The Role of Gender in Producing Linguistic Variation in Persian Translations of “Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka: An Interface between Sociolinguistics and Generative Grammar

Document Type : مقالات علمی پژوهشی

Author
E. rezapour
Assistant Professor, Department of General Linguistics, Semnan University, Semnan, Iran
Abstract
Linguistic variation is one of the challengeable themes in sociolinguistics. The researcher discusses linguistic variation in Persian translations The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka Translated into Persian by Sadegh Hedayat and Farzaneh Taheri. The main questions in the present research are: 1) How is the role of gender in producing lexical variation in these two translations of The Metamorphosis? 2) In which parts of speech does it take place lexical variation more than others? 3) How is the role of gender in producing syntactic variation in two translation of The Metamorphosis? 4) Are there any relationships between gender and syntactic processes concerning the syntactic variations? The results of research indicate that gender has crucial role in producing linguistic variation including lexical, morphological and syntactic variations in Persian language. The results indicate that there are 505 lexical variations in two translations in which the number of verbal, nominal, adjective, and adverbial variations is 398, 51, 39, 17, respectively. The investigation of data indicates that the rate of morphological variation is less than lexical and syntactic variations. Also, the results indicate that there are relationships between gender and syntactic variables such as scrambling, adjuncts application, question particle application, grammatical metaphor of nominalization, grammatical metaphor of modality, causation, relativization, extraposition, grammatical metaphor of transitivity, and subordination shifting. One of the main implications of present research is that there is close interface between sociolinguistics and generative grammar and therefore, the results of present research confirm the opinions of sociolinguists such as Sells et al. (1996) and Barbiers(2002) about interface between sociolinguistics and generative grammar



1. Introduction

Linguistic variation is one of the challengeable themes in sociolinguistics. In the contemporary literature of sociolinguistics, one of important paradigm resulting amalgam of sociolinguistic paradigm and generative paradigm emerged. The supporters of this paradigm believe that only integrative theory of syntactic variation including generative and sociolinguistic paradigm can explain the syntactic variations. Variation theory needs formal theory for description and explanation of grammatical characterization of syntactic variations and determination of location of variation in speakers’ grammars. Generative theory and sociolinguistics are complementary in the integrative theory of syntactic variations. The task of sociolinguistics is to explain patterns of variation based on social variables such as gender, social class, age, education in the speech community and the task of generative theory is to discover the constraints of syntactic variations. The present research is one of the newest one in discussing about syntactic variations based on integrated theory in Persian texts. The researcher discusses linguistic variation in Persian translations of the book entitled as The Metamorphosis compiled by Franz Kafka that is translated by Sadegh Hedayat and Farzaneh Taheri. The main questions in the present research are: 1) How is the role of gender in producing lexical variation in these two translations of The Metamorphosis? 2) In which parts of speech does it take place lexical variation more than others? 3) How is the role of gender in producing syntactic variation in two translation of The Metamorphosis? 4) Are there any relationships between gender and syntactic processes concerning the syntactic variations? The results of research indicate that gender has vital role in producing linguistic variation including lexical, morphological and syntactic variations in Persian language. The results indicate that there are 505 lexical variations in two translations in which the number of verbal, nominal, adjective, and adverbial variations is 398, 51, 39, 17, respectively. The investigation of data indicates that the rate of morphological variation is less than lexical and syntactic variations. Also, the results indicate that there are relationships between gender and syntactic variables such as scrambling, adjuncts application, question particle application, grammatical metaphor of nominalization, grammatical metaphor of modality, causation, relativization, extraposition, grammatical metaphor of transitivity, and subordination shifting. One of the main implications of present research is that there is close interface between sociolinguistics and generative grammar and therefore, the results of present research confirm the opinions of sociolinguists such as Sells et al. (1996) and Barbiers (2002) about interface between sociolinguistics and generative grammar

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Language Related Research
Volume 11, Issue 6 - Serial Number 60
January and February 2020
Pages 539-574