Language Studies

Abstract .

Abstract Abstract
The objective of the present study is to investigate the appreciation of humor in pre-school children on the basis of Incongruity Theory, by presenting them the picture and analyzing their oral Explanations. In the present study which is methodologically descriptive, through semi-structured interviews of the participants, including 50 four to six year-old pre-school children , they were asked to observe two special visual stimuli, and say that weather they were funny or not and if yes, explain the reason of funniness. In this investigation in addition to incongruity theory, representing McGee’s stages of humor development and Brown's categories of pictorial humor, we were seeking the answer for this fundamental question that: How is the pre-school children’s explanation of humorous picture appreciation on the basis of Incongruity Theory? Findings revealed that 4-6 year-old children in this study were able to recognize humorous contents in the pictures. They appreciate incongruity in the humorous picture, laugh at it, and explain their reason for their laughter. They were also able to distinguish the major and minor incongruities of a picture through the comparison of the picture with their own mental patterns. This shows that children's cognitive ability to identify conceptual incongruities is corresponded to the third stage of the McGee’s stages of humor development that notice violations of perceptual appearances of things.

Abstract In a Middle Iranian text, Draxt-iĀsurīg, we face an ambiguous verb six times, which is writtenغئضت and no one has proposed any convincing transcription for that. The phrases before and after of this word show that the function and the meaning of this verb must be equivalent to “ast” (=is). The researchers have not accede to a same reading about this verb and have suggested different transcription such as “ast/ hast”, est” “ēst”, āsēd”. In this article, we try to propose a new suggestion for reading غئضت, according to another written form of this verb “و‌‌سذصت” in Draxt-iĀsurīg, and the words “ایذ/ اید” in Heravi dialect and “هی” in the old dialect of Gorgan.

Abstract In M2 II, a fragment of Manichaean Turfan texts, equivalent to the text “ac” according to the subject-matter partition created by Boyce, there are two powers named by Mani as “the Power of Light”, and “the Power of Darkness”. By giving some notes, Andreas and Henning interpreted the Power of Light as an active Power who will gain the eternal salvation, and a passive one that have to stay bogged down in Darkness forever. Though the scholar translations of the text are based on Andreas and Henning’s, they are either quiet about the Powers or some indefinite allusions are just mentioned by them. With making unnecessary changes to the scribe’s paragraphs on the one hand, and paying not much attention to the Parthian syntax rules on the other, the scholars who translated this text did suggest different translations which seem in some cases to be obscure. In this essay these items will be discussed: The idea of the active and passive Powers of Light is in the air; the scholars did not pay attention to the distinct topical divisions appeared in the scribe’s writing system; the scholar’s negative attitude to some syntactical structures is rather responsible for those obscurity.

Abstract Introducing a variety of seventeenth-century Middle Persian forms of letters including papyrus and parchments, found in Egypt during the time of   Khosrow II army’s domination (618-628 CE.), the present article is going to study script, composition style and literature of these documents written in a cursive script which can be regarded as the last practical variation script in Sasanian era. Also, these letters represent the multilateral activities of Iranians in Egypt. These letters were not only shared among Iranians, but also between Iranians and Egyptian officials who, prior to the arrival of Iranians, had a good knowledge of the Roman ministerial system, which indicated the social interaction, and particularly the economic interrelationbetween the two groups and their mutual impact.  These letters will be studied in terms of lexicon, historical and literary aspects.Papyri and Parchment writings, mentioned here, differ from Book Pahlavi in vocabulary, syntax and style.Through studying these differences, it is possible to investigate the evolution procedure during which lapidary script developed to cursive.  Literature applied in these Papyri and parchments, particularly official letters, as Sassanian typical correspondence in the time mentioned, had a tendency to follow fixed patterns, and seem to be concise and effective enough.

Abstract The study aims to investigate the linguistics representation of Persian speaker society attitude towardsforeigners and impact of gender on this attitude. The study is generally in the framework of recent theories in cognitive sociolinguistics.Methodology of this research is of two kind: survey (questionnaireform) and qualitative (dialogue).Totally 412 questionnaireforms have been collected and extracted data from this data collection has been investigated by statistical tests.These statistical tests are including One Sample t Test and Two Independent Samples t Test. Themain resultsinclude:1) target society has no positive attitude on foreigners. 2) Women have more negative attitude towards foreigners.A linguistic toolcalledBut Testhas been used in our study.Finally,one of our results is that But Testcan investigate our target attitudes.