The Bigger Picture: A Commentary on the Forcehimes–Karjiker Debate

Forcehimes poses a parity between libraries and downloading books online and concludes that the im/permissibility of one of them entails the im/permissibility of the other and vice versa. Karjiker rejects this parity arguing that the magnitudes of these two are vastly different and while libraries do not lead to a considerable market failure, downloading e-books does. In this article, I try to clarify some points, show a kind of parochialism in Karjiker’s arguments, propose a thought experiment to neutralize the magnitude problem, and justify Forcehimes’ main idea

A Parallel Corpus-Based Study of Collocations from English to Persian: Criticism, and Resolution

Since, translation was known and identified as a science, by James. S. Holmes in 1994, under the title of “Translation Studies”, its cruciality was revealed and so, more was taken into account by the scholars of this field. Based on him, translation is not just the act of converting words by considering the token of equivalence, but the action that different factors such as, politics, religion, culture, and the like can affect and control it. In fact, from one context to another context, such these meta-textual factors can be different in comparison to each other, or even can be completely in contrast with each other, and consequently can be the causes of particular production as the original text and its translation that can be regarded as it has differences or it is completely different to its original. On the other hand, collocations, as the items that are frequently brought together, are more in the danger of mistranslation. In this regard, this research as comparative, critical, and qualitative corpus-based study was stablished, in order to explore the bad Persian translations performed on the English collocational items, based on the factors of biasness, ideology and power, lack of the skill of coinage, lack of the knowledge of translation strategies like, calque, superficial translation, transliteration, etc…, lack of the knowledge of source/target collocational item/lack of the knowledge of source/target linguistic norm, and lack of target linguistics knowledge, and to present resolutions. To do so, different English materials from different fields were gathered which can be categorized into general English language (GEL), medicine, law, economics and commerce, politics and news, literature, religion, sport, advertisement, engineering, and art, which were translated after the Islamic revolution of Iran. This study benefited from Pirhayati’s (2019) model of TQA and TC and frameworks, and also considered Wouden’s (2004) definition of collocation and Lewis’s (2000) categories of collocational items. Those who may benefit from this research are translation students, translators, and the scholars of TS and language

Glottal Stops and Glottalized Vowels in Persian: A Reply to Navab Safavi et al

In their article in Elm-e Zaban (Volume 7, Issue 11) titled “Acoustic Analysis of Glottal Stop Occurrence before Initial Vowels in Persian Words”, Navab Safavi et al report the findings of their research on the acoustic features of the glottal stop before the word-initial vowels in the Persian language and try to answer the question whether this sound is a phoneme or not. The research is based on the recorded pronunciation of some non-words with the CVCV syllable structure and also 30 Persian words with word-initial glottal stops (or “vowels” as the authors argue). The authors suggest that the criteria for the existence of the glottal stop consonant in the word group are not verified and conclude that a full glottal stop with the characteristics of a consonant does not exist before the word-initial vowels in the Persian language. It seems that this acoustic research suffers from weaknesses in terms of assumptions, critique of previous studies, methodology, conclusion, and references. The most serious weakness is the confusion between the realms of phonology and phonetics, and the lack of distinction between the status and characteristics of the two branches of linguistics. This reply takes up a number of phonological and methodological issues which challenge the main conclusions of the authors

A short counter-argument for belief in progress

In a short paper, Smilansky (2022) provides an argument in favor of the belief in social progress. He considers the "probability of losing a child" to be a pivotal element among various criteria to be assessed in order to evaluate human progress and as this probability has decreased considerably in the modern era, he evaluates humanity today in a better situation than the previous generations. In this paper, I criticize Smilansky's argument and try to show that his account of the difference between historical periods is superficial

Ancient Iran, the Origin Land of Wind Catcher in the World

Abstract: In this study, wind catcher originality has been investigated and their ancient kinds in Iran were characterized. Iranian vernacular architecture is full of creativity and innovation which indicate the intelligence and ability. Unbearable heat, especially in the central plateau of Iran, is one of the factors which sometimes can be unbearable and create serious threats for most of the individuals' life in the absence of necessary arrangements. Wind catcher is an engineering architectural masterpiece of earth to deal with this unbearable heat. Wind catcher is among the manifestations and symbols of Persian civilization. It is not exactly obvious that in which city the first wind catcher is built, but medieval travel writers have frequently talked about desert wind catchers in Yazd. History and background of using the wind catcher is unknown due to its position at the highest level of structure and because is the first place at the risk of damage. The wind catcher, belonged to the eighth century AH is the oldest wind catcher which has kept safe from the harmful events in Iran. Architects and designers of this architectural element have applied this element in their designs with understanding the principles of thermodynamics, aerodynamics, heat transfer, material strength and thermal human comfort. However, the historical evidence certainly indicates the use of wind catcher in Iran before the Arabs and the Persian Gulf area. This study seeks to answer the questions such as the identity and origin of wind catcher, the construction technology and its types, as well as proving the Iranian identity of wind catcher and providing the appropriate and scientific responses for the researchers such as Hassan Fathy (famous Egyptian architect) and Abdel Moneim EL Shorbagy (UAE researcher), each of whom have attributed the background of wind catcher to the locations except Iran, by the study of available historical resources and exploring the history of wind catcher in Iran

Acetic acid-promoted condensation of o-phenylenediamine with aldehydes into 2-aryl-1-(arylmethyl)-1H-benzimidazoles under microwave irradiation

Abstract: An efficient and simple procedure was developed for the green synthesis of various 2-aryl-1-(arylmethyl)-1H-benzimidazoles in high yields by acetic acid-promoted condensation of o-phenylenediamine with aldehydes in air under microwave irradiation and transition metal catalystfree conditions

Nitro group reduction and Suzuki reaction catalysed by palladium supported on magnetic nanoparticles modified with carbon quantum dots generated from glycerol and urea

Glycerol and urea were used as green and cheap sources of carbon quantum dots (CQD) for modifying Fe3O4 nanoparticles (NPs). The obtained CQD@Fe3O4 NPs were used for the stabilization of palladium species and the prepared catalyst, Pd@CQD@Fe3O4, was characterized using various techniques. This magnetic supported palladium was applied as an efficient catalyst for the reduction of aromatic nitro compounds to primary amines at room temperature using very low palladium loading (0.008 mol%) and also for the Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling reaction of aryl halides as well as challenging heteroaryl bromides and aryl diazonium salts with arylboronic acids and with potassium phenyltrifluoroborate. This magnetically recyclable catalyst was recovered and reused for seven consecutive runs in the reduction of 4-nitrotoluene to p-toluidine and for ten consecutive runs in the reaction of 4-iodoanisole with phenylboronic acid with small decrease of activity. The catalyst reused in the Suzuki reaction was characterized using transmission electron microscopy, vibrating sample magnetometry and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Using experiments such as hot filtration and poisoning tests, it has been shown that the true catalyst works under homogeneous conditions according to the release–return pathway of active palladium species.Iran National Science Foundation, Grant/Award Number: 95844587; the Generalitat Valenciana, Grant/Award Number: PROMETEOII/2014/017; the Spanish Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad, Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER, EU), Grant/Award Number: CTQ2016‐81797‐REDC and CTQ2016‐76782‐P; the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO), Grant/Award Number: CTQ2014‐51912‐REDC and CTQ2013‐43446‐P

A Review of Jean Grondin’s Hermeneutics

Jean Grondin’s Hermeneutics is a historical introduction to hermeneutic theory. It introduces hermeneutics as a tradition and discuss its various aspects in contemporary philosophy. The book also tries to recognize and overcome prevailing misconceptions about hermeneutics. In this review, I provide a critique of the Persian translation of Jean Grondin’s book