The Analysis of Morphological and Syntactic Functions of Foroughʼs Poem in the Representation of “Anxiety”

Language is the house of thought. Feelings, emotions, and thoughts, and all that include in the unconscious mind would manifest through language and by means of linguistic signs. But, what differentiates poetry from ordinary language is the accuracy and elegancy in the selection and composition of discourse elements and syntactic structure which express feelings and emotions in the best way possible. The current research attempts to indicate the most important morphological and syntactic functions of anxiety represented in the poetic language of ForoughFarrokhzad. This research is based on the theoretical framework of chomskyan Generative linguistics with regard to the expression of meaning in syntax and according to psycholinguistic approach. This research has been conducted on fifty poems of Forough among all her poetic works. The results show that the syntax of Forough poetry reflects anxiety due to the selection and composition components of Noun and Verb Phrases, the agreement between components and phrases, the recurrences, and the movements in most cases. Moreover, the lexical categories like Adverbs, Adjectives and Phrases reinforce the resulted Anxiety by the syntactic compositions severely.



Introduction

Language bears the feeling, emotion, and thought of man, and it is his most important tool for communication through which he conveys feelings and emotions, contemplates and forms his thought, and determines his own relation with his environment. Naturally, goals and situations influence on the way people use language (which is a unique ability of human being) and identify its form. Therefore, this ability is either activated in the form of spoken, written, or in the shape of sign language, and in the other communicative variants.

Among the various forms of language, the written one which is a basis for text production and is regarded as one of the most significant communicative fields with the audience, has a main role in the humen interactions, and includes a wide range of modes of communication such as the ordinary social conversations, scientific correspondences, emotional intimation, etc. It is obvious that the context, situation, and the communicative goal of the author, his form of applied language becomes different. Accordingly, the linguistic structure of academic texts differs from the non-academic and literary texts.

On the other hand, the literary texts contain prose and verse each of which has specific requirement and necessities. Verse or poetry, as an imaginary speech, possesses a lot of wonderful facilities and potentials which enable the poet to express his feelings and emotions out of the automatic language and its ordinary use.

Then, it is possible to find a way to the mind of the writer by realizing and analyzing his feelings and emotions represented in the text by the study and analysis of the thought of the text producer considering the relation between language and thought on the one hand, and regarding the language as a communicative instrument on behalf of the authors on the other hand.



Research questions

How anxiety is reflected in the poem of Forough Farrokhzad? And which evidence does emphasize on this issue in her poems?

Or, how is it possible to describe the existence of anxiety in Foroughʼs poem by means of analyzing the morphological and syntactic features of her language?



Research hypothesis

The first assumption is that it seems the type, tense, and the mode of verbs in her poems signify the existence of her anxiety. The second idea is that by the study and analysis of the quality of selection and arrangement, movement of syntactic constituents, some types of repetition and circumlocution, genitive cases and collocations in the poem of Forough, it would be possible to infer her anxiety manifested in her poems.



Methodology

In this research, fifty outstanding poems were selected out of five poetry series of Forough Farrokhzad and are analyzed by the descriptive­ analytical method using library­based data.



Conclusion

The results of the research state that the linguistic features like the type of verbs, types of statements, the arrangement of words and components, repetition, circumlocution, the movement of syntactic constituents, adjectives, adverbs, genitive cases, and collocations are used in Foroughʼs poem in a way that it is possible to find out her anxiety through its analysis.

All the verb phrases indicate the thoughts of the poet. Some of the verbs in this study are focused on a central concept that convey a mode of expectation. This implies a kind of uncertainty, apprehension, and anxiety in dealing with an indefinite future. The use of verbs in present progressive tense suggest the continuum of this state in the present and future. Moreover, the association of verb, mode, tense and time with the space, scene, and the other words show the existing fear and anxiety in the best way possible.

Regarding the sentences, especially the compound sentences, the dependent clause converts the greater part of inducting the considered concept in an explanatory way. The use of questions and their repetitions indicate the doubt and ambiguity in doing actions. The repetition of words and sentences is a mean to show the importance of the suggested meaning and image by the poet proficiently. The application of contrast and antonym words is another linguistic potentials for conveying her disturbed and agitated inside. The present images are not only created by the topic and vehicle relationship, but also, they are developed by the adjectives, adverbs, and the semantic association of verbs with the context; finally, a specific attention to the selection (paradigmatic) and combination (syntagmatic) relations has a chief role in the reflection and imagination of the inward state. Forough is trying to show her interior anxiety through circumlocution with a detailed expression. The lexicon of Foroughʼs discourse such as the selection of words, adjectives, adverbs, the compound structures, and the collocations which generally belong to the semantic field of phobia and fear, can totally transfer the inside anxiety of the poet to the reader