Editorial
Research Paper
Sociolinguistics
Bahman Zandi; Seyed Mahmoud Motesharrei; Fatemeh Yousefi Rad
Abstract
Social linguistics adopted a synchronic framework and turned onomastics from an archaist science to a modern one dealing with contemporary society. However, it is impossible to ignore the role names play in shaping individuals’ cognitive structures. Thus, cognitive linguistics also showed an interest ...
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Social linguistics adopted a synchronic framework and turned onomastics from an archaist science to a modern one dealing with contemporary society. However, it is impossible to ignore the role names play in shaping individuals’ cognitive structures. Thus, cognitive linguistics also showed an interest in this subject because “Names” are multifaceted linguistic elements. Similar to traditional and philosophical studies, social onomastics mostly deal with proper names, but cognitive linguistics, especially studies of Geeraerts et al., address common names. Labov (1972) sees urban social linguistics as the “science of field studies”; this view can be safely applied to onomastic studies, especially to the approach that addresses onomastics from a socio-cognitive perspective with an emphasis on use and context. This article aims to provide roadmap for onomastics studies applying documentary research method. The authors, after a quick philosophical and diachronic review of literature, examine contemporary onomastics studies from a sociocognitive perspective. The conclusion of their observation and studies shows that the scope of onomastic research has expanded, word-formation (lexical generation) processes draw less attention. Instead, lexical structure and different quantitative approaches, which study the strength of onomastic processes, are receiving more attention by the day.
Research Paper
Sociolinguistics
Hamideh Bonyadi; Belghis Rovshan
Abstract
This is a fundamental research whose method is content analysis. It attempted to examine some cognitive and social elements of the texts of Teaching Persian Language in Persian (6th book)(Islamic Language and Education Training Center, 1395) for non-Persian learners of Al-Mustafa International University ...
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This is a fundamental research whose method is content analysis. It attempted to examine some cognitive and social elements of the texts of Teaching Persian Language in Persian (6th book)(Islamic Language and Education Training Center, 1395) for non-Persian learners of Al-Mustafa International University in the framework of cognitive sociolinguistics. The unit of analysis was “sentence” and all of the texts were examined. To do this, all sentences containing image schemas were extracted from among the 1150 sentences existing in the book while availing from Johnsons’ 1987 research. Then, from among these (430) sentences, 400 ones containing social variables were extracted and analyzed. In these sentences, the image schemas of "movement", "force", "collection" and "content" made the most metaphorical conceptualization, and the image schemas of "link", "merging" and "attraction" had the least frequency in the texts. Besides, social variables of "religion", "power", "politeness", "correlation" and "dignity" played a great role in creating metaphorical systems. Moreover, the results indicated how the texts were influenced by the type of audience, the purpose of learning the Persian language, and the writers’ style and attitude.
Research Paper
Sociolinguistics
Azizeh Chalak; Ali Derakhshan
Abstract
Among daily speech acts, compliments and their responses are of high frequency and carry a special cultural-sociological load. As such, the present study aimed at investigating compliment responses (CRs) employed by Iranian EFL learners on Instagram. In doing so, 360 CRs were collected from 60 Iranian ...
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Among daily speech acts, compliments and their responses are of high frequency and carry a special cultural-sociological load. As such, the present study aimed at investigating compliment responses (CRs) employed by Iranian EFL learners on Instagram. In doing so, 360 CRs were collected from 60 Iranian male and female EFL students. Using Maíz-Arévalo’s (2013) framework, students’ compliment responses were analyzed. The findings indicated that the most frequently used response strategy in Instagram was acceptance, and was different from face-to-face CR. In addition, the study showed gender differences in the manifestation of CR. Females responded to compliments longer than their male counterparts did and they showed more emotions in responding to compliments. From a sociolinguistic vantage point, the results of examining such social relationships in online context enable EFL teachers to develop new patterns of social and cultural communication for their students and make them socially and culturally aware to avoid using inappropriate norms, impolite behaviors, and misunderstanding.
Research Paper
Dialectology
Ayoub Ansari; Arezu Najafian; Mohammadreza Ahmadkhani
Abstract
In this paper, the plural morpheme, its allomorphs and the morphonological processes resulting from its connection to nominal stems have been investigated in Mamasani Lori dialect based on the framework of optimality approach. The research method was analytical- descriptive and the method of data collection ...
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In this paper, the plural morpheme, its allomorphs and the morphonological processes resulting from its connection to nominal stems have been investigated in Mamasani Lori dialect based on the framework of optimality approach. The research method was analytical- descriptive and the method of data collection is a field study. The results showed that connection of the plural /-æl/ to the singular nominal stems ending in consonant is accompanied by a process of re-syllabification, which indicates that the ALIGN-R constraint is violated to satisfy the ONSET constraint. In the hiatus context of the vowels of nouns ending in /jæ/ and /-æl/, first the insertion process of intrusive consonant /j/ is occurred, then during the dissimilation process and OCP constraint, deletion process is taken place. In this study, the glide /j/ is the underlying intrusive consonant, which is changed in to its allophones /w/, /-ɟ/ and /n/. Some noun stems ending in /æ/ are assimilated to the intrusive consonant /j/ and changed to the vowel /ɪ/. In some others, in order to differentiate semantically in homonymous words, the optimal approach of Lexically-accessed Constraints was used. In these contexts, HIATUS, ONSET and NUC have the highest rankings.
Research Paper
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.
Research Paper
Sociolinguistics
Hossein Rahmani
Abstract
The research aims to investigate the most frequent types of disagreement strategies relative to face among PNU staffs. The data were collected from a telegram group entitled Kanoon Karkonan-e Noor in a three-month period from March, 20th, 2020 to June 20th, 2020. The data included 156 disagreement strategies ...
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The research aims to investigate the most frequent types of disagreement strategies relative to face among PNU staffs. The data were collected from a telegram group entitled Kanoon Karkonan-e Noor in a three-month period from March, 20th, 2020 to June 20th, 2020. The data included 156 disagreement strategies on different topics and were analyzed based on Muntigl and Turnbull’s (1998: 228-233) taxonomy. The findings indicated that counter claim is the most frequent type of disagreement strategy among the members of the Telegram group. Counter claim entails further dialogues and threatens the addressee’s face less than the other types. Moreover, other strategies PNU staffs employed from highest to lowest are as follows:1. employee payslip, 2. taking about faculty members, 3. staffs’ dismissals 4. teleworking and 5. other issues. There is scant research on this topic and in Persian language in the literature and this is more evident in Persian studies in computer-mediated communication. This study hopes to add to our knowledge on disagreement in Persian language.
Research Paper
Discourse Analysis
Somaye Shokati Mogharab; Alireza Khormaee; Amirsaeid Moloodi; Mohammad Reza Tajik
Abstract
This study aims to use cognitive critical discourse analysis in analyzing the first statements of the recent presidents of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the General Assembly of the United Nations. It seeks to capture how each discourse makes antagonisms through applying metonymy-producing relationships. ...
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This study aims to use cognitive critical discourse analysis in analyzing the first statements of the recent presidents of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the General Assembly of the United Nations. It seeks to capture how each discourse makes antagonisms through applying metonymy-producing relationships. The main question is how identity and its otherness are articulated in the context of the Iranian presidents’ statements in the UN’s General Assembly and which factors and signs in the metonymy-producing relationships serve this representation. The theoretical framework of this study is composed of Hall’s (2011) approach to discourse analysis based on cognitive linguistics, Laclau and Mouffe’s (2001) Discourse Theory, and Radden and Kövecses (1999) conceptual metonymy. The findings show that each president through using metonymy-producing relationships, profiles some vehicles that both negatively foreground some aspects of the other’s identities, and avoid explicit other-making and overt antagonism with them. On the other hand, all the discourses apply similar metonymys; this behavior denotes their common root as subdiscourses of the Islamic revolution’s metadiscourse.