, Mohammad, Abbas, and Hossein). The purpose is to study the difference between the average fundamental frequency (Hz), duration (ms), and intensity (dB) in the same words but in both religious and non-religious contexts. The results show that the difference between the duration of identical word pairs in the two religious and non-religious contexts is statistically significant, meaning that the duration of the words in the religious context was longer.
Language & Media
Ameneh Masnabadi; Behzad Rahbar; mohammad reza oroji
Abstract
Studying prison language and its common words and expressions is of significance from sociological, psychological, linguistic and criminological points of view. In the present research, we aim to investigate the morphological aspect of language of prison and analyze the most important word-creation processes ...
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Studying prison language and its common words and expressions is of significance from sociological, psychological, linguistic and criminological points of view. In the present research, we aim to investigate the morphological aspect of language of prison and analyze the most important word-creation processes in this language based on Booij’s (2007) differentiation between word-formation and word-creation processes. The data collection methods were objective observation and interviews with the prisoners. The data consisted of 615 terms common in male prisoners’ language and 496 terms common in female prisoners’ language (1111 in total), a total of 167 of which are results of word creation processes. The total number of interviewed prisoners was 70, 20 of whom were female from a prison in Rey, Iran, and 50 male prisoners from the Rajaei Shahr, Ghezel Hesar, Fashafuyeh, and Great Tehran prisons. The research findings suggested eight word creation processes in prison language: (1) metaphorical extension, (2) coinage, (3) reduplication, (4) shortening, (5) lexical borrowing, (6) clipping, (7) blending, and (8) abbreviation. After assessing the relationship between the application of these processes and the gender variable, it was found that there was a significant relationship between the two, and the gender factor affects the use of these processes among male and female prisoners.
Language Policies
Azadeh Sharifi moghadam; mohammad reza fakhr rouhani; maryam hajiloo
Abstract
Honorifics are social deixis which serve as signs of respect and politeness for references to certain noun phrases in order to show dignity of addressee(s). The purpose of this study is to compare the use of honorific terms and phrases in the two religions of Islam and Zoroastrianism. The data were collected ...
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Honorifics are social deixis which serve as signs of respect and politeness for references to certain noun phrases in order to show dignity of addressee(s). The purpose of this study is to compare the use of honorific terms and phrases in the two religions of Islam and Zoroastrianism. The data were collected from written and oral religious texts which were then examined and compared to each other in terms of structures, meanings and pragmatic use. The findings are as follows: In the two religions, honorifics appear both before and after the nominal; however, Islamic honorifics are longer in structures and more various in types, while in Zoroastrian they appear before the head. In both corpora in addition to religious figures, honorific terms were used for the places, objects and phenomena related to religion. In addition to unmarked honorifics, the corpus of the two religions contained marked honorifics which appear with some certain names. Both religions contain prohibited verbal and non-verbal behaviors (taboo) such as silence which can be referred to as a common feature in the two ceremonies. Finally, both religions contain items opposite to the honorifics with the meaning of hatred and disgust. Along with the similarities mentioned above, the significant difference between the two corpora is that the use of honorifics in Islam is motivated by a kind of religious duty known as ‘amity’ and ‘animosity’.
Sociolinguistics
Maral Asiaee; Saeed Rahandaz
Abstract
Gogani is one of the varieties of Azeri spoken in Iran. One remarkable feature of this variety is the conversion of /r/ to [j] in speech. This research aims to study the effect of social variables such as age, education and style and linguistic context (i.e. intervocalic and other contexts) on the phonetic ...
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Gogani is one of the varieties of Azeri spoken in Iran. One remarkable feature of this variety is the conversion of /r/ to [j] in speech. This research aims to study the effect of social variables such as age, education and style and linguistic context (i.e. intervocalic and other contexts) on the phonetic representation of /r/. Following Labov’s (1966, 2006) framework and through the interview method, 1200 words from the speech of 30 Gogani speakers were collected. The corpus was then divided into three groups based on the variables of age and education. The corpus was also classified into two styles of casual and formal speech. In all these categorizations, two phonetic contexts including intervocalic and non-intervocalic contexts were taken into consideration. The results of chi-square analyses show that age, education, style and phonetic context have a significant effect on the phonetic representation of /r/. In fact, the phonetic representation of this phoneme is a function of interaction between social and phonetic variables.
Language & Media
H. Zolfaghari; B. Bagheri
Volume 1, Issue 2 , April 2017, , Pages 17-27
Abstract
Written popular literature of Iran, in addition to its literary and artistic dimensions, is rich in sociological information. In these texts, along with multiple linguistic clichés such as idioms, allusions, curses, oaths, etc., there are lots of proverbs which familiarize us with people’s ...
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Written popular literature of Iran, in addition to its literary and artistic dimensions, is rich in sociological information. In these texts, along with multiple linguistic clichés such as idioms, allusions, curses, oaths, etc., there are lots of proverbs which familiarize us with people’s ideas and beliefs, values and anti-values, ethical principles, agility customs, the role of women in the society, religious issues, etc., while making them sweet, attractive and popular. The objective of the present descriptive-analytic research is to study 500 proverbs extracted from among 30 verse and prose heroic legends written between the 6th century AH and the end of the Qajarid period, in the general framework of sociology of literature, in order to provide a sociolinguistic perspective. Data analysis indicates that the proverbs could be classified into four general categories including world and chance, social issues, politics and governance, and ethical advices. Besides, there are sometimes traces of patriarchal and opposing thoughts against women.
Language and Culture
R. Mirzaee; N. Davari Ardakani
Volume 1, Issue 2 , April 2017, , Pages 28-36
Abstract
Taboos, as a class of linguistic tools, reveal the users' personal emotions and feelings as well as sociolinguistic attitudes of the society. The objectives of the present study were to classify common taboo words used in Shoushtar city, Iran, and to examine the effect of social variables of age, gender, ...
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Taboos, as a class of linguistic tools, reveal the users' personal emotions and feelings as well as sociolinguistic attitudes of the society. The objectives of the present study were to classify common taboo words used in Shoushtar city, Iran, and to examine the effect of social variables of age, gender, ethnicity and education on its usage. The present descriptive-analytic research was carried out by direct observation and a questionnaire. From among 160 examinees, 140 answered the questions completely and their answers were analyzed by means of statistic tests. The study indicates that both women and men of Shoushtar use 4 classes of taboo words when they are angry or upset. The results indicate that from among the above-mentioned social variables, age and gender have a significant effect on the use of these words (P= 0.015); men use more taboo words than women and 15-19 year-old examinees use them more than the other age-groups. Moreover, the variables of ethnicity and education have no significant effect on the use of taboo words in Shoushtari language society (P= 0.89).
Language & Media
Sh. Sheikh Sang Tajan; A. Yousefi Garakooie
Volume 1, Issue 2 , April 2017, , Pages 46-63
Abstract
Applying address terms is considered as a kind of observing social politeness in the society and the speakers of each language use them regarding their particular ways. This article is an analytic-descriptive research which assesses address terms in the Persian and Gilaki languages and compares them ...
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Applying address terms is considered as a kind of observing social politeness in the society and the speakers of each language use them regarding their particular ways. This article is an analytic-descriptive research which assesses address terms in the Persian and Gilaki languages and compares them with each other. Fifty Gilaki speakers and 50 Persian speakers, ranged between 25 to 40 years old, were selected as the samples of the study. Researchers tried to answer two questions: 1) What are the most frequently used address terms in Persian and Gilaki?, and 2) What is the difference between these terms in the two languages? The results reveal that Persian and Gilaki speakers are similar in applying the address terms of “nick names” and “kinship phrases”, however, after these two, the Persian ones use more “respectful titles” while the Gilaki ones apply more “titles” to call each other. Besides, address terms of “clipping”, “religious names” and “other names” are among the least frequently used phrases in Gilaki. Although there is no significant difference between applying the terms in the two languages, the existence of the above-mentioned differences indicate the cultural distinctions of the two sample societies.
Language and Culture
A. Sharifi Moghaddam; M. Bahreini; V. Abolhassanizadeh
Volume 1, Issue 2 , April 2017, , Pages 64-71
Abstract
Compliments are universal categories which are found in all languages but they are more common in some languages like Persian. The objective of this study is to examine the effect of social variables of “age” and “gender” on the amount of usage of compliments by Persian speakers. ...
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Compliments are universal categories which are found in all languages but they are more common in some languages like Persian. The objective of this study is to examine the effect of social variables of “age” and “gender” on the amount of usage of compliments by Persian speakers. To do this, a questionnaire including 15 questions was given to 100 male and female Kermani participants in different age-groups. The research theoretical framework was Brown and Levinson’s (1978) politeness theory. Static analyses indicate that there is significant difference (P< 0.0001) between the usage of compliments by the participants of different ages; in older age-groups they use more compliments to show politeness to their addressees. However, there is no significant difference (P = 0.28) between male and female Persian speakers in using compliments although the structures of compliment representations are different. This point reveals that both gender. Groups use compliments in their verbal interactions to show politeness.
Language and Culture
V. Shahidi poor
Volume 1, Issue 2 , April 2017, , Pages 72-83
Abstract
Compliments and their responses are of high frequency in daily speech acts and carry a special cultural-sociological load. This study aimed at identifying the effect of the variable of age on Persian speakers' compliment response strategies. To this end, 200 Persian speakers (100 women and 100 men) from ...
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Compliments and their responses are of high frequency in daily speech acts and carry a special cultural-sociological load. This study aimed at identifying the effect of the variable of age on Persian speakers' compliment response strategies. To this end, 200 Persian speakers (100 women and 100 men) from four different age-groups (10-18, 19-30, 31-40, and above 40 years old) were asked to respond to the written Discourse Completion Task (DCT) consisting of four imaginary situations. The results indicated that the participants used accept strategies the most and the evade ones the least but the most common sub-type of response strategies they used was the downgrade strategy. Return and appreciation tokens were the second and third most frequently used strategies. However, topic shift and reassignment strategies were never used. The results also revealed that the effect of age on the patterns of compliment responses was remarkable. While the age-group under 18 used appreciation tokens the most, the other age-groups preferred downgrade ones the most. However were used, disagreement and reassurance strategies the least in all groups.
Language & Media
M. Talebi Dastnabi; A. Khoshbakht Arani
Volume 1, Issue 1 , January 2017, , Pages 75-86
Abstract
Taboos make a part of people’s language in different regions and they are used under the effect of sociological factors. The aim of the present study is to examine and classify different types of linguistic taboos in Ārān and Bidgol dialect and to evaluate the difference of their usages regarding ...
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Taboos make a part of people’s language in different regions and they are used under the effect of sociological factors. The aim of the present study is to examine and classify different types of linguistic taboos in Ārān and Bidgol dialect and to evaluate the difference of their usages regarding social variables of age and gender in single- and mixed-gender environments. The population of the study includes men and women living in Ārān and Bidgol and the sample consists of 180 people (90 men and90 women). Gender, age, marriage status, and education make the independent variables whose effect on the usage of the taboos is calculated separately in each environment. The results indicate that men use taboos more frequently than women, and similarly, single people use them more frequently than the married ones. Besides, the number of taboos decreases along with the increase of their age.
