A Cognitive Sociolinguistic Approach to Lexical Polysemy, Case Study: Persian Word /Å¡irin/

Articles in Press

Document Type : مقالات علمی پژوهشی

Authors
F. Yousefi Rad 1
S. Motesharrei 2
1 Payame Noor University
2 Azad University
Abstract
Abstract: This paper investigates the polysemy of the Persian word /širin/ from the perspective of cognitive sociolinguistics. It starts with introducing the principles of cognitive sociolinguistics, then investigates the polysemy of the Persian adjective /širin/ within the framework introduced by Robinson (2010), (2012a), (2012b), and (2014), to show that polysemy cannot be reduced to a static state, one and the same for all speakers of the language. In fact, social variables like age and gender affect the way people perceive different senses of the polysemous word. The data is gathered using documentary and field method(library research, interviews, and questionnaires). The research method employed is mixed(quantitative and qualitative). The statistical population is all monolingual Persian speakers living in Tehran, and the sample includes 200 subjects, 100 male and 100 females, in four different age groups of under 18, between 18 and 30, between 30 and 60, and above 60 years old. The results show that different senses of the polysemous word do not have the same distribution among different speakers, both male and female, belonging to different age groups, and are not accidental but explainable in terms of gender and age of the speakers. The results also indicate that cognitive sociolinguistics is more adequate in giving more exact explanations concerning meaning variation in polysemous words and the effect of social variables of age and gender on the number and salience of each sense.

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Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 13 July 2025