Language Research

The present era is the era of science's control over human beliefs. Man's need to know the nature of himself and the world around him has led him to believe in phenomena based on objective ... Read More The present era is the era of science's control over human beliefs. Man's need to know the nature of himself and the world around him has led him to believe in phenomena based on objective evidence, and this has caused cognitive science to become the favorite field of many scholars today. One of the main fields of cognitive sciences is linguistics, which is based on the study of language. Since language can be considered as a tool to represent the mind; therefore, cognitive linguistics goes beyond the study of the apparent structure of language and investigates very complex fundamental operations that play a major role in the development of language grammar, conceptualization, speaking and thinking. The theoretical approach of this field is based on experimental observations and scientific experiments of psychology and neuroscience, and its purpose is to understand how linguistic information is represented in the mind, to learn language and to understand and use it. In recent decades, the analysis and explanation of metaphor understanding processes has been the focus of many linguists. One of the main challenges in this direction is to find a solution that can explain the processes involved in understanding different types of metaphor. In this research, considering the mechanism of language understanding in the brain, we examined two different groups of conventional metaphors and unconventional metaphors. This research is descriptive-analytical and based on the articles, books and research done in the field of brain connection with metaphor understanding process. The results of this research show that understanding conventional metaphors causes activity in the left middle temporal gyrus, the right fusiform part and the inferior frontal gyrus. While, the fusiform part of the right side is related to the integration of visual and semantic information. On the other hand, unconventional metaphors continuously activate the left fusiform gyrus and the right precone.

Cognitive Semantics of "GAH" from the Perspective of Semantic Conflict and Resolution Hypothesis

Ali Alizadeh; Hamed Akbarpour; Faranak Jamaleddin; Mohammad Reza Dehghanzadeh

Volume 11, Issue 2 , February 2021, , Pages 97-119

https://doi.org/10.22059/jolr.2021.314951.666676

Abstract

The aim of this study is to carefully examine the morpheme "GAH" in order to enumerate the concepts contained in and to discover the mechanism of conversion between these concepts from ... Read More The aim of this study is to carefully examine the morpheme "GAH" in order to enumerate the concepts contained in and to discover the mechanism of conversion between these concepts from the perspective of Cognitive Semantics in the context of Talmy’s Semantic Conflict and Resolution hypothesis. To achieve this, we extracted all the entries of this morpheme from the Two Volume Persian Dictionary of Sadri Afshar et al. (2009). We examined each of them in an analytical-research way from a qualitative perspective presented in the introduced theoretical framework. After the autopsy of the nature of the open and closed classes and creating a correspondence between their concepts and types of uses of the morpheme "GAH" and proving that this morpheme does not follow a fixed pattern in belonging to the open or closed class, followed by dissection of the Semantic Conflict and Resolution hypothesis under the presentation of a series of Cognitive processes under the headings of shifts, blends, juxtaposition, juggling and blocking and their exact subsets, we put the body of research in the benchmark of these criteria to determine with which morphemes, via which processes and by which functions, the morpheme of “GAH” is combined, and the final output belongs to which Cognitive process and what conceptual domain it includes. The concept of "basicness" was recognized as TIME and the cognitive process through which this concept converts to "SPACE", as a new achievement in this research was established as “Replacement of whole the basicness concept of a spectrum (open/closed) class by a component of open-class side features.” Also, the cause of this gradation in the nature of "GAH" was identified through another Cognitive process called Reification. In addition, according to what we obtained in the data analysis, the outputs of "GAH"’s compounds were not out of 4 modes: location of the process, location of the effect of the process, location of an object/mass, and location of the effect/direction/extension of an object. A commixture of the modes also appeared.

A Cognitive Study of the Construction of Euphemistic Meaning Via the Process of Negation in Persian

Sadjad Mousavi; Arsalan Golfam; Ferdows Aghagolzadeh; Aliyeh Kambuziya

Volume 11, Issue 2 , February 2021, , Pages 199-222

https://doi.org/10.22059/jolr.2020.296445.666574

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explain the construction of euphemistic meaning via the process of negation from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. The main question of the present ... Read More The aim of this article is to explain the construction of euphemistic meaning via the process of negation from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. The main question of the present study is how the cognitive mechanism of negation acts for constructing euphemistic meaning and consequently for motivating euphemistic linguistic structures. The present research explains euphemism in Persian by a descriptive-analytical method. Data were also collected manually from mostly library resources containing several Persian-language dictionaries. In this study, it is shown that the cognitive process of negation is volitionally applied to a conceptual content by the conceptualizer and consequently a pleasant conceptual content is activated and attention is drawn toward it. Based on the negation process, the negated pleasant concept is represented phonetically and the strength of attention over the unpleasant content which has not been represented at the linguistic level will decrease. Due to the representation of the negated pleasant concept at the linguistic level and based on the type of guided attention distribution pattern encoded in the negative linguistic forms, the speaker tries to distribute a portion of the listener's attention sources over the pleasant content and he/she tries to decrease the strength of attention on the unpleasant concept. In fact, instead of directly encoding an unpleasant concept at the linguistic level, the speaker uses indirect methods and encodes "the negated pleasant concept". By this indirect reference, lesser attention is assigned to the unpleasant concept than when the concept is directly represented in the language. Therefore, linguistic negations structure the concepts in such a way that the window of attention does not open on the unpleasant aspects of the entity in question and does not put them at the center of attention, and through this way, euphemistic meaning will be constructed. It should be noted that the present study re-emphasizes on the interaction and overlap of language and other general cognitive abilities.

Ezafe Constructions in Persian Language from Goldberg’s Construction Grammar Perspective

Hossein Razavian; Sedighe Kavusi Tajkoh; Sahar Bahrami Khorshid

Volume 7, Issue 2 , January 2017, , Pages 39-57

https://doi.org/10.22059/jolr.2016.61524

Abstract

Goldberg’s Construction Grammar is a cognitive linguistics approach which has considered ‘Constructions’ as the basic units of language. The present study aimed to ... Read More

The Semantic Network of “Gereftan” in Persian Based on Principled Polysemy Model

Mohammad Amozadeh; Gholamhossein Karimi Doostan; Babak Sharif

Volume 7, Issue 1 , September 2016, , Pages 117-136

https://doi.org/10.22059/jolr.2016.59419

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the semantics of the Persian verb “gereftan” by providing a transparent picture of its polysemous nature. The data under study are gathered ... Read More

Metaphor; A Survey on the Factors Related to Semantic Comprehension; their Effectiveness and Psychological Reliability

Leila Erfaniyan Qonsoli; Shahla Sharifi

Volume 5, Issue 2 , March 2015, , Pages 77-96

https://doi.org/10.22059/jolr.2015.54186

Abstract

The present study is a randomized pilot project that intends to test the Graded Salience Hypothesis (Giora, 1997), to investigate the major factors contributing to understanding meaning. ... Read More

Grammaticalization and Metaphorical Extension

Mehrdad Naghzguy Kohan; Mohammad Naghzguy Kohan

Volume 3, Issue 1 , October 2013, , Pages 117-134

https://doi.org/10.22059/jolr.2012.30298

Abstract

Grammaticalization provides a framework to study the genesis and development of grammatical forms in language. In this framework, it is argued that new grammatical forms are constantly ... Read More

Conceptual metaphor in a Khotanese text

Seyyed Fatemeh Musavi

Volume 4, Issue 1 , April 2013, , Pages 111-127

https://doi.org/10.22059/jolr.2013.35930

Abstract

Cognitive science has found out that languages typically make use of conceptual metaphors to concretize abstract meanings. Conceptual metaphor explains a target domain which is abstract ... Read More

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Keywords = Cognitive Linguistics

The study of brain function during the understanding of conventional and unconventional metaphors

Abstract

Cognitive Semantics of "GAH" from the Perspective of Semantic Conflict and Resolution Hypothesis

Abstract

A Cognitive Study of the Construction of Euphemistic Meaning Via the Process of Negation in Persian

Abstract

Ezafe Constructions in Persian Language from Goldberg’s Construction Grammar Perspective

Abstract

The Semantic Network of “Gereftan” in Persian Based on Principled Polysemy Model

Abstract

Metaphor; A Survey on the Factors Related to Semantic Comprehension; their Effectiveness and Psychological Reliability

Abstract

Grammaticalization and Metaphorical Extension

Abstract

Conceptual metaphor in a Khotanese text

Abstract