The Impact of Morphological Awareness on Iranian Pre-University Students’ Listening Transcription

Morphological Awareness (henceforth: MA), defined as the ability to understand the morphemic structure of the words, has been reported to affect various aspects of second language performance including reading comprehension ability, spelling performance, etc. Yet, the concept has been far less treated with reference to l2 listening transcription. Thus, against this background, this study aims to investigate the link between MA and listening transcription ability of Iranian pre-university students. To this aim, 40 pre-university students participated in the study, and were assigned to two control and experimental groups. Both groups were first given three short listening passages to transcribe as the pre-tests. The results of the independent-samples t-test revealed no significant difference between the two groups. The experimental group, then, received five one-hour sessions briefing them on the morphological realization of English words. The two groups were then given three short listening passages to transcribe as their post-tests. The results of the independent-samples t-tests attested to the significant difference between the two groups, thus, supporting the relationship between MA and listening transcription ability. The study concludes with some suggestions as to the incorporation of MA into L2 learning programs

A Study of Morphological Errors in Kalhori Natives Speaking Standard Persian

Errors are common and systemic deviations resulting from the violation of the rules of the second language. In the present study, lexical errors based on the classification of Dulay, Burt and Krashen of errors (1982) are divided into three categories: intralingual errors, interlingual errors and ambiguous errors. The purpose of this research is to investigate the source and distribution of lexical errors in the speech of Kalhori natives living in Kermanshah. The sample of this quantitative- qualitative study included 170 bilingual Kalhori males and females living in Kermanshah. They were selected equally via voluntary sampling method. After gathering data, at first they were classified and then their frequencies were shown through tables and charts. The results showed that the sources of these errors are intralingual and interlingual. The highest percentage of observed errors belonged to intralingual and then interlingual errors. The results of this study, along with presenting a description of the lexical errors of Kalhori natives, emphasize on the necessity of correcting and improving teaching methods, constructing tests and teaching resources and providing books to teach Persian to Kalhor students, in order to take steps to decrease the problems of Kalhori natives when interacting with Persian natives

A note on Kalhori kinship terms

Despite the great number of studies conducted by Western scholars exploring kinship terminologies in different languages, there seems to have been little attempt at dealing with kin words in Iranian languages like Kurdish. More specifically, Kalhori, as a southern dialect of Kurdish, has rarely been subject to studies of this nature. Underlining the significance of such studies in the wider linguistic and anthropological contexts, this study attempts to explore kin words Kalhori speakers use to refer to or address their relatives. We also make an attempt to investigate the possibility of presenting a formal explanation of the terms by placing them in a componential analysis framework.</jats:p

Comparing Syntactic Structure and Linear Order of Persian Verbal Inflectional Categories within the Framework of Distributed Morphology

The present descriptive-analytic article is aimed to study and compare the syntactic structure and linear order of Persian verbal inflectional categories within the framework of Distributed Morphology (DM) (Halle & Marantz, 1993). First we suppose the syntactic hierarchical position of functional categories and clause syntactic structure of Persian to be what Taleghani (2008) proposes. Then based on the post syntactic operations such as, “lowering” and “local dislocation” and what Embick (2015) proposes for linearization of constituents within the framework of DM, syntactic and linear position of verbal compounds in present, past and future tenses are compared. Finally, any mismatches between the two structures are explained through the two post syntactic operations. Research findings showed that “negation morpheme”, compared to other morphemes, mismatches much more in the syntactic and linear structures and requires more explanations in post syntactic component. It is concluded that this morpheme at post-syntactic component, lowers and prefixes mostly to vp and in some cases to aspect and auxiliary morphemes

Local Dislocation Operation in Farsi

In Farsi, the clitic pronouns are often added to the stem as the last element, but in some structures, they can be immediately attached to their hosts. The ability to describe this dual behavior can be used as a criterion to check the effectiveness of different approaches. This research aims to find out if Distributed Morphology and its post-syntactic mechanism are needed to determine the position of different morphemes at the level of the word? Or it can be explained using lexicalist hypothesis? For this purpose, after introducing the theoretical background and previous researches, we analyze data from Farsi; the analyses shows that the assumptions of lexicalists cannot explain why the clitic pronoun (shon) has two positions in (xodeshoniha) and (xodihashon), but this phenomenon is not allowed in other structures. On the other hand, by analyzing the data in the framework of Distributed Morphology, it was found that only with the existence of post-syntactic operations such as local dislocation and considering the content feature of clitics and stems the dual behavior of the clitic pronouns can be explained

Exploring Aphasia in Kalhori

Objectives: Despite numerous studies conducted to explore the manifestations of aphasia in different languages of the world, language-specific patterns of aphasic patients in Kalhori as a southern dialect of Kurdish spoken in part of Kermanshah Province, Iran, remains largely unpacked. The present study aims at investigating language deficits of a forty-year-old Kurdish-Persian aphasic woman, here F. D., who was diagnosed with Broca&rsquo;s aphasia. Methods: To assess her linguistic competence, and more particularly, her knowledge of syntax and semantics, we administered a modified version of the Bilingual Aphasia Test in Kalhori.&nbsp; Results: Although she showed severe deficits in almost all modalities and levels examined, results indicated definiteness, prepositions and verb agreement with the subject as the most problematic areas.&nbsp; Discussion: While impairments to do with prepositions and parts of speech are expected features of aphasic patients, as far as the assessment of verbal morphology of Kalhori is concerned, results seem to replicate the results achieved by Nilipour et al. (2001) researching Persian bilingual aphasics.&nbsp

Eye and Heart Metaphors in Tabriz: A Cognitive Approach

Given this claim of cognitive linguists who conceptualize meanings based on material material experiences, he attempts to explore the various ways in which speakers of the word signify both members of the eye and the heart as conceptual sources for the expression of terms. The data analyzed mainly consisted of sixteen interviews with Tibetan speakers and a questionnaire examining their knowledge of the two concepts of eye and heart; The authors, who are native to Tiberias, have examined. The results showed that the metaphors formed by two concepts of heart and eye are based on two metaphorical beliefs, namely: "vision, thinking, cognition and understanding"; "heart is a container"; Is the body ”; and“ the heart rate is the feeling ”. The assertion that can be made by considering these underlying conceptual metaphors is that "the perceptual organ represents the perception itself"