Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Majid Tame
Abstract
"The Dictionary of Tun (Ferdows) Dialect" is a book about one of the Iranian dialects that is common in Khorasan province. This book is the result of several years of cooperation between Mohammad Jafar Yahaghi, Rahmatullah Abrishami and Ahmad Armaghani. Of course, the scientific compilation and preparation ...
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"The Dictionary of Tun (Ferdows) Dialect" is a book about one of the Iranian dialects that is common in Khorasan province. This book is the result of several years of cooperation between Mohammad Jafar Yahaghi, Rahmatullah Abrishami and Ahmad Armaghani. Of course, the scientific compilation and preparation of this work for publication has been the responsibility of Yahaghi. In this book, common words in the dialect of Tun have been collected and documented. In compiling this book, as its name implies, Yahaghi has only considered the words of this dialect and has refrained from addressing the grammatical features of this dialect. Of course, there is little information about grammatical features in the book's introduction. Although this book is essential and valuable in terms of collecting and documenting words of one of the common linguistic varieties in Khorasan, the author has not acted following the scientific methods common in reporting dialects, therefore using valuable lexical data of this book is not easy for researchers. In this paper, I examine the words collected in this book and the method of compiling them.
Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Shahram Naghshbandi
Abstract
It seems that ‘Iranians and History of Phonetics’ written by Seyyed Mehdi Samaei is the only book whose primary purpose is to give a short history of Iranian scientists’ phonetic studies and to introduce their achievements. Phonetic studies from the sixth BC to the fifteenth century ...
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It seems that ‘Iranians and History of Phonetics’ written by Seyyed Mehdi Samaei is the only book whose primary purpose is to give a short history of Iranian scientists’ phonetic studies and to introduce their achievements. Phonetic studies from the sixth BC to the fifteenth century AD in Greek, Rome, India, and Islamic states are the topics covered in this book. In this article, an attempt has been made to introduce and review the mentioned work in detail. After introducing the chapters and sections of this book, the formal aspects have been discussed; issues such as the author's style, references, bibliographic information, and phonetic transcription. In the detailed content analysis and criticism of this work, each chapter has been discussed separately according to its subject and purpose. it is concluded that this work should be considered just as some references to the history of linguistics sources and a collection and summary of some old sources in the field of phonetic studies in Islamic states, which critically need to be described and elaborated in current linguistic terms.Keywords: Phonetics, Phonology, Persian, Linguistics History, Samaei.It seems that ‘Iranians and History of Phonetics’ written by Seyyed Mehdi Samaei is the only book whose primary purpose is to give a short history of Iranian scientists’ phonetic studies and to introduce their achievements. Phonetic studies from the sixth BC to the fifteenth century AD in Greek, Rome, India, and Islamic states are the topics covered in this book. In this article, an attempt has been made to introduce and review the mentioned work in detail. After introducing the chapters and sections of this book, the formal aspects have been discussed; issues such as the author's style, references, bibliographic information, and phonetic transcription. In the detailed content analysis and criticism of this work, each chapter has been discussed separately according to its subject and purpose. it is concluded that this work should be considered just as some references to the history of linguistics sources and a collection and summary of some old sources in the field of phonetic studies in Islamic states, which critically need to be described and elaborated in current linguistic terms.
Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Leila Varahram
Abstract
The main topic of the book is the social and intellectual life of the Manichaean minority in Islamic society until the 3rd century AH. It includes three sections and six chapters. The first part provides a brief introduction to Manichaeism and its historical background according to Arabic books. ...
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The main topic of the book is the social and intellectual life of the Manichaean minority in Islamic society until the 3rd century AH. It includes three sections and six chapters. The first part provides a brief introduction to Manichaeism and its historical background according to Arabic books. In two later chapters, there are the names of famous Manichaeans or Zandiqs, mentioned in Arabic books, but there is no new point about these persons. Overall, the present book is totally dependent upon old Arabic sources and denies original Manichaean texts or western studies. The study is based on Talcott Parson’s theory of structural functionalism. Parson’s theory sees society as a system, which has four interpenetrating and interrelated subsystems, and analyzes both the general system and the subsystems, that all of them contribute to its operation as a whole. This theory is not appropriate for the study of the cultural coexistence of Manicheans and Muslims under the Umayyads and Abbasids.
Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Reza Amini
Abstract
Born in the second Hijri century, Jahiz is one of the most brilliant thinkers of his time who has had deep ideas about translation and meaning. It can be argued that these ideas are at the same level of importance of those of modern ideas. In this article, these ideas of Jahiz are investigated, based ...
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Born in the second Hijri century, Jahiz is one of the most brilliant thinkers of his time who has had deep ideas about translation and meaning. It can be argued that these ideas are at the same level of importance of those of modern ideas. In this article, these ideas of Jahiz are investigated, based on what he has said in his book Al-Hayavan. Therefore, after "introduction", first Jahiz and particularly his book Al-Hayavan is introduced; then his ideas about translation and meaning are analyzed. In that book, he has explained the difficulties of translation, the capabilities translators need for translation, and the severely difficult task of translating religious texts. He also believes it is imperative for translator to have the same command of the languages from which and to which he translates. For Jahiz, the knowledge a translator needs to have about the subject matter of the text in his hand must be at the same level of the knowledge the writer of the text has about it. These ideas are at the same level of clarity and exactness to the ideas provided by modern thinkers and theorists. Moreover, whatever Jahiz has said about translation, clearly indicates he has had a clear and exact understanding of meaning and the known and hidden layers of the meaning of a text.
Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Parsa Bamshadi
Abstract
The present paper has been written with the aim of analyzing and reviewing the Persian translation of An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics by Jahanshah Mirzabeigi (2018). Analyzing the English version of the book revealed that, although it is one of the main and well-known textbooks in the field, ...
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The present paper has been written with the aim of analyzing and reviewing the Persian translation of An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics by Jahanshah Mirzabeigi (2018). Analyzing the English version of the book revealed that, although it is one of the main and well-known textbooks in the field, it has some deficiencies among which we can mention insufficient attention to the basic principles and assumptions of cognitive linguistics, language universals and linguistic diversity from the perspective of cognitive linguistics, embodiment and the embodied basis of language and cognition. Also, although some issues in cognitive semantics, such as metaphor, metonymy, image schemas, and conceptual blending are well addressed in the book, some other issues such as force dynamics are neglected. Analyzing the Persian translation of the book showed that there are some deficiencies and drawbacks, the most important of which are: inappropriate equivalents for certain technical and non-technical terms, relatively considerable errors in translation of words, expressions, and sentences, and numerous errors in intra- and extra-textual references. In this regard, it is suggested that the book should be revised in terms of spelling, eloquence, and translation accuracy.
Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Maryam Hakimi; Maryam Iraji; Aliakbar Khomeijani Farahani
Abstract
Conceptual classification of words is one of the topics that has long been considered by researchers in the field of conceptology and terminology. The present study was conducted with the aim of conceptual classification of Persian derivative and compound words and for this purpose, 660 derivative and ...
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Conceptual classification of words is one of the topics that has long been considered by researchers in the field of conceptology and terminology. The present study was conducted with the aim of conceptual classification of Persian derivative and compound words and for this purpose, 660 derivative and compound words that were extracted from the A Dictionary of Persian Orthography and Spelling (Sadeghi and Zandi-Moghaddam, 2015) by systematic random sampling have been analyzed and examined based on two conceptual classifications presented by Felber (1984) and Weissenhofer (1995). The results of this analysis showed that these two classifications are not able to cover all research data and only part of the data can be classified based on them. Then, in order to eliminate the shortcomings of these two classifications and achieve a comprehensive conceptual system, conceptualization was performed on the data, which resulted in the identification of 54 separate underlying concepts, which was finally presented in the form of a systematic classification model. In this model, all identified concepts are organized into five general groups: 1. Process, which itself is divided into two main categories of action and event; 2. Entity, which itself includes the two major categories of physical entity and abstract entity; 3. Relationship; 4. Status; and 5. Property.
Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Saleh Tabatabai; Arsalan Golfam
Abstract
Because of its clear presentation of topics, comprehensive scope and its illustrative application of theories, Language, Mind and Culture: A Practical Introduction by Zoltán Kövecses has secured its place as a textbook of Cognitive Linguistics. That is why the book has been translated into ...
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Because of its clear presentation of topics, comprehensive scope and its illustrative application of theories, Language, Mind and Culture: A Practical Introduction by Zoltán Kövecses has secured its place as a textbook of Cognitive Linguistics. That is why the book has been translated into Persian. However, its erroneous Persian translation has not managed to preserve the original book’s merits and has sometimes misinformed or even misled the reader. Most of the problems with the Persian translation constitute formal defects, including conspicuous misspellings and wrong equivalents for proper nouns, and content mistakes, including wrong renderings of general and technical terms and incorrect translations that produced vague or even unintelligible sentences. After giving a broad outline of the original and its contents, the present review has enumerated the various types of the defects in its Persian translation with numerous examples in order to illustrate and correct some of its critical flaws and also to put forward a proposal for the total revision of the translation.
Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Maryamsadat Fayyazi
Abstract
A book review is an academic tradition to evaluate the thinkers' contributions to the field of research. It not only improves the reviewer's level of conscious reading, but also evaluates the context in which the book was written to form an opinion on the author's views. Therefore, a good review is more ...
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A book review is an academic tradition to evaluate the thinkers' contributions to the field of research. It not only improves the reviewer's level of conscious reading, but also evaluates the context in which the book was written to form an opinion on the author's views. Therefore, a good review is more than just a summary of the contents. The present book review aims at describing and evaluating the book entitled Research in Language and Linguistics (Theoretical and Practical) by Ferdows Aghagolzadeh. In this way, it assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the book without any bias. By asking the question 'what issues of research methodology does the author raise in this book', the article tries to review the form and content of the book based on the descriptive-critical method. In addition to advantages such as observing rules and principles of writing and aligning the content with defined goals of the book, the shortcomings include not using a well-established method in providing the content and not classifying the research types based on purpose, research methods, levels and types of information.
Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Ramin Golshaie
Abstract
This article presents a critical review of the Farsi translation of the book Lexical Pragmatics and Theory of Mind: The Acquisition of Connectives authored by Sandrine Zufferey. Theory of Mind is one of the most important research areas within the domain of cognitive psychology that studies humans’ ...
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This article presents a critical review of the Farsi translation of the book Lexical Pragmatics and Theory of Mind: The Acquisition of Connectives authored by Sandrine Zufferey. Theory of Mind is one of the most important research areas within the domain of cognitive psychology that studies humans’ abilities in understanding mental states of themselves and others. The book takes a multidisciplinary approach to explore different aspects of pragmatics and Theory of Mind interface. In the present article, the translated book was evaluated in terms of structure, form, and content. Merits of the book include: having a fluent and readable translation, acceptable precision of translation, footnoting technical terms and proper names, having bilingual glossaries, and acceptable editing. On the other hand, inconsistent use of equivalents, inconsistent print quality and poor bookbinding, and the existence of typographical and grammatical errors are among the shortcomings of the book. Overall, by introducing a novel area and offering a fluent translation, the book is evaluated positively. It can be an invaluable resource for Persian speaking researchers for doing interdisciplinary research at the interface of language and Theory of Mind.
Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Shahriar Hormozi
Abstract
This article aims to review the book Noam Chomsky: nature and language, edited by Adriana Belletti and Luigi Rizzi. Despite all the ups and downs during the past seven decades, generative grammar is still recognized as the dominant language studies approach, particularly in North America. In the course ...
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This article aims to review the book Noam Chomsky: nature and language, edited by Adriana Belletti and Luigi Rizzi. Despite all the ups and downs during the past seven decades, generative grammar is still recognized as the dominant language studies approach, particularly in North America. In the course of this book, first, a general outline of generative grammar is introduced. It follows by roots of the generative theory language, its prospects, and the challenges ahead. It then continues with an interview with Noam Chomsky done by the editors of the volume, raising critical issues about generative linguistics and the future of the theory. This article includes an overview of theoretical linguistics, emphasizing the evolution of generative grammar. Next, the structure and content of the book are examined, followed by an evaluation of the appearance and content. At the end of the article, the overall view on this book is concluded.
Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Reza Amini
Abstract
This article is a critical review of The History of Translation in Iran (in Persian), written by Abdolhossein Azarang. Having fluent prose and exact editing, not having typing mistakes, and providing good information about translation in some periods of Iran’s history are among the good peculiarities ...
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This article is a critical review of The History of Translation in Iran (in Persian), written by Abdolhossein Azarang. Having fluent prose and exact editing, not having typing mistakes, and providing good information about translation in some periods of Iran’s history are among the good peculiarities of this book. And, repetition of some points in different parts of the content, relying excessively on some sources, generalization in some parts of the content, the content being deprived of a good and clear categorization, and inaccuracy of some of the historical information provided are among the shortcomings of the book. On the other hand, since about some periods of the history of translation in Iran the number of studies are more than the other periods, it is argued in this article that it was better and more useful if the focus of the book had been on those periods of the translation in Iran about which there is not any or adequate research.
Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Shima Jaafari Dehaghi
Abstract
Šahrestānīhā ī ērānšahr is a Middle Persian treatise about the historical geography of Sasanian cities in Iran. So far, this treatise has been translated and published in Persian by Hedayat, Oriyan, Taffazoli, and Daryaee. In 2002, Daryaee published this text with Persian and English ...
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Šahrestānīhā ī ērānšahr is a Middle Persian treatise about the historical geography of Sasanian cities in Iran. So far, this treatise has been translated and published in Persian by Hedayat, Oriyan, Taffazoli, and Daryaee. In 2002, Daryaee published this text with Persian and English translation, and in 2009, Jalilian translated Daryaee’s book into Persian. In the present study, we examined Jalilian’s translation of this treatise. It is noteworthy that Jalilian mentioned in his book that the translation of the Middle Persian text is from Daryaee himself. To make the review more accurate and to compare it with other translations, Daryaee and Taffazoli’s translations are cited and compared. First, the transliteration of each sentence is mentioned, and then the translation is written in chronological order. Then, the review of the translations is mentioned. It can be concluded that each of the translations of Middle Persian texts into Persian has new points that, in turn, will help us to better understand Middle Persian texts and ancient Iranian thought.
Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Mahmoud Jafari-Dehaghi
Abstract
The book of Twelve Ancient Texts is the result of years of research and follow-up by Bijan Gheiby in ancient Iranian texts, especially Middle Persian texts. In each of the articles, the author first presents the sources and then deals with the Pahlavi text, transliteration, translation of the text, lexical ...
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The book of Twelve Ancient Texts is the result of years of research and follow-up by Bijan Gheiby in ancient Iranian texts, especially Middle Persian texts. In each of the articles, the author first presents the sources and then deals with the Pahlavi text, transliteration, translation of the text, lexical notes, and explanation of the ambiguities of the text. This book includes a report on twelve short pahlavi texts such as Wizārišn ī čatrang, mādayān ī yōšt ī Yošt ī Fryān, māh ī Farvardin…, ayādgār ī zarīrān, āmadan ī šāh Bahrām ī warjāwand, Sūr ī saxwan, xwēškārīh ī rīdagān, Rēdakān, Farroxnāmag, čim ī kostīg, āfrīn ī žardšt. This book is very important because of its careful translation of texts and commentaries and the author’s valuable notes. However, the above-mentioned authorship is not without significant shortcomings in terms of scientific principles and methods in correcting and translating ancient texts. These shortcomings have sometimes damaged the principle of authorship. What has seriously damaged the whole collection is the lack of critical correction of the Pahlavi texts; that is, comparing of the manuscripts, transliteration and transcription of the texts, and the mention of the differences in the manuscripts. Obviously, without such a method, reliable translations of the texts cannot be obtained.
Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Maryam Danaye Tous
Abstract
The book on Language Curriculum Design elaborates the process of curriculum design and provides opportunities for practicing and applying them. The book, which was written by Paul Nation and John Macalister (2010), was translated into Persian by Mirdehghān, Majidi, Hajibāgheri and Farahi, and it was ...
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The book on Language Curriculum Design elaborates the process of curriculum design and provides opportunities for practicing and applying them. The book, which was written by Paul Nation and John Macalister (2010), was translated into Persian by Mirdehghān, Majidi, Hajibāgheri and Farahi, and it was published in 2016. In this paper, the Persian version of the book was reviewed and criticized, and its strengths and weaknesses (formal and content shortcomings) were mentioned. Findings showed this book has some positive points, such as introducing the concept of curriculum and the process of designing second/foreign language curriculum in Iranian general linguistic society. However, neglecting some of the principles of writing and editing, not paying attention to some grammatical points, using some incorrect equivalents for some technical terms, and being inconsistent in using the equivalents for some terms are among the negative points which could somewhat prevent the readers of the book from getting the essence of some parts of the book that much. However, due to the fact that the curriculum and, in particular, the foreign/second language curriculum has been somehow neglected among Iranian general linguists, so the translation of this book in Persian has been necessary to fill this gap; hence, the effort of its translators is valuable and needs to be appreciated.
Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Ahmad Ramezani; Abdossaeid Mohammadshafiei; Zeinab Yazdani
Abstract
The current study deals with the face and content analysis of the Language Learning, Sentence Construction and Writing Textbook, developed for the third grade. It is a descriptive-analytic research study, using both qualitative (including focus group and content analysis) and quantitative methods. For ...
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The current study deals with the face and content analysis of the Language Learning, Sentence Construction and Writing Textbook, developed for the third grade. It is a descriptive-analytic research study, using both qualitative (including focus group and content analysis) and quantitative methods. For the qualitative process, a targeted sampling technique was applied, and the data were gathered through semi-constructed interviews. Some strengths of the textbook were the good title, no racial/ethnic and gender biases, and attention to students’ favorite activities. However, the lack of appropriate content list, too heavy content, disregarding language competence or the ability of students with hearing impairment were among the weaknesses. Using the census method for the quantitative assessment, the statistical population consisted of teachers of third-grade hearing-impaired from Isfahan province (n=35). The quantitative findings revealed that the correlation between the scores of the two characteristics mentioned was 0.85 (p<0.01). The t-test value obtained for the two correlated sets of scores was not significant at the 0.05 level (t=0.103, df=33). To put it differently, there is no difference in the average teachers’ evaluation scores for content and face analysis of the Language Learning, Sentence Construction and Writing textbook.
Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Amir Zand-Moghadam; Faranak Eslami
Abstract
Given the important role of oral corrective feedback (OCF) in developing language learning and due to the fact that no study has ever investigated Persian language teachers’ attitude toward providing oral corrective feedback, the purpose of the present study was to investigate and critically analyze ...
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Given the important role of oral corrective feedback (OCF) in developing language learning and due to the fact that no study has ever investigated Persian language teachers’ attitude toward providing oral corrective feedback, the purpose of the present study was to investigate and critically analyze the attitude and performance of Persian language teachers while providing OCF. To this end, 15 Persian language teachers were selected and given a questionnaire to complete. The questionnaire included both 5-point Likert scale and open-ended items. The findings revealed that Persian language teachers had a positive attitude toward OCF and that elicitation feedback was the most frequently used type of OCF, while repetition, clarification request and metalinguistic feedback were observed to be the least frequently used type of feedback. It can be concluded that Persian language teachers’ positive attitude toward OCF resulted in the effective use of feedback in the process of Persian language teaching. It can also be claimed that Persian language teachers made use of a variety of feedback types; the most frequent of all was elicitation feedback. The findings of this study have implications for Persian language teachers, researchers, and teacher educators.
Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Golrokh Saeednia
Abstract
This article is an introduction and critical review of the Farsi translation (by Mohammad Ghaffary, 2nd edition) of Roger Fowler’s book “Linguistics and the Novel”. It also introduces briefly the backgrounds of the main ideas discussed in the book. In this regard, a brief discussion ...
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This article is an introduction and critical review of the Farsi translation (by Mohammad Ghaffary, 2nd edition) of Roger Fowler’s book “Linguistics and the Novel”. It also introduces briefly the backgrounds of the main ideas discussed in the book. In this regard, a brief discussion of linguistics criticism and the critical translation are covered, with Fowler being an expert on the latter subject as well. Doing research on Fowler’s postulations can be seen in the works of other fields in humanities, such as linguistics and sociology. In this study, it is attempted to use a formalism approach with a critical point of view to evaluate the equivalents and appendices (glossaries and bibliographies) show that looking for equivalence in translations needs experts who do not confuse the readers.
Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Saghar Sharifi
Abstract
Lexicography: Theoretical and Practical Issues contains articles on lexicography by a group of reputable lexicographers. Modern lexicography in Iran is a new science, and there are few published works in this field in Persian. This, as well as some shortcomings in the selection and translation of these ...
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Lexicography: Theoretical and Practical Issues contains articles on lexicography by a group of reputable lexicographers. Modern lexicography in Iran is a new science, and there are few published works in this field in Persian. This, as well as some shortcomings in the selection and translation of these articles, prompted the author to refer to a few points and draw the reader’s attention to some of these issues in order to assist him in choosing the right work for his needs. In this critique, the features of this book are examined in terms of both formal and content aspects. In this review, the drawbacks of the book are mainly attributed to the selection of the articles and their non-alignment, the incorrectness of some of the equivalents, and their lack of uniformity.
Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Hamid Reza Shairi; Fatemeh Seyedebrahimi
Abstract
The book The Routledge Companion to Semiotics is a collection of articles published under the supervision of Paul Cobley. Raheleh Ghasemi and Siyahrood publication have translated and published it alternatively. This book contains ten chapters, and the main issue of the chapters is the interaction ...
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The book The Routledge Companion to Semiotics is a collection of articles published under the supervision of Paul Cobley. Raheleh Ghasemi and Siyahrood publication have translated and published it alternatively. This book contains ten chapters, and the main issue of the chapters is the interaction of semiotics with the environmental world and the experience of presence. The authors of this book share one point: immanent structures cannot meet the needs of the domain of semiotics studies, and it is necessary that the world’s practical realities be translated or transmitted to the sign system. For this reason, the cultural, social, biological and ethical elements have been introduced in interaction with the world of signs in this book. Although the theoretical viewpoints presented are good and understandable, they do not encounter us with the pattern of studies that can be used in the design and research in human issues, especially anthroposemiotics. Our main goal is to show how we pass through the hard semiotics into anthroposemiotics. Our method is based on practical semiotics and semiotics of discourse. The most important achievement of this research is studying the role of phenomenological and cultural pragmatics in the evolution of semiotics.
Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Mehdi Safaie-Qalati
Abstract
Prolegomena to a Theory of Language, the main work of Louis Hjelmslev, is an account of his “Glossematics” which is a complex formal theory about the nature of linguistic knowledge and the structure of human understanding in general. The current paper starts with a brief evaluation of a newly ...
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Prolegomena to a Theory of Language, the main work of Louis Hjelmslev, is an account of his “Glossematics” which is a complex formal theory about the nature of linguistic knowledge and the structure of human understanding in general. The current paper starts with a brief evaluation of a newly released Persian translation of this work; the problem triggering a hermeneutic interpretation of Hjelmslev’s theory in the light of Kant’s “pure reason” in the second part of the current paper is a claim about the potentials of “Glossematics” to be revived as an operational theory of linguistic epistemology in the current mainstream of Linguistics. I have shown that, like any other structural theory of human understanding, basing the “necessity” of the formal propositions of “Glossematics” on the notion of “structure” is the theory’s Achilles heel making this initially intended “self-contained” theory change into a paradoxically “transcendental” epistemology. This transcendence in turn, puts Glossematics in the same boat with Nativist epistemological schools, which are all vulnerable to similar challenges. In conclusion, Hjelmslev’s theory of “Glossematics” is shown to be another “Objectivist” theory that is ruled out by the current findings in Cognitive Sciences.
Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Masood Ghayoomi
Abstract
The dependency grammar is one of the grammar formalisms that is originated according to the dependency relations of lexical elements in a sentence. This dependency is based on the valence of the lexicon; therefore, in this formalism the semantic representation of the words as valence is the backbone ...
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The dependency grammar is one of the grammar formalisms that is originated according to the dependency relations of lexical elements in a sentence. This dependency is based on the valence of the lexicon; therefore, in this formalism the semantic representation of the words as valence is the backbone of the grammar. The current paper reviews the book entitled “Persian Grammar based on the Autonomous Theory in Dependency Grammar” according to three major contents. Firstly, the chapters of the book are briefly overviewed. Then, the book’s content is evaluated and analyzed and the weak and strong points of the book are studied from different perspectives. In this section, some suggestions are provided for the terminology and expressed concepts. Since dependency grammar does not belong to generative grammar, a comparison is made between the dependency and phrase structure grammar formalisms to understand the content better and to ease the mind of the reader with the generative grammar background about the basic concepts of the dependency grammar. At the end, suggestions are provided to extend the dependency grammar in the book.
Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Ramin Golshaie
Abstract
This article presents a critical review of the Farsi translation of the book Metaphor authored by David Punter. The book was translated into Farsi by Mohammad Mehdi Moghimizadeh and published by Elm publications. In this book, Punter explores the role of metaphor in different aspects of human knowledge, ...
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This article presents a critical review of the Farsi translation of the book Metaphor authored by David Punter. The book was translated into Farsi by Mohammad Mehdi Moghimizadeh and published by Elm publications. In this book, Punter explores the role of metaphor in different aspects of human knowledge, from literature, philosophy, and religion to politics and psychoanalysis. The translated version of the book was evaluated in terms of both form and content. Form evaluation included technical, organizational and editorial characteristics of the book, and content evaluation assessed the quality and accuracy of translation and equivalents. Including a section titled “Translator’s endnotes” in the translated version, footnoting technical terms and proper names, and fluent language are among the merits of the book. On the other hand, the existence of typographical errors, use of inaccurate equivalents, inconsistent use of equivalents, insufficient command of the source language grammar, and distortion of metaphors during the process of translation are the drawbacks of the book. The book has the potential to open up new horizons to Farsi readership, especially for those who have a background within the domain of metaphor and critical studies. A better understanding of examples and metaphors discussed, however, would require the readers to refer back to the original version of the book.
Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Masoud Moshayedi; Mojtaba Maghsoudi
Abstract
In this study, the “Descriptive Glossary of Lexicography” compiled by Fariba Ghatreh has been described and evaluated. To do so, on the one hand, the formal appearance of the book concerning the principles of scientific writing has been taken into account, and on the other hand, the content ...
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In this study, the “Descriptive Glossary of Lexicography” compiled by Fariba Ghatreh has been described and evaluated. To do so, on the one hand, the formal appearance of the book concerning the principles of scientific writing has been taken into account, and on the other hand, the content of the book regarding the whatness and the importance of the materials presented has been scrutinized. Concerning the view that the author has been successful in compiling the first “Descriptive Glossary of Lexicography” in Persian, it is extremely valuable, but at the same time, some shortcomings meet the eyes while looking deeply into the book. From the formal point of view, mechanics of writing, proper use of some fonts and sizes for entries and subentries, italicizing or non-italicizing the entries, alphabetical order, reference system and layout of the pages, the book lacks some degree of inconsistency. From the content point of view, some faults are observed in the book, among which they can be referred to as the lack of crystal clear definitions for some entries, overlapping entries, the absence of some necessary terms in lexicography, some blind and confusing references and lack of examples and tables.
Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Reza Moghaddam Kiya
Abstract
The present paper aims at introducing “Verbal Hygiene” by Deborah Cameron (1995, 2012) and assessing the quality of its translation into the Persian Language. In her book, Cameron discusses long-standing debates among proponents of two competing perspectives on language use. On the one hand, ...
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The present paper aims at introducing “Verbal Hygiene” by Deborah Cameron (1995, 2012) and assessing the quality of its translation into the Persian Language. In her book, Cameron discusses long-standing debates among proponents of two competing perspectives on language use. On the one hand, there are the traditionalist grammarians who contend that any change is undesirable. Accordingly, they seek to prescribe standards for using language. On the other hand, there are the linguists who argue that language is naturally in a state of flux. “Verbal Hygiene” is a term coined by Cameron to refer to all discourses, practices, and measures directed at regulating language. In this paper, the quality of the Persian translation of the book was assessed based on the model proposed by Katharina Reiss for translation criticism (Reiss, 2000), and it was shown that the translation is poor and quite unsatisfactory. Misinterpretation of the source text, incorrect rendering of the concepts and meanings, grammatical calques, lack of fluency, inappropriate equivalents, and intermingling spoken and written styles of language use are among the deviations in the target text.
Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Shima Nabifar
Abstract
This article aims to investigate Psychology of Language, written by David W Carroll, translated by Heshmatollah Sabaghi. The book is described considering the form and the content. Then, the translation of the book is assessed based on factors such as the style of writer, Persian equivalents ...
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This article aims to investigate Psychology of Language, written by David W Carroll, translated by Heshmatollah Sabaghi. The book is described considering the form and the content. Then, the translation of the book is assessed based on factors such as the style of writer, Persian equivalents of general and psycholinguistics terms, grammatical structures, punctuations, writing rules and conventions, accuracy and faithfulness. The main problems of the translation were related to the spaces and half-spaces between the word and within compound words, the correct punctuation and the complexity of Persian sentences in translation in spite of the simplicity of their original English sentences, complex and less frequent equivalents and Arabic words instead of simple, frequent and familiar Farsi equivalents. The faithfulness principle in the translation was acceptable. The result of this study showed that although the translation of the book is acceptable, it is not of high quality. The most critical problem of the translation is the complexity of Persian sentences, so that the readers have to read the sentences several times to understand them. However, considering the fact that there are few Persian sourcebooks written on psycholinguistics, it can be used as a sourcebook provided that the problems are eliminated in the next editions.
