10.30495/jntell.2023.1985767.1062

The Portrayal of Information Structure inPersian Spoken Genres

PDF
  • Bahram Hadian*1,
  • Fatemeh Aghaei2,
  • Vali Rezaei3,
  1. Assistant Professor, Department of English, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Islamic AzadUniversity, Isfahan, Iran
  2. Ph.D. Candidate, Department of English, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Islamic Azad University,Isfahan, Iran
  3. Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

Revised: 2023-05-09

Accepted: 2023-06-01

Published in Issue 2023-06-01

Copyright (c) 2024 Journal of New Trends in English Language Learning (JNTELL)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Hadian, B., Aghaei, F., & Rezaei, V. (2023). The Portrayal of Information Structure inPersian Spoken Genres. Journal of New Trends in English Language Learning (JNTELL), 2(2), 69-81. https://doi.org/10.30495/jntell.2023.1985767.1062
Crossref
Scopus
Google Scholar
Europe PMC

PDF views: 161

Abstract

Insufficient scholarly inquiry exists regarding the function of genres and their pertinent discourse characteristics
within the realm of Information Structure and its syntactic renderings in the Persian language. The present study,
which is descriptive and corpus-based in nature, is designed to analyze three distinct genres of the Persian language
– specifically, political discourse, scientific discourse, and everyday conversation. The study aims to investigate
the Information Structure present in these genres, as expressed through four key syntactic devices: clefting, pseudoclefting, passive voice, and preposing. In order to achieve the intended objective, one thousand distinct verbal
expressions concerning each of the aforementioned genres were obtained from the multi-media database of the
IRNA (Iranian News Agency) website and everyday dialogues amongst acquaintances and family members of the
researchers, utilizing Lambrecht's theoretical framework for constructing the Information Structure. Following data
collection, transcription was carried out and various syntactic devices were identified. Subsequently, descriptive
statistics were utilized to analyze and understand the representation of these syntactic devices across different genre
types. The findings indicated that there are distinct variations in the depiction of instruments across the three
classifications of political discourse, scientific discourse, and commonplace discussions. This discovery may hold
significance for scholars of linguistics and language theory.

Keywords

  • Information Structure,
  • Pseudo-clefting,
  • Syntactic devices,
  • Preposing
PDF

References

  1. Banon, J. A., & Martin, C. (2019). Anticipating information structure: An event-related potentials study
  2. of focus assignment via the it-cleft. Neuropsychologia, 134, 107203.
  3. Brown, G., Brown, G. D., Brown, G. R., Gillian, B., & Yule, G. (1983). Discourse analysis: Cambridge
  4. university press.
  5. Büring, D. (2007). Semantics, intonation and information structure. The Oxford Handbook of linguistic
  6. interfaces, 445474.
  7. Chafe, W. (1976). Givenness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and point of view. Subject
  8. and topic.
  9. Dik, S. C. (1997). The functional grammar theory: the clause's structure: Walter de Gruyter.
  10. Erteschik-Shir, N. (2007). Information structure: The syntax-discourse interface (Vol. 3): Oxford
  11. University Press.
  12. Féry, C., & Ishihara, S. (2014). The Oxford Handbook of information structure: Oxford University
  13. Press.
  14. Gabelentz, H. C., & Loebe, J. (1843). Ulfilas: Veteris et Novi Testamenti versionis gothicae fragmenta
  15. quae supersunt ad fidem codd. castigata, latinitate donata, adnotatione critica instructa, cum
  16. glossario et grammatica linguae gothicae coniunctis curis (Vol. 2): apud FA Brockhaus.
  17. Gundel, J. K., & Fretheim, T. (2004). Topic and focus. InHorn, Laurence R. & Ward, Gergory (eds.),
  18. The handbook of pragmatics, 175–196. In: Oxford: Blackwell.
  19. Halliday, M. A. (1967). Notes on transitivity and theme in English: Part 2. Journal of linguistics, 3(2),
  20. -244.
  21. Halliday, M. A. (1985). AK An Introduction tO Functional Grammar [MJ. Lond: Edwa~ Amold, 1, 994.
  22. Herdiana, H., Hidayat, D. N., Alek, A., & Husna, N. (2020). GIVEN AND NEW INFORMATION IN
  23. BARACK OBAMA’S REMARKS: A SYNTACTIC FORM ANALYSIS. Journal of Languages
  24. and Language Teaching, 8(4), 458-464.
  25. Jackendoff, R. S. (1972). Semantic interpretation in generative grammar. MIT press.
  26. Jackendoff, R. S. (1983). Semantics and cognition (Vol. 8): MIT press.
  27. The Portrayal of Information Structure in Persian Spoken Genres
  28. Jiménez-Fernández, Á. L. (2020). Syntax-information structure interactions in the sentential, verbal and
  29. nominal peripheries: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
  30. Krifka, M. (2008). Basic notions of information structure. Acta Linguistica Hungarica, 55(3-4), 243-276.
  31. Lambrecht, K. (1994). Information structure and sentence form: Topic, focus, and the mental
  32. representations of discourse referents (Vol. 71): Cambridge university press.
  33. Lambrecht, K. (1996). Information structure and sentence form: Topic, focus, and the mental
  34. representations of discourse referents (Vol. 71): Cambridge university press.
  35. Mathesius, V. (1883). O potenciálnosti jevů jazykových. nákl. Královské České Společnosti Náuk.
  36. Modaresi, B. (2007). Information Structure and its Representation in Persian. Unpublished Ph. D.
  37. dissertation. University of Tarbiyat Modares.
  38. Rasekhi, V. (2018). Ellipsis and information structure: Evidence from Persian. State University of New
  39. York at Stony Brook.
  40. Rezai, V., & Hooshmand, M. (2012). Focus Structure in Persian Interrogative Sentences: An RRG
  41. Analysis. English Language Teaching, 5(8), 130-145.
  42. Rizzi, L. (1997). The fine structure of the left periphery. In Elements of Grammar (pp. 281-337):
  43. Springer.
  44. Roberts, C. (2012). Information structure: Towards an integrated formal theory of pragmatics. Semantics
  45. and Pragmatics, 5, 6-1-69.
  46. Samko, B. (2016). Syntax & information structure: The grammar of English inversions. UC Santa Cruz.
  47. Shafiei, S. (2014). Postposing and Information Structure in English and Farsi/Persian. Romanian Journal
  48. of English Studies, 1(11), 48-55.
  49. Vallduví, E. (1992). The information component. University of Pennsylvania. Ph.D. Dissertation.
  50. Van Valin Jr, R. D. (2005). Exploring the syntax-semantics interface: Cambridge University Press